Morning Fog

Jousting With State Immigration Laws

For the Justice Department to be challenging various new state immigration laws in court is an unusual step. 

Undoubtedly the decision to do so has political roots.  The Obama administration would like to reinforce its credentials as the chief defender of the rights of immigrants (and it must be stressed, of all immigrants - not just "illegals" but the many more numerous legals).  Certainly the current challenges should do that, demonstrating a clear distinction between our two major parties.  And the political motivation, even if brazen, is unassailable since most of the laws in question are being passed by mostly Republican state legislators for the purpose of political pandering to their pasty constituents.

Yet while the legal challenge may serve the administration's political ends, it does so by serving its stated policy goals and philosophy of government.  Its first strength is to remind us what our heritage is.  Politicians have long loved to describe us as a "nation of immigrants," which is certainly true, or a "melting pot," which is far less honest. 

A digression: "Cookie dough" is a more apt metaphor - ethnic groups have usually remained in clusters or lumps, like the bits in a chocolate chip cookie, melting only slightly on the edges at first, perhaps dissolving entirely over many years (we don't know what cookies do over longer periods, since they seldom survive that long). 

Far from dragging down the economy, our nation's ability to attract those huddled masses has always served to rejuvenate our population and bolster our economy. That is no different today, and we need to keep in mind how many in our country are either naturalized citizens, or first-generation natives, who can nolens volens be detrimentally affected by restrictions supposedly intended only for "illegal" aliens.

The second strength is that what the DoJ is doing should also serve to reinforce our common sense of what we want the country to be.   Other common tropes we have long used to describe ourselves are "a nation of laws" and "a nation of equality."  I would not argue that immigrants, especially illegal ones, ought to have all the same rights as citizens - there can be some legitimate differences in status.

But surely one of the places where there can't be differences is in the equal application of the law to everyone.  This is an important international principle of human rights.  Further, if we fail to provide it, we contribute to the breakdown of society; those who see that the law discriminates against them, those who must fear any encounter with law-enforcement officials even if they haven't "done" anything, won't develop the habits of good citizenship that we (used to) expect.

"Used to" is a key phrase because the third strength of this legal jousting over immigration is to help clarify our thinking about whether we want America looking forward, or whether we want to reverse the progress of a century or more and return to the mid-1950s for our models of immigration, assimilation, and social and legal justice.    

 

U.S. "Leadership" (sic) On Middle East Peace

I claim no special expertise in matters Middle Eastern/Near Eastern.  Yet, applying a more general knowledge of diplomacy and a bit of common sense, I find a lot of what's being said currently about the Israel, Palestine, and peace in the region - and the U.S. role - rather curious. 

Writing Thursday in The New York Times (ever a staunch supporter of Israel), Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers offered this assessment:

"The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking."

It seems to me there's a lot wrong with that fairly simple sentence. For one, it's unusual for the Times to provide underpinning for the jingoistic idea that we must be in the lead on everything.

Beyond that, however, the concept that the U.S. has a leading role seems pitifully lacking.  If we have indeed been the "architects," what has been built over those decades?  Not even a Kansas sodbuster's hole-in-the-ground.  It may be time for a new architect to seize the project and run with it.   

It's true, as this article asserts, that current conditions (in which a strong conservative Republican cohort encourages Israeli inflexibility) makes this a particularly difficult time politically for the U.S. to try to accomplish anything regarding Israel.  But I would argue that things haven't changed all that much.   The U. S. has historically been in thrall to its Israel lobby, and that in turn has prevented it from truly being seen as an honest broker.  Our "leadership role" over "decades" is largely wishful thinking.  No one else was doing it, and we kept trying, but that's the best that can be said.

It would be ironic if Obama's effort to break out of that mold (encouraging a Palestinian state a year ago) and the Israel lobby's efforts to reverse that (with seeming success, as his latest UN speech suggests) were the factors that might lead toward a workable solution, designed by a different architect, engineered by a new group of builders, and leaving us with little or no influence in the process.  Ironic, but possibly beneficial to the cause of real peace in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

 

 

Government As A Business - The Lesson of HP

Today, many novice politicians seem to be arguing that government should be operated like a business.  There are many reasons why that's an unapt analogy. 

One key one is that (thanks to the actions of those same politicians) government has no "cushion" of profits on which to base the quick shifting of assets from one priority to another.  Not only is government kept on a shoestring, but politicians have built in a spending incentive:  If a government agency does not spend, in one year, the amounts allocated to it in its budget, those funds return to the Treasury.  An agency that does a good cost-cutting job, or deploys a new technology that brings down costs, can't benefit from such performance by carrying its savings into the next year.  In business, this would be tantamount to requiring that any profits accumulated during the fiscal year and not expended by year-end must (repeat, must) be disbursed to the stockholders as dividends.  Would corporate execs squeal loudly at such a draconian restriction? 

Current political battles over government funding, from just keeping the government running to specific concerns like stable funding for essential agencies like the FAA and FEMA, illustrate how this all plays out to public detriment.  The legislated taboo on forward planning serves the public poorly.

Related to this point:  Yesterday's news of yet another sudden lurch in the fortunes of Hewlett Packard (HP), offers yet another object lesson in the differences between business and government.  From Packard to Hewlett-Packard, from Borders to Goldman Sachs, businesses come and go - in or out of existence, or to and from debilitating crises - with a suddenness that has become especially familiar to us in the current Republican version of a "healthy" economy.  But it begs the question:  Do we really want the nation's government to be that unstable?  What would be the effect on Americans, and on those stalwart, risk-averse businesses, if the MSN headline of the day was "U.S. government in default"? 

Possibly HP's new CEO Meg Whitman will take the company toward spinning off some unprofitable segments of the business.  I suppose "USGCO" could always sell off a cabinet department or agency:  I imagine the FDA's being outsourced on contract to China, and the Defense Department sold to somebody with enough petrodollars to support its huge costs, like Iran. 

 

 

How To Recognize A State

Some journalists are critical of U.S. policy that welcomes the new leadership of Libya, while opposing Palestinian statehood at the U.N.  Specifically, two NYT writers claim that:

"The trouble for Mr. Obama, though, is that even as he was publicly proclaiming his backing at the United Nations for a new Libyan state, American officials were working furiously behind the scenes to make sure the United Nations did not bestow a similar recognition on a Palestinian state."

I find this an odd criticism (especially appearing, not in an op-ed piece but in a 'news' item), because it purposely sets up a false analogy.  In the Libyan case, there is no "new state," but only new government of an existing state, one with a well-defined and broadly recognized geographic territory.  That's quite a far cry from the Palestinian situation, where nothing is "generally recognized" and no state currently exists. 

Further, the new leadership in Libya has a credible claim to control of said geographic area.  True, some (Gaddafi for one) may challenge that claim of control, which is one reason U.S. policy has always been to avoid formal "recognition" of a new government - it's too political.  We continue diplomatic relationships, sometimes rekindle them if the previous leadership was hostile, but we deny that we ever "recognize."   President Obama's "welcoming" may amount to the same thing in the real world, but certainly it's impossible anyway either to welcome or to tacitly recognize a "state" that doesn't exist.

Creating a new state, if parties agree to it, is a decidedly more complex and long-term matter, as Obama has subsequently sought to make clear.   (Just consider that even within our own country, the creation of a new "state" - really a substate in international terms - for the District of Columbia is considered not just difficult, but impossible.) 

 

Enemies Again

Was I too hasty last week in writing about two sets of our nation's enemies, different yet eerily similar at the same time?

Yes.

There are more eerie similarities, in that both are devotees of radical religious concepts, and both have the idea that it's possible to undo the present and return to the past.

Taxes: What One Hand Giveth...

One of the more interesting reports I've seen lately is an item in this Sunday's Washington Posts by Lori Montgomery, analyzing where most so-called "tax expenditures"  (i.e., special tax breaks) go, and who benefits. 

The surprising conclusion is that giveaways to corporations are a relatively minor part of the whole picture; the data suggest that in fact it's households, the so-called "middle class," that gets the most breaks, so many  in fact that the Treasury barely breaks even -- what comes in in revenue goes back out, but to different people.

The report reveals the bankruptcy of the idea of legislating -- be it social policy, economic benefits, or someone's idea of what's good for us, like "home ownership" -- by means of tax breaks.  Ideally, taxation should be "pure," i.e., strictly determined by what is needed for essential government services, based on objective criteria such as income, or the use of a certain service.  

As soon as we begin to try to engineer society through tax policy, we distort the balancing that would in most cases occur naturally otherwise.   How many people have been lured into buying houses they couldn't really afford by propaganda that "home ownership" is in itself a desirable goal for everyone?  Why should government be in the business of shaping family size by offering more deductions without limit for additional children?  

Unfortunately, "tax expenditures" are an easy route for politicians -- they don't appear to increase taxes, so there is seldom a tough political fight over them, and everybody likes to think they get a benefit that others don't.  It's easy!  Until the bill comes due. 

The other lesson here is the difficulty of the task ahead, if we're going to restructure our Rube Goldberg government fiscal system into something more sensible.  

Enemies

Seeing President Obama present the Medal of Honor to Marine Dakota Meyer the other day, I was struck by the complex of similarities and differences represented there.  At first glance, it might appear that Obama and Meyer had little in common; Meyer the committed military man, Obama never having served; differences in age, experience, and cultural background.

Yet both have been confronted with determined enemies.  Meyer has dealt with his with some finality; Obama's struggle continues.  But here the similarity emerges:  Enemies steeped in ignorance and hate, rooted in outmoded concepts, bent on destroying America.  And the difference: One from outside, one from within. 

Reactions To The Obama Jobs Plan

Regrettably, for those of us who would like to see politicians acting cooperatively and responsibly, morning reactions to Obama's "jobs plan" talk last night are predictably partisan, with left-wingers delighted and right-wingers dismissive.

As a middle-of-the-road pragmatist (one of few, I guess, who have survived in the middle of the road despite the traffic racing frantically toward the extremes) I think the Pres did a pretty good job of putting the onus for gridlock where it belongs.  I even appreciate his using the word "obstruct," echoing my coinage for the Republican Party's grand old acronym:  Geezers Obstructing Progress.  The only thing I might have added to his talk, which I didn't hear, is to ensure that the FEMA has sufficient funds to help families and businesses deal with all the additional misery and destruction that weather has brought the country this year, from broiling in Texas to flooding on the east coast, with tornadoes and floods in between.

By building a proposal of elements that both parties have accepted (even championed) in the past, the administration has done the best it can to spur action.  It will take a bit of time to see if deeds actually change behind the words of the immediate reactions for the media.  But those reactions will tell us a great deal.   I'd guess that if Republicans want to stick to their uncompromising ways, with the sole goal of unseating Obama in 2012, they may win that battle, but badly lose a war:  We may end next year with a Republican President, but at the same time might see so many Republican Representatives and Congressmen swept away that we'll be left with a strong Democratic majority in both houses. 

I maintain faith: The American people are not fools. 

The Fallacy Of "Endless War" Prognoses

In my last post I suggested that a forecast of "endless war" in our future may be based on built-in biases (i.e. the source of the forecast, and self-deception about our interests) that distort our vision of the future. 

To see how our outlook has been blurred, I'd like to examine the main ongoing military efforts that have conjured up for us the concept of endless conflict:  

Iraq:  It's not our business to bring democracy to other countries; democracy will mean little to them, and stands a good chance of not lasting, if it doesn't develop organically from within; and it may be tainted if it has to be imported by foreign intervention.  For me it was clear from George W. Bush's campaign rhetoric before he was elected that he wanted us back in Iraq.  Chemical and biological weapons?  There are a lot of legitimate questions about the evidence on that, but it was a great pretext.  If we are frank with ourselves, we will admit that Iraq was little more than a puerile attempt to exact revenge on Saddam Hussein for surviving the Gulf War, led by Bush and (perhaps more influentially) by holdover advisors from 1990 (Cheney and others), who had been among those left with egg on their faces ten years earlier.  A war of choice, through and through.

Afghanistan:  Bush was right to conduct an immediate smack-down after September 11; given the evidence of the Taliban's playing host to Bin Laden, the American people would have expected nothing less.   It was quick and effective, and here we could actually have said "Mission Accomplished," except that we chose to stay. Democracy?  We may hope, but after a decade, the realistic assessment is more in line with the CIA's current prognosis:  stalemate.  We turned a war of necessity into a war of choice.

Libya:  The smoke hasn't quite cleared yet, but it appears that we accomplished something at a relatively low cost and without a perpetual U.S. presence.  Here we supported an indigenous and self-generated movement toward change (will it be democracy? No one can tell at this point).  By letting local leaders take the lead, we avoided branding whatever political change occurs in Libya with the bad smell of foreign intervention.  So, I credit the Obama administration with having learned some important lessons from the past decade.  A war of choice, but one that was kept limited.  

Of course, many politicians - and not just Republicans - have been critical of the Libya effort, bewailing our failure to lead, or our failure to commit to spend billions over many years, in an environment of budget austerity, on an effort that has almost nothing to do with core U.S. interests.  But keep in mind that these are the politicians who have got into the habit of thinking that war is (politically) easy.  They just don't get it. 

It seems to me that much of our defense effort has far more to do with projecting U.S. power and maintaining supremacy in the world than with specific national interests.  I don't suggest we need to retreat within our borders and close the shutters; what happens elsewhere in the world often affects us profoundly.  But the military response isn't always called for. Rather than endless war, we should expect endless watchfulness, and a sober assessment of our real needs.  (This is where the "war on terrorism" comes in; a matter of security, sometimes using military power, but not truly a war.)

After September 11, 2001, we quickly created the "Department of Homeland Security." What does it do?  It defends our country from foreign threats.  But wait ... "defense" ... we already have a Department for that!  That one used to be called the War Department, and that's what it still is, really.   This confusion of defense and warmaking underlies our current dilemma of "endless war," costs us a bundle, and fuzzes our thinking about security policy.

On War

In the last couple of weeks before the tenth anniversary of what we in the U.S. now universally refer to as "nine-eleven," it's only natural that we look back on the intervening years to assess our security posture.  Everybody is producing articles on it, including a current series in the Washington Post.  I was struck by today's installment, which touts "an era of endless war" as the Pentagon's assessment not just of the past decade, but of our future. 

Certainly the nature of the threat to U.S. security is changing.  We learned that from Vietnam, but didn't really move to reflect it in our strategy until much more recently.  But to predict endless war depends on our underlying assumptions and biases about our interests in two important respects:

First, the built-in bias of an all-pro military force.  The current predictions arise, interestingly, about a generation after we abandoned conscription.  By now, senior military leaders and planners have never experienced anything but an all-volunteer force.  That has its advantages, and I've discussed its disadvantages on many occasions before, but to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  I'm not saying it's conscious deception; in fact it derives from earnest professional competence, to seek to plan for every eventuality.  However, let's not base our security strategy solely on the advice of a phalanx of professionals whose job is to see things in terms of endless war.  Or as it's been said before: "War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military."  [This World-War-One quote is variously attributed to Briand or Clemenceau.] 

Second, our historical tendency to deceive ourselves about the nature of our interests and how we respond to threats.  Since at least WWII, political leaders have recognized the power of motivating a population to support war by defining it, not in terms of U.S. interests, but in the framework of the greater good.  This usually means that we are told we're fighting for democracy, or to support democracy, or to "bring democracy" to some other nation.   Occasionally it's actually true, but it gets badly stretched when the target country has little or no democratic experience.  It works as a motivator for the cannon fodder, but it seems those who make policy too often abandon their sense of reality and come to believe it themselves. 

The upshot of the two above points is that political leaders have found it considerably easier to lead the country into war (and by corollary, much harder to get us out of it!).   If we define our interests realistically we have far less reason to perceive the future in terms of "endless war." 

  This post has become too long; in the next, I'll elaborate.