Yglesias highlights an interesting interview with Jeb Bush on Sweden’s education system, which in short utilizes all sorts of neat ideas like credit-based learning a la four year colleges, and voucher systems that allow for public and private cooperation.  Says Bush,

“The idea that somehow Sweden would be the land of innovation, where private involvement in what was considered a government activity, is quite shocking to us Americans,” Mr. Bush says. “But they’re way ahead of us. They have a totally voucherized system. The kids come from Baghdad, Somalia — this is in the tougher part of Stockholm — and they’re learning three languages by the time they finish. . . . there’s no reason we can’t have that except we’re stuck in the old way.”

To which Yglesias responds:

I think there’s something to that. Certainly, the US system of K-12 education has gotten pretty hidebound in ways that other countries have left behind. At the same time, conservatives who want us to learn from Nordic education systems need to understand that these schools are working in a Nordic context featuring, among other things, radically lower child poverty rates…

That’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t do anything to change the schools until we radically reduce child poverty. But it is to say that the success of Nordic education comes in the context of a comprehensive commitment to children’s well-being, which means innovation not just in schools but in delivery of health care and nutrition services, in the provision of enriching early-childhood services, etc. Getting child poverty down to Swedish levels would be extremely difficult, but there’s a realistic agenda to cut poverty in half in just ten years that we could be pursuing if we cared enough.

This is true, and it leaves me with that nagging feeling that maybe the United States, ostensibly the richest nation on Earth, has taken individualism too far, and has worried too much about the creation of wealth, and not enough about the fostering of minds, and the care of our children and poor.  I’m not as idealistic as Yglesias, though, and so the focus of most of my policy suggestions is to bolster and expand the middle class, rather than directly targeting poverty, which is as much a symptom of a declining middle class demographic as anything.

I also wonder if there isn’t a question of cart and horse involved in this debate.  Which side is getting ahead of itself?  Conservatives push hard for privatization, and on some levels I can’t argue with the voucher system.  In my home state education budgets have been slashed so drastically that I’d have to be a fool to put my kid into public schools.  By the time my younger brother graduated from High School, we’d already lost almost all the “non-essential” subjects, like art and theatre and so forth.  And I’m left truly struggling with what the real heart of the problem is.  I’d really like to see major funding for education at the Federal level, but I worry about it, too.  When a new Government takes shape and cuts those funds, then what?  This is what happened in Arizona, basically overnight.  The State giveth, and the State taketh away.

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George Will isn’t the only conservative partisan using global warming as a wedge issue.  Both sides of the debate, to some degree, have used climate change theory to their political advantage.  Al Gore has made a fortune and a great deal more fame off the subject–plenty of cash to pay for his carbon-emitting 10,000 square foot home (or his 2400 square foot second home).  That’s neither here nor there, however.  I pick on Gore primarily because he advocates carbon credits, and cap and trade, systems to combat global warming that are entirely too capitalistic and not proven to be at all effective.  Strict tax penalties for companies that break carbon limits, and conversely generous tax breaks for those who adopt low-emission technology are a much surer way to combat industrial polution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The global warming debate has taken on such a banal quality that if it weren’t such an important issue, it would hardly be worth discussing anymore.  Personally, I think science is a slow business.  It takes a long time to prove anything beyond the shadow of a doubt.  I don’t think we’ve shored up enough data to definitively prove that carbon emissions lead to global warming.  Then again, I don’t think we’ve disproved it either, and I prefer to err on the side of caution.  One would think that this would be the mainstream skeptic’s position.  It’s a conservative position to both be doubtful and cautious.  Then again, modern conservatism places little value in either caution or conservation, so it’s no surprise that George Will and the rest of the partisans on the Right use global warming as a wardrum rather than approach it with serious inquiry and concern.

Essentially, global warming has become just another talking point in a long and growing list of talking points that the conservative movement uses to keep apostates out of their fold (shrinking that big tent) and to berate liberals with, rather than viewing warming as both a real cause for worry, and as an opportunity to demonstrate honest governance.  Apparently obstructionism and denial are better tactics.

Zachary Roth tears Will’s arguments to shreds here, and Bradford Plumer gets a few shots in here.  Conservatives should be reading these pieces and paying heed to the vast consensus on global warming.  Even if there are some holes in the larger argument, that’s still no excuse to ignore what very well may be the global crisis of the coming century.  Conservatives ought to be conserving things, and the environment should be at the top of the list–even above rugged individulaism and the “right” to low taxes.

I wanted to give a quick shout-out to blogger Max Socol who has a really interesting op-ed up at the Jerusalem Post.  His take on the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and the Yisrael Beitenu party is quite a lot different than mine, and where I saw only reason for skepticism, Max manages to draw some positive possibilities into the discussion.  I’m still extremely skeptical, but if Lieberman did take Max’s advice it would certainly be beneficial.  Max frames the piece as an open letter to Lieberman:

You believe in building a Palestinian state to preserve a demographically Jewish Israel. That may not be the primary concern of the international community, but two states for two peoples will satisfy their concerns as effectively as yours.

If you are serious about building such a state, as you say you are, you have the opportunity to make history as the leader who finally brought a conclusion to decades of bloody fighting over the Palestinian issue. With a willing partner in the Obama administration, and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah, you have the tools to begin the process of building a final-status agreement that will establish a home for Palestinians in the West Bank.

BUT YOU must build a coalition with Kadima. Binyamin Netanyahu was not serious about negotiations with Palestinians in his last tenure as prime minister, and is not serious about them now. His position as leader of the traditional right wing means that he will be required to waste time pandering to pro-settlement parties that will demand the impossible from their government. Netanyahu is far more likely to drag his feet indefinitely, in the vain hope of pleasing all the people all the time, than to take any concrete steps on the road toward building a Palestinian state.

Kadima will have no such burden. Tzipi Livni, following Ehud Olmert, has much more ideological flexibility in pursuing a two-state solution. Her base, not made up of settlers, will not desert her because of perceived weakness on the issue. Livni, entering power at the same time as a more flexible, more involved US administration, has the best chance to make real progress on the issue.

And you can be a part of that historic moment, one that will likely take more than one Knesset term, and one that therefore you yourself will have a chance to see to its conclusion.

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There is a point at which the pursuit of the American Dream can be wholly boiled down to a capitalist pursuit, which is always tragic; taken a step further, that capitalist pursuit can be defined as merely opportunistic; and finally, when opportunism has truly run its course, it evlolves into just one thing: kitsch.

God save us.

“And just as I often fret that my hopes for a right-of-center majority lie somewhere back in the wreckage of the Bush years, I think the liberaltarians ought to worry, just a little, that their moment actually arrived in the Clinton years, and that it’s already behind them – somewhere back in the vast obscurity of the political past, where the dark fields of the republic roll on under the night.”

~Ross Douthat

A symptom of the conservative movement mentality–something I’d say is bound inextricably to the very concept of a movement, which requires cliquishness and membership requirements and all that jazz just to be a part of–is that there’s always somebody who is more conservative than somebody else.  There is always some litmus test or loyalty oath by which to determine who is actually conservative, and who is not.  There are various taboos which conservatives simply can’t possibly break if they are to remain, in the movement’s eyes, true conservatives.

Case in point, both Robert Stacy McCain and Helen Rittlemeyer have posts up on “token” conservatives and young conservative journalists and writers, who are either faux-conservatives for their incorporation of progressive social policies, or only support such liberal machinations as same-sex marriage as a token to the larger media establishment and mainstream culture, since same sex marriage is such a definitively anti-conservative issue that no self-respecting or honest conservative could possibly support it.  Or something to that effect.

Writes McCain:

Now, if you talk to these bright young fellows — and I find excuses to talk to them as often as possible — one of the things you learn is how many of them are either (a) in favor of gay marriage as a matter of social justice, or (b) defeatist in conceding that the legal recognition of gay marriage is a political inevitability, even though they personally oppose it…

Yet the Young Turks generally view the gay-marriage debate as following in the historic path of Social Progress, an irresistible floodtide, so that such opposition as there is must speak in tones carefully measured, lest offense be given to the eventual winners of the debate.

Rittlemeyer goes one step further:

And I would add my suspicion that support for same-sex marriage has become a mark, not only of defeatism, but of self-conscious tokenism among young conservatives.  Being publicly pro-SSM is the quickest way for a young journalist to signal that he’s one of the right-wingers it’s okay to like. Haven’t they heard that it’s better to be feared than loved? Or, to put it less glibly, the real respectability of a solid argument is preferable to the worthless respectability one gets by being on the Harmless Right.

Somehow all of this is tied into the notion that, as Helen puts it, “young conservatives ain’t intellectual, and the young intellectuals ain’t conservative.”  In other words, any intellectual conservative would be well-versed enough in their Burke and Kirk to resist the mainstream acceptance of same-sex marriage (the acceptance of which is little more than a plea for popularity) and oppose it on solidly conservative grounds.  And any young conservative who does not do so must either be a liar or a fake or a closet liberal:  You’re not conservative, I’m conservative. [Read more →]

If Freddie’s post is a perfect example of “declinist, doom and gloomism” mine will be an example of me at my most optimistic.  You see, to answer the question posed in the title of this post, I would have to say “of course not!”  Digital media and the ease with which it can be copied need only be met with creative solutions.  This is where the industries involved – music, film, television, and gaming – have all come up short.  They’ve worried about the same thing Freddie’s worrying about: illegal, and free, downloads, and what this will mean to their bottom line.

What have they done to prevent this wave of techno-piracy?  Well, a numuber of things actually.  At first the industries decided to go after the perps themselves.  They went after downloaders, internet businesses that somehow thought they could get away with distributing music for free without paying royalties (Napster, Youtube), and filed lawsuit after lawsuit.  This didn’t work so well.  For one, there were too many people with too many means of downloading and sharing music, videos, etc.

So then the industries tried to put copy-protections on their products.  DRM, various encryptions, etc. all of which were hacked within hours.  Freddie uses the example of the marker on the disc, which about sums up the ease with which pirates can get around all this fancy technology.

So then a few companies started embracing this new method of distribution.  Some record companies saw Youtube as a great way to market their music, and gave Youtube users free license to use their music in their videos.  Viacom was upset with the use of their tv clips on Youtube and set up their own online media instead.  You can watch basically any Comedy Central program for free now online at their official sites.  Some artists, like NIN and Radiohead, have adopted digitial distribution models, either giving their music away for free or simply selling it online.  Some have forgone record labels, others have signed contracts with concert promoters.

So let’s look at each industry individually. [Read more →]

So it appears Judd Gregg has withdrawn his nomination for Commerce Secretary, signaling yet another blow to bi-partisanship in an increasingly partisan Washington.  Business, it would seem, shall proceed as usual.  Two things about this are really funny to me.

First, it’s really funny to me that the media is clinging to every one of these “failed” nominations as though they were major blows to the Obama Administration.  Conservative commentators are already decrying Obama as a failure or an embarassment or worse and gleefully harp on his every hiccup.  Liberals aren’t much better.  The vultures are circling, the blood of the campaign still fresh.  And I think the Fox News clan is happy to have a President  they can attack instead of defend.  Attack is so much better for ratings, and so much more fun.

What the media forgets is that this sort of “trainwreck” is common fare at the beginning of any Administration looking for its stride.  Do they honestly think voters remember these sort of foibles?  Will we think about how Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination, or whatsisname–that Governor from New Mexico–who was he again?  Will we consider these things on election day in 2012?

Second, it’s really funny to me that the Republicans are being so obtuse.  I mean, it takes serious skill to shoot yourself in the foot this well, and this often.  If the GOP had acted with any scruples, any fiscal responsibility, any political honesty over the past eight years, I wouldn’t be saying this.  But they didn’t.  They followed George W. Bush to the gates of economic madness and then stepped off the brink, and now they want the American people to believe that they’re the champions of fiscal conservatism?  Those were two words utterly absent from the Republican lexicon for nearly the past decade.  Power really does corrupt.  It would seem loyal opposition does, too.

Gregg said he didn’t see this massive of a stimulus package coming, and what?  He can’t serve with a clean conscience in an administration dedicated to such massive spending (and tax cuts!)?  Would he have served in the war-mongering, fiscally irresponsible Bush Administration?  Would his conscience have prevented him then?

No, in reality Gregg couldn’t bear the assault from his own Party.  They want him around to vote against it, and they want to send a message to the Obama Administration.  What that message is becomes less and less clear daily.

This is not to say I’m all in favor of the stimulus.  But that’s beside the point.  The point is, the Republican Party is signing their own death warrant by opposing it.  They are grossly underestimating the voter support on this one.

That’s also kind of funny.

Sullivan rounds up reactions to the Gregg “disaster.”

There is something remarkable and frightening about the fact that Avigdor Lieberman’s Party, Yisrael Beiteinu, came in third in Israel’s recent parliamentary elections, gaining 15 seats in the Knesset, only 13 fewer than Tipi Livni’s moderate Kadima Party and only 12 fewer than the Conservative Likud Party.  Yisrael Beiteinu, which translates to Israel is Our Home, campaigned on an anti-Arab ticket–denouncing Israeli Arabs as unpatriotic, and calling for their expulsion.  The Party could very well decide whether Likud or Kadima is the head of the next government, unless the two should choose to form a unity Government.

Now, every Democratic nation should be able to choose who they please to run their Government, even racially driven, extremist Parties like Yisrael Beiteinu, but the fact of that Party’s success does call to question how long Israel’s current course will be sustainable.  I am a great admirer of Israel, which I view as a a nation at odds with itself, a land of hope and tragedy, a strange mixture of redemption and defeat, startling oppression and the promise of freedom.

The birth of the State of Israel signaled the last chapter in the long Diaspora, but has led to sixty years of Palestinian existence as a homeless population–a sort of new Diaspora spread out across refugee camps, occupied territories, and Arab cities across the region; lead by terrorists, nationalists, and religious leaders; second class citizens in whatever place they have the bad luck of ending up in.  Israel, once lively with the dream of the original idealistis who founded it, has over the years become increasingly militarized, entrenched, and anti-Democratic.

I do sympathize with the plight of Israel.  It took a number of wars to drive them to this place.  Those misguided socialists whose ideas founded the Zionist movement have all been replaced by more realistic leaders.  Unfortunately, the reality that many of these new visionaries live by – be they Avigdor Lieberman or Tipi Livni -  is one of stubborn refusal to make the hard choices necessary to bring about a lasting peace, and in some cases a stubborn resolve to see these compromises aborted.

Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, ostensibly a move toward peace with the Palestinians, was coupled with increased settlement of the West Bank, a region fast becoming a mini-apartheid state with an state; a three-year blockade that has severely damaged the living conditions of Gazans (who had already become a captive market for Israeli exports, and have now been made dramatically more dependent on Israeli mercy and goods through the blockade and recent war); and despite all of this, continued rocket fire out of Gaza, continued violence between IDF forces and Palestinians, assassinations, arrests, and kidnappings–essentially, for all the increased militarism on Israel’s part, it has been met only with violent reprisal and the collective suffering of Israelis and Palestinians.

And now, Israelis have voted into the Knesset fifteen seats for a Party dedicated to the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, and the continued expansion of Israeli settlers into the West Bank–a policy whose logical outcome is the total expulsion of Palestinians and Arabs from Israel altogether, or into smaller Gaza-like enclaves within the West Bank, surrounded by Israeli security forces, and utterly dependent on Israel for their continued survival. [Read more →]

I lived in Vancouver, BC for two years and honeymooned there years later, but the extent of my knowledge in regards to Canada is limited mainly to such trivial (yet ironically important) matters as its rather bad selection of mixed drinks (do Canadians drink anything other than martinis?) and its rather good selection of beer (ah yes, they drink beer…).  One thing I did not know, was that of all the industrialized nations of the world, Canada alone remains relatively unscathed in this current global meltdown. Grant Havers does a little summation of Fareed Zakaria’s reporting on the remarkably stable Canadian economy:

1) Canada has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors.  In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world. America’s ranked 40th, Britain’s 44th.

2) Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1.

3) Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada because the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on mortgages isn’t deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are “non-recourse,” which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it’s mostly the bank’s problem. In Canada, it’s yours.

4) Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America’s by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent in America), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; “healthy life expectancy” is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America’s largest car-producing region.

Now, a few things jump out at me after reading this and Zakaria’s pieces.  First of all, Canada has managed to do two often seemingly disparate things at once in order to create a more stable system of banking and, indeed, health care.  Let’s start with health care, something I want to expand on more in a later post–Canada has managed to lower health care costs to levels far below American health care expenses, and at the same time they’ve socialized their health care system.  In other words, they’ve taken a progressive policy and then made it fiscally responsible.  They’ve done the same thing with their national pension system.  This strikes me as a perfect example of good governance taking precedence over blind ideology, of fiscal conservatives working within a liberal system and making it function, something our own conservative politicians seemingly can’t even comprehend, so intent on destroying the liberal system they’ve lost all focus on the option of actually making it work.

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h/t | Jamelle

Mark raises an interesting point:

Finally, I’d put an end to the concept of economic or diplomatic sanctions as a meaningful manner of achieving most diplomatic ends (the exception being targeted sanctions solely intended to prevent hostile regimes from obtaining specific materials capable of being used for aggressive purposes).

Often left out of the discussion of interventionism vs non-interventionism is the subject of economic sanctions.  For instance, many Americans have been rightfully disgusted with the invasion of Iraq under the Bush administration, but few of those same, outraged people raised much of a hue and cry against the economic violence America used against the Iraqi people.  This is because it is a quiet sort of intervention, a subtle but devastating form of warfare, and while our sanctions against Iraq did nothing to stop Saddam Hussein, they did have a profound and dehumanizing impact on the Iraqi people.

Economic sanctions are often viewed as a tool of containment policies against hostile regimes, but they’d be better described with the term collective punishment.  Containment against the Soviet Union, of course, included economic and military interventions, whereas containment policies against Iran and other so-called “rogue” states, are today largely economic.  There is a justifiable fear that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, but while sanctions against the proliferation of nuclear weapons make strategic sense, sanctions that weaken the civilian population of any nation should be avoided for the same reason we avoid targeting civilians militarily.  [Read more →]