Bill King: Party System Blocking Meaningful Change

ECONOMIC CRISIS

• King: Party system blocking meaningful change (By BILL KING, Houston Chronicle) To get any meaningful change in the current system, we are going to have to return to the Founders' view of political parties and start thinking differently about them. Instead of being proud to be associated with a political party, it should be an embarrassment. After this week's debacle with the so-called supercommittee, that sentiment should not be much of a stretch.
• Community Impact of Supercommittee Failure (by Yanick Rice Lamb, Special to the AFRO) Among independent voters surveyed, seven in 10 favor cuts in domestic spending and increases in taxes on corporations and wealthy people. About six in 10 of all respondents are against reductions in defense spending.

BLOOMBERG
Bloomberg pivots to slamming D.C. (By: Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, Politico) “My suspicion is he hasn’t quite figured out what his next act is, but the one thing he knows he wants is to stay relevant and continue cultivating his brand as the independent, sane, grown-up voice in American politics,” said Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein, a veteran of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman’s independent 2006 campaign. “This plays into his sweet spot: It’s the intersection of independence, adult leadership, and finance and economics.”

2012
Is the Stage Set For a Third-Party Presidential Candidate? (By Amy Bingham, ABC News) “We are not a third party,” said Elliot Ackerman, the group’s chief operating officer. “The country has enough special interests and goofy ideologies out there. We are a second way to nominate our leaders.” By gathering enough petition signatures, the group has already secured a spot on the ballot in nine states. Ackerman said that number will jump to 28 by the end of the year and before November 2012, he said the group will have secured the remaining 22 states.

2012 Presidential Election: Ron Paul, The Economy, Obama, and Two-Party Politics

2012

• Overshadowed by the Cainwreck and Newtmentum, Ron Paul Climbs into Second Place (By Alex Altman, Time/ Swampland) In a Public Policy Polling survey this week, the Texas Congressman leads President Obama 48% to 39% among independent voters — the only Republican hopeful to earn that distinction.
• The Economy Isn’t Obama’s Only Challenge (By MATT BAI, NY Times/ The Caucus) Simply put, Mr. Obama now has to run for president as a conventional Democratic nominee. And this, at least in the modern political era, isn’t an especially easy thing to do. Mr. Obama did not have to deal with this in 2008, when a bunch of mitigating factors came together to make him something more than his party’s choice for the presidency. The war in Iraq, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the market, the erupting fury at Washington’s impotence, the way Mr. Obama himself seemed to embody generational change and a renewal of the American story — all of this made it possible for him to run, essentially, as an independent candidate who rarely talked in terms of party.
• Two-party presidential race faces challenge (By Richard McGregor in Washington, Financial Times) Michael Toner, a former head of the Federal Election Commission, said third-party candidates have traditionally struggled to get over electoral laws and ballot-access rules to allow them to run. “A third-party candidate likely would need to be a major self-funder to be potentially viable, someone capable of contributing $100m-$200m of their own money into their campaign,” he said. “In short, someone like Michael Bloomberg.”

Opposing Crony Capitalism

2012

• Ron Paul's Real Electability: Stopping The Third Party Threat (Written by Thomas R. Eddlem, The New American) Electoral Fact #4: Ron Paul is the only Republican who can win voters who oppose "crony capitalism." While Ron Paul is not the only Republican who opposed the TARP and other bailouts (Michele Bachmann and Gary Johnson also opposed it), he's the only GOP candidate currently polling in double digits to have done so.
• Republicans Lose Way Misreading Bush History (By Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg News) It seems much more likely that Republicans lost in 2006 because of the bleeding in Iraq, corruption in Washington, wage stagnation and the lack of any agenda by the party to do anything about these or other problems. Some of these issues had faded in importance by 2008, but in that year voters were also ready for a change after eight years of Republican control of the White House and, above all, dismayed by the economic crisis. In 2008, 60 percent of voters said the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, wasn’t “in touch with people like them” -- and 79 percent of people who felt that way voted against him. That’s what defeated Republicans, not a perception that they were doctrinally impure.
• Is Smart Money Leading GOP Off Cliff Again? (By THOMAS SOWELL, Investors Business Daily) The smart money inside the Beltway says that the Republicans need to pick a moderate candidate who can appeal to independent voters, not just to the conservative voters who turn out to vote in Republican primaries. Those who think this way say that you have to "reach out" to Hispanics, the elderly and other constituencies. What is remarkable is how seldom the smart money folks look at what has actually been happening in presidential elections.

Michael Lewis, Moneyballs, and the Global Economic Collapse

LAST WORD

• It’s Good to Be Michael Lewis - He could have made a fortune in business. Instead, he made a fortune writing about it. Plus—a fortune for everyone he writes about. (By Jessica Pressler, New York Magazine) Lewis is often referred to as a business writer, and this is sort of true, in that his narratives usually focus on some kind of market, be it for bonds or baseball players. But he’s a business writer only in the same way that Malcolm Gladwell is a business writer. What most interests him are people and how they behave. He tends to favor stories about mavericks—like the Tuohys, Beane, Whitney, and Steve Eisman, the eccentric short-seller star of The Big Short—smart people who identify gaps of logic and market inefficiencies, and take advantage of them.
• Michael Lewis is an American contemporary non-fiction author. (Charlie Rose) Online interview

NOTE: This Michael Lewis is not the Michael Lewis who chairs Independent Kentucky, but they both have important things to say about what's happening in politics....!

America 2011: The public is having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election

INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT
America Needs a Makeover (The Daily Beast, By Tony Dokoupil, MSNBC/PowerWall)  Interview with Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum:

TF: Right now it's like the public is having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election. There's almost no overlap between the two groups. It's like they're in a circle and we're in a circle. What that tells you is that the incentives—financial and political—don't correspond to the themes of the country.

Which is why you say the system needs a shock, perhaps from an independent third candidate.

MM: It's not going to correct itself with its own routine procedure. We think an independent candidate probably would not win, but would reveal the existence of a large constituency up for grabs between the Republicans and Democrats, and that would create incentives for each party to try to co-opt those voters by adopting some of those programs.

Independents Don't Support Any Particular Economic Strategy

OBAMA

• Aiming Economic Plans at Elusive Independents (By HELENE COOPER, NY Times) “When we look at it by party, what you see is that independents don’t stand out as supporting any particular strategy to a great degree,” said the director of the Pew Research Center poll, Andrew Kohut. “So there’s no one thing he can say that’s going to set off a light bulb among independents.” Rather, Mr. Kohut suggests, what Mr. Obama must do is try many proposals, “and if he gets blocked, go negative.”
• Robert Gibbs Disputes Chris Matthews’ ‘Crazy, Unfounded Accusations’ Against President Obamavideo (by Tommy Christopher, Mediaite) Gibbs resisted the premise, steering his response around to the President’s relentless appeal to independent voters. “I don’t know that the President has really strong feelings on political labels on any side,” he said, before shifting the focus to Republicans’ opposition of measures they once supported, adding “Independents don’t want games.”

The Debt Crisis: 'Spirit of Party' Gone Mad

Lot's of blame, no room for new ideas. Why? The spirit of party gone mad.  Solution? Structural political reform. See video below of CBS New York Q&A on the debt crisis with independents. Dr. Jessie Fields (last question) tells us 'I'm not an expert on the economy, I'm a 25 year physician and I recognize disease when it's systemic and uncontrolled, and the two parties are strangling our democracy. We as a nation need to turn our attention to reforming the political process. As independents we support comprehensive nonpartisan restructuring of the political process; we think that's at the heart of this crisis. What are your thoughts, ideas, about solutions?'

DEBT CRISIS

• Parties still divided on debt negotiations (Meet the Press, msbnbc) With no deal in sight and political gridlock inside the Beltway, our roundtable addressed this question: Is Washington broken?
• Michael Bloomberg warns of D.C.'s 'leadership deficit' - 'Our national leaders need to stop staring down the other side,' said Michael Bloomberg. (By REID J. EPSTEIN, Politico)
• Dreck ceiling: Bloomberg's centrist shtick is getting old, and dangerous (By Steve Kornacki, Capital New York) Never mind that this belief is utter nonsense, stemming from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the growing number of independent voters means. (Short version: Partisan behavior is actually on the rise, even if voters prefer to think of themselves as "independents.") A fair chunk of the pundit class is convinced it's true and has convinced itself that Bloomberg possesses the special formula that will break the D.C. logjam that both parties have contributed equally to. They never explain how he would do this, and neither does he.
• GOP Pollsters Say Obama Must Pull Voters Back from Brink of Anger - Conservative advocacy and polling group Resurgent Republic's Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee Chairman, and Ed Goeas, a veteran GOP pollster, argue independents like President Obama but don't believe he's made the economy better. (By Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor)
• Obama achieves new levels of political demagoguery (By Michael Hudome, The Daily Caller - founded by Tucker Carlson) From Obama’s perspective, the proverbial electoral elephant in the room isn’t any of the GOP candidates for president. It’s the specter of a primary from the left. Don’t think for one minute that isn’t on the minds of the president’s political brain trust. A president with his low approval numbers is ripe for the picking. Imagine the message Independent voters in New Hampshire could send to the president and America by voting for a viable alternative.
• Our stupid self-inflicted debt crisis (By John Avlon, CNN) But the blame for this stage of failure lies squarely on the party that unilaterally withdrew from the talks -- and that's the Republicans… Independents voted for Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections because they wanted checks and balances; they wanted to reduce deficit and debt spending. But they did not vote for dysfunctional government, and they certainly did not vote for default. The polls showing that independent voters say they will blame Republicans more than Democrats for a U.S. default reflects this disconnect.
• Poll: US voters blame Republicans, Obama on jobs (Reuters) Obama receives higher marks from independent voters than Republicans when it comes to jobs, but appeasing supporters in his own party could be a bigger challenge.
• Obama, Boehner: Speechs without solutions (By Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times) Obama zoned in on the Tea Party freshmen in Congress, though not by name. "I realize that a lot of the new members of Congress and I don't see eye-to-eye on many issues. But we were each elected by some of the same Americans for some of the same reasons." Obama's message: The independent voters who sent Obama to the White House were also some of the people who voted for them. And they can be switch hitters again.
• Cool Obama meets hot Boehner in dueling debt ceiling speeches (By Chris Cillizza, Washington Post/The Fix) Obama was aiming at the political middle — unaffiliated and independent voters who are seen as the most critical voting bloc heading into 2012. Those voters prize compromise and bipartisanship above any single issue and Obama repeatedly drove that message home.
• A ‘Unique Opportunity’ on the Debt Ceiling, Lost (By JACKIE CALMES, NY Times) And while Mr. Obama also seeks to appeal to independent voters who make the difference in presidential elections, many Democrats complain he is too willing to compromise, potentially disillusioning their party’s voters and muddying the case against Republicans for proposing much deeper entitlement program cuts. Mr. Boehner’s problem is that some otherwise persuadable Republicans worry less about the general election than party primaries, and fear they could draw a conservative rival by supporting a deal with Mr. Obama.

So, who's to blame for the debt lid gridlock in Washington? "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" put together a panel of independent voters to address the question.

Bittle & Johnson: Playing Roulette With the Country's Future

By Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, Authors of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. A new and updated version is due out in January. Find out more at PublicAgenda.org

There's something about playing roulette that makes everyone feel a little like the uber suave James Bond. You can picture the actor of your choice (we're not doctrinaire here), but they all make gambling seem glamorous. Not knowing exactly what will happen adds an agreeable tension to the drama. A clever screenwriter has labored long and hard to insure a satisfying outcome. Casablanca makes roulette alluring too. Remember when Rick steps in to fix the results so a dewy-eyed ingénue and her husband win enough money to escape the Nazis? It's one of the best scenes in the movie.

The problem is that things don't always work out so nicely in real life  - -  and rarely does anyone step in to fix a game of roulette in your favor. That's why it's so disturbing to see the country's leaders playing roulette with the country's economic future by procrastinating on tackling our massive debt and budget problems.

It's no secret that the most bipartisan position in Washington has been the determination of both parties to live beyond our means for decades.

Basically, they're betting that the government can continue to spend more than it takes in, because people around the world will be glad to keep lending to us by buying our Treasury bonds. In the short term, it's not a bad bet. Given the world's shaky economy, the U.S. government is still a better investment than most.

And in the long run? As David Brooks so succinctly puts in, "The bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts . . . the shock will be grievous: national humiliation, diminished power in the world, drastic cuts and spreading pain." ¹ FDIC chair Sheila Blair, who certainly knows a thing or two about what happens when investors lose confidence, warns of danger too: "Financial markets are already sending disquieting signals," she recently wrote.²

It's no secret that the most bipartisan position in Washington has been the determination of both parties to live beyond our means for decades. And outside of government, public frustration is high, but realism remains low.

On the right, the Tea Partiers furiously demand that government get dramatically smaller, slashing spending by huge amounts to balance the budget now. Some even argue that Congress should slam the brakes on borrowing overnight, by refusing to raise the government's debt ceiling. The Tea Partiers rage against the machine, but seem unprepared for any frank discussion of how the federal government really spends its money, or the human consequences of its ideas.

But even if the Tea Party's champions in Congress could get their agenda through - - and governing is considerably balkier than complaining and criticizing -- such a sudden lurch into smaller government would be wrenching. And refusing to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous. Tens of thousands of federal and state workers would lose their jobs in the middle of the Great Recession. Schools and colleges around the country would face massive cutbacks. The global bond markets, already nervous about the debt crisis in Europe, might start dumping U.S. bonds as well. The right likes to slam big government entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, but there are millions of human beings depending on them. You don't make major changes in these programs overnight.

The situation on the left is as just as bad. Despite careful, non-partisan assessments from multiple analysts inside and outside government detailing Social Security's shaky future funding, there is a profoundly disingenuous mantra coming from some progressives: "Don't worry. Don't touch it. There's no serious problem. The Trust Fund is good until 2037."

Yes, but Trust Fund is filled with government bonds, and Social Security will start drawing on the bonds in about five years. Those bonds guarantee that Social Security benefits are first in line when the government pays its bills - - people will get their checks. But that money has to come from somewhere, and the government's own auditors say the only way to do that is by raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing from someplace else. In other words, something else in the budget has to give.

Do progressives really believe the country will suddenly be flush enough to cover Social Security and still pay for all the other spending these very same progressives want? And by claiming there's no problem, they undercut public backing for the ideas they do support, like raising the income cap on Social Security taxes. Why would people want to raise Social Security taxes on anyone if there's no problem?

There's a reasonable discussion about how quickly to move to bring the country's spending in line with its revenues given how weak the U.S. economy is. Huge, abrupt program cuts, big sudden tax hikes, pulling the plug on infrastructure and educational spending that is crucial to having a competitive economy down the road - - these are all risky, both economically and socially. Boring old long-term planning and gradualism are probably the only sensible ways out. But there is no time to delay on starting a reality-based discussion.

A recent Public Agenda survey of Washington insiders - - people whose careers revolve around the federal government - - showed that a whopping 8 in 10 agreed that the only way to solve the country's federal budget problem is to combine spending cuts and tax increases. Why don't these people step up to the plate and say something? Largely, they're silent. Meanwhile, we have profiles in cowardice in Congress and relentless volleys of self-serving spin coming from both the left and the right.

The trouble with roulette is that the house nearly always wins, and players who don't know when to quit lose their shirts. What American needs now is leadership that understands when it's time to leave the roulette table and leave the gambling to others.

1 The New York Times

2 The Washington Post

© 2010 Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, authors of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. 

Author Bios
Scott Bittle, author of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, is the Director of Public Issues Analysis at Public Agenda and is executive editor of PublicAgenda.org, where he has prepared citizen guides on more than twenty major issues including the federal budget deficit, Social Security, and the economy. He is also the website director for Planet Forward, an innovative PBS program designed to bring citizen voices to the energy debate.

Jean Johnson, co-author of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, is the Director of Education Insights and Director of Programs at Public Agenda, is a co-founder of PublicAgenda.org.  She is the author or co-author of studies on education, families, religion, race relations, manners and civility, retirement, welfare, and health care.

For more information please visit  PublicAgenda.org and follow the authors on Facebook and Twitter

New economic model?

So here goes post number 2 for The Randster.

Another little insight into the author's life: I am a Land Surveyor by profession. I measure and analyze and consult to help people resolve property boundary locations and disputes. I also spent just short of 10 years in the Army National Guard. I like to refer to Mt. Rushmore as 3 surveyors and a soldier!

Here at the Miller household we do our family and small business banking with 2 credit unions. And I have been wondering for a while now how wise retirement investing with mutual funds is. I'm no economist, that is why I gave you a little bit of my background. With the steady monthly deductions of worker's wages going towards a retirement plan that is invested largely in mutual fund aggregations of global companies, something seems unsustainable about that to me. The money keeps pouring into these products, but the companies are not demonstrating the kind of growth to justify the escalating share prices. Where does the cash go? I can't realistically say about that, but I can guess that it goes in a cash account somewhere and is listed as an asset for any number of companies. Consequently the share price goes up or the cash is spent. What I suspect (and as a non-economist, let me emphasize S U S P E C T) happens is that there is little protection from a grand pump and dump scheme. Cash goes in, share price goes up well beyond a book index of 1, so far in fact that it is not believable, share price goes down and excess cash is skimmed off. It appears to me that the inflow of investment capital would be hard to distinguish from a revenue stream from actual returns on operations.

Google has a motto that I had not heard until recently;

Don't be evil

So maybe it's the sub-amateur economist in me wondering, what if somebody came along with an economic model and said,
look, no need for a 700 page prospectus, you will always know where you stand with us. We buy X and Y for you and when your monthly contribution comes in, if we can't buy shares for a reasonable price, your money will have to wait in a low yield money market account. That's the way it works. We have other investment ideas naturally, but our favorite is

Don't be evil

Now to bring it back to independent politics. Companies that stick to this mantra of 'don't be evil' thrive. Companies that don't must spend gratuitously on campaigns and favorable legislation as a cost of doing business expense just to keep from going under. Now that is a wide sweeping generalization, but there are no shortage of examples that would support it.
So, is there a community based credit union style 'end run' on not just Wall Street excesses where they exist, but an end run on unsustainable economics as well?

I'll sign off tonight and leave you with this democracynow.org story on the Big 2 and what at least some corporate campaign contributions are used for: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/16/ubs

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Obama 'post-partisan' politics reshape ideological divide (Clarence Page, Times Daily - Alabama)
  
• White House Cheat Sheet: Polling Polarization (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post/The Fix)
  
• Partisans Argue Over Partisanship (By Dan Balz, Washington Post) More about the Pew Polarization Poll
  

OPEN PRIMARIES/POLITICAL REFORM

• South Carolina Republican Party Official Boosts Anti-Independent Candidate Bill (Ballot Access News)
  
• Petition candidates legislation: Bill would provide a level playing field (By KATON DAWSON, Herald-Journal - SC)

NEW YORK POLITICS/INDEPENDENCE PARTY

• Strictly Political (Posted by Tom Wrobleski,SI Advance/PolitBureau) AN INDY SPLIT ON BLOOMBERG: Steve Isler speaks out on behalf of "grassroots independents" [sic]... NOTE: Steve Isler no doubt has organzied about 2 independent voters on Staten Island.... Hmmm... what's wrong with THAT picture? Apparently Tom Wrobleski is a novice when it comes to covering independent politics in New York City.... too bad -- he's missing an exciting new development connected to the national independent movement.
  
• Bloomberg Wins Bronx Support To Run As Republican (By: NY1 News) The mayor ran as a Republican in his first two elections, but later gave up his party affiliation and became an Independent. He is already set to run on the Independence Party line, which has angered some Republicans. 
  
• Mayor Michael Bloomberg will run as Republican in bid for third term (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, DAILY NEWS) as posted on Huffington Post 
• New York, NY - Bloomberg to Run Third Term as Republican (י"ז ניסן תשס"טJewkey)

LAST WORD

The Big Takeover - The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution (MATT TAIBBI, Rolling Stone) Democracy Now! Amy Goodman interview with Matt Taibbi

Talk Talk: Bonus, Bubbles and Bangs

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Every weekend CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from Bonus, Bubbles and Bangs, their dialogues compiled on Sunday, March 22, 2009 after watching selections from "Hardball with Chris Matthews," two Charlie Rose interviews and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Newman: But the truly esoteric, cutting edge stuff, in my opinion - and I might just not know what's going on in every field - is in cosmology.   Salit: And what are the questions that those scientists are asking?   Newman: The questions that we asked as children, basically. How did the universe begin? How did it all get started? How do you go from nothing to something?   Salit: From non-existence to existence.   Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.

Is the dialogue about economic stimulus developing?

As an independent voter, what do you think about the economic stimulus plan and partisan politics?? Here's what Gallup said independents said:

Independent voters favor the progressive priorities set forth by Obama: 50 percent independents favor "increased government funding of projects" in the recovery package, compared to only 36 percent who favor "tax cuts for individuals/businesses" promulgated by conservatives. Congressional Republicans, who see political gain from their "party of no" status, have a "staggeringly high" disapproval of 58 percent. Their approval rating is at 44 percent compared to 60 percent for Democrats.

From The Establishment Vs. The Public on Huffington Post...

Newman and Salit had this to say on today's Talk Talk The Rules of the Game:

 

Salit: In attempting to give what you might call a more strategic framing to the shaping of the stimulus package, Mark Shields says that one of the things that's operative, at a meta-level if you will, is that it's the end of the conservative era. The conservative era is over. Deregulation, tax cuts, all of that has been wholly discredited by the facts on the ground, by the onset of the economic crisis. So, says Shields, the conservative era is over, but we don't know where to go. We're in "uncharted territory," his term. I guess what he's saying is that things haven't "swung back to" traditional liberalism, but conservatism is over. So the question is where are we? Where are we going?

Newman: All that might be true. I don't know. It sounds somewhat metaphorical to me. But the process has remained exactly the same.

Salit: The process for hammering out what Congress does, yes.

Newman: It's like people who come in to reform education and one side has a liberal view and the other side has a conservative view. But, when you get to the schools, the chairs are screwed into the floor in exactly the same way, no matter what....

Talk/Talk: The Fly Bottle

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, November 16, 2008 The Fly Bottle after watching "The McLaughlin Group," "The Chris Matthews Show" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Salit: Yikes, what a mess. There are a lot of things that aren't working...... Do you think the American people voted for change with a capital "C"?

Newman: You might say that or you might say they voted, at least in substantial measure, to get rid of the people and/or the approach which got us into this disaster. Which is not necessarily the same thing as voting for change with a capital "C."

Salit: OK.

Newman: The American people are saying, if you listen to them carefully: We've gotten into this trouble before. And we've gotten out of it.

Salit: Yes.

Newman: After all, there's something potentially conservative in the vote for Obama. It could be interpreted to mean that many Americans think we've been excessive in the way we have characteristically dealt with economic crises, as in extreme deregulation vs. dramatic welfare statism, and that what we really have to do is something more ordinary, rather than excessive. Some people might argue there's a third camp.

Salit: A third camp?

Newman: The third camp being to find a clear workable, pragmatic distinction between a conservative and a much more liberal approach. Is there one? It's not clear that there is....

Read more of Talk Talk here.

Also read Jacqueline Salit's Barack Obama: The Real Deal, or Just Another Democrat? in the Neo-Independent Magazine

Blog Action Day: Poverty

I had no idea until a few minutes ago that today October 15 is Blog Action Day. I learned this from a Twitter post by http://twitter.com/redstarvip. The theme this year is Poverty.

From the website: What is the aim of Blog Action Day?
First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.

With that in mind:

Here's something you can do to make your voice heard: Be independent. Don't accept the current political culture as the be all end all of human relations. More and more Americans are becoming independent, concerned that partisan politics is destroying our country -- and the world.

And it's not enough to be anti-partisan. Though that's a start! Americans, and independents in particular, are increasingly becoming pro-people, speaking out, advocating for nonpartisan pro-voter reforms, and having a huge impact.

IMHO, we're at a crossroads. America is on the verge of something very different. We need everyone's participation, from the veterans of the sixties to Gen X and Y, from the super-rich to the most poverty-stricken, from the left to the right, black and white, we all need to think out of the box and come together to create a new world where NO ONE IS LEFT OUT. It's the human thing to do.

Also, please welcome to the discussion a couple of my life-long friends and colleagues, Fred Newman and Jackie Salit, recenly talking about the issues of the day on Talk Talk at independentvoting.org and Fred Newman Ph.D.

SOCIALISM! HELP ME!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, September 14, 2008 after watching "The Chris Matthews Show," "Meet the Press," "The McLaughlin Group" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Salit: I want to start with Bill Clinton, interviewed by Tom Brokaw, in the midst of Clinton doing his Global Initiative Project. Brokaw asks him, is the economic crisis and the response to it a political game changer? And Clinton says, 'Yes, it could be.' How so? It changes the political culture. It changes the conversation. It changes the imperative for both parties to work together, for Congress and the White House to work together. Do you agree?

Newman: Well, I don't know about that. That's just speculative. We'll see. But, what it has done, it seems to me, is it has introduced the word "socialism" back into the American lexicon. Potentially, even as a good guy. Does that change the behavior patterns of the antagonists who are gathered in Washington? It probably intensifies it, if anything.

Salit: It comes back in, but at the moment it's as a "bailout" that the American people are very suspicious of.

Newman: Yes, the American people are, in general, opposed to the package, and justifiably so. I think that opposition is best understood as a reaction to the hypocrisy of this free market Republican government, which has been in power for some time, suddenly saying, Socialism, quick, help me out! It's a reaction to that. But, in the long term, the awareness that socialism has its place, will change the political scene somewhat. Not dramatically. After all, in Western Europe they've had a mix of socialism and capitalism for a long time. That has been the driving force behind nationalized healthcare systems in Europe, and I think it might influence the direction here in this country, too. I can see the American people saying, If we're going to bail out Wall Street, why don't we bail out this wasteful and misdeveloped healthcare system, too?... (continued here)

Talk/Talk: What Crashed?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Below are excerpts from this week's Talk Talk, What Crashed?. Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, October 12, 2008 after watching "The Chris Matthews Show", "The McLaughlin Group" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Salit: So, what "crashed" - on this view - is the relationship between the activity of the financial markets and the "real" growth of the economy.

Newman: That gap just got stretched out too far. This is perhaps a simple-minded characterization, but it seems to me that Wall Street is supposed to maintain some degree of balance or concern, even in a self-regulatory way, between how it's creating wealth and how the society overall is creating value.

Salit: But they didn't.

Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.