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Bacevich, the electorate, and that river in Egypt
Last week's Bill Moyers interview with Andrew Bacevich gave substance and clarity to an aspect of the American political landscape that should have been apparent for the past twenty years to anyone with at least one good eye or ear and a functioning cerebrum:
The American electorate is in complete political denial and the majority of politicians at the Federal level must pander to that denial in order to be elected or re-elected.
The lifestyle to which the American government and most Americans are accustomed cannot much longer be sustained. Almost everyone knows this but few are willing to face it. Those few politicians who have faced it and mentioned it above a whisper in the cloakroom are labeled as "gloom and doomers," "hate America firsters", or simply nuts. The upshot of this fact did not have to be a crisis, but the fact that we have ignored and continue to ignore the problem means that a crisis is coming that will make the Great Depression feel like sex with Gisele Bundchen.
Astonishingly coming from a self-described conservative, Col. Bacevich has called Ronald Reagan "the prophet of profligacy." He is inarguably correct. Now make no mistake about it, Pres. Reagan was indeed the midwife at the birth of the crisis. His first-term policies and his success in the 1984 election were based on a pollyannic theory whose basic tenet held that money, oil, and the earth's ability to withstand environmental rape were all inexhaustable.
Further, as Col. Bacevich points out, Jimmy Carter -- the Grendel of the right wing -- warned us that the cataclysm was lurking more than a year earler when we still had the chance to do something about the now-insurmountable problems facing our country and our planet. Americans decided they liked fantasy better, coming as it was from an incipient Alzheimers victim. The electorate swallowed "Morning In America" with a spoon, asked for seconds, and had more as a bedtime snack.
So if Pres. Reagan was the midwife, we the American public are the mothers of the upcoming economic and environmental holocausts. (Feel free to add two syllables to the predicate nominative in the previous sentence.) Like the first two monkeys in the famous trio, we hear no klaxons and see no fire so why in the world would we want to speak of a smoldering conflagration? Running against Gov. Dukakis is 1992, Bush 41 declared that "the American lifestyle is non-negotiable." He didn't say that because he thought it would lose votes for him.
So it looks very, very much as though we will continue to write checks until the Chinese close the account. We will continue to burn up the oil that would have been our grandkids' plastics until the last drop explodes on the last sparkplug. We will continue to cut trees, foul our lakes, and heat up the atmosphere until folks start remembering Beijing 2008 as an example of sylvan purity. And we will continue to elect people who tell us that there is no chasm ahead until we drive right off the edge at 120 mph in our Hummer.
Think I'm overly pessimistic? Look at the men we have nominated as our major-parties candidates. One says hit the accelerator, the other bases his hope on more unbalanced budgets.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Who wants pie?
Comments (28)
Think you're a bit unfair to dismiss Obama as depending on unbalanced budgets. Being willing to run at a deficit is not the same as that being essential. Also, there are some things worth going into debt for, mainly infrastructure or other capital improvement, which for a family would be buying a house or paying for college.
Obviously not wise if the debt is hopelessly too large. That's the tricky part. But some programs that would cost money up front would begin paying dividends immediately, and have other long-term benefits.
An example would be establishing a purchase schedule for all government facitilties to buy their own solar and wind electric generating capacity. Immediate benefits would be reduced overhead at those departments and agencies, and reduced budget needs for a long time out. Delayed benefits start with increased employment (more tax revenue), and include increased production capacity for those systems (stronger manufacturing sector, unless we buy Danish turbines from Vestas and Japanese PV from Honda).
August 18, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's always an honor to have you participate in a conversation, Tom. My reply somehow ended up down here.
August 18, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bacevich does have a book out, so I was trying to imagine him being interviewed by a conservative like Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, or a funnyman like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.
August 18, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The former two would be funnier than the latter two. The latter two would be more serious than the former two.
(BTW, do you think you could come up with another Deacon Blues?)
August 18, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish TPM would add Bacevich to the "Upcoming Discussions". Of course, do any of us really want to face the truth that real change can only come from real reform?
August 18, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
do any of us really want to face the truth that real change can only come from real reform?
At this point, "real change" could only come from a huge disruption. Every elected official knows that disruption = political oblivion. Ain't gonna happen. Ain't gonna happen. Ain't gonna happen.
August 18, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
there are some things worth going into debt for, mainly infrastructure or other capital improvement
I agree. I remember all the way back in college* nodding my head in agreement as I read a J. K. Galbraith article about the difference between profligate spending and investment in assets WRT a spending deficit.
However, many of Sen. Obama's proposals are not infrastructure-related. They are social in nature. And the idea of cutting taxes on the middle class at this point is absolutely beyond the pale. The middle class to the Federal treasury is what banks were to Willie Sutton -- where the money is.
* My college was affiliated with the original Library of Alexandria. The article was written in the cuneiform edition of Playboy.
August 18, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeremy Grantham has an interesting article out explaining why Americans -- and just about everyone else -- tends to subscribe to the rosy view of our current situation. "Living Beyond Our Means: Entering the Age of Limitations"
His argument is that we have a couple hundred years of the experience of having been bailed out of our problems by the use of our brains -- science and technology's ability to answer Malthusian disaster scenarios by developing cheaper agricultural production, cheaper sources of energy, increased productivity, etc.
Lessons have been learned, and it will take something of a disaster that our brains can't solve before they can be unlearned.
August 18, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
science and technology's ability to answer Malthusian disaster scenarios by developing cheaper agricultural production, cheaper sources of energy, increased productivity, etc.
I think that you mean "to delay" Malthusian scenarios, but Malthus acknowledged mankind's ability to increase production at an arithmentic rate. As he pointed out though, arithmetic improvements don't cut it when applied against a population growing at a geometric rate.
But what breakthrough thinking on Grantham's part and what a great catch on yours. Thanks.
August 18, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember reading Silent Spring when it first came out and reshaping my vision of the future. Then at about the same time I read Lester Thurow talking about inevitable living standard declines on the way, and again, absorbed a less bouyant vision of the future. This was all over forty years ago so we can't say that we didn't see the slow motion crash coming.
The problem with our species is that we are hardwired to give priority to meeting short-term challenges. So we tend to get A's on short-term fixes, but C-'s on long-term outcomes of our short term fixes.
We're smart but not smart enough.
August 18, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember reading Silent Spring when it first came out
Then your name shouldn't be Lux Umbra Dei, it should be Lux Aeterna, and I'm afraid I won't be able to count on anything you remember.
The problem with our species is that we are hardwired to give priority to meeting short-term challenges.
Did you see Ellen's comment right above yours? Excellent point, but if we are to survive as a species, let alone as a country, we must overcome that hardwiring and start deploying long-term solutions that work.
August 18, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
It came out in 1962 Tankard. We both were around and in our teens then. And I did read it in paperback, so maybe it was a year or so after the hardcover.
I try not to lie, Tankard. I started reading nonfiction pretty early..
Or did you think it was 1942?
August 18, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a wisecrack, Lux. Maybe I should change my name to Tenebrae Aeterna.
August 18, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
all's well that ends well. I was a voracious reader when I was a kid and glommed on to the family bookshelf very early...
I remember reading Markings pretty early on before 1966 for sure. Ditto with older books like Totem and Taboo and Civilization and its Discontents, blah blah blah. Quite a little omnivore I was. And of course, I appropriated passages to put in my middle school essays...and that was trouble. I remember using the expression "the human condition" in grade 9 or so and the teacher calling me out on it and asking me where I got that phrase..."from one of my parents' books" I had to admit....
Now I can barely read 3 pages without falling asleep and have numerous books I am reading simultaneously without being able to finish any of them.
Ah age.
August 18, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Lester Thurow is another story..I probably have it wrong. My memory is reading Newsweek columns by him in the sixties but he didn't become a contributing editor until 1981 (per GOOGLE) when I had stopped reading the magazine.
So you may have a point there.
August 18, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, old Lux, you really killed what should have been a 100+ comment thread!!
Sorry Tankard, maybe you should urge me to stay away.
August 18, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah! It's a pleasure to have you here, Lux. I had a feeling this wouldn't be popular. To know why, just read it.
August 18, 2008 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did. I call it realistic but slightly on the pessimistic side. If we look at the future and make a set of predictions and then using some meta-criteria, define a fan shape set of predictions as the most "realistic", then yours falls within the fan, but on the outside edge of pessimism. Anymore and you get into too pessimistic.
Lets have some pie.
August 18, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Make mine cherry.
While we eat it, please explain which point of mine you find to be overly pessimistic -- the fact that we're out-borrowing our capability ever to repay as individuals? The fact that we're out-borrowing our capability ever to repay as a nation? The fact that it's becoming more apparent every day that we will elect another president who will do more of the same? The fact that the Congress has completely abdicated its fiduciary and military responsibilities? The fact that the prevalent political attitude outside our cozy little blogosphere enclave can best be described as aggressively apathetic?
Certainly, you're not one of those who, despite all evidence to the contrary, views technology as America's deus ex machina, just waiting to step in and make everything all right just when everything seems to be falling apart?
August 19, 2008 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
at least I put a rec on it.....
August 18, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry to take so long to reply. I was cloistered in a meeting all day.
No, I think it is your third to the last paragraph starting with "So" where you go beyond the edge of "reasonable pessimism."
I subscribe to the "muddle through" school of thought. We, as a species, and in particular as an organized political entity: the United States of America circa 2008, face built in hurdles, some hardwired, some cultural, some structural. Capitalism is a noose unless regulated. Democracy inevitably transmutes to oligarchy given scaling problems which we are now encountering. Religion becomes reactionary given external social changes....etc.
Technology is no panacea in a global sense...but can be palliative in spot areas.. Economics drives technology adaptation however so there's that brake on the process.
I don't believe we are particularly adept at anticipating problems; we generally seem to be reactive...I take an evolutionary biology approach on that and suspect it is a hardwiring issue that served us well at one point, but no longer does so well for us.
In America's case, the debt you mentioned can always be repudiated or diluted or amortized to infinity, the Congress is more or less a loss cause until some cultural factor I can't anticipate comes in to save the day...perhaps a cataclysmic depression that spawns an overwhelming mandate for reform? Perhaps a generation comes into power with a uniquely strong adversion to being in a Mandarinate.
Tankard, you seem to be in the position of a cynical overviewer of the current scene, but without any clear recommendations. Are you going to sit the election out? No need to answer if that is too personal, or opens you to other's critiques.
I for one will never attack you except with my own bizarre sense of humor.....
That's it. Signing off.
August 19, 2008 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
you seem to be in the position of a cynical overviewer of the current scene...
Cynical? In the sense of "captious?" In the sense of "manipulative?" No, I don't see myself that way.
In the sense of "distrustful of collective human behavior?" OK, I'll buy that.
but without any clear recommendations.
Well, there's really not much to be done about collective human behavior without employing either unethical propaganda or repression. But having said that, this is simply not true. In addition to observations, opinions, and speculations, I have made recommendations all over this blog.
August 20, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I meant recommendations in terms of voter choice. You seem to be taking a "none of the above" position without explicitly telling people to sit it out.
Distrustful of collective human behavior..right. I agree that is well warranted by our doleful history.
August 20, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I worked for Sen. Obama in the PA primary and I believed in him, but he has proven to be far more conservative than I was lead to believe, so I'm afraid I personally will not be able to vote for him.
As for Sen. McCain, anyone who votes for him is negligently uniformed, crazy, or treasonous.
August 20, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree with you on both points. except maybe the treasonous part.
Refusal to protect and defend the Constitution seems to have become our modern default position--necessary for being considered a "serious" player.
You know what's really going to get us? The climate change. When I think how many gigajoules of energy the oceans have absorbed in the last thirty years, it freaks me out. People don't realize this place is heating up...rapidly. Maybe they think its going to be Cancun-in-South Philly and just sunblock and maybe some aloha shirts will do the trick.
200 years it will just be some survivors dolefully paddling around in an endless tropical sea.
Sad end to the short reign of the land mammals.
But we better turn our attention to whatever it was the last attack commercial said. Or whoever it was that the Candidate picked.
August 20, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
One last point.. I promise. That was supposed to be "excess" energy being absorbed.
Everybody points to record cold temps, etc. and says, "look, no global warming!"
But thats because the collective IQ isn't all that high. Look how many people vote republican.
Heat Conduction 101. Notice how comfortable your house is on the first hot day to follow a long cool stretch. Its really nice in there. But on the second day, the heat has gotten through the walls and the place is sweltering.
Right now we are in the equivalent of that cool house while the outside has heated up (some). The insulating walls are the oceans and the ground itself. Both have been absorbing heat energy steadily during the ramp up, but we don't notice it because we key to air temperatures. When the heat from the "walls" starts bringing the air temps up in their turn (it will be harder for the air to dump its heat into storage) then watch out....
Total energy in the system...thats what has to be tracked, not the temperature oscillations in any given year.
If I had an ethical bone in my body, I'd sell my car and walk or pedal the rest of my life. Get an electric? Heck no, the things require too many energy inputs and heat output to manufacture.
August 20, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't make that your last point for MY benefit Lux.
All of our (the human race's) most critical issues are directly or indirectly related to population. Global warming is the most implacable of these. I'm not any sort of meterorologist (although I did play one on TV for a few months), climatologist, or even really a scientist, but I suspect that it's already too late to preserve "civilization as we know it." I have a feeling that the human population on this planet in 100 years will be in the neighborhood of 5% if the current population due to a collapse of the food- and water-delivery systems and the savage and bellicose aftermath.
Of course, humans being what they are, they will immediately begin their mission to over-crowd the remaining viable portions of the planet again.
August 21, 2008 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agree,...it looks pretty bleak, we are essentially going to be reacting to a cascade of interlinked crises. Some large scale human misery is in the cards perhaps.
Oh well, thanks for the nice "private" chat! Hope we are both wrong!
See you elsewhere!
August 21, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
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