There are some truly ignorant ideas floating around Progressiveville. Keep in mind that I like these people – these are my people. These are the communitarians in a society that glorifies the ruthless acquisitors. They are always overmatched because they have not much more than a rudimentary understanding of politics, and none whatsoever of power.

Idea #1: Appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the Federal Reserve.

The folks who advance an idea like this (Joseph Stiglich for Treasury Secretary is another one) are suffering from two delusions at least: 1) Obama has made ill-considered appointments, and 2) placing a friendly force atop a raging bull will tame the bull. Obama has appointed the people he wants to positions of power – Gates to Defense is the most telling. He’s no fool. And, putting good people in positions of power, even if that was Obama’s wont, would not effectively deal with the power that the position theoretically controls.

Anyway, here’s the deal with Warren: She’s a congressional appointee, and is only there because she is well-spoken enough to have reached the public from an obscure position. Obama and his troops likely want her to shut up and go away. She won’t be around long.

Idea #2: Sign an Internet petition. Such activities are useless to the exact degree that they are easy. Think of it this way: The wardens of a prison know that inmate opinion does not likely favor them. Inmates might want to join together and voice that opinion via an Internet petition. It would not matter. Unless the inmates are somehow organizing, their opinions mean nothing, and the wardens are playing very close attention to any organizing activities.

Internet petitions and emails to congressional members are useless because they require no effort. The Internet is nothing more than an information-spreading tool, and is not a substitute for organizing.

If I were a member of Congress, here is the order of priority I place on various expressions of opinion:

1: Large contributions from organized donors, e.g., “bundled” money from corporate executives.
2: Self-interested advice and influence -can this person help my career or give me a job when I’m out of office? Can he give my wife a job (Mrs. Evan Bayh)? Can he generate negative publicity and hurt me? Does he know stuff about me that can hurt me?
3: Large contributions from unorganized sources -i.e., Hollywood actors. Hollywood is odd in that it gives lots of money to Democrats, but does not demand anything in return except some ideological posturing. The money matters. The opinions require perception management techniques to assure future flow of money.
4: Focused public opinion – this is that rare occasion when a misdeed has been exposed and is affecting poll numbers – Conrad Burns and his Abramoff scandal, for example. The scandal has a focusing effect. Public opinion can come into focus for a number of reasons -economic collapse, scandal, unpopular wars, etc. Elected officials will pay attention when opinion is focused, and usually try to manipulate perceptions to control that opinion. Usually the remedy is to replace one allowable party with the other to carry forward with the unpopular policy. Devices such as wedge issues – abortion, gay marriage, gun control, usually suffice to deflect meaningful organization.
5. The actual need and worthiness of various initiatives and bills before congress. These people in office are not scoundrels – they are just, mostly, not very strong, and so public service ends up down the list.
6. Disorganized public opinion. It matters and can bite them, but is usually managed via perception devices – Portuguese Water Dogs and beautiful kids, charitable activities, etc.
7. Mail – people who take the trouble to write a letter are a concern, as for each one writing a letter, many more likely share the view. Office holders encourage letter-writing, as it is a useful means of cheaply monitoring public opinion. Letters are by themselves a weak organizing tool – they merely alert the office holder that he might have to deal with a problem.
8. The office holder’s personal proclivities and aspirations – legacy stuff. Put a man’s name on a building, and that building will employee cronies for decades. Name a wilderness area after him before he dies, he’ll be your servant. (Note: This is why I long ago advocated renaming the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, the “Burns-Baucus National Recreation Area,” with a stipulated requirement that each man spend one day a year there water skiing. )
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43: Large public demonstrations that are over on Sunday evening.
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57: Paper petitions. It’s our constitutional right, dammit. They have to accept them. There’s a room down by the furnace where they store them.
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126: Form letters.
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129: Emails.
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311: Internet petitions.
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516: Small public demonstrations – so small that they advertise weakness, and especially those where participants dress really goofy.

Nothing will ever replace on-the-ground organizing – education and activism designed to focus public opinion. Environmentalists, civil rights workers, labor union organizers, feminists, anti-nukers all did this grunt work, and had an impact. If people educate and organize, they can work their way up the list, and on rare occasion, even bump #1 down to #2.

Politicians and corporations hate organizers and have for years threatened, spied on, scorned, imprisoned, infiltrated and murdered them. Those in power would be much happier if we would just email one another and sign internet petitions.

This is a little unnerving, to say the least. Some investigative journalism (Annals of National Security) has uncovered a plot by Iranians to invest in internal activities in the country by so-called “dissidents” to disrupt our upcoming elections and to make it appear as though the Obama Administration is not a credible democratic regime. Rather, they want it to appear to outsiders that we suppress opposition forces, even resorting to violence.

The money, $4 quadrillion rials, or about $400 million in U.S. dollars, was appropriated by the Iranian People’s House and has been turned over in an “almost carte blanche” manner to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for use as he sees fit to achieve this purpose.

U.S officials are watching closely. Said one source, “We take democratic governance very seriously in this country, and the Iranian activities are an affront to our way of life. We look at this matter with serious concern.”

Bill Ritter is not going to run again for governor of Colorado. No big deal. Having a nominal Democrat in office is no more useful than having a Republican in office is harmful. Good bye, Bill.

Here’s a good Ritter story: In Colorado, in order to form a labor union, there must be two votes, and after threats and propaganda, the second vote seldom succeeds. Ritter ran on a promise that if elected, he would support efforts to eliminate that second vote, and to allow unions to form by mere assent of a majority of the workers in a workplace.

Ritter won, and the legislature passed the Labor Peace act, following through on their campaign promises.

Ritter vetoed it.

Here’s your hat, Bill. What’s your hurry?

First came 9/11 and box cutters, and suddenly our pocket knives and nail clippers were contraband and taken from us. Then came the shoe bomber, and even though they have no technology than can tell them anything about what our shoes are made of, they make us take them off for scanning. Then came some chemicals smuggled aboard, and we suddenly had to give up our shampoo and bottled water before boarding.

The absurdity seems lost on everyone. The only purpose for all of this crap is, as George Carlin reminded us, to make white people feel safe when they fly. There is nothing that can be done to stop a person determined to create a tragedy for others. It’s all the illusion of safety, nothing more.

On Christmas Day, if news reports are to be believed, a guy managed to make his underpants into an exploding device. This, I thought, would make flying interesting and fun. We would all have to take our underpants off before boarding.

No such luck. Instead, flight attendants are now school marms with rulers making us keep our hands in our laps for the last sixty minutes of a flight and taking away our in-flight movies. And, they will probably soon be using scanners to peer through our clothing as we pass through the security area. That might sound like a fun job until we realize that Jerry Seinfeld was right … it is a leper colony out there. There are very few people that we want to see naked. Imagine having to look at your grandma and grandpa naked, eight hours at a time.

Can we get any stupider? I am afraid of the answer to that question.

It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in America: I do not believe there is a country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few uninstructed and at the same time so few learned individuals. Primary instruction is within the reach of everybody; superior instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, P 57

I spent the day listening to talk radio today as I did my mundane work. Here’s what I learned:

Democrats are sure that Obama is not behind the rightward drift of the Administration, and are urging each other to get in touch with him to bring him back in the fold. The think it’s Rahm Emmanuel – they think Obama ought to fire him.

They’re pretty sure that he is playing chess, while others are playing checkers. They are actually playing Chutes and Ladders. He could be playing anything, and they would not figure it out.

They are worried that the Democrats will lose a bunch of seats in the 2010 midterms if they don’t come around. They haven’t yet realized that having the presidency, the 60 senate searts and the House has gotten them exactly zilch, so that losing Democratic seats will also mean … zilch.

They believe the whole thing about nasty Republicans filibustering, as if Democrats could not stop it if they wanted. They think that Lieberman is evil, and don’t understand why he is not punished for his behavior. They want Obama to call Joe and straighten him out.

Some think, with the “health care” bill, that the Democrats will pull a rabbit from the hat in the reconciliation process. One guy thinks that’s the whole game – that we are going to get real reform out of reconciliation, because the Democrats have been playing it close to the vest to keep AHIP and PhRMA from bombarding us with ads. They are pulling a fast one, those Democrats. That’s why the health lobbyists have been lined up at the White House while progressives can’t get a phone call returned.

A few more stoic souls called to remind the others that you don’t always get what you want in a deliberative process. These few don’t seem to realize that “compromise” usually means that you get something, and that getting nothing, or getting stuffed, is not quite the same.

And none took the time to ask why it is always the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that has to do the compromising.

It’s a wasteland out there. A vast wasteland.

Mark Moe stirred up a hornets’ nest with a recent Denver Post piece talking about “The Sarah”.

In more than 30 years of teaching, I’ve seen all sorts of student “types,” from the manic grade calculator, to the obsequious over- achiever, to the brilliant but dysfunctional slacker.

It recently dawned on me that one of the most predominant types — especially among female students — has as its avatar a political celebrity who has made a raucous re-entry onto the national stage. Therefore, I’m calling it The Sarah.

The Sarah has three basic characteristics: a lack of self-evaluative skills; a tendency to parrot whatever she thinks her immediate audience wants or needs to hear to gain validation, and the mistaken belief that popularity implies importance.

I’ve only been around 59 years, and throughout all that time I am at a loss to come up with a politician/celebrity as dumb as Palin. What does it say about us? As I remember it, “The Sarah” types were relegated to sitcoms, and ridiculed by the writers. These types included Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe Bouffay in Friends, and Shelley Long as Diane Chambers on Cheers.

But never in real life have the truly stupid taken such prominence on the serious stage or in politics.

The Sarah also craves acceptance and validation from whomever happens to be her audience at the moment. Thus, The Sarah attends to information not to necessarily evaluate it critically, but so that she remembers to parrot it later to seem knowledgeable to the right people. Student essays are rife with this sort of confused regurgitation of lecture notes and secondary source material.

Many times The Sarah believes that repeating whatever the teacher or critic said is sufficient to earn a good grade, even if the context is wrong or, worse, its use is contradictory.

This tendency to parrot for validation with imperfect understanding of the information is one of the real Sarah’s hallmarks, seen in her many interview retractions, Facebook flip- flops, “death panel” rants, and her recent confusion over the cause of global warming.

If I say something that is obviously true about Palin at a conservative website, they rise to her defense. Her popularity transcends common sense. She’s hitting a nerve. What is it about her that so captivates them?

Finally, The Sarah believes that popularity implies importance. It’s been my experience that certain high school girls view popularity as a way to gain preferential treatment, the benefit of the doubt, and a kind of unspoken “rounding up” of their efforts, especially grades. They confuse popularity with the kind of status that can only be earned by hard work and actual accomplishments. Sarah herself is similarly confused. Her current media blitz and Facebook shout-outs, while bolstering her popularity with her base, aren’t nearly as important as finishing the hard work of governing Alaska would have been.

I am scratching my brain to come up with a political player in American history that was such an obvious buffoon. Spiro Agnew was a source of ridicule, as was Thomas Eagleton. But these were intelligent men. George Wallace certainly appealed to base instincts, but the man was nobody’s fool.

I know that others don’t see Palin as I do. Certainly she has gumption and a kind of flair, even if that flair is more celebrity than cerebral. But if The Sarah in her is dominant, and I think it is, then her rise in the serious business of governance seems more like a deluded teenage girl’s bid for acceptance to a position of authority for which she is neither ready nor qualified.

One blogger said that Palin was more likely aiming for a shot at a FOX News show than political office. That may be, but I cannot see even that having much success, as FOX viewers would shortly realize that there is not much there there.

I don’t recall in all my years either the right or the left reveling in someone so truly stupid.

P.S. No sooner did I put this up than did I remember “The Jane.” Fonda was a prominent figure during the Vietnam war, but I recall her on the Tonight Show one night claiming that the U.S. had no foreign assistance during our revolution. The audience laughed at her. Fonda was a sponge – an attention-craving Daddy-starved starlet with a fabulous body. She went from Roger Vadim, who made her a sex goddess, to Tom Hayden who turned her political activist, to Ted Turner to Christianity and every liberal cause in between.

I suppose you could say that Sarah is a right-wing Jane, though I feel obligated to defend Jane as more intelligent and courageous.

Sen Jeff Merkley, Democrat from Oregon, voted against another disastrous term for Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve. Six Republicans joined him. Twelve Democrats voted for him.

No doubt, Obama is pissed. Merkley will pay. Integrity is only a virtue in novels and movies.

Here’s a proposal for campaign finance reform:

Pick a candidate for federal office. You are allowed to give that candidate a contribution of any amount to a maximum of, say, $500. Just a number.

When you file your tax return, claim a refundable tax credit of 80% of that amount, or $400.

It’s taxpayer-directed public financing. It would be quite easy to qualify candidates before they are tax-credit-worthy: To qualify for public financing, they have to raise a certain amount, say $50,000 from 5,000 donors. That way you could weed out the tiny splinters yet still allow small parties to compete. It would end the D-R-one-party-two-right-wing monopoly.

Of course, much more need be done than that, like somehow getting the advertising industry out of campaigns. Those 30 second ads are demeaning, insulting, and subversive.

One thing at a time.

By the way, I’m no great original thinker. This is how the Canadians do it. It ain’t just health care that they are good at.

The North Face is a company that is owned and managed by very, very clever people. Here’s their business model: Branding. They hire Chinese peasants to make average products of no special quality, and then apply a huge markup to them.

Because no self-respecting person would pay such outrageous prices for such mundane merchandise without some ulterior motive, North Face hired the advertising industry to do what Phil Knight did with Nike: use subversion, glamor-appeal and celebrities to invest the products with a silk-purse glow. They market their products to those who have more money than sense, and who are so image-conscious that they make foolish purchases.

These very, very clever people at North Face stole their whole business plan from Nike. Not a damned thing about it is original or clever.

Along comes a clever kid, Jimmy Winkelmann, who wants to go to college. Unlike North Face, Jimmy is clever and original (he should really think about college). Jimmy founded a company called “South Butt”, and began marketing products appealing to people who don’t really like exercise.

North Face is suing Jimmy. Jimmy don’t like being sued.

North Face says that Jimmy is stealing their clever ideas. Since no one at North Face is clever, they probably don’t get what Jimmy is doing. He’s trying to make a buck by being clever.

North Face is punishing Jimmy. Jimmy might have to quit now. North Face can force him out of business just by taking him to court to defend himself. They will legal-fee him to death.

Jimmy, being very clever, maybe ought to think about being a lawyer.

Go to South Butt today, buy something from Jimmy. Jimmy needs help.