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Whenever I Hear the Word 'Crisis,’ I Reach for My Roosevelt
What if there isn’t a “crisis” in America’s debts and deficits? What if all this Beltway wailing and rending of garments is just political theater, best suited to amusing the swells and agitating the riffraff? Maybe this is all just Shakespeare-in-the-rotunda.
I noticed the word “crisis” — by its absence — during President Obama’s budget speech on Wednesday. He rattled off a lot of fiscal problems, but only uttered the word “crisis” once, not in reference to current troubles, but to the 2008 collapse of Wall Street.
Even in that more obvious crisis, there were economists and some politicians, including Obama, who were saying, “Wait a minute!” While the Bush administration assembled a $700 billion CARE package for Wall Street, Obama modestly suggested that some rules be written, and some strings be attached, to that epic bailout.
But there wasn’t a minute, said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, to wait. Quickly, Congress and George Bush threw all that dough, willy-nilly, at AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and other Wall Street mendicants. Some of the bailout — intended to be used for small-business loans, consumer credit and mortgage rescues — trickled down to real people. But a lot of it simply disappeared into interest-bearing accounts that did nothing to promote the general welfare. Most bankers just ratholed it, waited ‘til the heat was off and paid it back as fast as they could — at a profit.
Yet, despite $700 billion mostly down the toilet, the U.S. economy began gradually to come back to life. And I started thinking that maybe Obama and those “Wait a minute!” economists were right. The Great Embezzlement of ’08 wasn’t such a catastrophe that we couldn’t have taken a little more time, thought a little longer and figured out a way to keep all that money out of Lloyd Blankfein’s mattress.
The politicians — mostly Republicans — who’ve dusted off the word “crisis” to describe our current dilemma are fond of comparing the federal budget to a “household.” They say your typical American family has to “balance its budget” and so, by God!, the same rules should apply to Washington.
But wait a minute! Let’s do the math. Is there any household in America that actually balances its budget? There are 610 million credit cards out there. The average family owes $14,000 on those cards, while saving less than 1 percent of its income.
The “household” parallel also tends to falter when you note that most Americans don’t keep a fleet of $200 million fighter jets in the backyard. And there isn’t one family in my neighborhood with even half a dozen armed troops — much less 1.5 million of ‘em — deployed overseas, shooting at Arabs and launching drones into Pakistan.
Another homespun metaphor favored by the GOP is to see the federal deficit as a “hole.” Alarmed at “welfare state” spending, the Republicans cry out, “Stop digging!”
But wait a minute. We’re in this hole because, for the first time ever, the U.S. went to war — no, wait a minute! Two wars — without funding either war with tax increases. No, wait a minute! We cut taxes!
Now, the Republicans, who love both of our wars and all of our tax cuts, are bewailing a “crisis” so bad that we have to — what? End the wars? Raise taxes on, say, millionaires? No, they want we should cut back on services for poor children, college students, old folks and sick people — none of whom have any money.
OK, you remember the joke about the drunk crawling around under the streetlight?
Someone asks what’s the trouble and the drunk says that he can’t find his car keys.
“Did you drop them around here?” is the logical question.
“No,” replies the drunk. “Over there, in the parking lot.”
“Well, shouldn’t you be looking in the parking lot?”
“Yeah. But the light’s so much better here.”
Alas, the Republicans aren’t really drunk. There is method to their misdirection.
“Crisis” is a fearful word. It makes people think they don’t have time to think. Republicans say there’s a Medicare crisis. They don’t say that Medicare, although its funds are running low, is still solvent ‘til 2017. That’s six years to think of a solution. Indeed, the Obama health care plan includes reductions, by $500 million, in Medicare costs, without cutting coverage. Obama has proposed more reforms, focused on the fee-for-service medical groups who scam Medicare, Medicaid and the insurance industry by ordering thousands of unnecessary, but incredibly expensive, tests every year.
Republicans say there’s a Social Security crisis, although today the SSA surplus is comfortably in the black ‘til 2037. This nest egg could be extended indefinitely by lifting the payroll-tax income ceiling above its current maximum of $106,000. We could do this trick any time in the next 26 years, thus ending another mythical “crisis.”
By 1932, the Great Depression had become the greatest real crisis in U.S. economic history. FDR said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
In that speech, uttering the word “crisis” only once, FDR also said, “Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence…”
Obama, like FDR, has avoided talk of “crisis.” He asked us to save as much as we can while spending what we must to hold together the American family. He said, like FDR, that we will all make it together if everyone pitches in with his or her fair share.
Back to Shakespeare, who, in “Coriolanus,” had FDR-like counsel for Americans who’ve been spooked by Tea Party hysteria and the weird arithmetic of Paul Ryan.
“Do not cry havoc,” quoth the Bard, “where you should but hunt with modest warrant.”
12 Comments so far
Show AllMost of what I know about the current crisis comes from what I see on TV. A lot of important stuff does not become known to the general public because these catfacts only get let out of the newsbags on obscure documentaries and daytime cable television newstalk shows. I suppose these things can be learned by reading or netsurfing, but I wouldn't know where to look or what I was looking for. As a retiree, I have the time to watch.
Gleaned mostly from TV with some supplemental Googling, here's my current assessment of the energy fix we're in. I cannot vouch for the accuracy
of anything because it does, after all, come from TV shows. Fact checking is welcomed. I don't want any of it to be true.
Political struggles -- the conflicts between tribes, classes, ethnicities, the conflicts about power and money and territory, all of which are life and death, kill or die matters to those immersed in them -- are dangerously trivial when viewed from a global and environmental perspective.
It is a global problem. Even if this country did everything energy smart that there is to do, all the other developed and developing countries would have to do the same to have any appreciable effect.
The most complicated and largest machines on earth are the electric grids which pretty much power everything (electricity is even needed to change oil into gasoline). The grid is aging and the whole thing needs to be upgraded or it will break down in a massive blackout. Replacing it -- even over the fifty years that's said to be needed (time we may not have, not even close) -- would be a technological feat that would dwarf the space program, and one that would need to keep producing power while improvements are underway.
There is not enough available oil to fuel transportation, manufacture all the petrochemicals that agriculture and much of the rest of civilization have come to depend on (including the ubiquitous plastic), and power the grid -- even if messy Canadian shale is factored in.
The problems inherent in nuclear power have now been displayed again for the world to see. Other polluting big energy production processes are poisonous over time, but nuclear can go deadly in an instant and create a need for rapid widespread evacuations while still seeding cancers that may not appear for years. There is still no solution to what to do with spent fuel rods.
The amount of manufacturing capacity and raw materials needed to produce enough wind and solar devices to run the civilized world probably exceeds availability.
Carbon capture from coal powered energy production is not yet technically feasible on a usably large enough scale. It would take a facility bigger than the source plant to filter out even a percentage the carbon. A third of the juice that's produced would be needed to power the process. The captured CO2 would have to be buried at enormous cost, and it's possible that it could turn out to be as dangerous as nuclear waste -- scientists can't say whether or not it's safe. They don't know yet.
"Natural" gas -- scented methane, actually -- is plentiful if we "frack" the underground earth to get it which compromises potable water safety, occasionally producing flammable tap water. Twice as many gas plants would be needed as there are coal plants now to produce the same amount of power. There are other ways methane can be made using bacteria and fungi, but making enough would mean building a whole lot of new facilities full of microorganisms.
Biodiesel is promising but to produce enough to fuel the country would take a major reorganization of the food production system so that every drop of cooking fat is captured and reused. A healthy lower fat diet might scuttle the whole project.
Cutting back on home energy use by everyone will happen whether we like it or not, but doing so in a coordinated equitable way that minimizes suffering would need the dynamic public leadership that we don't now have, plus an agreed upon plan.
A World War II combined with Marshall Plan national and international mobilization is necessary to address any of this, but present day political leaders are afraid to publicly proclaim that these are serious problems needing immediate attention. Being the bearer of terrible tidings doesn't win many elections. FDR might not have been able to pull that off.
OK, what do we do first?
"OK, what do we do first?"
First, we stop allowing people - from the puppet President on down to the lowliest minions and shills - to define the current situation as anything but a coordinated effort by the fascist elite to steal as much as they can from the rest of the populace and to take away our abilities to survive.
No more discussions, no more calls for "consensus" from the puppet, no more debates.
Everyone can clearly see what is happening and no more words are needed.
No more dialogues with criminals who are taking away your livelihood and killing you and your family members.
We don't need any more analysis.
First, we must break through the propagandistically imposed "reality" of normalcy that our fascist overlords have colored their crimes and theft with.
If we don't make sure our minds are steadfast first, then all further actions will falter and be weak.
If we don't take back our language, then nothing will be able to spur us onward to action.
If you got all this from TV you are remarkably attentive and discerning.
One thing you left out about the global problem is that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is already about 10% above the level at which it may not be possible to stop the dire consequences of global warming. So even if every nation got religion about the subject and curtailed the use of fossil fuels, we still could not go back to square one.
I think you are overestimating the problem with the power grid. Small-scale improvements go on all the time. The problem is not that a "Man to the Moon" effort is necessary to keep it going; the problem is that the local changes may not always be compatible with each other. Coordination of these efforts does not seem to me to be as formidable a task as you imply.
But if I had the answer to "what do we do first," I would not be running a small business in the boondocks in the Midwest.
What do we do?
First, we put the out of work construction people back to work doing all the small retrofitting that will make our homes energy efficient. This stuff is just physics and plywood.
Then, we support lots of local renewable energy programs. This would create competency-dependent small businesses (as opposed to incompetency-based financials) and boost the economy. Hey, if we just take the subsidies, tax breaks, and other government give-aways from petroleum and nuclear, we'll have plenty of money to help small businesses.
The above would also break the hold of the fossil fuel barons on our government.
Shut down the tv. You KNOW better than that. Check with your local community college. They have special programs for retirees: you could take a class in environmental science and learn something useful.
I like your suggestions except for shutting down my TV. How I choose to get my knowledge is my choice. I DON'T know better than that. I find it, for me, a source of useful information, especially if I don't watch fiction shows, which I don't because the reality they depict is so removed from the reality I see when I go out in the world. But I'll be as useful as I choose to be and let the world's chip fall where they may, and will watch TV till the grid goes down and the power fails.
Benjamin sez: "We’re in this hole because, for the first time ever, the U.S. went to war — no, wait a minute! Two wars — without funding either war with tax increases. No, wait a minute! We cut taxes!"
***
Ayuh.
And how many "no-bid, cost-plus" contracts were handed out during, say, WW2, when war profiteering was a crime?
It ain't the boots on the ground pocketing all this coin that their own grandchildren (should they live to have any) will have to pay back.
Nice comments, everyone.
This piece read like an apology for the staus quo. Clearly not Benjamin's best. I felt like I was reading psy-ops there were so many embedded messages in the text.
He reinforced the meme that "taxes" should be raised without specifying how a fair rate was the thing needed.
He went along with the ruse that the economy is recovering.
He went along with the idea (lie) that bailing out the banks saved the day.
He ever suggested that the "ownership" of a massive military was the item that would hold up the viability of our economy/currency if push came to shove.
These are the views of an insider... not a progressive, radical thinker. A writer may seem to side with economic reform by granting a bit of lip service in that direction; yet if the majority of his analysis reinforces egregious policies... something ELSE is going on here.
YUCK!
I agree with the preceding comments, but I'm surprised that no one took the opportunity to mention the Demon Elephant in this article.
Benjamin-- like Reich, Kuttner, Hightower, Parry, Nichols et al-- employs the two-dimensional warped, rotten, worm-eaten partisan frame that blames the evil, malignant Republicans for engaging in reprehensible, manipulative mendacity and demagoguery.
Moreover, he casts Obama as a virtuous FDR-figure! Ever since Obama appeared on the national political stage, FDR comparisons and parallels have been applied to him. But by now, even the Obama-besotted sycophants have mostly been reduced to wistfully lamenting that Obama hasn't been the FDR-figure that he should, and ostensibly could, have been.
Perhaps in the Spirit of 2012, Benjamin is obviously attempting to revive that salutary and optimistic, if delusional, parallel:
_________________
“I noticed the word 'crisis' — by its absence — during President Obama’s budget speech on Wednesday. He rattled off a lot of fiscal problems, but only uttered the word 'crisis' once, not in reference to current troubles, but to the 2008 collapse of Wall Street.”
“While the Bush administration assembled a $700 billion CARE package for Wall Street, Obama modestly suggested that some rules be written, and some strings be attached, to that epic bailout.”
“Obama, like FDR, has avoided talk of 'crisis'. He asked us to save as much as we can while spending what we must to hold together the American family. He said, like FDR, that we will all make it together if everyone pitches in with his or her fair share.”
_________________
Benjamin curiously omits the fact that Candidate Obama upheld the Bush status quo (or exacerbated it, as when voting for the draconian FISA legislation), and typically declined to take stands that might seem to presumptuously encroach upon the sitting President.
However, whatever his "modest suggestions", Obama enthusiastically supported the "$700 billion CARE package" and was arguably the most influential Democratic cheerleader in suppressing the incipient rebellion in the Democratic ranks, thus ensuring its passage. And Obama proved to be the banksters' stalwart ally, to the extent of making the U.S. Treasury and his maladministration's economic team a virtual branch of Goldman Sachs.
My expatriate brother recently warned me to step lightly if I ran into a friend of ours who remains a desperate die-hard Obama supporter. My brother (who's far more restrained and circumspect than I am) mentioned that he'd diffidently complained to our friend that Obama should've at least consulted Congress before authorizing the "kinetic military action" in Libya.
Our friend replied tartly, "Congress! You don't live here, and so you don't see the (teevee) news! When Obama meets with Congress, it's like he's the only adult in the room!"
Similarly, Benjamin would have readers see Obama as "the only adult in the room", and a statesmanlike FDR adult at that!
To again cite a term coined by once and future CD comments regular Jerry Rose, the cumulative impression is that Benjamin appears to be suffering from a case of acute Obama "subjunctivitis"*:
___________________________
* "... (after the 'subjunctive mood' in English grammar: may, might, perhaps, hopefully, etc.) in which people confuse their sense of reality with what they wish to be real. http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=240"
Agree with yout that we should not confuse Obama with "benevolence" and that we and the author above shoudl be more careful not to give that mistaken impression when (rightly) criticizing the abomination that is the Republican agenda. That said, when you write,
"Moreover, he casts Obama as a virtuous FDR-figure!"
I have to ask: could it be that some of us have the kind of pink-lensed view of FDR that we accuse others of having about Obama? How easily we make out FDR to have been a "good guy" president while accusing Obama of "selling out" when we strip away and ignore the basic political fact FDR himself reminded us of: the environment in which the president operates has far more to do with their moves than their personal ideology and what they would do if they had their druthers.
FDR himself said, "I agree with you, now go out there and make me do it!" as far as social reforms. Back then, the corporate elite with their think tanks, P.R. industry, etc were weaker, and unions and progressive social forces were stronger. Clinton was not more right-wing than Reagan in his personal ideology but in many of his actions (NAFTA passage, ending welfare, etc) he was more right-wing than Reagan, why? The political environment had moved to the right, money power, corporate power, and ideologies had gotten bad enough.
You are dead wrong if you think my conclusion is "be gentle on Obama" since I'm not one of those. Those people say some of the (true facts) cited above, but their motivation and goal is to just "make peace" with this reality; mine are not; give Obama hell, but do it with open eyes, and realize that "giving him hell" means putting people power pressure on all of Washington, Congress included, it does not mean getting angry about "I guess Obama secretly agrees with the Republicans", which is nonsense. Ideology DOES make a difference; a sufficiently right-wing president can push the country even further to the right than the prevailing atmosphere and environment, and do more damage, but what needs to be realized, is the following point. Pick one scenario:
A. Ralph Nader is President, the people are not in the streets, the people are not pressuring congress.
B. The most right-wing former President you can name is back in office or resurrected and back in office, but there is a huge people's progressive movement, a labor movement, a labor press, grassroots economic institutions, grassroots media, etc, pressuring Washington 24/7/365.
What needs to be screamed from every rooftop to progressives is that option B is the one which would have the better chances of a saner "next 4 years" than option A. Understanding this basic point does NOT mean sitting down and saying, "oh well, it's not Obama's fault, he has no choice, it's just the political environment he's forced to live within" It does not mean that we let up pressure on him. But we stop beign blind to this basic basis to why presidents act as they do, when they get elected, and need to have programs that their own party in Congress will support and vote for, and yes, worry about re-election etc. If we spent 10% as much time and energy as we do getting depressed over "darn, fooled again, we've been let down again by a false hope president", and instea put that time and energy on working to CHANGE that political system within which Obama is forced to operate, that *would* be a care of putting Obama's feet to the fire, and would make a real difference.
Liberalish folks spend time trying to convince "the center" against Republican policies, that they falsely convince themselves mainstream Democrats are ok. We risk making a parallel mistake when we spend so much time and energy that "no, look at these 20 examples where Obama betrayed us and what he used to say he was for" that we convince ourselves of something equally false, that the problem, at its root, is that Obama as a person wasn't as progressive as we thought he was, or that Obama, as a person, is horribly right-wing, etc, when energy needs to go into changing the rules of the game, and the political and economic and money-power based environment in which politics happens.
"...I Reach for My Roosevelt"
I thought it was a Johnson.
Crisis, crisis, crisis! Fear mongers! It is all baloney! When will America wake up, grow up and act like adults and not be scared children afraid of the latest Repug. Boogie-man?
WHEN?