http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212
There Will Be Blood Paul Krugman NY Times Op-Ed: November 22, 2010 Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be - after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction. So here's what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: "I can't wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they're going to look around and say, 'What in the hell do we do now? We've got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give 'em a piece of meat, real meat,' " meaning spending cuts. "And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary," he continued. Think of Mr. Simpson's blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize. Some explanation: There's a legal limit to federal debt, which must be raised periodically if the government keeps running deficits; the limit will be reached again this spring. And since nobody, not even the hawkiest of deficit hawks, thinks the budget can be balanced immediately, the debt limit must be raised to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans will probably try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in effect, holding the government hostage; they've done it before. Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America's role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But no, Mr. Simpson "can't wait." And he's what passes, these days, for a reasonable Republican. The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it's doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party's cooperation - cooperation that won't be forthcoming. Elite opinion has been slow to recognize this reality. Thus on the same day that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass unemployment. He asked for "a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits." My immediate thought was, why not ask for a pony, too? After all, the G.O.P. isn't interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke's efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on trying to reduce unemployment. And on matters fiscal, the G.O.P. program is to do almost exactly the opposite of what Mr. Bernanke called for. On one side, Republicans oppose just about everything that might reduce structural deficits: they demand that the Bush tax cuts be made permanent while demagoguing efforts to limit the rise in Medicare costs, which are essential to any attempts to get the budget under control. On the other, the G.O.P. opposes anything that might help sustain demand in a depressed economy - even aid to small businesses, which the party claims to love. Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits - an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there's no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn't work that way anymore. And opposition for the sake of opposition isn't limited to economic policy. Politics, they used to tell us, stops at the water's edge - but that was then. These days, national security experts are tearing their hair out over the decision of Senate Republicans to block a desperately needed new strategic arms treaty. And everyone knows that these Republicans oppose the treaty, not because of legitimate objections, but simply because it's an Obama administration initiative; if sabotaging the president endangers the nation, so be it. How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just not interested in helping a Democrat govern. My sense is that most Americans still don't understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what's necessary. But that was another country. It's hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize. *** From: Peter Dreier To: Ed Pearl What: "Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice" - When: Tuesday, Nov. 30 Where: Occidental College Mark Warren, associate professor of sociology at Harvard, will be speaking at Occidental College on Tuesday, November 30, at 7 pm (in Johnson Hall, Room 200) about his new book, Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice, just published by Oxford University Press. Fire in the Heart uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice. The book reports powerful accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing, education, and criminal justice reform. The first study of its kind, Fire in the Heart brings to light the perspectives of white people who are working day-to-day to build a truly multiracial America rooted in a caring, human community with equity and justice at its core. Warren shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a racially just future that they understand to benefit everyone-themselves, other whites, and people of color. The activists include · Mark Soler, Mark is Executive Director of the Center for Children's Law and Policy in Washington, DC. · Ingrid Chapman, an anti-racist organizer and trainer for the Catalyst Project in the Bay Area · David Utter, director of the Florida Youth Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center. · Cathy Rion, a youth organizer, Unitarian Universalist minister, and former member of the board of Californians for Justice. · Alex Caputo-Pearl, a teacher at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, and one of the founders of the Coalition for Educational Justice, a parent-student-teacher activist organization · Lewis Pitts, a lawyer with a long history of supporting racial justice organizing in the South. · Z. Holler, one of the leaders of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a founder of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, · Joseph Ellwanger, a retired Lutheran minister and one of the leaders of the faith-based community organizing group called MICAH in Milwaukee.. · Madeline Talbott, a long-time community organizer in Chicago with ACORN and Action Now. · Bob Peterson, a 5th grade teacher at La Escuela Fratney, a bilingual public school in Milwaukee. · Seth Newton, a former labor organizer for HERE, SEIU and AFSCME, where he helped organize and represent mostly immigrant workers in hotels and the service industry in California. You can learn more about the book, and about Professor Warren, at this website: http://mark-warren.com/fireintheheart. Professor Warren is an engaging speaker, a former community organizer, and a highly-regarded scholar. His previous book, Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton University Press), received outstanding reviews. He is currently directing a large-scale study of community organizing efforts at school reform and educational justice in six localities across the country, including Los Angeles. ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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