The Internets are buzzing with the latest survey showing, among other things, Republicans are split on the Birther issue with only 47 per cent accepting the claim that Obama was born in the US. That’s almost exactly equal to the 48 per cent who agree that global warming exists – it’s evident from the public debate that the overlap between Birthers and opponents of AGW is very high ).

But I wouldn’t want to give the impression that over 50 per cent of Republicans are conspiracy theorists who believe in a secret plot to impose a Kenyan-socialist dictatorship as part of the UN/IPCC system of world government. On the contrary, the proportion is only about 25 per cent (more in the South). As on the global warming issue, the balance of opinion within the Republican Party holds to the sensible “sceptical” position: the science isn’t settled, the birth records are unclear, sightings of black helicopters need further investigation and so on. That’s good to know.

Over the last week or two, there has been a lot of discussion of the idea of Obama leading from “two steps behind”, initially in relation to the Iran protests¹, and then as a general description of his operating style. There’s an obvious link to the famous quote attributed to FDR, “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

But, how should Obama’s supporters respond to this, particularly on civil liberties issues such as detention withour trial where Obama is not only two steps behind but often appears to be going in the opposite direction? Suppose that Obama really wants to deliver on his campaign rhetoric about openness and due process, but is facing powerful resistance from within permanent power centres such as the CIA. Hence, it might be supposed, Obama has to put up a show of resistance, and needs his supporters to make enough noise to compel him to fulfil his promises

How, if at all does such a situation differ from one in which Obama is a natural centrist wants to backslide on promises made to secure his base in the election year, but can be held to his promises by sufficiently vociferous pressure?

Read More »

The authorities in Iran seem to have succeeded in suppressing popular protests for the moment. More generally, it seems clear that “people power” has its limits, summarised by the aphorism that a successful revolution consists of kicking in an open door. That is, if a state is divided, unsure of itself and illegitimate even in its own eyes, a manifestation of mass opposition will be enough to bring it down. But a coherent ruling group, confident of its own rightness and willing to use force against its opponents, can retain power even in the face of a strongly mobilised majority of the public. It remains to be seen which of these analyses applies in Iran.

Read More »

I’m working on a bunch of essays, book chapters and maybe even a book or two in response to the global financial crisis, making the general point that the sudden collapse of the neoliberal order has found social democrats unprepared for the shift from a long defensive struggle to the opportunity (and need!) to develop a progressive response to the crisis. As obvious examples, it’s necessary to reconstruct the global financial system and to ensure that the burden of the debts that are building up so rapidly is not borne by the poor, who did nothing to create the crisis. This piece (PDF) is an example of what I’m thinking.

I have plenty of ideas about policy (though of course I’m always interested in new ones). But, I don’t have much of a feeling for the political strategies that are needed, so I thought I would try the crowdsourcing thing, which has worked pretty well for me in the past .

Read More »

Until a few months ago, the Taliban seemed to be gaining ground in the war in Afghanistan, both militarily and in propaganda terms. The US reliance on air and drone attacks, with the inevitable civilian casualties, was proving disastrous. Most importantly, the Taliban possessed a crucial asset for a guerilla army, a safe haven across an international border in Pakistan, with surreptitious backing from the military and particularly the ISI, the secret police/military intelligence organisation that has historically dominated Pakistani politics. Just as Lashkar-e-Taiba was seen as asset to undertake deniable attacks on Pakistan’s historic enemy, India, the Taliban was an instrument to be used against rivals such as Iran.

In these circumstances, it seemed reasonable to conclude, as I did in August last year

, that “a military victory over the Taleban insurgency is now unlikely, whether or not it might have been achieved in the past”.

But the string of terror attacks and other outrages starting with Lashkar-e-Taiba’s attack in Mumbai late last year has changed everything.

Read More »

After a long and bloody war, marked by disregard of civilian casualties (or worse) on both sides, the Sri Lankan military has finally crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a military force, killing most of its senior leaders in the process. As national minorities go, the Sri Lankan Tamils have at least as good a cause as many others to complain of oppression and discrimination. (Broadly speaking, the usual post-colonial story where the colonial rulers favored some members of a minority group, with the result that the whole group suffered in the aftermath of independence). But their resort to armed struggle and terrorism was a disaster for all concerned, and not just because it failed. The LTTE in their temporary period of victory were worse oppressors than the most chauvinist majority governments had ever been. And of course, all Sri Lankans have suffered hugely as a result of the original policies of discrimination and worse directed against the Tamils. Even before the war broke out, the large-scale emigration of many of the most able and best educated members of the community was a huge loss.

I hope (but don’t really expect) that the government will display more magnanimity in victory than it has shown in the prosecution of the war, and that, if only on grounds of enlightened self-interest, it will seek a settlement that gives genuine equal rights to all.

This piece by Muzamil Jaleel

is well worth reading. Key quote

AK-47s cannot defeat a state and when people and communities with genuine political grievances take up arms, it only provides the state with an easy way out to enforce a military solution.

Note:This post got misplaced somehow, putting it back now

One way to think about the political impact of the GFC is to look at the range of political positions it’s rendered untenable. This range is large, encompassing, in the US context, everyone from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich. More generally, it covers anyone who embraced the claim that a US-style economic system, as of, say, 1995-2005, was the best that could possibly be achieved, and could only be improved by making government smaller and/or more business-like.

Minus the US-specific triumphalism, this range includes the positions held by most major political leaders in the developed world at the time the crisis erupted, notably including both John Howard and Kevin Rudd, not to mention George Bush and Barack Obama. It covers anyone who saw the growth of the financial sector and the explosion of global financial transactions as beneficial and who regarded with equanimity phenomena like the growth of inequality and the decline of trade unions which both resulted from and reinforced these trends. Virtually everyone holding this view downplayed or disregarded the looming crisis until it exploded in late 2008.

A critical assumption underlying this views is that the system is stable enough to maintain equilibrium without substantial government intervention and without collapsing into crisis. As far as I can tell, no one seriously argues this in relation to the current financial crisis. There are those who argue that the kind of massive intervention we’ve seen shouldn’t be undertaken and/or will only make things worse. But, AFAIK, no one seriously suggests that, without intervention the system could right itself fairly fast and return to the situation prevailing in, say, 2006.

What are the implications of the collapse of such a large section of the political landscape, both for those who formerly occupied it, and for the rest of us?

Read More »

The US Supreme Court has just brought down a 5-4 ruling, written by Clarence Thomas, denying workers the right to sue over age discrimination if their union agreement calls for arbitration. As the New York Times says, it’s hard to believe that Congress intended this.

It seems likely that we will see a lot more of this kind of thing, since the Bush Administration has packed the courts with movement conservatives. Fortunately, there is a simple response available, at least in cases of statutory interpretation. Every time the Supreme Court comes out with a decision like this, Congress should pass a tightly worded act, repudiating the Court’s interpretation. Sooner or later, they will get the message.

We had this problem in Australia with a Chief Justice (Garfield Barwick) who continually undermined the tax laws on the basis of an extreme form of textualism. In this case, it wasn’t sufficient to fix the law after he broke it, since new tax dodges arose with great regularity. Eventually Parliament passed amendments to its meta-legislation, the Acts Interpretation Act, stating that the courts should take into account the intention of Parliament as stated in the second reading speech that normally introduces the law. Barwick resigned about the same time.

Of course, this won’t work if the Republican majority on the court relies on constitutional interpretation to strike down legislation. This ought to (but certainly won’t) provoke an outcry from conservative opponents of “judicial activism”. But, as Roosevelt showed, it’s a political struggle in which the courts are not as well-placed as they might seem. A determined legislature with popular backing can make it very hard for courts to defend strained interpretations of the constitution.

With even Alan Greenspan Smother move and Lindsey Graham now in support, and the alternatives canvassed in the Geithner “plan” thoroughly discredited (even Wall Street hated it), large-scale nationalization of US banks now looks inevitable. But, as Obama has observed, this kind of thing seems alien to US culture.

This looks like a classic Lakoff framing problem. How can the obviously necessary, also be made to seem natural? There have been a couple of approaches so far.

The first is to emphasise that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation routinely takes over failed banks. So, as Paul Krugman puts it “nationalization is as American as apple pie“.

The second is to focus on the ultimate goal which is to return the banks to solvency and private ownership. Hence the lovely euphemism coined (I think) by Calculated Risk “preprivatisation”

Read More »

For the first time in the history of this blog, George Bush is not the President of the United States.