A famous line by Robert Redford in the 1972 movie "The Candidate" ends with the young, confident, inspiring, newly elected progressive Democratic Senator asking his campaign manager "What do we do now?".
Fast forward to 2008, and even with hard times, this is an interesting question for President-Elect Barack Obama. Because after the past eight years, there are many positive answers to this question.
Now we can finally move forward fully on stem cell research.
Now we can finally force the drug companies to compete and provide lower prices
Now we can finally expand children's health care so they can spend more time in the classroom than at the doctor while their parents go bankrupt.
Now we can finally ask each other to sacrifice - including saying that conservation is more than just a "personal virtue"
Now we can finally focus on rebuilding infrastructure as a way to put people back to work
Now we can finally phase in fuel-efficient cars; even while oil prices temporarily slide
Now we can give renewable energy a real shot to compete with fossil alternatives
Now we can finally put an end to torture
Now we can finally regain the respect of other nations and work together for the interest of all nations
Now we can finally engage in diplomacy with nations that are our greatest threat to peace
Now we can finally end our disastrous Iraq policy
Now we can build a Supreme Court that represents a nation going forward to expand our rights, rather than backwards to take them away
Now we can finally have smart, rationale people in leadership positions in the Executive Branch
Now we can finally address drug war policy without people entangled in the Iran-Contra having any influence
Now we can finally hold corporate CEO's accountable before they completely wreck the economy again
I am sure you all have more positive things we can do now that we have a strong progressive leader in the White House and a strong majority of Democrats in the House and Senate. Please share them!
The end of such an epoch--normally brought about by unchecked, unshared looting by an aristocracy of wealth and privilege during a time of war and imperial overreach--usually is attended by revolution and civil chaos: France at the end of the 18th Century; much of Europe in 1848; Germany, Italy, Russia, and much of Central Europe between 1917 and 1934; The Soviet Union and its satellite states in 1989-1991. The U.S. barely managed to avert civil chaos in 1933 because of its tradition of a smooth transition of political power, because of the genius of FDR and his advisers, and because at that point the U.S. economy was not burdened by fighting a major war. (The New Deal created the national infrastructure, as well as the national unity, required to fight World War II when it came.)
Now we are faced with a once-in-a-century economic meltdown brought about by winner-take-all-loser-starve-and-sleep-in-the-streets predatory, unregulated, free market capitalism. The derivatives Ponzi schemes devised by the top predators (the creators of those magical derivatives and the hedge fund managers who flogged and traded them in order to make their billions) are finally rapidly collapsing, as Nouriel Roubini, diarist bondad at Daily Kos, Warren Buffett, and many other observers accurately predicted.
Henry Paulson and Neel Kashkari will do their best to protect and continue to reward their friends who perpetrated these massive scams, but creating magical money (i.e., waving a magic monetary or fiscal wand and creating even more federal debt out of thin air) to bail out the looting malefactors really does nothing for the real economy of real goods and and consumable services. The bailouts so far are really nothing more than epoch-ending bonuses to the most criminal, predatory players in America's most recent incarnation of a looting class.
The hundreds of billions (or even a trillion or two) of dollars in opaque, secretive bailouts financed by magic money will inevitably lead to hyperinflation by 2010 and 2011, as the money supply spirals out of control in relation to the goods and services produced in the real, Main Street economy. And the imperial overreach reflected in two budget-draining land wars and occupations in Asia, along with billions spent on pie-in-the-sky over-priced weapons systems of little or no use in counterinsurgency--will continue to serve as a massive economic brake lever preventing investment in domestic infrastructure, education, technical innovation, energy independence, and social welfare.
Obama and his inner circle have consistently talked about the need for a "new politics." Obama has talked about the need to change the mindset that gets us into such wars as the one in Iraq. But I do not recall that Obama has said much about rethinking the premises underlying predatory, winner-take-all capitalism, except for the need to reintroduce some reglulation into financial markets and to grow the economy from "the bottom up."
Obama's expressed attitude is far preferable to the Republican predatory, unregulated approach, but is it sufficiently bold, imaginative, and innovative to move beyond tinkering into a real restructuring of the economy and even of the social compact into one that provides the "greatest good for the greatest number" rather than the greatest spoils for the greedy few and the privileged?
Obama's key economic advisers appear to be mainly Clinton era retreads. In many ways the Clinton era was a good time economically, but it also was a time of boom and (dot.com) bust, of excessive deregulation, and of the beginnings of the currently collapsing housing bubble. Can Obama and his advisers come up with a new, workable economic paradigm? Can they conceive and implement a Renewed Deal? We desperately need one. Quickly.
Whenever I mentor new/younger political candidates, I first loan them a copy of this movie which, to me, is mandatory viewing as an initial lesson - and a warning - for them.
As did Redford's character at the end of "The Candidate", elected officials can slowly lose sight of themselves and their original reasons for seeking public office.
However, I do not think this will happen to Barack Obama. In fact, I truly believe that, in time, Obama will exceed my expectations, just as Jim Webb has done.
In the meantime, I'm sure that we'll all stay closely tuned...
Thanks again!
Steve
When John McCain confessed that he really doesn't understand economics, he doubled-down with a running mate even less prepared than himself. It was a frightening display of ignorant hubris and reckless arrogance. We have just exited a time in American history where talk, and ideology were swapped interchangeably with careful planning and good judgment. All Americans should breathe a huge sigh of relief that we got the steady-hand, top of the class Harvard grad, and not the erratic screw-off spoiled-ass fortunate-son who barely got out of the Naval Academy. We missed the bullet by that much. Praise the Lord, we are a blessed Nation.