Kemstone's Journal

Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is the only senator on the Democratic side who is sticking to his guns and refusing to vote for the financial reform package because it doesn’t go far enough. He wrote yesterday on the Huffington Post that he had a simple test for reform–whether or not it would prevent another financial crisis–and that this bill fails the test.

Of course he’s been cajoled by the administration and other democrats to get on board and act like this is real reform, but much to his credit he won’t do it.

It would be a huge mistake to pass a bill that purports to re-regulate the financial industry but is simply too weak to protect people from the recklessness of Wall Street. That would be like building an impressive-looking dam without telling everyone that it has a few leaks in it. False security is no security at all.

Obama and the rest of the democrats are making a huge political miscalculation. They think that the bankers have wised up and learned their lesson, and that they only needed to pass something called “financial reform” for the sake of public perception while Wall Street does its part to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.

But “Wall Street” has no conscience. It’s not a singular entity that makes decisions and learns from its mistakes. It’s made up of a bunch of individual people who make day-to-day decisions based on their immediate financial incentives. Nothing has been done to change the incentives of these individuals: bankers can still make loads of money by lending to people who can’t afford to pay, and ratings agencies still work for the banks that they are supposed to be overseeing, so they still have an incentive to give bonds Triple-A ratings (meaning virtually risk-free) even when those bonds are loaded with risk.

Another financial crisis will come, and when it does Obama and the democrats will look at best like fools, and at worst like liars. Russ Feingold will look like the only one who understood how serious the reform needed to be.

Luckily for the democrats, the other party will look even more foolish. This week John Boehner said that financial reform was like “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” Exactly backwards, John. The bill is more like sending in an ant to defuse a nuclear weapon.

NOTE: Unlike the health care reform bill, which I reluctantly supported in the end because “something is better than nothing”, in this case the minor tweeks to the system are just as good as nothing. Even if Feingold’s no-vote is enough to kill the legislation, he’s still doing the right thing by forcing the democrats to either make the bill stronger or let it die.

Obama called the financial reform package that passed this week “the most sweeping reforms since the Great Depression”. Ha fucking ha.

I won’t bore you with the details, but if you want the basic facts just take two minutes to read Dylan Ratigan’s brief but spot-on piece on the Huffington Post.

The few reforms that actually made it through are pretty much window dressing. Banks are still Too Big to Fail, the regulators still have a financial incentive to not do actual regulation, and banks can still make risky bets backed up by taxpayer money. This is no more of a fix to our financial system than the health care bill was a fix to our health care system.

Wall Street owns Washington. Congressmen and senators on both sides of the aisle had to do a song and dance and pretend to fix the problem–and some genuinely tried–but ultimately the goal was to pass something called “financial reform” and score another political victory for Obama and the democrats.

What I can’t figure out is whether or not Obama just doesn’t understand the issues enough to know that these reforms aren’t nearly tough enough to prevent another crisis. He’s surrounded himself with people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner who have Wall Street in their DNA, and they’ve been telling him all along to trust the bankers, don’t be too hard on them, they’ll make sure we won’t have another collapse.

But the structure of the system is such that it is guaranteed to collapse, and when it does our only recourse is still to bail them out with taxpayer money.

If you thought the Tea Party was mad now, just wait until the next crisis. They’ve been blaming Obama for the crisis and the bailouts already, but thus far we’ve at least been able to counter them with the undeniable fact that these things happened during the Bush administration. But when the next financial crisis hits, it really will be Obama’s fault.

In keeping with my new tradition of sharing petitions I find important on my blog, I’m offering up this link to a petition telling congress that we demand the restoration of Glass-Steagall like rules the prevent banks from gambling with taxpayer money.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Glass-Steagall Act was a regulation put in place after the Great Depression which prevented regular banks from engaging in the kind of risky trading that investment banks do. For decades it prevented another market crash until it was removed during the Clinton administration, and what followed was the inflation of a giant financial bubble on Wall Street and ultimately the financial collapse of 2008 which has brought us to the recession we’re still stuck in.

Thanks to a progressive primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, she tried to boost her progressive credibility by offering one of the strongest amendments to the financial reform package still being worked out in congress, and in spite of Wall Street’s best efforts it still hasn’t been killed.

And it’s obvious why. Telling banks that they can gamble all they want–just not with taxpayer money–is the most obvious thing in the world. It would ensure that if another crash comes, it won’t be our money but Wall Street’s money that’s lost.

Anyone who votes against the re-instatement of Glass-Steagall like laws is, without a doubt, a complete and utter tool of Wall Street. Sign the petition and let them know you understand that.

I write a lot about America’s problems in my blog, but this time I’ll actually offer a solution. It’s not an original idea—I’m sure we’ve all thought of it at one time or another—but it’s such a simple and obvious measure we can take to get government working on behalf of the people again that it bears repeating as often as possible.

We’ve all heard the term “revolving door congress” which refers to the implicit bribe that public servants have to cater to big industries at the expense of their constituents. Spending time as a congressman or senator may not earn you a great deal of money while you have that job, but it will earn you significant credentials for any future job. Whether it’s a place on the board of directors of a major corporation, or merely a job as a lobbyist, you can earn a lot more money when you move from the public to the private sector.

But the revolving door isn’t only in operation for actual congressmen—it works for their staffers as well. A huge portion of staffers on Capitol Hill, perhaps even the majority, are only in it for their resume. They work in Washington, make connections with the power-players, and put those connections to the service of lobbying firms once they’re done. The staffers are the ones who actually write the legislation, and if their main goal is to be a lobbyist for a big corporation, they’re going to make sure they write that legislation in a way that benefits, to the greatest degree possible, the corporation they intend to work for. That corporation will reward them with a nice fat salary when they’re finished. It’s not bribery per se, but it’s pretty damn close.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks gave a perfect example on the show last week. Having just returned from a protest they organized in Washington, he’d had a few conversations with Washington insiders which provided some additional insight into the situation. His source wanted to remain anonymous, so he couldn’t be very specific, but there was a provision in the Financial Reform package that was so transparently helpful to Wall Street and harmful to Main Street that not even the republicans could openly support it and it was removed from the bill. But when a new draft came along, the same provision had miraculously reappeared, and had to be removed again. The same thing happened a third time, and finally they realized that staffers at the Federal Reserve, who had been given the task of actually writing the legislation, had been slipping the provision back into the bill with each new draft.

How can we expect Washington to produce any legislation that works in our favor if the very people writing that legislation have a vested interest in making it work in the corporations’ favor? Public pressure made the financial reform bill much stronger than many of us expected it to be, but once the debate in front of the cameras was over the bill got fatally weaker. When all is said and done, there will be enough fine print and loop-holes so as to make Wall Street feel as though the whole legislative battle had been nothing but a dream and things can continue exactly as before.

The solution is painfully obvious, so obvious that it’s a wonder the public isn’t demanding it so loudly and forcefully that congress has no choice but to act: close the revolving door.

There are already rules that prohibit congressional staffers from lobbying their former colleagues for at least one year after they leave those jobs. But a mandatory year-long waiting period is a joke. Of course they’re just going to wait out the year and go to work for the lobbying firm the minute they can. For a huge portion of them, that’s their exact plan. Help to sabotage financial reform, wait a year, then go to work for a Wall Street bank. Help to sabotage health insurance reform, wait a year, then go to work for a private health insurance company. Now, help to sabotage energy legislation, wait a year, then go to work for an oil company.

Some say we should insist that they expand the waiting period to five or ten years, but we all know what happens when we start from an already-compromised position. We have to insist that they completely prohibit all public servants and their staffers from ever working as lobbyists for as long as they live. Don’t just slow down the revolving door—destroy it completely. If we keep demanding this, we might reach a compromise whereby the waiting period is extended. That will at least improve the situation a little.

But what’s wrong with demanding the life-long ban? Why shouldn’t we insist that if you want to work as a public servant, you must give up the opportunity to be a lobbyist? The government’s job is to work on behalf of the people, to protect our interests from the interests of giant organizations—be it a country or a corporation—whose interests conflict with ours. If you want to work for the government, why shouldn’t we say that you then have to give up your right to lobby the government on behalf of those organizations?

There should be no financial incentive to work for the government. The only incentive any public servant should have is to serve the public. Destroy the revolving door and all those single-minded greed-driven individuals who only use government as a springboard for their future careers will have to find another path to success. The government will once again be composed of principled people whose only desires are to do some good for their communities and their country.

If anyone who reads this knows anyone with the know-how, the skills, and the resources to organize a campaign to demand this badly needed change to our system, I hope you’ll encourage them to take up this fight. This is a cause that Americans from across the political spectrum would support, and if enough of us demand it we can’t possibly be ignored.

Allow me to depress the hell out of you for a moment as I step back and take a broad look at the state of affairs in the world and draw my gloomy conclusions. Hopefully someone can tell me why I’m wrong and that things aren’t as bad as they seem.

Cenk Uygur, the host of my favorite political show—The Young Turks—sees most things almost exactly as I see them with one major difference. He insists that while he may be pessimistic in the short-term, he’s “long-term optimistic” and I know a lot of people who also feel that way. But not me. I look at the world and the human race and I see a species on the verge of extinction, brought about by its own blind ignorance and refusal to accept responsibility for its fate.

Just look at what’s in the headlines today. Wall Street Executives are expressing sighs of relief at the financial reform package just passed in the senate. You don’t need to know a damned thing about economics to take that as an indication that the reforms didn’t go far enough and the bankers can continue with business as usual. Banks can still be too big to fail and they can still trade derivatives. There is slightly more oversight and rules banning some of the more reckless financial practices…but no penalty for banks that break those rules. Just this one line from the New York Times piece says it all:

Some experts predict that Wall Street, like water overcoming a dam, will easily adapt to the new regulations, or at least exploit what loopholes do remain and thrive again.

If I had any money I’d bet heavily on another financial crisis hitting within the next few years. And when it does, the damage is going to be far worse than the last one. The big banks haven’t been broken up so they can still hold the economy hostage. The public has to bail them out or it all goes under. But people are still enraged about the first bailout—how is it going to be politically possible for anyone in congress to vote for another one? I suspect they all will because they can hide behind the cover of “this is absolutely necessary” like they did the first time, but there’s a chance that the people just won’t stand for it this time and the banks will go down. In any case, Obama will be blamed (rightly so in one sense) and the Tea Party movement is likely to boil into open revolt. Economies all over the world will fall like dominos and countries that have a social safety net will find the number of unemployed far too large to handle. Billions will be out on the street with nowhere to turn, and global chaos will ensue.

Maybe that won’t happen for a few decades, but that seems to be the direction we’re heading in. Thanks to these financial crises the human race seems to be waking up to the fact that the entire global monetary system is based on nothing more than a kind of international consent. We agree that your money is worth something and you agree that ours is too. But economies are becoming less based on actual tangible goods and more on abstract ‘financial products’ that have no intrinsic value. Wealth is just a number in a bank account, scarcely more real than points in a video game. The entire global financial system is a balloon filled with hot air and we’re doing nothing to stop those who keep blowing into it because they hold the balloon—they own everybody in a position to potentially stop them—and sooner or later the balloon is going to burst.

But that’s just money. The global chaos that will ensue when the balloon bursts may set humanity back to the Dark Ages but it won’t kill us all. The other big story in the news these days is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which in and of itself won’t be too devastating but it’s just one symptom of a much larger problem—one far more threatening than any economic collapse.

Not everyone accepts that CO2 emissions are warming up the earth’s atmosphere and not everyone believes that the earth’s resources are as limited as environmentalists claim they are, but just about everyone accepts the concept of a food chain. Anyone who knows anything about ecosystems knows that all forms of life depend on other forms of life for their survival. Nature establishes equilibriums, and when it’s thrown off balance the consequences are usually devastating. Remove just one species from a marsh and hundreds of others might disappear depending on how crucial that species was.

This planet is currently undergoing what scientists have labeled the Sixth Extinction, in which the earth loses about 30,000 species per year due to human activity. This has been going on since the development of agriculture thousands of years ago, but there is no doubt it’s accelerating rapidly due to industrialization. The Gulf oil spill is almost sure to take its fair share of species from the ocean, and there is no indication that we as a species have any intention to stop drilling any time soon.

And of course there’s only so much oil in the earth’s crust, so when that’s gone we’re really going to run into trouble unless we can find another fuel source that can provide us with as much energy as fossil fuels do. Wind and solar won’t provide enough power to keep civilization running as it currently is, and nuclear energy has its own problems, the biggest being radioactive waste.

But even if we find a way to keep the engines of civilization churning, those engines will continue to rape the environment, pollute the sky, and destroy species by the minute. Common sense tells us that there’s only so much damage we can do to the environment before a tipping point is reached and some element of the food chain that was critical to our survival disappears. It may not happen for another century, but unless we drastically alter our way of living it is bound to happen, and I see no sign of willingness on the part of humanity to make such drastic alterations.

The last story I read today is about the Muslim world’s perception of America on the one year anniversary of Obama’s Cairo speech, and how nearly all of the hopes he raised in that speech have been dashed over the last year. The prison at Guantanamo remains open, Israel is still building new settlements in disputed territory, and American troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regarding the wars, Iraq may be “winding down” but people are still being killed by insurgents nearly every day, while Afghanistan truly is “heating up” while many objective observers are saying that our presence there is counter-productive. Our troops are basically there to prop up and support a corrupt, criminal government with a leader who almost certainly won the election through fraud.

Why is this important? Why is it a sign of humanity’s impending doom? Because the leader of the free world is not George W. Bush anymore—it’s Barack Obama.

I came to true political awareness during the Bush administration and back then I was just as filled with doom and gloom. Clearly, the guy was the worst possible president we could have had. Not only was he an ignorant buffoon who probably genuinely believed that Jesus wanted him to start these wars—he was transparently a puppet of the giant corporations that dominate us. He was a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil and a staunch ally of the military industrial complex. Under Bush, you could be sure that the environment would continue to be raped and war would be the order of the day. Clearly, there would be no effort towards world peace or environmental sustainability.

But then Barack Obama came along with a promise of change. He talked the talk and inspired the world with the very vision we needed most—the vision of a world united in peace, an end to unnecessary wars and a true drive towards clean and renewable energy that would protect and preserve the environment we all depend on. If anyone was going to lead the way to that future dreamed about by men like Gene Roddenberry or Carl Sagan—in which humanity survives its technological adolescence and dedicates itself to its own betterment and to exploring the universe beyond our planet of origin—it was Barack Obama.

But clearly we’re a long way from the United Federation of Planets and it’s doubtful we’ll ever get there. If Obama had the best of intentions when he got into office, he quickly discovered that there were serious limitations to what he could accomplish. The powers that be were already too powerful. If the best he could do with Wall Street was to give them a slap on the wrist and warn them not to cause another financial crisis, if the best he could do with the two wars was to slightly alter the deployment numbers and shift a few resources around, if the best he could do to address climate change was to offer more subsidies for offshore drilling and then give up the fight when something went wrong, and if the best he can do during an actual environmental catastrophe like the one in the Gulf is to let the corporations handle it and hope the story just goes away—then humanity is more fucked than most people care to admit.

It turns out that it really doesn’t matter at all who the president is. If we’re heading in the wrong direction no matter who is at the helm, we’re eventually going to fall off the cliff. And what can I do about it? What can any of us do about it? That’s a question for another blog entry, one I’ll write if I ever come up with anything. For now I think the best we can do is simply recognize it. To understand that humanity’s survival is not guaranteed—that our grandchildren may not live to have grandchildren of their own—and that the only hope we have is to stop making enemies of each other and to come together and fight against extinction, the common enemy of us all.

I hear this argument again and again from democrats: By criticizing the president, you’re undermining his agenda. Funny—he seemed to be doing a pretty good job of undermining his own supposed agenda without my help.

A few days ago, I got into a little tussle with another Huffington Post commenter after agreeing with another commenter who expressed frustration with Obama and the democrats for continuing to fail to deliver on the promises of change at the heart of the 2008 campaign. Specifically, they voted down the amendment to break up the big banks and Obama sat idly by while Too Big Too Fail remained firmly in place. I wrote that this practically guaranteed another financial crisis and taxpayer bailout in the near future—a position that many economists agree with. I was called a “clown” who was “wasting his time” over the “arbitrary size of the banks” when I should have been focused on more important issues like making sure “the government continues to protect deposits.”

What ensued was a back-and-forth that I might have found quite valuable if the guy didn’t insist on attacking me personally, but that’s just the way it goes in the online comment jungle. (The Huffington Post allows you to flag comments that you find abusive, but I don’t believe in doing that. Let people be as vitriolic as they want—they’re only undermining their own credibility by doing so. Plus, I’ve had more than a few comments removed that weren’t abusive at all but merely a little snarky, so I refuse to flag anything. I’m a free speech purist.)

The thing is—I honestly feel this is a debate worth having. Are people like me in fact doing more harm than good by constantly expressing frustration and disappointment with the president and the Democratic Party for not going far enough to solve the problems we believe are the most significant this country is facing? Should we just stand behind the president no matter what, accepting any and all compromises he chooses to make?

I’ll risk a little quote from this guy:

The Democrats have consistently been delivering for the American people; the legislative record for the Congress clearly proves that. And, frankly, outside of not having Guantanamo Bay closed, President Barack Obama and his Administration have been delivering on the change that they promised on the campaign trail. Barack Obama never casted himself as a guy that was running from the left fringe of the Democratic Party and, frankly, I don’t see where all this “frustration of broken promises” from the left is coming from.

Obviously he doesn’t watch The Young Turks, as the host Cenk Uygur—whose political views and attitude are the closest to mine of any other commentator—has been doing a fantastic job of explaining it. On issue after issue, Obama has turned what could have been real change into “pocket change” as Cenk likes to say, and it only naturally follows that “Sometimes, I feel discouraged.”

No need to make a laundry list of the disappointments…well, maybe a little one: No accountability for those who authorized or carried out policies of torture. Instead, a surge in Afghanistan. No public option for health insurance. Instead, a mandate to buy private insurance even though there are no real cost controls. No independent consumer financial protection agency. No support to audit the Federal Reserve. And apparently, no legislation this year to address the climate change issue because it would have to include subsidies for more offshore oil-drilling.

But according to my online adversary, the reason all of these compromises and back-room deals had to be made is because of people like me, and apparently people like Cenk Uygur and every other progressive blogger/commentator who try to push the president further to the left. If it weren’t for “clowns” like us, we would have had a public option, strong financial reform would have already passed by now, work on the climate and immigration issues would already be well under way, we’d be seeing massive economic recovery and job growth, and the troops would be coming home from Iraq with the tide turning in Afghanistan.

Well holy shit, if only I’d known. I guess the right thing for progressives to do would have been to…what? Not demand a strong public option? Not put the pressure on for strong financial reforms including regulation of derivatives, an independent consumer financial protection agency, and an audit of the Fed? When Obama decided to concede to offshore oil drilling before the debate on climate legislation even began, I guess we should have cheered him on. Way to go, Obama! That’s Compromise We Can Believe In! Maybe you should concede even more to the interests of multi-national corporations!

All kidding aside, I just don’t buy it. We’ve got half the country (or at least what feels like half the country thanks to all the coverage they get from the mainstream media) howling that Obama is a socialist and what we need is less government regulation, more freedom for private insurance companies and Wall Street banks, and above all more oil drilling, baby. If these were the only voices we heard, you think Obama would move further to the left? If the political discourse is solely between the center-right and the far-right, it’s absolutely ridiculous to assume that politicians are going to go anywhere near the left.

But I continue to be attacked by Democratic Party supporters who insist I’m being naïve and childish, many of whom have been far more abusive and belittling than this guy. “Who did you think you were voting for?” they say. “Obama never promised to be a progressive president.” As if this matters at all. I criticized Bush from the left, but for some reason I shouldn’t criticize Obama from the left?

During the 60s, didn’t LBJ tell civil rights leaders that he wanted to do civil rights legislation but that they had to “make him do it”? Am I imagining things, or didn’t Obama ask the same thing of progressives when he first took office? That’s the whole point of political criticism—get out there and shout your demands so that the politicians can credibly say they are following the will of the people.

As far as I can tell, the “Don’t criticize Obama” crowd believe just the opposite: that criticism of the president—any criticism—damages his poll numbers and thus feeds into the narrative that he doesn’t have popular support. If we stood by him, however, his approval rating would be higher, and according to my commenter friend:

President Obama, hypothetically, could take those numbers to Congress and clearly argue that the American people are staunchly with him and with his ideas on the way forward, drastically leveraging the bully pulpit to secure more of what he wanted.

What’s missing from this picture? The actual policies we need is what. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the president’s personal approval rating. Look at the poll numbers on the specific issues. The public option consistently had about two-thirds support among the American people—an overwhelming majority in such a polarized political climate. But did Obama—who supposedly wanted a public option—ever take those numbers to Congress and use the bully pulpit to push it through? Not even close. How much support was there to break up the big banks? Enough to get the amendment passed if Obama had wanted it to.

And that’s where I believe these Obama-loyalists go wrong. If Obama actually wanted the things that progressives wanted, we wouldn’t be criticizing him! But instead of rallying support from those that got him elected, he keeps trying to court so-called ‘moderates’ and conservatives as though desperately trying to prove that he’s not the radical socialist they accuse him of being.

This is why I’m coming to believe more and more that he never wanted any of these things in the first place—that he was a corporatist all along whose only agenda was to become the POTUS and do favors for the wealthy and powerful. He tosses a bone to the left every now and then to make it look like he still cares, but if he really cared we’d be seeing a much different White House.

Of course I could be wrong. As I wrote to my comment-buddy:

I honestly hope you’re right and that “clowns” like us are just whining and complaining over nothing, that the Democratic Party really does place more value on the good of the American people than the good of their corporate campaign donors, and that all of this watered-down industry-friendly legislation that’s being marketed as “Change we can believe in” actually does change things and that after Obama’s presidency we’ll look back and marvel at our wonderful health care system, clean environment, risk-free financial system and booming economy—I sincerely hope all of that, and if it happens I’ll be first to admit I was a naive fool for thinking it was all just political theater.

But, more importantly:

That doesn’t mean I’ll regret holding the democrats’ feet to the fire and making sure they knew the perception was out there that they were selling us out. I don’t believe we’re doing any harm—we’re just challenging them to prove us wrong. I hope they do.

I just highly doubt they will.

The pattern of Obama’s method of governing is becoming clearer every day. He ran on a platform of Change, and does everything he can to appear to be delivering that change without actually changing anything. He tackles huge issues like health care and financial reform at home, and pursues lofty goals abroad such as the elimination of nuclear weapons and peace between Israel and Palestine. In each case, it’s easy to imagine that he is in fact making big changes—as long as you’re not paying close enough attention.

You’ve got people on the left who believe he really is delivering on the change he promised, and people on the right who believe that he is changing things so profoundly that America is becoming unrecognizable from what it used to be. Neither group would dispute that he is a transformative president—they only disagree on whether the transformation is positive or negative, and in the case of the tea-partiers, the most disastrous thing ever to happen in the history of America. I disagree with the whole premise. I don’t think he’s actually changing a damn thing.

Let’s start with health care reform, as this is the only major battle that is technically over and that we can speak about definitively. Judging by all the news coverage, particularly of all the tea-party protests of people absolutely furious over the bill, you’d think that Obama had completely altered the very foundation of America’s health care system. And people who don’t follow the news closely might really believe that everything will be different now. But what was really accomplished? I can’t put my finger on it. There’s going to be an insurance exchange set up in a few years, but it will only offer private insurance and will only be available to a small segment of the population. Insurance companies are technically no longer allowed to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or to take away people’s coverage when they get sick, but there have been several stories in the news over the past few weeks about insurance companies continuing to do both things. Such practices may be illegal now—or they will be in a few years—but the penalty is less expensive than the crime, so they’ll just go on with business as usual.

Now we’re talking about financial reform that’s just as weak and watered-down as the health care bill. The biggest problem with Wall Street is the derivatives trading—selling bogus financial products and betting on them failing. This bill won’t even ban that—it will just force banks to make them public. As if everyone is paying close attention to how much money their banks have tied up in derivatives. At best, it’ll make it easier to see the next financial crisis coming when it does. It certainly won’t prevent it. Banks, like any corporation, have to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. As long as making these bets is permissible, someone is going to do it, and they’re going to make a lot of money from it. To compete, everyone else has to follow suit, even if they don’t want to. A banker might personally be dead-set against these practices but if he wants to keep his job, he has to go along with them. It doesn’t matter how transparent it is—if it’s permissible it will be done.

So ‘financial reform’ will likely be just as empty as health care reform. And now that republicans are beginning to indicate that a few of them might get on board, we can expect the bill to become even weaker. They can pass this slap-on-the-wrist legislation and pretend they all worked together to solve the problem, and in November they can claim that they stood up to Wall Street when in fact they just did exactly what Wall Street wanted them to do, save for a few minor bits and pieces that will be an inconvenience to the bankers at best. Obama can add another ‘legislative victory’ to his list of ‘accomplishments’ and go on posing as the Change president. People who don’t pay much attention will either believe he solved the problem, or in the case of the tea-partiers, that he made everything infinitely worse.

And what about his work on the global stage? For the most part, I’ve been very pleased with what he’s doing in terms of reaching out to the Muslim world and enlisting international cooperation to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation, but how much actual change will come of it? I understand that eliminating nuclear weapons altogether is unrealistic and taking an incremental approach is the only way to go about it, but it just seems like taking on nuclear weapons is a mostly political calculation, as if Obama asked an advisor “What is the least controversial cause I can champion on the world stage and thus boost my international credibility and secure my legacy?” Obviously, reducing the threat of nuclear war isn’t going to draw a lot of criticism—unless of course you’re in the tea-party.

As for the Muslim world, I’m extremely pleased with the tone he’s taking—but we all know that rhetoric is by far the president’s strongest quality. In many cases—such as financial reform—words don’t matter half as much as what you actually do, but when it comes to Muslim perceptions of the United States, words matter a great deal, and Obama typically chooses the right ones. At least it’s a far departure from the previous president, who actually used the word “crusade” to describe our presence in the Middle East. But at the point where words end and actions begin, Obama hasn’t changed anything. Our troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan and there is no sign that they’ll be coming home any time soon. The war in Iraq was already winding down when Bush left office, so you can’t credit Obama with the troop withdrawal there. At best you can say that had McCain been president, the surge in Afghanistan might have been a little bigger. In any case, regarding military policy there is nothing this president has done that can legitimately be considered ‘Change’.

Obama is not the first president to run on a platform of Change. It’s actually one of the most frequently used political platforms of all time, as the desire for change is always present when the system is so imperfect. It just happened to catch fire in the 2008 elections because everything was so incredibly bad after eight years of Bush that it was inevitable that the candidate who could most credibly promise Change (and who wasn’t named Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinitch) would win. And Obama did more than just promise change—he personified it. A black president would, in itself, be a major change in terms of how we perceive ourselves and how the world perceives us.

To be sure, there has been a major change in the perception of the rest of the world towards us. I lived in Germany when Bush was re-elected, and I lived here again when Obama was elected, and the difference in how people reacted to me after each instance was substantial. In the same respect, the perception Americans have of their own country has also been altered dramatically, though mostly in the case of the tea-partiers who now see their country as some kind of nightmarish socialist dystopia.

But beyond that, nothing is changing. The powers-that-be who really controlled things under Bush are still very much in control under Obama, only now they have to make a few minor concessions here and there so Obama can continue to maintain the façade of a transformative leader. But those of us who are paying attention are not fooled. A president truly interested in change wouldn’t spend so much time talking about compromise and bipartisanship. He wouldn’t be saying that Wall Street and Main Street rise and fall together—he’d be going after Wall Street with fury, inviting their anger and hatred just as FDR did during the Great Depression.

Yes, we occasionally hear tough rhetoric, and when we do we think, “Is this the new Obama?” We wonder if maybe he learned his lesson and is now going to forget about this bipartisanship nonsense and fight for real change. But when he says that he’d rather have a strong bill than a bipartisan bill, it’s much more likely that this is calculated to placate progressives who have been calling bullshit on bipartisanship since the very beginning. Even the changes to his own rhetoric are purely for the sake of appearance.

When all is said and done, we have a president who is going to protect the establishment, and unfortunately there’s no alternative. Republicans also protect the establishment, only they get to do so more openly. Democrats have to walk a fine line between appearing to change things and not really changing anything at all. Obama is a master at this.

Of course I know the objection: “What do you expect? Be patient, he’s doing the best he can. Change has to come incrementally. He’s laying the groundwork for future changes that really will make a difference.” Well, I hope you’re right and I’m just being naïve. But all signs seem to indicate the contrary. I think we have a president more concerned with his own political image and his presidential legacy than actually doing the hard work America needs a president to do. If Obama’s method of governing is really “Change we can believe in” then Fox News’s method of reporting is really “Fair and balanced.”
His brand of Change is just that—a brand.

An actual “Liveblog” is a running commentary of a major event as it happens. I can’t really do that because I live in Europe, and being 6 hours ahead of Washington I don’t really feel like waiting up until the wee hours of the morning to watch primetime events live. I just watch them online the next day, then write about them when I get a chance. I don’t have much to say overall about the President’s first state of the union speech, so I thought I’d simply have a little fun and do a running commentary of my own that can hopefully be enjoyed even by people who didn’t see the speech.

I’ll post noteworthy quotes when I feel an urge to respond to them, and when I’m responding to something visual (like Republicans applauding or not applauding) I’ll try to make that clear.

Full disclosure: I already watched the speech once and took in some commentary, so some of my opinions are influenced by other bloggers, pundits, and columnists. But in most cases I’m writing the immediate reaction I had the first time around.

[re: the stimulus] Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression. So we acted, immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.

You lie! Things may get better in the short term, but there’s just going to be another storm because you’re not doing anything to prevent it.

[re: the American spirit] It’s because of this spirit — this great decency and great strength — that I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight.

The first applause line. Apparently everybody loves hope.

Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit.

You lie! Yes we do. Have you never even watched cable news?

[re: the bank bailouts] But when I ran for President, I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular – I would do what was necessary.

Then why don’t you?

To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. I know Wall Street isn’t keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.

Apparently republicans don’t like the idea of paying back taxpayers for rescuing the banks.

Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers. And we haven’t raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.

Apparently republicans don’t like tax cuts either. And Obama calls them out, saying “I thought I’d get some applause there.” John Boehner is amused.

But I realize that for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from; who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response. That is why jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.

Republicans are standing now. Everyone likes jobs. Or at least everyone likes pandering to the unemployed.

[re: job creation] We should start where most new jobs do – in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.

Lifted directly from every one of Bush’s speeches. And Clinton’s. And Bush Sr.’s. And Reagan’s…actually every speech by every president in history.

[re: infrastructure] There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.

You lie! There is a damn good reason—their governments actually do stuff.

And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it’s time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America.

Also lifted from every State of the Union address ever given.

[re: the jobs bill] Now, the House has passed a jobs bill that includes some of these steps. As the first order of business this year, I urge the Senate to do the same, and I know they will. They will.

You lie! They won’t, and they know it.

You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse. Meanwhile, China’s not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany’s not waiting. India’s not waiting. These nations aren’t standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place.

If these other nations jumped off a bridge, should we do that too?

The House has already passed financial reform with many of these changes. And the lobbyists are already trying to kill it. Well, we cannot let them win this fight. And if the bill that ends up on my desk does not meet the test of real reform, I will send it back.

Hah! You’ll sign anything they manage to deliver to you, and you know it. Luckily for you, they won’t be able to deliver anything.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.

Yeah! Drill baby drill! Clean coal (which is utter bullshit)! Wahoo!

[re: global warming] But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future – because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

Why? Why not let some other nation lead the global economy for awhile? Our recent track record hasn’t exactly been fantastic.

[re: free trade] And that’s why we will continue to shape a Doha trade agreement that opens global markets, and why we will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea, Panama, and Colombia.

This time, only republicans are standing. That could only mean this is a bad idea.

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer-subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let’s take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants.

Now the republicans are sitting on their hands. I guess they’re opposed to kids being able to afford college.

And it is precisely to relieve the burden on middle-class families that we still need health insurance reform.

Republicans, as expected, are not in favor of health care reform…wait…oh now they’re standing. I guess someone finally realized how bad they’re making themselves look.

Now let’s be clear – I did not choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics.

You lie! You behaved exactly as though you were just trying to earn a legislative victory. Otherwise you would have actually fought to get a good bill.

And by the way, I want to acknowledge our First Lady, Michelle Obama, who this year is creating a national movement to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity and make our kids healthier.

Damn, there are some angry vibes coming from that woman. She really seems to hate her husband now. That was quick. I didn’t think Hillary started hating Bill until a few years into his presidency. Can’t blame her though. She knows more than anyone in that room just how empty his words are.

[re: health reform] Still, this is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.

Well, that’s music to my ears. But why aren’t you explaining it now? We’re listening.

But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. I’m eager to see it.

Actually, I think I remember a guy who had a much better approach than the one currently on the table in Congress. I think he ran for president back in 2008. What was his name? Oh yeah…Barack Obama.

So let me start the discussion of government spending by setting the record straight. At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.

Republicans also hate being confronted with the fact that America existed before January 20, 2009.

[re: spending $1 trillion for economic recovery] I am absolutely convinced that was the right thing to do. But families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same. So tonight, I’m proposing specific steps to pay for the $1 trillion that it took to rescue the economy last year. Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.

This is the stupidest idea in the speech, designed to pander to the uninformed independent who doesn’t understand the difference between a family budget and a government budget. The only way you get out of a recession is to spend your way out. A spending freeze didn’t work under Hoover, it didn’t work under FDR, and it didn’t work under any other president during any other recession. This is a cheap political gimmick that won’t have any positive effects.

It won’t win any republican support, as whenever the president moves to the right they just move the goal-posts. It certainly won’t help the economy recover. The only thing it will do is give the conservatives the ammunition they need to go on pretending that fiscal restraint is the right approach to an economic recession, in spite of all the economists who say otherwise and all the historical evidence to the contrary. Obama should have been explaining why the government needs to spend money in a recession, but instead he’s just conceded the argument to the side he knows is wrong, purely for the sake of a gimmick that won’t help him politically anyway.

I know that some in my own party will argue that we cannot address the deficit or freeze government spending when so many are still hurting. I agree, which is why this freeze will not take effect until next year, when the economy is stronger.

Some laughter in the chamber, which is appropriate. The economy may be a bit stronger next year but not enough to justify a spending freeze.

Oh, but they’re probably laughing because they think he should start the freeze this year. Obama responds with a “That’s how budgeting works.”

Even stronger laughter, though I’m not sure from whom or why. Are they democrats laughing back at the republicans who didn’t seem to understand that you plan a budget a year in advance? Or are they republicans laughing at how naïve that line made him seem? “Look mommy, I know how budgeting works!”

Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let’s meet our responsibility to the citizens who sent us here. Let’s try common sense. A novel concept.

Did the president just give props to Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck?

That’s what I came to Washington to do. That’s why – for the first time in history – my Administration posts our White House visitors online. And that’s why we’ve excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.

You lie! Lobbyists are still writing policy. They wrote most of the health reform bill.

And it’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.

Okay, that was awesome at least. The president chastises the Supreme Court (rightly so) directly to their faces while they’re sitting a few feet away from him! I find out later that Justice Samuel Alito was mouthing the words “Simply not true” in quasi-Joe Wilson fashion!

Okay, Sam, it’s not true? What exactly is not true about it? Please, I’d like you to explain exactly why you aren’t responsible for handing the entire United States government over to giant profit-seeking corporations on a silver platter. I really want to hear you explain that to me.

I’m also calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform.

Pandering to the McCain voters now. Why didn’t we just vote for him?

Now, I am not naïve. I never thought the mere fact of my election would usher in peace, harmony, and some post-partisan era.

You lie!

But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We cannot wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about their opponent – a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can.

Yes, absolutely. Look at the republicans sitting there smiling knowing that’s exactly what they’re doing and that they have no intention of stopping.

The confirmation of well-qualified public servants should not be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual Senators.

The republicans are sitting on their hands to indicate that they are totally in favor of holding up the confirmation of well-qualified public servants for the sake of political grudges.

Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, is just part of the game. But it is precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it is sowing further division among our citizens and further distrust in our government. So no, I will not give up on changing the tone of our politics.

And you will not stop failing miserably in doing so.

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills.

Democrats applaud, apparently not in favor of running for the hills. This indicates a major shift in strategy for them.

And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.

Republicans remain seated to indicate that they are in favor of practicing short-term politics that serve their own ambitions at the expense of citizens. They get points for honesty.

[re: national security] So let’s put aside the schoolyard taunts about who is tough. Let’s reject the false choice between protecting our people and upholding our values. Let’s leave behind the fear and division, and do what it takes to defend our nation and forge a more hopeful future – for America and the world.

That ought to convince Dick Cheney.

We will support the Iraqi government as they hold elections, and continue to partner with the Iraqi people to promote regional peace and prosperity. But make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.

You lie! Or to put it another way: Simply not true. Maybe most combat troops will come home but there will be troops there and military contractors for a long, long time.

[re: the troops] And just as they must have the resources they need in war, we all have a responsibility to support them when they come home.

Ooh, pandering to the troops. That’s politically risky.

That is why we stand with the girl who yearns to go to school in Afghanistan; we support the human rights of the women marching through the streets of Iran; and we advocate for the young man denied a job by corruption in Guinea. For America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity.

He’s channeling Bush again.

This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.

You will? I’d like to see that. Honestly. Even if you are just pandering.

We are going to crack down on violations of equal pay laws – so that women get equal pay for an equal day’s work. And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system – to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations.

Pandering to women and pandering to xenophobes in the space of two sentences!

Every day, Americans meet their responsibilities to their families and their employers. Time and again, they lend a hand to their neighbors and give back to their country. They take pride in their labor, and are generous in spirit. These aren’t Republican values or Democratic values they’re living by; business values or labor values. They are American values.

Oh man. China called. They’re missing a Pander-Bear (zing).

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values.

You l…actually you’re totally right. I wonder why we’ve lost our faith…

I campaigned on the promise of change – change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change – or at least, that I can deliver it.

No shit. I guess this is the part of the speech that was focus-tested on disillusioned progressives like me.

Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation.

Thanks for explaining your strategy like that.

Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved. But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year. And what keeps me going – what keeps me fighting – is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism – that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people – lives on.

Man, you almost had me. I was almost ready to give you some credit and line up behind you to support your agenda. Then you went and turned it back into more ass-kissing of “the American people”.

[re: the American spirit again] It lives on in the struggling small business owner who wrote to me of his company, “None of us,” he said, “…are willing to consider, even slightly, that we might fail.”

Does every president think every American is a small business owner?

We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment – to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.

Great, I’m ready. So what do we need to do? You told us what you want to do, but you still haven’t called on the people who supported your candidacy to get behind you and stand up and fight the powers-that-be. All you did was propose small-ball legislation that, if you keep governing as you’ve been governing, will end up getting so compromised and watered down as to be completely ineffective.

Most importantly, you’re still doing your whole “There are not Red States and Blue States” schtick, speaking the language of bi-partisanship even though you know full well that genuine, constructive bi-partisanship is hopeless in today’s political climate. You refuse to take a stand on anything that might make anyone angry (except Sam Alito) and try to keep winning with the same playbook that got you elected: be as vague as possible about your own convictions so that everyone can just project their own political beliefs onto you.

Well, that won’t work anymore. You really have to pick a position and fight for it. There was nothing in this speech to indicate that you would.

Don’t get me wrong—it was a brilliant speech from a rhetorical standpoint, and you delivered it masterfully. You’re a really likable guy, way more comfortable to watch than W and almost everything you say—also unlike W—is something I agree with. I just no longer believe that you have a real desire to back up these words with actions.

I could be wrong. Maybe you really are going to undergo a course-correction and really turn things around this year and start fighting. Then I’ll take back all my “You lie”s and start writing about what a great president you are.

But this speech sounded only like you have people working for you who watch the news, who read the blogs, who talk to people from across the political spectrum and know what they’re thinking, and speech-writers who know how to seamlessly blend the cares and concerns of everyone into one coherent message. On the one hand, I suppose that’s the nature of a State of the Union speech, so I can’t really blame you for that. But on the other hand, you ran on a platform of Change, so you have to expect to be called out when what you deliver is simply more of the same.

In conclusion, if you’re really telling me that Change is coming, that the economy is turning the corner and the middle-class will rise again, that health care reform will finally be delivered, that we’re going to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that we’re going to break the stranglehold of major financial institutions on our government, I have two words for you.
(Hint: one of those words begins with a Y, and the other with an L)