I'll keep this short and sweet -- Super good: Hilda Solis; Super bad: Timothy Geithner.
Solis, appointed to head the Labor Department, is incredibly strong on the weighty issues she will oversee. For one, she is very supportive of the ever-important Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which one friend aptly described to me once as "another New Deal, for labor." The most telling story I've heard about her? After the EFCA failed in the House in 2007, she didn't just forget about it as so many pols are prone to do—she wrote about it, she's continued to campaign for it, and has not let it go quietly into the night in the way of so many other important failed pieces of legislation. And speaking of important failed legislation that's been on the back-burner for way too long, I think she could be an important force in dealing with labor issues related to comprehensive immigration reform. Namely, of course, addressing the issues of millions of undocumented workers in America that we need (badly), whose only crime is entering and/or remaining in this country illegally, and who would pay taxes if only they were given a fair path to legalization.
Geithner, appointed to the dangerously important post of Secretary of the Treasury, is cut from the same cloth as the men who sowed the seeds of the economic crisis. A protégé of Robert Rubin and Larry B(S)ummers, there is little indication that he will be any different than they have been in the past and even how they've acted more recently. (At this point, of course, I should point out how disappointing it is that Greedy Gumdrops Summers is Obama's head economic adviser.) Check, too, his social, professional, and other important connections to Wall Street. Further, the fact that Geithner can't even do his own taxes properly—or hire someone to do them properly—simply indicates carelessness and over-confidence.
Solis spells change; Geithner spells stagnancy.
That being said, happy Inauguration to all. I'll leave you with this post-script --
Super good: Aretha's hat (and pipes!), Michelle's ball dress.
Super bad: John Roberts' fumbling of the most famous oath on Earth; Rick Warren looking as fat and virulently anti-gay as usual.
And I'm not sure where Cheney's final White House appearance on a wheelchair, pushed by a sour-looking nurse falls. Probably under super appropriate.
-- Daniela Perdomo
I could say that the infamous "Mission Accomplished" press staging is the media tidbit that most aptly encapsulates the eight years of "passionate conservative" lunacy that's dominated American (and world) politics for the past eight years. After all, four of the defining traits of George W. Bush's presidency are front-and-center: Glorification of the military-industrial complex, a keen taste of self and mass delusion, an obfuscated presentation of the truth to the public, and an unabashed tendency to over-simplify foreign policy.
Alternatively, I could think back to my first impression of Bush, way back in 2000 when I was 15—which is that he looked like a way goofier version of my father. (Sorry, Dad, you are very good looking. And I love you.)
Instead, the truth of the matter is that the image that most immediately comes to mind when I think of our soon-to-be dearly departed W. is from a series of photographs taken last summer during the Summer Olympics in Beijing—
And then these, of course, also from Beijing—
The man waving his country's flag in those pictures? He is so, so happy. He is so damned proud to be an American and watch his fellow citizens kick ass at sports on the world stage. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
The reason these images are so ingrained in my mind's eye is because this happy-go-lucky volleyball enthusiast is the President of the United States—the "Leader of the Free World." These pictures, at the time, screamed to me: "Let me out! I'm finished. Done! Can I go home now? Can I just not have to worry about being President anymore?"
And now, a week before he actually gets his wish? Well, the pictures say the same thing, but I admit that last summer when these pictures were published and re-published everywhere, I was already starting to breathe a sigh of relief: It's nearly over, it's nearly over. Of course, I should have known that Bush & Co. were not about to vacate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without a final coup de grâce emblematic of the prior seven and a half years, no matter how little time was left.
The havoc his administration has wreaked on the nation in the months since last summer—piled upon that unfurled in the years preceding, of course—are so gargantuan, so unwieldy, that, well... I'm struggling to figure out who might be the only person unhappy Bush is soon to be out of the White House, if even he's grasping to be let out the door.* And it makes me sad that our government doesn't allow for early retirement of an entire administration.
And so, when I think of George W. Bush, former president of the United States of America, I'll forever think of a sports fan who was promoted beyond not only his capability but also his interest. And I'll hope we've learned some sort of lesson.
*(Oh, right—Dick.)
-- Daniela Perdomo
Ever since the markets started crashing this autumn, and as I've felt the effects ripple through my own life and the lives of those close to me, I've thought a lot about what is in store for my generation. I do, in fact, believe that we may be very capable of doing great things, but I don't believe it's fair to frame a discussion of what Gen Y may or may not achieve as a comparison to the so-called Greatest Generation.
While there are certainly broad parallels to be drawn between the uphill battle we face now and the one faced by those who came of age during the 1930s and 40s, it should be immediately clear that the hardships of present are not on the same scale. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not our generation's Second World War; the economic meltdown of today is not the Great Depression. In other words, things now are not as bad as they were then.
So if my generation is not set to be the Greater Generation or even the Next Greatest Generation, what will make us a simply Great Generation? In trying to answer this question I thought back to an incredible essay by George Packer titled "The New Liberalism" that I read about a month ago. Here's the excerpt relevant to this post—
(...) November 4, 2008, is one of those infrequent dates when one historical age and one generation, with a distinct political and economic and cultural character, gave way to another age, another generation. The new era that is about to begin under President Obama will be more about public good than about private goods. The meal will be smaller, and have less interesting flavors, but it will be shared more fairly. The great American improvisation called democracy still bends along the curve of history. It has not yet finished astounding the world.
I believe this. I believe that what is most likely to be the defining philosophy, the defining greatness, of our generation is our embrace of post-partisan rhetoric as the means and progressivism as the end.
To be sure, sacrifices will have to be made, but for each sacrifice there will be a corresponding positive change that we not only need, but want.
We won't be as wealthy as our parents because we won't be able to live off of credit and won't be able to count on cushy financial jobs. We will not be confident of our status as the most powerful country in the world. But in exchange, we'll spend more brain and manpower on technology and education, and we'll helm the transition into an international system comprised of inter-dependent powers who will have to work together to deal with international problems like poverty, disease, and global warming. Our definitions of prosperity, success, and happiness will change—but they will be more sustainable.
This is the wake-up call. And we're going to answer it.
-- Daniela Perdomo
A Gchat conversation I just had with a fellow Whyrooter regarding Obama's choice of Rick Warren to bless his inauguration—
Nathan: i guess our prompt was pretty timely :) what with the rick warren invocation announcement me: yeah no kidding seriously. :) ughh why why why why an anti choice anti gay preacher Nathan: i don't know10:44 AM rick warren encapsulates some of the deepest contradictions of evangelicals involved in some progressive movement progressive causes* because he's really on board with international development and economic justice but he's also virulently anti-gay and anti-choice10:45 AM me: exactly could he not find a single preacher whos progressive both socially and politically?? Nathan: oh i'm sure he could have he's trying to send some sort of message by picking this guy me: what message is that10:46 AM Nathan: no clue i don't know that he can reach across the aisle and pick allies strategically most likely me: he could strategically pick an ally who doesn't offend women and gays how about that?10:47 AM Nathan: i don't know he's really pushing things me: "pushing things" what the hell does that mean?10:48 AM Nathan: he's pushing the comfort level of lefties me: he has strategically pushed me away! Nathan: exactly haha i think he's trying to confound expectations me: and this is good? to embrace backwards thinking people and push progressives away? Nathan: increase comfort levels on the right when you're about to shove through the most liberal agenda in America's history? probably10:49 AM me: hm. that's an interesting theory. Nathan: i mean, if he's doing all this shit and doesn't: get the troops out of Iraq quickly institute a cap and trade program10:50 AM universal healthcare and a huge economic stimulus then he's just shitting on the left to no apparent purpose me: well that remains to be seen i suppose Nathan: he's actually raising the stakes for the left as if they could get higher me: no kidding Nathan: i mean, these are already things everyone wants10:51 AM but now it's like, you better deliver or you're a traitor i dunno it will be interesting to compare his first term to jimmy carter's who was seen as ideological at the expense of being effectual or effective anyway i have to go board a plane10:52 AM ttyl me: listen to this though http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2008/12/18/spaulding/index.html10:53 AM bye bye fly safe.
-- Daniela Perdomo
I was raised an agnostic, have embraced atheism, and am pretty much entirely surrounded by other rejecters of religion. Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign I was awed—and not in a comfortable sense—by the way every candidate professed his or her adoration of Jesus Christ the Lord. Surely, I thought, they are merely being politically expedient. (This political expediency thesis makes it easier for me to understand how a man of Obama's intellect could say he believes in God despite being raised in a decidedly non-religious home and having remained non-religious until early adulthood.)
Despite the secular bubbles I travel in, I am not delusional about the existence of the god delusion in the United States. In this country—the most religious developed nation in the world —our dollar bills say it all: "In God We Trust."
I have no problem with others believing in Jesus, Allah, Xenu, Haley's Comet, what-have-you. I understand that religion is as old as mankind and even though I am certain we are trending toward secularization in the long-run, the United States is not there yet. If religion gets you through the night, the day, the life, so long as you don't impose it on me and the laws that govern my citizen life, then I absolutely respect your free-will choice to practice it just as I hope you respect my free-will choice to abstain from it.
All this meandering merely to say that if evangelicals and other believers want to work with progressives on issues ordinarily unassociated with the religious right, that's wonderful. Wonderful, indeed. But I don't believe that in order to attract their numbers, progressives have to pander to their religious beliefs. While it may be politically expedient in the short-term, it is neither politically nor morally expedient in the long-term to cater to fundamentalists' religious tenets, particularly not when those same beliefs have been often used to justify the stripping of others' rights.
If evangelicals are moving in our direction, it's because progressivism is inclusive where fundamentalism is exclusive. It would be wrong to exclude religious people from the progressive game but it also would be wrong to play by fundamentalism's failed rules and let religion referee.
-- Daniela Perdomo
 Caroline Kennedy wants Hillary's Senate seat. Perfect. How is it that all powerful women in U.S. politics can't get ahead without resorting to riding their male relatives' political coattails?
To wit: Hillary = Bill. Pelosi = Daddy & brother. Caroline = An entire familial dynasty.
 On Monday my Gmail/Gchat was aflutter with these kinds of messages: "Did you hear?" "Good thing you got out in time!" "Are you a soothsayer?" Everyone was referring, of course, to the Tribune Company having just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Most of you know that Tribune will go down in my life history as my first full-time employer. I was a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times' California section before I quit and hightailed it to San Francisco for a career in the Internet/new media realm this past April.
I wish I could say that news of the nation's second-largest newspaper company's bankruptcy came as at least something of a surprise. The truth of the matter, though, is that it was exceedingly obvious even from the get-go, and before this economic meltdown, that things were not going well and weren't going to get any better any time soon.
For starters, my job interview last spring coincided with the first of what became a regular string of layoffs and forced early retirements over the past year and a half. During my time in the Times' newsroom, I saw a new publisher come on (only to leave soon after I did), the editor-in-chief dismissed, another take over, and Sam Zell take over the parent company. Oh yeah, and my workspace was whored out for weeks to a Hollywood shoot populated by Robert Downey, Jr., Catherine Keener, and Jamie Foxx (watch for my cameo "performance" when the film releases). Clearly, we were very, very strapped for cash.
Despite all these clear signs of trouble for the company and the newspaper, it wasn't easy to hand in my resignation. Ever since high school, my dream was to be a newspaper reporter. Countless internships, fellowships, freelance stringing gigs, and even an entire "active citizenship in journalism" volunteer project I started and coordinated during my college years made applying for the few open staff positions at the most respected papers in the country not completely out of reach. When I was offered the LAT gig a month before graduating, I didn't think twice about leaving my East Coast life behind for a city I'd only ever been to once, for the job interview.
The people I worked with in that newsroom are certainly the smartest, bravest, and best writers and editors I know. Every day I was there, I was aware of the heavy degree of intellect and professionalism that defined the career of a newspaper journalist and editor. It is because of the people I worked with and for there that it was hard to make the decision to leave years before my time was up.
In my bio on this site, it says that while at the Times, I "realized that old-school media is, indeed, old." That was the ultimate problem. As a child of the computer age, I didn't ever—not once—in my entire time I was there, read the paper in broadsheet form. It seemed anachronistic to care whether my story was on the front page because I never held it in my hands. What I did care about was why my story wouldn't go live on the site immediately even when it had gone through the editing and fact-checking process. Why are we waiting for the morning edition? I asked myself many, many times. Several other times, my art-heavy story would go online without the photographs, making the entire story essentially meaningless to the online reader. The last story I worked on (which was ultimately rewritten by another reporter) was one of the first to involve original video production. Toward the end of my short-lived tenure there, news blogs started to come to fruition. They weren't great ones, but they were a start. There was talk of moving the online department to the same floor as the newsroom—a simple, very good idea. But they weren't there yet (though that may have changed by now). During the California wildfire season, the Times' website was the place to get breaking news, at all times of the day. Episodes like those showed we had it in us, just not full-time.
The dissonance between the incredible journalism the LAT produces and the reality of the "first draft of history" that takes place online is ultimately what felt so old-school about an otherwise incredible, storied institution of respected journalism.
The good news, of course, is that filing for bankruptcy may take the LAT and the Chicago Tribune to where they have to go in terms of new media—mostly because they have no other choice. The Washington Post and New York Times have been headed in that direction far longer than they have, so speedy catch-up is necessary for these incredible bastions of journalism to stay relevant and, of course, economically viable.
It's because I know what the people behind the Los Angeles Times are capable of that reading the news of Tribune's bankruptcy felt so bittersweet. I can't wait to see what good will come of this, because it will, indeed, be good. The bailout necessary in newspaper journalism is not economic, it's paradigmatic. And that bailout just arrived—in Chapter 11 wrapping paper.
-- Daniela Perdomo
"We must patiently explain why taxing or regulating noble things (like work, saving, and entrepreneurial risk-taking) means you’ll get less of what makes America great and why subsidizing other things (like idleness and single parenthood) means you’ll get more of the destructive behaviors that ultimately will drag us down."
— An excerpt from a piece in the National Review by the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.
What struck me most as I read Franc's piece on the National Review's website, was how much of his prose could be turned around and used to make arguments that nullify his own.
For example, he writes: "All policy battles on Capitol Hill require an adult to temper the animal spirits and childishness that so often induce lawmakers to enact irrational and damaging laws." According to Franc, this "childishness" applies to people who believe in income taxes and providing temporary sustenance to those who can't find work. I can earnestly say the exact same thing about somebody who believes that single parenthood corrupts society and spreading wealth and opportunity destroys it. Further, I can't hesitate to call laws that tax the poorest people at the same rate as the richest or that make inheritances immune to taxation "irrational and damaging."
In a way, I could even write something like this, though in a less pompous tone: "We must demonstrate that, so long as our alternatives are grounded in a proper appreciation and understanding of human nature and demand the best from our citizens, Americans will rise to the challenges ahead." The difference, of course, would be that my understanding of human nature is completely different from his, because I don't frame my view of my fellow citizens in a binary, hard-coded moral spectrum.
Therein lies the problem with an argument like Franc's: It frames every policy discussion—including this economic debate over taxes and subsidies—in terms of moral inequalities, instead of in terms of structural inequalities. The fact of the matter is that issues like poverty, crime, and unemployment are the result of structural differences, not moral differences. One cannot vilify the poor, simultaneously lionize the rich, and expect the less fortunate to believe and fight for that old American Dream. Forgive me the Marxist tone, but this type of inequality in power and reward, quite obviously, leads to more of the same, more of the same.
The way I see it, Mr. Franc, the most "destructive behavior that ultimately will drag us down" is continuing to define our structural problems as moral problems. To continue to do so seems, frankly, immoral.
-- Daniela Perdomo
 I took a late, long lunch today and started catching up on my reading, which I've neglected recently due to the holiday weekend and other time-consuming events in my life. Surprisingly, among all the articles I read today, the most interesting quote I came across was from a front-of-the-magazine profile of Mike Huckabee in the Dec. 1 edition of the New Yorker.
The article made me, er, understand Mike Huckabee a little more. (I add the very doubtful "er" because I don't think I can ever really understand someone who literally interprets the Bible.) Anyway, I have to give credit to the formerly-obese Baptist minister for two things: One, he called the unfurling economic crisis before nearly any presidential hopeful—on either side—did; two, he's put into words something I fear may very well be true—
"My guess is that Barack Obama will more disappoint his supporters on the far left than he will enrage his critics on the far right."
I don't want this to be true, but with the Cabinet forming along establishment lines, I fear Obama won't take the progressive mandate he was granted on Nov. 4 as far he viably could. That being said, I still harbor—yes—hope for two reasons:
(1) The Cabinet is not yet fully formed, and a few truly progressive names are still being floated around for open positions, such as Labor. (For example, Mary Beth Maxwell is the epitome of progressivism, what with her lesbian union activist credentials.)
(2) I think there's a real important and possibly unanswerable question here as to how progressive Obama really is and to what extent he can influence people who have in the past been cautiously centrist (See: all the Clintonian incrementalists he's hiring) to be bravely focused on moving our policies from the center firmly to the left side of the political spectrum.
My hope, then lies in the appointment of more high-level progressives in Obama's administration (i.e. not just lower-level appointments, such as Gaspard's), and the possibility that Obama may surprise us with the leadership needed to steer his band of establishment pols into progressive territory.
I am hopeful, then, but not really convinced that this will happen. Only time will tell.
-- Daniela Perdomo
I admit that when faced with this hypothetical scenario, I am at a real loss. It's actually much more entertaining to think about what the last eight years of neo-conservatism have insanely over-funded, rather than think about what needs the money. Here are a few of my favorites: the War on Terror, the War on Stoners, the War on Undocumented Immigrants, the War on Pre-Marital Sex, the War on People Who Carry Liquids Onto a Plane, and, of course: the Crusade for Bridges to Nowhere.
The under-funded issues camp gets rather unwieldy: Public schools, sex education, all manner of medical and scientific research, market regulation, green technology, and essentially everything else.
I have to pick one issue that is deserving of an additional $5 billion in funding? The task is, regrettably, impossible. And frankly, just weeks after we handed a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street, the task is dwarfed to the point of being unimportant, which is unfair because $5 billion is more money than I'll ever really comprehend.
I know, I know, I should just play nice with the game here. I should remind myself that $5 billion is just a hypothetical number in a hypothetical scenario. I should forget the fact that it's obvious that this lame-duck administration has raped every important issue in the country all the while as it served champagne to causes that haven't brought any tangible long-term benefit to society at large. The task at hand, after all, is to simply pinpoint an important issue that is deserving of more funding and attention.
Well, if I'm going to put aside the impracticality of the hypothetical situation, then let me add onto the impossibility of the scenario by suggesting that the $5 billion be spent on something that would never, unfortunately, happen in the United States of America. Let's throw that money at a tribunal that would actually try the Bush Administration for its crimes against humanity, its violations of the U.S. Constitution, and its general swindling of the electorate.
In my hypothetical scenario, the tribunal would try Rumsfeld, Cheney, Gonzales, Rice, and all the rest of the W. minions—and George himself, of course—and they would be convicted of the crimes they committed in the name of all Americans. If this impossible tribunal actually wasn't impossible, these convictions would result in no sentences. But the crimes would be acknowledged in the public arena, and the convicted would acknowledge their crimes publicly.
You may wonder what the value of this amnesty-granting tribunal would be. In college I was particularly focused on and fascinated with the concept of nation-building in a divided society where human rights and the rule of law have been violated on a grand-scale. My argument then and now is that the first step in the nation-building process in such a place is to develop that absent appreciation for the rule of law so that the ensuing democratization process (whether it's a renewal or birth thereof) can take place. Particularized amnesty, which is what I described above, is the linchpin in establishing a strong human rights culture and respect for the rule of law. This kind of amnesty does not forsake justice because the justice to be gained from it is of a restorative kind; retributive justice does not work in a post-conflict, divided society setting—particularly given the language of hope that, with the election of Obama, has re-framed the White House. This scenario would forgive (and yes, that would be hard) but not forget, providing for the happiest medium between general amnesty and Nuremberg-style justice. And it's certainly better than what's definitely going to happen: Doing nothing, holding no one accountable, sweeping everything under the rug.
Too bad it will never happen, just as I'll never have $5 billion to spend on any one issue.
-- Daniela Perdomo
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