[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
In light of this week's bombshell revelations about the course of the war in Afghanistan, I read an interesting commentary that grabbed my attention:
"To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."
The thing is, as persuasive as this commentary may be, it isn't about Afghanistan. Rather, those words marked the conclusion of Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News on February 27, 1968, and Cronkite was talking about Vietnam. The trusted newsman's assessment of the war is often credited as the turning point for American public opinion, moving opposition to the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam into the mainstream. Reportedly, upon hearing this commentary, President Lyndon Johnson said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."
I can't help wonder if the release of the Afghan War Logs by WikiLeaks is our Cronkite moment for Afghanistan. In fact, when I consider the totality of the recent news on our efforts in Afghanistan, I can't reach any other conclusion than that if Cronkite was still alive, he would say we have.
I have not reached this pessimistic point easily. After the 9/11 attacks, I was a supporter of President Bush's military response in Afghanistan. And when Bush turned his focus to Iraq, even before we knew of his administration's efforts to manipulate intelligence and the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction, I was troubled that he had chosen to move our focus from a country that harbored the men who planned 9/11 to one that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on our country. And when President Obama made fixing this Bush blunder a center of his foreign policy proposals during the campaign, I agreed with his assessment of the situation and proposal to intensify American efforts there.
But there comes a time when you have to recognize when something isn't working (a skill that Obama has demonstrated from time to time, and one the last president did not possess at all). A time when our leaders have to demonstrate the courage and sound judgment to do what is right, regardless of how political opponents will shamelessly and disgracefully spin the decision into something that is cowardly and risky. And that time, I fear, is now.
What has brought me to this conclusion? It's not just the War Logs, but how they crystallize lessons we have been learning over the last year.
Afghanistan has a history of being unconquerable by foreign forces, something we witnessed first-hand when we helped the mujahideen repel the Soviet Union after its 1979 invasion. What was supposed to make our military action in Afghanistan different was that rather than impose our will on the country, we were there to support the wishes of the Afghan people through democratic elections. A worthy goal (especially in light of the Taliban's role in harboring Osama bin Laden), but, it turns out, maybe not one that can be accomplished (especially after years of Bush neglect).
President Obama undertook a careful analysis of what to do in Afghanistan (something the Republicans shamefully portrayed as dithering), settling on the current counterinsurgency strategy that relies on building trust in government institutions as a way of winning the loyalty of the Afghan people (at the expense of the Taliban).
It was certainly worth a try. But, when the plan was put into practice, we ran into some roadblocks, many of which are highlighted in the War Logs. Generally, we can only do so much in Afghanistan if we don't have a partner to work with, and if we don't have the support of Pakistan.
It all starts with Hamid Karzai. His 2009 election was dogged by allegations of fraud. His government has been accused of being corrupt. He cozied up to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He even threatened to join the Taliban. It's hard to argue that it is worth risking American lives (more than 1,000 so far) and treasure (more than $300 billion) to prop up Karzai.
Similarly, the War Logs illustrate what we have long been told: The Afghan police, army and local government officials are unwilling and/or unable to provide the kind of services the Afghan people need. James Traub, in a compelling piece in the New York Times Magazine on June 15, did a great job of demonstrating the problems U.S. commanders face in trying to support Afghan institutions, from the power of tribal leaders to the ability of the Taliban to intimidate locals.
The War Logs also reveal the civilian casualties caused by U.S. military and intelligence operations. In what is emerging as a Catch-22 situation, the longer we are there, the less we are wanted there by local Afghans, and the harder it is to convince citizens that they will be safe from the Taliban if they throw in their lots with the Americans and the Karzai government.
But the most problematic obstacle raised in the War Logs just may be the evidence that Pakistani intelligence is aiding the Taliban. President Obama has frequently noted that there is no solution to the Afghan question without also addressing Pakistan, a country that receives billions of dollars in American aid. If the Pakistani government is aiding the Taliban, it seems that we have bigger problems than just trying to prop up the Karzai government until it can take over governing the country without us.
So while the mission in Afghanistan began as a necessary operation (remove the Taliban government that supported and harbored the 9/11 perpetrators), was botched by the Bush administration (who shifted resources to Iraq) and was reassessed and refocused by President Obama, our moment may have already passed. We have a corrupt and ineffectual government in Afghanistan (including the police and military), and we have an ally in Pakistan that is aiding the enemy. And the result is an Afghan population that just doesn't have an incentive to choose the government over the Taliban.
Afghanistan just may be the living embodiment of a no-win situation.
We were told if we let the Communists take over Vietnam, the repercussions would be severe. But history found those warnings to be unfounded. So it seems to me we can protect our interests in the region without surrendering American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up an odious government. After more than eight years in Afghanistan (and missed opportunities after early successes), a military solution may no longer be possible.
Which is why it is time to heed Cronkite's 42-year-old words of advice to "negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."
Time will tell if WikiLeaks' release of the War Logs turns out to be a Cronkite-like turning point, the moment that the American people stop supporting the war in Afghanistan. It seems to me it should be.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Financial Regulation Vote Shows that While Americans Should Be Angry, the GOP Is not the Solution
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
As the partisan cable networks breathlessly discuss what will happen in the midterm elections in November, there is much talk about how Americans are angry and, as a result, the Republicans are set for major gains in Congress. But the connection between these two assertions--Americans' dissatisfaction and GOP success--strikes me as incredibly lazy, both by the media and the voters.
Nowhere is this disconnect more clear than in the financial regulation battle, which finally concluded with a bill passing the Senate yesterday.
Americans have every right to be angry. Oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months (hopefully, it's finally been contained). Islamic extremists seek to kill Americans. We have a muddy immigration situation, which, no matter on which side of the ideological fence you sit (pun intended), you can't be happy with the way things currently operate.
But the main point of anger is the economy. The official unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent (with millions more not counted because they've given up on looking for a job). People are concerned about their ability to pay their bills and see an unfair system that rewards Wall Street's reckless risks while punishing middle class workers.
But if Americans want to assess blame for these woes, and if they want to choose who should help get us out of these messes, they have an obligation in a democracy to make an effort to really look at the issues before making a decision. And the media, likewise, has an obligation to sort through these complicated issues more carefully.
If the Republican campaign message for 2010 was something like, "Yes, we know that we caused all these problems in the Bush years, but we've learned our lesson, and now we are offering these new ideas to fix things in the future," I would understand (if not agree with) the equating of the problems with Republican gains. But that's not what the Republicans are offering. Rather, the GOP campaign message for 2010 is essentially the same message as the Bush years, only more militant (and more wacky, thanks to the Angle-Paul tea party influence). Their pitch is built around deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, and less government, the very things that got us into this mess in the first place.
The Republican congressional record for the Obama years consists of opposing any initiative the president offered (in an effort to make him look ineffectual), even if he proposed something the GOP itself had supported earlier, and to offer as solutions the same tired policies from the Bush years (tax cuts, even if they add to the deficit, as Sen. Jon Kyl suggested). That shouldn't be a winning election argument. But with incendiary rhetoric and right-wing-propaganda-machine-fueled lies taking center stage, the focus for the midterms hasn't been on the facts (how we got here and what the two parties have offered since).
In fact, the Republicans have been at the heart of the causes of these problems, and they have offered little other than the same policies as solutions.
Which brings us back to financial regulation, an issue directly tied to the current economic problems. We did not magically morph from prosperity to recession. Rather, the current recession and massive job loss began with the near collapse of the financial system in 2008. Wall Street played a win-lose game (they won no matter what, but we all lost) with risky financial instruments. The housing market collapsed under the weight of subprime mortgages. So the deregulation trumpeted by Republicans caused this mess, and yet the party still touts deregulation.
Certainly, Americans should be angry. And it would seem obvious that action was needed. Nevertheless, all but three Republicans in the Senate didn't think so. Given a choice of standing with the banks or the American people, the Republicans announced their allegiance loud and clear: It is the party of the financial institutions.
So what is the Republican solution to our economic woes? Based on the actions of their leaders, it seems to be to blame the victims, cut taxes and protect the banks. Not only have Republicans opposed extending unemployment benefits, they have tried to blame the unemployed for their plight, particularly cruel since it was their policies that put them out of work in the first place. Arthur Delaney pointed out two examples in HuffPo last week: Sen. John Kyl said unemployment benefits provide a disincentive for the unemployed to seek work, and Sen. Judd Gregg claimed that unemployment insurance encourages the unemployed to stay out of work. (Again, Kyl won't support adding to the deficit for unemployment insurance, but he is fine with doing so for tax cuts for the wealthy.)
Republicans have used increasing government debt as a pro-GOP argument. Generally, it is, of course, better for the government not to run large deficits. But the Republican argument ignores history and is overly simplistic. After all, Bill Clinton handed a surplus to George W. Bush, who proceeded to leave Obama with a gaping deficit. Republicans were happy to run up debt in the 2000s on tax cuts for the rich and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of which were paid for. But now that the tens of millions of Americans face unemployment, these same GOP leaders complain about the deficit and say we can't afford any programs to help. How is it that we could afford to spend when it was for tax cuts (and still can, according to Kyl), but not to help those hurt by the Republican-policy-induced recession?
Two polls released on Tuesday showed that Americans care more about unemployment than the deficit. Which party is more concerned with each of those issues? So why should the anger translate to GOP votes? It shouldn't.
In general, Republican policies precipitated the recession, and the party's solutions are to offer more of the same. And when it came to deciding who to stand up for, the Republicans attacked the unemployed and stood with the banks. Americans' anger is legitimate, but directing that anger by giving power back to the GOP is misplaced. The connection makes no sense.
(You could run the same arguments for the oil disaster, immigration and terrorism, showing the Republican culpability and the lack of new solutions offered by the GOP to address the problems.)
I harbor no illusions that Obama and the Democratic Congress are above critique. But I'm saddened that there seems to be no recognition that most of the messes we find ourselves in were created, by and large, by the policies instituted by Bush and his Republican allies in Congress, and that the Republicans are offering those very same policies as the solution in the current campaign. It seems to me handing the reins back to the people who created the problems in the first place (and, more importantly, are only offering more of the same) is a horrible way to respond to the challenges. I'm further saddened that GOP strategy of obstructing and lying, putting rhetoric in front of facts, seems to be working.
You would think that with an oil disaster ravaging his state's already hurting economy, Sen. David Vitter would have better things to do than vote against financial reform and endorse bogus "birther" lawsuits against the president. But this is the essence of the Republican party in 2010.
As the partisan cable networks breathlessly discuss what will happen in the midterm elections in November, there is much talk about how Americans are angry and, as a result, the Republicans are set for major gains in Congress. But the connection between these two assertions--Americans' dissatisfaction and GOP success--strikes me as incredibly lazy, both by the media and the voters.
Nowhere is this disconnect more clear than in the financial regulation battle, which finally concluded with a bill passing the Senate yesterday.
Americans have every right to be angry. Oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months (hopefully, it's finally been contained). Islamic extremists seek to kill Americans. We have a muddy immigration situation, which, no matter on which side of the ideological fence you sit (pun intended), you can't be happy with the way things currently operate.
But the main point of anger is the economy. The official unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent (with millions more not counted because they've given up on looking for a job). People are concerned about their ability to pay their bills and see an unfair system that rewards Wall Street's reckless risks while punishing middle class workers.
But if Americans want to assess blame for these woes, and if they want to choose who should help get us out of these messes, they have an obligation in a democracy to make an effort to really look at the issues before making a decision. And the media, likewise, has an obligation to sort through these complicated issues more carefully.
If the Republican campaign message for 2010 was something like, "Yes, we know that we caused all these problems in the Bush years, but we've learned our lesson, and now we are offering these new ideas to fix things in the future," I would understand (if not agree with) the equating of the problems with Republican gains. But that's not what the Republicans are offering. Rather, the GOP campaign message for 2010 is essentially the same message as the Bush years, only more militant (and more wacky, thanks to the Angle-Paul tea party influence). Their pitch is built around deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, and less government, the very things that got us into this mess in the first place.
The Republican congressional record for the Obama years consists of opposing any initiative the president offered (in an effort to make him look ineffectual), even if he proposed something the GOP itself had supported earlier, and to offer as solutions the same tired policies from the Bush years (tax cuts, even if they add to the deficit, as Sen. Jon Kyl suggested). That shouldn't be a winning election argument. But with incendiary rhetoric and right-wing-propaganda-machine-fueled lies taking center stage, the focus for the midterms hasn't been on the facts (how we got here and what the two parties have offered since).
In fact, the Republicans have been at the heart of the causes of these problems, and they have offered little other than the same policies as solutions.
Which brings us back to financial regulation, an issue directly tied to the current economic problems. We did not magically morph from prosperity to recession. Rather, the current recession and massive job loss began with the near collapse of the financial system in 2008. Wall Street played a win-lose game (they won no matter what, but we all lost) with risky financial instruments. The housing market collapsed under the weight of subprime mortgages. So the deregulation trumpeted by Republicans caused this mess, and yet the party still touts deregulation.
Certainly, Americans should be angry. And it would seem obvious that action was needed. Nevertheless, all but three Republicans in the Senate didn't think so. Given a choice of standing with the banks or the American people, the Republicans announced their allegiance loud and clear: It is the party of the financial institutions.
So what is the Republican solution to our economic woes? Based on the actions of their leaders, it seems to be to blame the victims, cut taxes and protect the banks. Not only have Republicans opposed extending unemployment benefits, they have tried to blame the unemployed for their plight, particularly cruel since it was their policies that put them out of work in the first place. Arthur Delaney pointed out two examples in HuffPo last week: Sen. John Kyl said unemployment benefits provide a disincentive for the unemployed to seek work, and Sen. Judd Gregg claimed that unemployment insurance encourages the unemployed to stay out of work. (Again, Kyl won't support adding to the deficit for unemployment insurance, but he is fine with doing so for tax cuts for the wealthy.)
Republicans have used increasing government debt as a pro-GOP argument. Generally, it is, of course, better for the government not to run large deficits. But the Republican argument ignores history and is overly simplistic. After all, Bill Clinton handed a surplus to George W. Bush, who proceeded to leave Obama with a gaping deficit. Republicans were happy to run up debt in the 2000s on tax cuts for the rich and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of which were paid for. But now that the tens of millions of Americans face unemployment, these same GOP leaders complain about the deficit and say we can't afford any programs to help. How is it that we could afford to spend when it was for tax cuts (and still can, according to Kyl), but not to help those hurt by the Republican-policy-induced recession?
Two polls released on Tuesday showed that Americans care more about unemployment than the deficit. Which party is more concerned with each of those issues? So why should the anger translate to GOP votes? It shouldn't.
In general, Republican policies precipitated the recession, and the party's solutions are to offer more of the same. And when it came to deciding who to stand up for, the Republicans attacked the unemployed and stood with the banks. Americans' anger is legitimate, but directing that anger by giving power back to the GOP is misplaced. The connection makes no sense.
(You could run the same arguments for the oil disaster, immigration and terrorism, showing the Republican culpability and the lack of new solutions offered by the GOP to address the problems.)
I harbor no illusions that Obama and the Democratic Congress are above critique. But I'm saddened that there seems to be no recognition that most of the messes we find ourselves in were created, by and large, by the policies instituted by Bush and his Republican allies in Congress, and that the Republicans are offering those very same policies as the solution in the current campaign. It seems to me handing the reins back to the people who created the problems in the first place (and, more importantly, are only offering more of the same) is a horrible way to respond to the challenges. I'm further saddened that GOP strategy of obstructing and lying, putting rhetoric in front of facts, seems to be working.
You would think that with an oil disaster ravaging his state's already hurting economy, Sen. David Vitter would have better things to do than vote against financial reform and endorse bogus "birther" lawsuits against the president. But this is the essence of the Republican party in 2010.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Reagan Was Wrong: The Nine Most Terrifying Words Are, "I'm a Libertarian and the Market Will Save You"
[This article also appears on Huffingtonpost.com. You can access it from my author page here.]
I was tailgating with my wife and two friends in the parking lot of Miller Park before a Brewers game yesterday, when a guy with a pasted-on, plastic, local-news-anchor smile approached our group. He wanted us to sign a petition to get his "buddy" on the ballot for state treasurer. Of course, the first question I asked him was which party his "buddy" belonged to, and the guy told us he was a Libertarian.
Poor guy, he didn't realize he was approaching a liberal blogger and his progressive friends. Not an audience that was going to easily buy what he had to sell. I politely told him that I wouldn't support a Libertarian candidate, and like a telemarketer dutifully and mechanically following a script provided to him to handle rejection, he asked why I didn't support Libertarians. I explained that I did not harbor a dislike or distrust of government, and that I thought there were certain jobs that only government could do. Without removing the wooden smile from his face, he moved to the next page of his telemarketer script and asked me if he could have one minute to "rebate" what I had said, and he proceeded to tell us that the free market is perfectly efficient and the best way to solve problems. I started to laugh and told him that, yes, the financial collapse two years ago was a great example of the market solving problems. And also, another great example was the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. My wife and friends joined in the laughter, and our Libertarian guest could no longer maintain his fake smile. His voice and facial expression turned angry, and he stormed off to the next group of tailgaters, spitting out something barely intelligible at us as he left.
I thought this interaction perfectly encapsulated the anti-government, pro-market-solution obsession currently running through the right, especially among tea baggers and self-proclaimed libertarians. They love to cite Ronald Reagan's line that the "nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" But I'm far more afraid of someone telling me, "I'm a Libertarian (or Tea Party member) and the market will save you."
You would think from listening to the rhetoric that we have two choices in this country: Either you adopt the right's notion of deregulation and an unfettered free market, or you are a socialist. There is no in-between. Which is, of course, patently false, but also maddeningly ignorant of recent American history. Taking the financial industry as an example, after the election of Franklin Roosevelt, Congress quickly enacted legislation, like the Securities Act of 1933, the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall), and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, meant to curb the excesses of an unfettered financial system, which had led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression that ensued. And for the next 45 years, the country was able to avoid any mass financial collapses.
Then, beginning with Reagan, and continuing through George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and reaching its peak with the ultimate deregulation messiah, George W. Bush, the government took down the post-Depression financial regulation structure brick by brick, following a mantra that deregulation helped the market to function freely, and a free market will produce the best results.
What did we get? The savings and loan scandal, the Enron-induced power outages in California, corporate fraud (Enron, etc.) and, ultimately, a financial industry run amok (arcane financial instruments, insanely risky investments that banks profited from regardless of their success, and credit rating agencies handing out AAA ratings like candy to keep customers, just to name some examples), all leading to a near financial collapse that plunged the country (and the rest of the world) into a job-sapping, deep recession.
All evidence would seem to point to the need for some regulation to keep the banks from running amok, but the right still clings to its mantra of deregulation and unfettered free markets.
I also thought it was not a coincidence that not once, not twice, but three times during his two-minute pitch to us, our Libertarian petitioner talked of having the opportunity to "rebate" what I had said about his cause. (Not "rebut" or "debate" or whatever else he actually meant, but "rebate," which had me secretly hoping he had a way to refund to us some of our time he had wasted.) It was fitting because so much of the right wing/Tea Party/libertarian anger is based on false notions (much of it, no doubt, a product of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the right wing media misinformation machine), and the urgency of his words was not supported by a basic ability to use the English language to make an argument, leaving the content of his claims even more suspect.
I can already hear the complaints now: I'm an elitist snob for chiding someone for making a mistake. If I was pointing out that, say, the guy who scanned our tickets at the Miller Park gate had been less than smooth with his words, I would deserve the criticism (that didn't happen, it's just an example). But here was a guy who was so sure of his beliefs, he not only gave up a Sunday to walk around a baseball stadium parking lot to collect signatures (admirable commitment), but he felt empowered to tell everyone there that he was right and they were wrong. And if you are going to take such a position and hold yourself out as an authority, it is fair to question the knowledge and intelligence underlying the strong assertions.
Our Libertarian petitioner's certainty isn't just simplistic, it is a real impediment to solving our country's problems. The alternative to unfettered free markets is not socialism, but rather, it is free markets with basic regulations in place to prevent abuse, just like the financial regulation architecture that protected the country after the Great Depression. (Somehow, I don't think we were living in a socialist state when Eisenhower and Nixon held the presidency.) I know subtlety is a lost art in modern politics, but if we are to survive, we will have to recognize that there are more than two extreme choices. These same right wingers don't seem to mind when the government subsidizes the oil industry, and I doubt that they want to shut down the libraries, public schools, fire departments, and highway maintenance departments, all of which are run by the government (and would not exist if left to a private, free-market model). Conservatives, tea baggers and libertarians want you to think it's a simple dichotomous choice: free markets or socialism, or no government or all government. But such a reductionist view fails to account for how complicated and integrated the relationship between public and private actually is. (Yes, I know, asking for nuance rather than black-and-white distinctions is tragically 20th century.) Let's remember the angry town hall attendees last summer telling members of Congress to keep their government hands off of their Medicare. Even they liked a government program, but they didn't even know it.
There was one aspect of our Libertarian petitioner's approach that especially rang true to me: The false smile covering his real anger. Tea Party leaders are quick to say there is no place in their movement for racism, but at those same rallies you see racist signs about President Obama. Let's not forget the March Harris poll that revealed that 57 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, and 45 percent think he wasn't born in the United States. Somehow, I doubt these people would be concerned about the religion or place of birth of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, let alone John McCain, Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. When right wingers talk about taking "their" country back, it's hard to see "their" as meaning anything but a system in which power rested in white, male, Christian hands. When tea baggers put a happy, smiley face on the movement, I can't help but be wary of the angry snarl underneath. So I wasn't the least bit surprised when our Libertarian petitioner's plastic grin quickly devolved into an angry scowl when he realized that he didn't have the ammunition to win over someone who was even marginally informed.
These are not merely philosophical questions. Late last week, financial reform legislation was watered down at the last minute to ensure its passage. After what happened in 2008, opposing real reform in areas like derivatives and the so-called "Volcker Rules" defies logic. With unemployment hovering around 10 percent thanks to a recession precipitated by a near financial industry collapse, I don't agree with Ronald Reagan. I'm not scared of the government trying to help. But I am terrified of an unfettered free market allowing industry leaders, whether they be in the financial industry or the oil business, ruled by greed, putting the country at risk to unfairly further line their already bulging pockets.
I was tailgating with my wife and two friends in the parking lot of Miller Park before a Brewers game yesterday, when a guy with a pasted-on, plastic, local-news-anchor smile approached our group. He wanted us to sign a petition to get his "buddy" on the ballot for state treasurer. Of course, the first question I asked him was which party his "buddy" belonged to, and the guy told us he was a Libertarian.
Poor guy, he didn't realize he was approaching a liberal blogger and his progressive friends. Not an audience that was going to easily buy what he had to sell. I politely told him that I wouldn't support a Libertarian candidate, and like a telemarketer dutifully and mechanically following a script provided to him to handle rejection, he asked why I didn't support Libertarians. I explained that I did not harbor a dislike or distrust of government, and that I thought there were certain jobs that only government could do. Without removing the wooden smile from his face, he moved to the next page of his telemarketer script and asked me if he could have one minute to "rebate" what I had said, and he proceeded to tell us that the free market is perfectly efficient and the best way to solve problems. I started to laugh and told him that, yes, the financial collapse two years ago was a great example of the market solving problems. And also, another great example was the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. My wife and friends joined in the laughter, and our Libertarian guest could no longer maintain his fake smile. His voice and facial expression turned angry, and he stormed off to the next group of tailgaters, spitting out something barely intelligible at us as he left.
I thought this interaction perfectly encapsulated the anti-government, pro-market-solution obsession currently running through the right, especially among tea baggers and self-proclaimed libertarians. They love to cite Ronald Reagan's line that the "nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" But I'm far more afraid of someone telling me, "I'm a Libertarian (or Tea Party member) and the market will save you."
You would think from listening to the rhetoric that we have two choices in this country: Either you adopt the right's notion of deregulation and an unfettered free market, or you are a socialist. There is no in-between. Which is, of course, patently false, but also maddeningly ignorant of recent American history. Taking the financial industry as an example, after the election of Franklin Roosevelt, Congress quickly enacted legislation, like the Securities Act of 1933, the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall), and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, meant to curb the excesses of an unfettered financial system, which had led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression that ensued. And for the next 45 years, the country was able to avoid any mass financial collapses.
Then, beginning with Reagan, and continuing through George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and reaching its peak with the ultimate deregulation messiah, George W. Bush, the government took down the post-Depression financial regulation structure brick by brick, following a mantra that deregulation helped the market to function freely, and a free market will produce the best results.
What did we get? The savings and loan scandal, the Enron-induced power outages in California, corporate fraud (Enron, etc.) and, ultimately, a financial industry run amok (arcane financial instruments, insanely risky investments that banks profited from regardless of their success, and credit rating agencies handing out AAA ratings like candy to keep customers, just to name some examples), all leading to a near financial collapse that plunged the country (and the rest of the world) into a job-sapping, deep recession.
All evidence would seem to point to the need for some regulation to keep the banks from running amok, but the right still clings to its mantra of deregulation and unfettered free markets.
I also thought it was not a coincidence that not once, not twice, but three times during his two-minute pitch to us, our Libertarian petitioner talked of having the opportunity to "rebate" what I had said about his cause. (Not "rebut" or "debate" or whatever else he actually meant, but "rebate," which had me secretly hoping he had a way to refund to us some of our time he had wasted.) It was fitting because so much of the right wing/Tea Party/libertarian anger is based on false notions (much of it, no doubt, a product of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the right wing media misinformation machine), and the urgency of his words was not supported by a basic ability to use the English language to make an argument, leaving the content of his claims even more suspect.
I can already hear the complaints now: I'm an elitist snob for chiding someone for making a mistake. If I was pointing out that, say, the guy who scanned our tickets at the Miller Park gate had been less than smooth with his words, I would deserve the criticism (that didn't happen, it's just an example). But here was a guy who was so sure of his beliefs, he not only gave up a Sunday to walk around a baseball stadium parking lot to collect signatures (admirable commitment), but he felt empowered to tell everyone there that he was right and they were wrong. And if you are going to take such a position and hold yourself out as an authority, it is fair to question the knowledge and intelligence underlying the strong assertions.
Our Libertarian petitioner's certainty isn't just simplistic, it is a real impediment to solving our country's problems. The alternative to unfettered free markets is not socialism, but rather, it is free markets with basic regulations in place to prevent abuse, just like the financial regulation architecture that protected the country after the Great Depression. (Somehow, I don't think we were living in a socialist state when Eisenhower and Nixon held the presidency.) I know subtlety is a lost art in modern politics, but if we are to survive, we will have to recognize that there are more than two extreme choices. These same right wingers don't seem to mind when the government subsidizes the oil industry, and I doubt that they want to shut down the libraries, public schools, fire departments, and highway maintenance departments, all of which are run by the government (and would not exist if left to a private, free-market model). Conservatives, tea baggers and libertarians want you to think it's a simple dichotomous choice: free markets or socialism, or no government or all government. But such a reductionist view fails to account for how complicated and integrated the relationship between public and private actually is. (Yes, I know, asking for nuance rather than black-and-white distinctions is tragically 20th century.) Let's remember the angry town hall attendees last summer telling members of Congress to keep their government hands off of their Medicare. Even they liked a government program, but they didn't even know it.
There was one aspect of our Libertarian petitioner's approach that especially rang true to me: The false smile covering his real anger. Tea Party leaders are quick to say there is no place in their movement for racism, but at those same rallies you see racist signs about President Obama. Let's not forget the March Harris poll that revealed that 57 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, and 45 percent think he wasn't born in the United States. Somehow, I doubt these people would be concerned about the religion or place of birth of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, let alone John McCain, Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani. When right wingers talk about taking "their" country back, it's hard to see "their" as meaning anything but a system in which power rested in white, male, Christian hands. When tea baggers put a happy, smiley face on the movement, I can't help but be wary of the angry snarl underneath. So I wasn't the least bit surprised when our Libertarian petitioner's plastic grin quickly devolved into an angry scowl when he realized that he didn't have the ammunition to win over someone who was even marginally informed.
These are not merely philosophical questions. Late last week, financial reform legislation was watered down at the last minute to ensure its passage. After what happened in 2008, opposing real reform in areas like derivatives and the so-called "Volcker Rules" defies logic. With unemployment hovering around 10 percent thanks to a recession precipitated by a near financial industry collapse, I don't agree with Ronald Reagan. I'm not scared of the government trying to help. But I am terrified of an unfettered free market allowing industry leaders, whether they be in the financial industry or the oil business, ruled by greed, putting the country at risk to unfairly further line their already bulging pockets.
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