The Blog

Rep. Maurice Hinchey: Bring Back the Glass-Steagall Act to Break Up the MegaBanks that Caused the Crisis

2009-12-16T23:31:06Z

In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress approved the Banking Act of 1933, which among other things, separated investment banking from commercial banking. This measure, more commonly referred to as the Glass-Steagall Act, was adopted after many banks had taken depositors' money, invested it in the stock market, and lost big time. This resulted in people pulling their money out of banks and led to a financial disaster. By separating commercial lending from investment activity through the Glass-Steagall Act, Congress took a prudent step to protect the American public from greedy banks.

Unfortunately, Congress ignored history and reversed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 through what is commonly referred to as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The repeal of Glass-Steagall contributed a great deal to the financial collapse we recently experienced. The greed of these megabanks resulted in the American people having to pay the price as they bailed out these oversized financial institutions.

We must learn from history once more and restore commonsense safeguards to the financial sector. That is why today I introduced the Glass-Steagall Restoration Act, which would separate investment banking from commercial banking. I was pleased to have U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Jim McDermott (D-WA), and John Tierney (D-MA) all sign on as original cosponsors to this bill, which would break up these oversized banks, restore consumer protections, and avoid future financial collapses like the one that began last year.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall has exposed the U.S. economy to a level of risk that is simply unacceptable. This bill reinstates an important protection that will help ensure average Americans are not taken advantage of by banks and help mitigate the risk of another financial meltdown like the one from which we're still recovering.

Today, just four huge financial institutions hold half the mortgages in America, issue nearly two-thirds of credit cards, and control about 40 percent of all bank deposits in the U.S. In addition, the face value of over-the-counter derivatives at commercial banks has grown to $290 trillion, 95 percent of which are held at just five financial institutions. We cannot allow the security of the American economy to rest in the hands of so few institutions.

When you take a look at history and see the situation in which we find ourselves today, it is clear that we need to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act. The bill I introduced today would statutorily require banking giants to decide whether they want to serve as a commercial bank or an investment bank and require them to cease activities in one of those areas within one year of the bill's enactment. This bill would help right the ship and return our country to the days when banks either participated in commercial lending activities or investment activities, but not both.

We need to bring the American banking system back to earth so that it functions in a way that benefits all Americans, not just bank executives who stand to make a fortune if things go well and a smaller fortune if they don't. The financial system in this country has been rigged and this bill will help undo the circumstances that led to this most recent collapse while helping to prevent future ones.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is serving in his ninth term representing New York's 22nd Congressional District. He is a member of the Joint Economic Committee.

Bob Cesca: I'm Really Pissed Off About Health Care Reform

2009-12-16T23:02:33Z

I'm pissed off.

I'm pissed off at health care reform. I'm pissed off at this endless process of emotional highs and lows and exhilaration and dejection and history and infamy.

I'm pissed off that President Obama "thanked" the independent senator from Connecticut even though the senator nearly killed health care reform this week.

To that point, I'm pissed off at Joe Lieberman. I'm pissed off at his childish, vengeful, opposite-day hackery. I'm pissed off at his giant pie-shaped head and his passive aggression. I'm pissed off that he enjoys government-run Medicare benefits while opposing government-run insurance for the rest of us.

I'm pissed off at the Senate. The whole Senate. The rules, the senators, the color of the walls, the fact that a doof like Chuck Grassley can actually be elected to it. Multiple times. I'm pissed off that even though we finally have a 60 seat supermajority, it's dysfunctional and Harry Reid is in charge of it. I'm pissed off that senators of both parties receive government-run primary care from the Office of the Attending Physician, while denying it to everyone else.

I'm pissed off at cable news and the establishment press for focusing more on The David Letterman & Tiger Woods Underpants Party than the substance of health care reform.

I'm pissed off at Rahm Emanuel and I'm pissed off at the "scary profane a-hole" mythology that's built up around him, and how he only seems to use his powers of intimidation to bully the left.

I'm pissed off at the Republicans. I'm pissed off at their ongoing self-contradictions and lies and bumper sticker sloganeering. I'm pissed off that around 55 Republicans are on Medicare, yet they oppose government-run health care for the rest of us.

I'm pissed off at Tom Coburn's bulbous Dirk Diggler haircut.

I'm pissed off at having to compromise while a handful of lopsidedly powerful conservadems get whatever they ask for.

I'm pissed off at the Senate health care reform bill. I'm pissed off at the House health care reform bill. I'm preemptively pissed off at the conference report, too, and I don't even know if we'll even get that far.

And I'm pissed off that my progressivism leads me to the unavoidable conclusion that if we don't pass health care reform now, innumerable bad things will continue to happen due to the fact that there's a very serious health care crisis in America. I'm pissed off that I can't, in good conscience, allow my anger to coerce me into believing that we should "kill this bill." I'm pissed off about that, too, because I know what could have been, and yet I have no other choice but to settle for what is. For now.

But being pissed off doesn't make this reality any less real.

While I clearly empathize with the dominant sense of rage spreading throughout the progressive movement right now, we've always taken pride in our ability to grasp the objective reality of both policy and politics. And the objective reality of this conundrum is that if health care reform dies here, it won't be back anytime soon.

I don't need to tell you that we've been outflanked on health care reform and so the whole affair has been tainted with the foul stink of compromise and bad faith, with someone as universally despised as Joe Lieberman absconding off with the smoking gun -- grinning from ear-to-ear across that jowly pie plate of his. That's what it feels like right now, and suggesting that it's an unpleasant sensation is vastly understating the rage.

Yet I can't help but to believe that killing reform will only heap an even larger failure on top of losing the public option, the Medicare buy-in and so forth. Only this time, it won't be a failure limited to an ideological or political routing. The failure of health care reform will invariably mean at least another decade (if not two decades) of a desperate health care system in crisis. Another decade or two of medical bankruptcies and deaths due to a lack of insurance -- exponential premium hikes and rescissions. You know the list.

If I stop being pissed off long enough to take a good look at what remains in both the Senate and House bills, there aren't necessarily fool-proof solutions to these problems, but there are regulations, subsidies and reforms that will ameliorate a significant chunk of the present crisis. For example, the Senate bill will reduce the cost of insurance for a family of four earning $54,000 from around $19,000 per year to around $9,000 per year.

Ezra Klein:

To put this a bit more sharply, if I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal.

So would I, even though I'm pissed off about it. But it undeniably makes sense to take the deal. If progressives successfully convince enough Democrats to kill the bill, do we really want to be the group that plunged the last blade into the back of reform?

Do progressives really want to tell working-and-middle class families of that they're not allowed to get a $10,000 annual break on their insurance payments? If you're okay with that, I admire and respect your integrity, but I just can't be a part of it. Objective reality dictates that there's no other path at this point but to support the bill and to subsequently endeavor to fix it.

If we can holster our anger, check our pride, pin our noses and allow this thing to pass -- hopefully without further right-leaning compromises -- we have a decent enough infrastructure onto which we can attach additional reforms. There will be gaping loopholes to fill, and lots of areas to reinforce, but this seems like an easier mission than starting over from scratch.

And just imagine, for a moment, starting all over again.

At what point, and how many years from now will there be another center-left president with a Democratic quasi-supermajority in Congress? Certainly not after next year's midterms. But imagine the perfect storm happening again down the road. History has proved that health care reform is always weaker after a failed effort. So we start there. Then where to? The centrist Finance Committee? More watering down of the legislation? It's 2009 all over again, only weaker. Suffice to say, I can't imagine anything resembling Medicare for All being passed without an intervening health care reform bill.

America has always been governed by incrementalism, and health care reform is no exception. Health care reform was always going to be a work in progress -- we're just going to have to work a little harder to make up for a lack of a public option and the Medicare expansion.

Maybe our anger would be better channeled into fixing the bill than killing it. Amendments can be attached to budget bills and war spending supplementals. If you recall, the Wellstone amendment, forcing insurance companies to cover mental health, was passed in the stimulus bill last February. And there's no reason why the Democrats couldn't bring up the public option and Medicare buy-in as its own reconciliation bill. But SHH! Don't tell Joe Lieberman.

As pissed off as I am, I'm hopeful that we're going to be a part of achieving something good here. And perhaps the temporary loss of the public option and the other things will provide the political motivation to achieve a perpetual run of smaller victories as we help to shape this bill into something we can be happy about.

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
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Lee Myung-Bak: Copenhagen Needs 'Me First' Gumption

2009-12-16T21:55:45Z

Nearing the final moments of the climate talks in Copenhagen, the prevailing sentiment is that we'll fail to reach an agreement. Yet, there remains a glimmer of hope as more than 100 global leaders converge on the talks.

Such a concentration of leaders presents an historic opportunity to finally reach a global consensus on ways to reduce our environmental impact. Indeed, we must take action together. To break the impasse, I believe all of us must begin to embrace a "me first" attitude. I will emphasize this point in my address to the Copenhagen participants on Thursday.

A willingness to act where others pause is the only way we'll break the long-prevailing approach of "you first." If we continue to wait until others act, the prospects for a global agreement will diminish even more. In Korea, we have decided to take that first step.

Last month, after some 80 meetings with various Korean stakeholders, including government and business leaders, I set an ambitious midterm target for reducing the country's greenhouse-gas emissions. We plan to cut our emissions, voluntarily, by 30 percent from the previous 2020 forecast.

There are two key characteristics of our emissions-reduction goal.

First, the target is set at the highest level recommended by the international community for a country like ours under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Some have expressed concern that this target is far too high and, possibly, out of reach. We believe it's an achievable, aggressive target that needed to be taken. Our economy has maintained a heavy dependence on manufacturing for decades. As a result, our greenhouse-gas emissions have nearly doubled in the past 15 years.

Dramatically curbing our emissions growth, indeed, will be a daunting challenge. But the first step to establish a low-carbon growth economic policy is setting a goal. And I believe we must aim high.

Second, our goal is unconditional to the outcome of the Copenhagen talks. In order to find a solution to the global climate challenge, each and every country must do what it can, starting now. To quote an Asian proverb, "Ten spoonfuls of rice make one big bowl." If every country represented in Copenhagen decides to add a "spoonful" of effort and adopts a "me first" attitude, we can overcome this enormous and critical challenge.

To help get us there, I have proposed establishing an international "registry" mechanism to motivate developing countries to take reduction steps that can be internationally recognized. It will promote transparency, while generating potential sources of financial support from developed countries for these programs. The registry would track the progress of these efforts and allow the international community to review what more needs to be done to achieve an agreed-upon 2 degree Celsius trajectory.

In fact, the international effort to create an enhanced framework to address climate change is a valuable process. Each exchange of views and ideas is worthwhile. But the lack of a formal agreement is no excuse for the current inertia.

To trigger action, there needs to be knowledge. So any discussion on climate change must encompass not only "how much" we'll reduce, but "how" we'll get there.

Many developing countries, especially in Asia, are beginning to foster their industries and expand their economies. We must ensure that these countries take a different path to development than the roads taken by the developed countries. As we progress in our own development, we can share some of the valuable environmental lessons that we have learned as our economy evolved.

In the case of Korea, we set "Low-Carbon Green Growth" as our new national vision. We have devised a five-year implementation plan, under which we will invest 2 percent of our GDP annually into research and development on new green technologies and infrastructure, such as energy-efficient transportation and a smart energy grid. In implementing this program, we believe we can go "green," while creating new jobs and industries, and continuing our economic growth.

Many business and government leaders, climate experts, and civil activists are advocating "green growth" as a new economic development paradigm. The "Declaration on Green Growth" adopted by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is just one illustration.

Yet no country, obviously, has fully realized this goal. To get us closer, the developing and developed countries must work together more effectively by sharing their experiences and wisdom. At Copenhagen, and following the conclusion of the talks, I will make it our mission to continually share Korea's experience, while learning new ways during our journey on a green growth path.

There really is no other alternative. All of us must act.

Originally published on the Global Viewpoint Network.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Getting Real: Ten Myths Behind Progressive Support for the Senate Health Bill

2009-12-16T21:17:44Z

We're hearing a lot of raised voices on the left side of the aisle as progressives square off into two camps. Some want to accept the Senate's health bill as is, while others want it scrapped. Both views deserve a hearing, but there are some assumptions behind the pro-Senate position that seem so implausible they might best be described as "myths." Before some progressives lecture others on "getting real," it's worth taking a closer look at what's "real" and what isn't.

Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum, and others have weighed in with what might be called legislative-realpolitik arguments, progressive variations on the "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" theme. While I don't want to be oversimplify their positions, they seem to be saying essentially "let's get what we can and fix it later." While that may sound hard-nosed and "realistic," that strategy actually calls for a lot of wishful thinking - and a whole lot of assuming.

For example: Why would we assume the same crowd that repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised the first time will suddenly deliver more than they promised next year? That calls for a lot of faith - faith that the same people who botched this thing the first time around will fix it at some later date, miraculously making the tough decisions then they wouldn't make when they were under the gun.

It will be harder to get this right in the future, not easier. Some of this bill's provisions are going to hurt the Democrats and will probably cost them seats unless they're removed. How can a smaller group of Congressional Democrats do what a bigger group could not?

The Senate might fix everything next year - but do you really believe that?

Assumption #1: The same guys who broke health reform will magically fix it ... next year.

People love to point out that Medicare was improved after it passed. But back then you had LBJ and Sam Rayburn there, not the guys we have now. (And in answer to the question "what would LBJ have done differently?" I suspect he would've said 'Joe, I'd sure hate to see you lose your chairmanships. Ben, I'm sorry there'll be no more money for your re-election campaign. Kent, you buck me on this and I'll be in your state come election time reminding the folks how you let me down ...")

And, please - don't 'Lieberman' me, Democrats! I'm starting to wonder if Joe isn't a useful stalking horse, a 'bad cop' for more highly-placed Dems. (And you know who I'm talking about.) Of course, they can always disprove that theory by putting the squeeze on Joe today. But they won't do that unless somebody puts the heat on them.

Assumption #2: It's all Joe's fault. I'm no Lieberman defender, but the President and Harry Reid need to be held accountable for the bill. It's too easy to use Lieberman as the "bad cop." You don't get to play that card until you've put real pressure on him.

Progressives should also consider the real-life consequences of caving in to Lieberman's demands. Surrender will embolden Ben Nelson to become the next holdout, so he can slash away at a woman's right to choose. The most practical way to end the threats is to draw the line now. The Senate has a hostage crisis, and some progressives seem to suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Assumption #3: If we cave now there will be no more demands.

What happened to all the discussion of reconciliation? Suddenly the pro-Senate-bill crowd has changed the subject. Why aren't the pro's and con's of that approach still being debated? (Here's a thought: Get Lieberman's vote, promise him there'll be no public option reconciliation bill afterward, then do it anyway! Why not? He broke his word ...)

Assumption #4: We need 60 votes, and reconciliation has no part to play in the process.

As for the political impact of the bill, read this poll on just one of the Senate bill's provisions and tell me that Dems won't lose more seats than they'll gain if they pass this bill. Some will respond by saying that the party will lose even more seats if it passes nothing, but I haven't seen a comprehensive side-by-side poll on that.

Assumption # 5: This bill is a political winner and a vote-getter. Health reform's popular, but this particular bill isn't. And speaking of this particular bill ...

The process isn't over. The Senate's still talking, hamstrung mostly by the President's arbitrary Christmas deadline. The House/Senate conference hasn't even begun. Question for progressives: Even if you believe that this is significantly better than nothing, why cave in now?

Assumption #6: It's this bill or nothing. There's no more time to change it.

Then ther's Nate Silver, who says "let's stop being polite and start being real" in a post he calls "Why Progressives Are Batshit Crazy to Oppose the Senate Bill." As I pointed out in my response, "Why Progressives Would Be 'Batshit Crazy' to Listen to Nate Silver on Health Reform," his math is good but his assumptions are bad. It would take too much time to address the entire argument here, but consider this: Silver reviews the effect of the Senate bill on a family of four making $54,000 a year. If you don't think forcing that family to pay a private insurance company $4,000 a year in premium and then leaving them with up to $5,000 in out of pocket costs isn't both unreasonable and political suicide, we're not living in the same reality. And forcing them to pay those premiums without a public option or meaningful cost containment is pretty much indefensible politically.

Assumption #7: Low earners and middle class households will jump for joy when this bill is passed. I don't think so.

Silver also embraces the idea that the excise tax and other "cost cutting measures" will reduce costs, despite the experience of history. Like many others, he embraces the idea that this bill creates incentives for insurers and employers to cut costs. This is perhaps the most naïve assumption of all. Similar "incentives" have existed for years, as far back as the early 1970's when Richard Nixon signed the HMO Act. Insurers and employers have always responded to financial incentives by raising people's premiums, lowering benefits, and pocketing the difference. A great example of wrong-headed "cost-cutting incentive" thinking is the Senate's misguided "Cadillac tax," which essentially selects health plans almost at random and pressures insurers and employers to slash benefits. (See my conflict-of-interest statement below.)

Assumption #8: This bill will meaningfully contain health care costs with 'cost cutting' incentives lead to smarter coverage, rather than simply less coverage. Increasing out of pocket costs for individuals and decreasing expenditures by governments and insurers - the most likely result of this misguided plan - is not "cost cutting." It's cost-shifting onto the back of beleaguered consumers.

It gets worse. Silver embraces the "27% increase in benefits" touted by the CBO, believing somehow that the Senate can mandate more comprehensive coverage without seeing a dramatic rise in premiums. I guess the money to pay for all those new benefits will appear from nowhere. Or maybe insurance companies - who were already planning to hike rates by an average 10% - will suddenly decide to absorb all this added cost out of the goodness of their hearts.

Assumption #9: This bill will provide new coverage at no additional cost, despite the lack of cost controls or cost containment provisions.

Linda Bergthold, who writes for The Huffington Post, argues that "It Takes Guts to Support Health Reform." (Really?) She contemptuously dismisses as "grandstanders" the courageous politicians who have faced down their leadership and their President in order to push for genuine reform. Like so many on the accommodationist side, she lectures others that "this is how politics works," with "this" being inevitability of a bad bill.

No, this is how politics work: If you ignore your key constituencies in crafting a bill, if you create bad policy based on flawed assumptions, and if you refuse to use available techniques like reconciliation to overcome the cynical maneuverings of individual senators, then your bill may fail.

Assumption #10: This is how politics works, and if you don't think so you're not a realist.

Here's the reality: It's all "how politics works"! All of it - Lieberman's attention-seeking betrayals, Howard Dean's opposition and Robert Gibbs' graceless ad hominem response, those people pushing the Senate bill and those of us opposing it, you reading these words on your computer screen ... it's all part of the process. This is how it works: People study, argue, and push their agendas until the fight is over. Which gets us back to the fact that ...

... hey, people! It ain't over! The people pushing this bill are surrendering too soon. Even those who would never move to block the final bill should act as if they would, if only to maintain their leverage. An organized resistance to this flawed documents empowers progressives and put the Democratic leadership on notice that they must be dealt with. And you know what?

That's politics, too.

_______________

(Conflict-of-interest statement: I'm actively campaigning against the health excise tax with the Campaign For America's Future (www.NoMiddleClassHealthTax.com). But to assume I oppose the tax because I'm part of the campaign is to confuse cause and effect - a common error in the health policy world. Still, in the interest of full disclosure, there you have it.)

RJ Eskow blogs when he can at:

A Night Light
The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog

Website: Eskow and Associates

Dan Collins: Wall Street Makes Merry With Other People's Money

2009-12-16T21:11:42Z

There's a good deal of jolliness on Wall Street this holiday season, thanks to the billions of dollars in bonuses that will be stuffed into the stockings of your favorite bankers.

It's safe to assume that the final tally will be big, very big. After all, in 2008, a year of disaster for the financial sector, Wall Street still managed to dole out an estimated $18 billion in cash bonuses to New York's least needy. This turned out to be the sixth best bonus year in Wall Street history -- a much better performance than the rest of the seething country might have anticipated.

"Executive pay is like sugar. If you consume too much of it, you get a rush. And then you crave it. It becomes an addiction," said Vineeta Anand, Chief Research Analyst for the AFL-CIO Office of Investment.

This year, with a much healthier stock market, the rush is on. Bankers will likely be stampeding to the tree on Christmas morning. Johnson Associates, a respected New York compensation consulting firm, expects a 40 percent increase in "year-end incentives" at investment and commercial banks. (Johnson forecasts lower bonuses for other financial types, including the much-beloved hedge fund managers.)

And not everybody will be getting exactly what they want. Instead of piles of cash, Goldman Sachs is rewarding its top executives with millions and millions of dollars in stock. While the country hasn't exactly collapsed in awe and gratitude, this was certainly a more successful PR gambit than CEO Lloyd Blankfein's recent assertion that the firm was "doing God's work."

A recent lawsuit filed against the Wall Street Goliath by a pension fund maintains that the Almighty had nothing with the year-end stock bonanza. Instead, the suit credits a "trillion-dollar investment made by the American taxpayers that was meant to stabilize the financial industry" and not the "hard work of the executives."

Goldman speedily paid off the cash it borrowed from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program. Real and threatened federal restrictions on executive pay have proved to be a stupendous incentive in getting the banks to pay back their government loans. Citigroup and Wells Fargo are the latest financial firms to raise cash to pay off the loans that place them under the jurisdiction of U.S. pay czar Ken Feinberg.

"We've gotten $90 billion back for the taxpayer in an accelerated fashion. I'd also like to think we've developed some guiding principles for compensation that will be followed voluntarily by Wall Street," Feinberg told HuffPost.

Whether Wall Street has learned a lesson is highly debatable. Even basket case AIG -- the insurance giant that remains under Feinberg's jurisdiction -- seems intent on maintaining the tradition of irrational exuberance when it comes to executive pay.

AIG's justification is always that it needs to make big payouts to keep critical talent. John Cassano, the head of AIG Financial Products, resigned after sending his firm down an $85 billion rat hole of red ink. But he was allowed to keep $34 million in bonuses, and put on a million-dollar-a-month retainer. The firm's then-CEO said AIG "wanted to retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had."

Cassano is finally gone but AIG is paying still more bonuses to members of his old unit, under the theory that they're the only ones who know how to unravel the complicated messes that their boss left behind.

And AIG has extended the theory far beyond people with very specialized knowledge who are going to be employed for a short period of time. Robert Benmosche, who came out of retirement to be the post-disaster CEO, strongly believes that a man's worth can be measured very precisely by the amount he is paid. And he threatened to resign if Feinberg didn't back down in his attempts to drastically cap salaries and bonuses.

Feinberg did backtrack -- reportedly following lobbying from government officials who worried about that fabled brain drain. The people who run big Wall Street firms are convinced that the top financial jobs can only be done by a tiny handful of very special people, who must be wooed and re-wooed every year with obscene amounts of money.

Failure to do so will mean they'll take their services elsewhere. This has always been an article of faith on Wall Street, but not everybody agrees.

"I think that in many cases Wall Street would be better off without these executives," said Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library, an independent research firm that specializes in executive pay and corporate governance.

"Corporate America has really lost the battle if the best argument it can make is that if executives are not paid what they want, they'll take their bat and ball and go home," Minow added.

She said the retention incentives in executive compensation pay packages should be much more closely linked to performance: "Too many of these retention incentives are what we call 'pay for pulse.' It's stick-around money."

Minow noted that some companies are now calling bonuses "discretionary pay" (like, maybe we won't notice) while others juggle cash or stock payments to conceal bonuses. Last year, for example, Wells Fargo got around a big cash bonus for CEO John Stumpf by boosting his base salary from $900,000 to $5.6 million.

No matter how you slice it, it's still a bonus. And once the gifts under this year's Christmas tree have been carted away, the firms who made it through the last year on the backs of the taxpayers are going to have to explain exactly what it is that their executives do to make them worth so much more than the rest of humanity.

Marc R. Stanley: A Truly Bipartisan White House Hanukkah Party

2009-12-16T19:40:51Z

Who in the Jewish community would have the chutzpah to complain about a White House Hanukkah party? Highly partisan Jewish Republicans.

Are you shocked? I'm not.

It's typical of President Barack Obama's partisan critics to attack this administration for a wide array of reasons -- from policy disagreements to political appointments -- but criticism of the White House Hanukkah party is beyond unreasonable; it's absurd.

First, as the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) has stated before, "Heaven help us if we really begin to act as if party invitations are what our community is all about:"

Jewish Americans have a lot of important fish to fry in Washington. In case the Chanukah grousers have forgotten, we are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; many people are suffering. Shame, if not morality, should drive members of our community to think twice before complaining about too few invitations to a holiday party at the White House.

Second, and most astonishingly, Jewish Republicans were completely wrong when they complained that "[o]fficials in the Obama administration have decided that they will be cutting the guest list in half for this year's Hanukkah party at the White House." In reality, "there were 520 invites to the White House Hanukkah party in 2008," according to Lynn Sweet of Politics Daily:

The White House told me 550 guests are invited this year. During the Bush years, there were 265 invitees in 2001; 373 in 2002; 500 in 2003; 387 in 2004; 427 in 2005; 477 in 2006; 584 in 2007; and 520 in 2008.
I've seen a few reports that the Obama White House cut back its list from 800 guests; that's just a bubbe meise, a good Yiddish phrase that means, roughly, "old wives' tale." (In more modern times, it might be used to describe an urban legend.)

The GOP really made an issue out of what turned out to be a difference of 64 people from Bush's 2007 high! Where were this year's critics before the 2008 party?

Regardless of the bluster, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Obama administration for holding the first White House Hanukkah party where the invite list includes all of the Jewish Democrats and Republicans serving in Congress. In the past when these parties were held, most -- if not all -- Jewish Congressional Democrats were not invited. But in the spirit of bipartisanship and inclusiveness, Obama has invited all Jewish Senators and Representatives regardless of party affiliation -- as it should be.

Obama ought to be applauded, not attacked, as he and his administration continue efforts to govern in a bipartisan and inclusive manner; this Hanukkah party is just one positive reflection of this encouraging trend.

And for those of you who want to share Hanukkah greetings with the President and his family -- regardless of party affiliation -- sign onto a Hanukkah card that we'll deliver to the White House tomorrow.

Happy Hanukkah to all -- Democrats and Republicans alike!

Michael Kieschnick: Ignore Lieberman to Win Real Health Care Reform

2009-12-16T19:09:45Z

If I wanted Joe Lieberman to write health care reform, I would have voted for John McCain.

Somewhere in my mind, I thought that. But Jane Hamsher wrote it and that single phrase says it all. Due to the rules of the Senate and the political strategies of Rahm Emmanuel, Joe Lieberman is having the time of his life.

It is time to admit that if we play by Joe's rules, health reform is dead. When we are reduced to Evan Bayh (!) saying let's compromise so that the perfect is not the enemy of the good, it is way past time to try a different path.

The Trojan Horse at the center of the Senate's health care package is the mandate that people without health insurance be forced to purchase it from private health insurance companies or pay a fine. And the dirty secret of the package is that the price they will be paying is quite high -- like up to 10% of income. So the way that we move along the path towards greater coverage is that the taxpayers and poor and working class people pay more to the insurance companies. What part of this is the "good"?

I cannot imagine that the White House has done focus groups or polling among the surge voters of 2008 -- young people, poor people, single women -- to ask if they want to pay Aetna or Blue Cross or Wellpoint 10% of their income for lousy coverage. Ask your friends. Your recently graduated from college kids. I have -- the mandate is the wet dream of private insurers and will be stunningly unpopular with just about everybody else.

This is bad policy and bad politics. This is not progressive change. Costs will continue to skyrocket and the Federal treasury will suck wind. And surge voters will not come out to vote again.

But it does not have to be this way. It is only this way because in the world of the Senate, if we play by the 60 votes are needed rule, coupled with a weak White House that only threatens progressives, then the 60th Senator -- that is, the most unprincipled paid off Senator -- gets to write health care reform.

Let's not play that game. If Harry Reid and the White House don't have the integrity to kill the package as is, it only takes one progressive Senator to take Joe Lieberman's place. Surely there should be a rush to do this!

And what should take the place of Lieberman's rules? Reid already has the power -- contained in this year's budget resolution -- to enact much of the health care reform through budget reconciliation, which requires 51 votes. There are 51 votes for the best -- not the worst -- elements of great health reform. Or the Senate could change it's own rules to eliminate or alter the filibuster. Any reading of Senate history makes it clear that the filibuster has been used most often to defeat progress, not to stop special interests or reactionary initiatives.

And if Sen. Reid will not use reconciliation or change the filibuster rules, then at a minimum he should hold a series of individual votes on the critical issues currently bundled together in the massive reform bill. If he were to ask for my advice, I would start with a prohibition on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. Let's put everybody on record whether they are in favor of the current practice of vicious discrimination.

Health care matters far too much to let rules designed to stop change block us. And it is cynical beyond measure to call Lieberman's demands real reform.

Jamie Court: Call To Change Senate's Filibuster Math Grows

2009-12-16T19:00:39Z

A colleague just received a mass email action from California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton reiterating my call days ago on the Huffington Post to change the number needed to bust a filibuster.

Burton, the former California Senate President and Congressman, is a bastion of Democratic politics and probably more influential than national party chair Howard Dean given his close relationship to Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco Democratic donor establishment.

(Photo Credit: Barackandme )

My earlier post pointed out that climate change and real health care reform should not depend upon the likes of Joe Lieberman or Kent Conrad or Ben Nelson. Senate Majority Whip Robert Byrd changed the math needed to overcome the filibuster in 1975, when the number needed to invoke cloture and overcome the filibuster changed to three fifths of the Senators sworn (60 votes) from the previous two thirds of those voting (66) . Historically the filibuster has been used to stall progressive change, including the Civil Rights Act of 1957, when Strom Thurmond set a record of 24 hours and 18 minutes of talking a bill to death.

Rule 22 of the Senate, governing filibusters, can be changed or eliminated by a simple majority according to the US Supreme Court in U.S. v. Ballin (1892) Senate rules call for 67 to change the cloture rule, but Democrats should be able to rewrite the rules since they control the Rules Committee. Rule 22 can go out the door all together or be modified. Republicans under Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to blow up the filibuster in 2005 with far fewer numbers. What are Democrats waiting for?

Burton's voice will help the chorus grow but progressives need to make this is their new cause if they hope to move the ball forward not only on health care but climate change, financial regulation and other key priorities too. Progressives need to heed the warning of Joe Hill: Don't mourn, organize.

Ken Levine: An Open Letter to Tiger Woods

2009-12-16T18:25:33Z

Dear Tiger,

I see the number of mistresses you've had is now 14 and counting. It's one thing to cheat on your wife, but cheating on 13 mistresses, have you no decency, sir?!

Did you really think you wouldn't be caught? Fourteen times? News flash: One of the big reasons women want to sleep with you is so they can tell people they're sleeping with Tiger Woods. Don't you have anybody advising you? Jesus, even your caddy should know that!

So the question is: now what do you do?

Please don't play the "Sex Addict" card. Don't claim it's a disease and you have no control. Has anyone noticed that ugly guys never have this disease? The only tragic victims are good looking married celebrities with money. David Duchovny is in rehab with this serious problem. Of course it's not serious enough to keep him from filming Californication where his character does nothing but fuck his brains out. Oh, right. That's for his "art." I forgot.

The point is, Tiger, the public is no longer buying it. I mean, Steve Phillips, public dimwit, used that claim. If you want to be honest, say you're a "Marriage Addict." Say you have this uncontrollable need to be married. That we could believe. No one as successful as you with as many smoking hot women throwing themselves at you would be stupid enough to get married unless it was something you couldn't control. There must be some "Elizabeth Taylor" or "Mickey Rooney" clinic you can check yourself into.

It looks like your wife is going to file for divorce. Even though you told a friend you were going to go out to Zales and buy her a Kobe diamond ring, which you eloquently defined as a "house on a finger," she still seems determined to leave. By the way, idiot, who buys priceless jewelry at Zales for Christsakes? Has anyone in your posse ever heard of Tiffany's? But I digress. Even your passionate pleas that "She meant nothing to me. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or her. Or the other ones yet to be revealed" have fallen on deaf ears. And a number of sponsors have dropped you as their spokesman. You may pick up some others but I doubt it. Certainly not Cadillac. You go five miles an hour, hit two objects, and wind up unconscious? That can't be good for selling cars.

"Marriage Addiction." That's the ticket, Tiger. And next time be smart. Get some help. Get a trusted adviser. I won't always be there for you. And don't get just anybody. You want the best. You need the best.

Give Derek Jeter a call.

With best wishes for the holidays,

Ken Levine

Read more from Ken here.

John R. MacArthur: More and More, Obama Seems a Faux Liberal

2009-12-16T18:03:46Z

Following President Obama's war speeches at West Point and Oslo -- two breathtaking exercises in political cynicism that killed any hope of authentic liberal reform -- I've got only one question: Have the liberals who worshipped at the altar of "change you can believe in" had enough?

There was already ample evidence of Obama's feeble commitment to peace, progress and justice. Ever since he started fundraising for his presidential campaign, it's been clear that the principal change in the offing was skin tone and slogans. One only needed to read "The Audacity of Hope" to see how thoroughly Obama was enmeshed in the neo-liberal orthodoxies of the Robert Rubin-Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. Obama's impeccably establishment party credentials -- that is, his fealty to the Democratic leadership of Chicago and Capitol Hill -- practically guaranteed that he would hew to the status quo when forced to choose.

Even before he announced his candidacy for president, Obama endorsed the Iraq hawk Joe Lieberman for re-election to the Senate; then, when Lieberman lost the primary to the antiwar Ned Lamont, Obama made sure that he was never seen with the official nominee of the Connecticut Democratic Party, a bald act of realpolitik that helped Lieberman win as an "independent." In the U.S. Senate, meanwhile, Obama's voting record on Iraq war funding was identical to Hillary Clinton's.

Liberals, exhausted by President Bush and heartened by Obama's challenge to the pro-invasion Hillary, ignored their new hero's record and fixated on his one major anti-Iraq speech, delivered when he was a state senator. Ironically, it was Clinton who best characterized Obama's candidacy when she said that she and John McCain would "put forth" a "lifetime of experience" while "Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."

Indeed, apart from extraordinary ambition, there wasn't much more to Obama than that one speech.

So what's left of the liberal adoration of Obama? The first major defector among the camp followers was Gary Wills, who denounced the Afghanistan escalation as a "betrayal." As Wills astutely noted in a New York Review of Books blog, "If we had wanted Bush's wars, and contractors, and corruption, we could have voted for John McCain. At least we would have seen our foe facing us, not felt him at our back, as now we do."

But Wills seems to be the exception. For now, the leading liberal commentators are clinging to the belief that Obama's blatant doubletalk -- sending more troops while announcing their eventual withdrawal -- is somehow virtuous.

Typical is Frank Rich, who though critical of the troop buildup, doesn't "buy the criticism that [Obama] contrived a cynical political potpourri to pander to every side of the debate on the war." For the former New York Times theater critic, good acting still counts for a lot: "Obama's speech struck me as the sincere product of serious deliberations, an earnest attempt to apply his formidable intelligence to one of the most daunting Rubik's Cubes of foreign policy America has ever known."

That Rich is so impressed by the alleged complexity of Afghanistan and Obama's supposed brilliance speaks in part, I imagine, to Rich's ignorance of American political history. As Rahm Emanuel knows well, milking the role of "war president" (with a backdrop of men in uniform) is a time-tested winner in re-election campaigns, from Abraham Lincoln in 1864, to Richard Nixon in 1972, to George W. Bush in 2004. I suspect that Rich is disturbed that his matinee idol is suddenly being called a poseur by respectable people whom Rich might meet at a dinner party.

In the same vein, Hendrick Hertz-berg, of The New Yorker, twisted himself into knots to present the president as an honorable man. "His speech," Hertzberg pronounced, "was a somber appeal to reason, not a rousing call to arms." Of Obama's "plan," Hertzberg wrote that "the best that can be claimed for it is that it does not guarantee failure, as, in one form or another, the alternatives almost certainly do." From Obama's (and Hertzberg's) self-contradictory gobbledygook, we may be reassured that "if there is no Obama Doctrine, there is an Obama approach -- undergirded by humane values but also by a respect for reality."

Obama's West Point speech was nothing if not a tribute to fantasy. Almost everything he said about fighting terrorism and "stabilizing" Afghanistan and Pakistan was counterproductive nonsense (see Edward Luttwak's recent article in The Times Literary Supplement). As for humane values, it takes more than gall to tell an audience that includes future dead and maimed soldiers that they're going off to fight for a good cause when, in fact, their presence in Afghanistan will create added bloodshed and recruit more volunteers for the Taliban.

Then there's Tom Hayden, the former radical and author of the Students for A Democratic Society's Port Huron Statement, who was a belligerent booster of Obama during last year's campaign. Hayden, too, is upset about Afghanistan, but not enough to cast aside his self-delusion about Obama. Claiming to speak for "the antiwar movement," he laments that the "costs in human lives and tax dollars are simply unsustainable" and, worse, that "Obama is squandering any hope for his progressive domestic agenda by this tragic escalation of the war."

Unsustainable? Tragic? There's no evidence that Obama and his chief of staff see any limit to their ability to print dollars, sell Treasury bonds and send working-class kids to die in distant lands. And what "progressive" agenda is Hayden talking about? So far, Obama's big domestic goals have been compulsory, government-subsidized insurance policies that will further enrich the private health-care business, huge increases in Pentagon spending and purely symbolic regulation of Wall Street.

While Obama was speaking to the unfortunate cadets, I couldn't help thinking of Richard Nixon and his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War, a plan that entailed a long and pointless continuation of the fighting. Most liberals would agree that Nixon was a terrible president. Yet, for all his vicious mendacity, I think the sage of San Clemente had a bad conscience about the harm he did, about all he caused to die and be crippled.

Instead of shoring up Obama's image of goodness, liberals really should be asking, "Does the president have a conscience?" Because if he does, he's really no better than Nixon.

John R. MacArthur, a monthly contributor, is publisher of Harper's Magazine.

Stephen Gyllenhaal: To Gather Up One's Rage

2009-12-16T18:03:04Z

On Monday the important banking CEOs were to attend a Presidential meeting at which it was billed Obama (getting slammed in the polls for his entanglements with Wall Street) would dress them down for their unrepentant behavior since receiving hundreds of billions of taxpayer's cash.

But the biggest CEOs didn't show up because of "fog and rain".

Don't ask if they might not have taken a limo from NY to DC. Or (better yet) the Metro liner. Or (even better) gone the night before to prepare. Don't ask if they feel any need to help their Obama (at least a little) in the public relations department, even as he has helped them beyond measure (keeping them, for instance, from drowning at the bottom of their deep blue financial sea).

Don't ask who the hell they think they are? Don't ask who the hell Obama thinks he is, even as he was elected with the solid majority of millions of us, even as he was delivered a mandate that it now appears he has squandered to such an extent that there isn't even a peep from him or "his people" as he was snubbed like the butler it appears he is to these gargoyles of human excuse coiled up in their pinstripe suits and "grounded" Lear jets.

So how do I contain my rage at the absolute lack of separation of church and state that now exists in this country? Because, let's face it, our national religion isn't something cooked up in the deep Baptist south nor in ephemeral New Age San Francisco. No, it has been built stone by gothic stone down on Wall Street.

Our new Popes are the likes of Vikram Pandit, Robert Rubin, Lloyd Blankfein. Our new cathedrals the multinational sky scrapers that gleam with post-modern panache. Our altars of choice are the numbers rising to heaven on the stock market, which will only fall when the mysterious devil of whatever it is intrudes (not deregulation - God knows - not greed, not murder of ethics, etc).

So how do I contain my rage that unemployment soars; that millions more children have gone hungry in just these past three months; that the mass transportation systems throughout the nation are going the way of a corpse; that school systems slip into the red, chaos and bewilderment; that Health Care becomes another way to say "I love you" to the big boys...while all the while these giant financial tumors of Citicorp, AIG, Bank of America and Goldman (let them eat cake) Sachs -- now too big too fail, therefore backed by our government forever -- are able to "pay back" their TARP money by raising speculative billions from around the world because...

...well, who wouldn't invest their money in monsters backed forever by the US government? Who wouldn't invest in as sure a thing as the United States of America with it's Army, Navy, Air Force, Blackwater and taxpayers willing to pay for it all till there's nothing left? Who wouldn't give as much as they possibly could to institutions that claim to be doing the "work of God" (Lloyd Blankfein's proclamation last month, CEO of Goldman -let them eat cake- Sachs)?

So is it true that our President is now little more than their butler?

I am reminded of lines from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

And indeed there will be time/To wonder, 'Do I dare' and, 'Do I dare?/Do I dare/disturb the universe/...For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Yes, I believe Obama is their butler, albeit an intellectual one (so many of the great butlers were intellectuals, after all) with his "decisions and revisions" which can so easily be reversed - ever the Harvard grad. For hasn't Obama emerged with the same kind of twisted dialectic ala Alan Greenspan (with his Harvard's honorary degree) that bankers will ultimately do the right thing when pushed a bit? And yet how is it that even the least sober bum hanging out on Main Street; the sharecropper bumping along in the back of his nasty boss' truck; the private in any army on this planet; the guy (or more than likely in the coming months - the child) peeling carrots in a kitchen knows better. Again Eliot:

I grow old, I grow old/ I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

For what is going to happen to our "thinking" President after all is said in done, sinking deeper into his little war in Afghanistan (graveyard of empires)? His war looks so good on paper, I suppose.

But what is going to happen with what has brought on all this rage in me (and in so many others)?

I am reminded of another quote from a fellow African American that Obama has so assiduously attached himself to: Martin Luther King, a monstrous crowd of humanity swirling around the marble steps he stood on at the time:

I have a dream...(that) we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Rage was the order of the day then. I remember that brutal time. But Martin Luther King risked everything to gather up that rage to try to use it to hew that mountain.

J. Alfred Prufrock did not. Obama has not not. We have not. Will we? Can we?

Carl Pope: Waiting for Obama

2009-12-16T18:00:30Z

In theory, Copenhagen's Bella Center should seem like the epicenter of history. In reality, it's more like being in a big room full of people playing the game of telephone by circulating bits of information, misinformation, and gossip. There were huge protests outside today, as a result of which access to the building was shut down for an extended period, but I only knew this from emails I got from people out in the streets. The UN revoked the credentials of Friends of the Earth and Avaaz, apparently because some members of those delegations were known to be planning civil disobedience inside the conference once the heads of state arrived.

Some new and intriguing proposals have been put on the table, though. One, from France and Ethiopia, includes some interesting ideas for solving the long-term problem of financing climate-change costs in poor countries. The two countries, an unlikely duo:

believe that various innovative financing mechanisms are key to ensure the predictability and sustainability of international public efforts. They call, in particular, for the creation of a tax on international financial transactions and consider other sources such as taxes on sea freight or air transport. Those mechanisms will mainly be dedicated to actions in poor and vulnerable countries, particularly in Africa, least developed countries, small island states and other developing countries with a low per-capita income ....

Meanwhile George Soros has come forward with his own proposal, which would rely heavily on the International Monetary Fund:

"I propose that the developed countries -- in addition to establishing a fast start fund of $10 billion a year -- should band together and lend $100 billion dollars worth of these SDRs for 25 years to a special green fund serving the developing world. The fund would jump-start forestry, land-use, and agricultural projects. These are the areas that offer the greatest scope for reducing carbon emissions and could produce substantial returns from carbon markets. The returns such projects can generate go beyond reducing carbon; there will be non-carbon related returns from land use projects, the potential to create more sustainable rural livelihoods, enable higher and more resilient agriculture yields and create rural employment."

So, yes, there are ideas on the table.

What's missing is any comparable financing proposal from the U.S. -- and having such a concept emerge is probably the key to making it sufficiently attractive to the Third World for any deal to emerge from this maelstrom. (Yes, I know the original maelstrom was off Norway, not Denmark, but you can only do so much with Hamlet's castle and Tivoli Gardens.) Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has already arrived here and will probably get an earful tomorrow when she meets with various other governments about their unhappiness that the U.S. has not been more forthcoming about how it proposes to solve the long-term financing problem.

It appears that the barrier is a deadlock within the Obama administration about which mechanisms might be acceptable -- and breaking such deadlocks is precisely why it's so important that President Obama come here and change the ground rules of a process that currently seems mired in distrust and a lack of generosity. So although the negotiations continue, there is a strong sense that the real opportunity will open when the American president arrives.

Gabriel London: Final Act Begins in Copenhagen

2009-12-16T17:55:42Z

At the climate protests here in Copenhagen I have a favorite sign: "Bla...bla...bla: ACT NOW!" It's so right on: we all know it's time to act. If only it were that easy.

There is something so incredible, so daunting, so impossible about the crush of humanity that has descended upon Copenhagen. What strikes me as the days wear on is the virtual impossibility of unity in the presence of so much diversity: economic, racial, geographical differences are intrinsic, not to mention the deep seeded differences on the question at hand: how to respond to climate change.

As the bla bla blahing goes on, more leaders descend and more chaos builds in the streets. It's not an encouraging mix. Today, the police helicopters hovering above Copenhagen have not rested and the scenes of baton beatings are flickering on screens everywhere tonight. And it's only Wednesday.

Though I have been covering the conference in collaboration with environmental reporter Olivia Zaleski in our "Copenhagen Dispatch" show for Timberland Earthkeeper Network, we are not traditional press drawn to the sight of newsworthy baton strikes on protesters or political posturing at the top of the COP 15 food chain. Instead, we have concerned ourselves with capturing the human element here: the youth, the individual negotiators, the activists, the green business leaders and yes, a few weirdos, politicians and protesters along the way.

Having pushed this Copenhagen push for months, traveling the world to find people focused on the UN Conference for a climate change campaign, See You in Copenhagen, I can't help but feel somewhat letdown -- at this stage -- by the aggressive tactics of protesters and the inability of negotiators to reach consensus.

One side demands action, the other seems incapable of it. Some even demand 'system change not climate change.' Yeah yeah. The UN is fundamentally imperfect, we all know that. But there are some common causes that are best served by nations acting together. All nations, if possible. Climate change is simply one of those causes.

As we enter the final stretch, a few wishes:

1) For the media: That you would lay down your dull weapons of this vs. that, he said/she said. It's just worthless at this stage to cover the jockeying.
2) For the protestors activists: Allow the diplomatic process to occur, yes, even in your absence. Trust the process. Your rage has been heard. Now clear the way.
3) For leaders: Step up, above the noise. You have heard the science and felt the changing climate as we all have. Now ignore the dubious news of slipping polls. Ignore the clamber of the climate 'skeptics.' And focus: it's just you and 180 or so of your closest "friends" that agree the world deserves a climate deal (whatever that may be).

We can all rise to this occasion. I, for one, have put out what I can in storytelling and communications. There is nothing left to be done once the doors of the Bella Center close the leaders in, the rest of us out. We have collectively built them the reality that exists today: raised voices, impassioned pleas, science reports, media dispatches and countless, countless presentations, speeches, and films have yielded a clear impetus to act. Now it is up to them.

Tom Morris: Where Have All The Philosophers Gone?

2009-12-16T17:40:26Z

Where have all the philosophers gone? What are they doing with themselves? Why isn't there a small army of sages out in the media and on the shelves of our bookstores helping with the worries and confusions that beset us as we tiptoe tentatively up to the doorstep of what's likely to be a challenging new year?

I could probably name three or four contemporary philosophers who are publicly addressing the serious issues of our time, and of our lives, in a clear, wise, and accessible way. But, given that there are thousands of professional philosophers teaching in our colleges and universities, it seems more than a little surprising that so few can be found outside the classroom, working to bring insight to a world so obviously in need of it.

Philosophy is etymologically "the love of wisdom." And wisdom is understood in most world cultures as simply insight for life. The history of philosophy has encompassed two broad endeavors - a theoretical investigation of ultimate issues, and a practical quest for life guidance. The theoretical work has sought to raise and understand fundamental questions about knowing and being. The practical undertaking has involved an extended attempt to grasp the most important truths about living. What should we value? How should we act? What is the shape of a good life?

On theoretical issues, philosophers have notoriously disagreed. It's even been said that a philosopher can be defined as a person who contradicts other philosophers. From our lofty vantage point in the early twenty-first century, it's hard to imagine how these hoary battles could ever be settled, once and for all. Yet, just as remarkable as the endless theoretical disputes, and much less reported, is the remarkable degree of convergence to be seen throughout the centuries and across the cultures on many issues of the most practical relevance: How should we handle anger? What leads to success? Why is courage so important for a good life? Where can happiness most reliably be found? It's not as if there is unanimity on such issues, either, but the closer philosophers have stayed to the lived realities of daily existence, the more their analysis and advice seems both deeply harmonious and powerfully helpful to our own adventures in the world.

For most of the past century, philosophers have been keen on imitating the natural sciences, due in some measure to an envy of their results. But this emulation has been seriously incomplete, with a fixation on purely theoretical matters, and surprising little interest in practical implications. Science pays off in technology and medicine. Where does contemporary philosophy pay off?

In my own education and fifteen-year tenure as a professor of philosophy, I discovered a widespread prejudice in the academic world correlating abstractness with importance. I was trained in matters and methods of thought so esoteric that some of my academic essays and early books could be read with profit and understood thoroughly by no more than a few hundred people around the globe. And they were almost utterly devoid of practical implications. It can of course be argued that knowledge is valuable for its own sake and needs no pragmatic justification. But there's no good reason for thinking that knowledge put into the service of our fellow human beings isn't even more valuable.

An old friend just sent me the first results from a survey of 3,226 intellectuals throughout the world described as "professional philosophers" - largely, denizens of philosophy departments. The survey sought to determine their views on a wide variety of issues considered important in the profession. The first questions alone made me smile.

A priori knowledge: yes or no?
Accept or lean toward: yes 662 / 931 (71.1%)
Accept or lean toward: no 171 / 931 (18.3%)
Other 98 / 931 (10.5%)

Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?
Accept or lean toward: Platonism 366 / 931 (39.3%)
Accept or lean toward: nominalism 351 / 931 (37.7%)
Other 214 / 931 (22.9%)

I'd be completely remiss not to display the final question of the survey as well, which, though ordered throughout in an alphabetical arrangement of Big-Issues-To-Philosophers-These-Days, seems to culminate in a spectacular nadir of non-practicality, and yet with a splash of undeniable pizazz:

Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?
Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 331 / 931 (35.5%)
Other 234 / 931 (25.1%)
Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 217 / 931 (23.3%)
Accept or lean toward: inconceivable 149 / 931 (16%)

I think it's safe to say that these aren't exactly burning issues in the lives of most people. There's not likely to be an Oprah show devoted to any of them. Out of the total of thirty questions asked of all these philosophers, not a single one had to do with the everyday problems of emotion, attitude, or choice that we face and struggle with in an often-difficult world. None provided insight into the most pressing world affairs, or a needed perspective on our most difficult domestic problems. And only one - "God: Theism or Atheism?" - raised a concern that, while in one sense being an issue of "theory," is also traditionally viewed as ultimately important for determining the overall shape of a life.

So, where indeed have all the philosophers gone? I suspect most of them are in their studies, or offices, working away on such issues as those highlighted in the survey. I wish more were using their considerable training and acumen to be of help in a time of need.

Go into any bookstore with a philosophy section. You'll likely find lots of books by theoreticians, with only an occasional practical thinker like Marcus Aurelius or Seneca thrown into the mix. To read more on the life issues that intrigued and moved them, you'll have to go to the Self-Improvement section, where, unfortunately, the watchword these days is "Caveat" - since there is no particular education, background, perspicacity, or overall tenor of mind required for authoring a book of general life advice, and far too often a vapid new mysticism of wishful thinking passing itself off as wisdom crowds the shelves with clever titles and brash claims. We need more of the real philosophers in our time to turn their attention to the shape of the life they join the rest of us in living.

Socrates was unjustly executed on a charge of corrupting the youth of his day. It's hard to imagine any of our current philosophers being convicted of having any sort of broad influence on the youth - or the rest of us - at all. It's their absence from the fray that's nearly criminal. And yet, as a result in this case, the rest of the culture ends up drinking the deadly hemlock of poisonous pseudo-wisdom.

Robbie Vorhaus: Tiger, Letterman, Madoff And More: Eight Lessons From The Decade's Biggest Flameouts

2009-12-16T17:32:57Z

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