Disqus - Latest Comments for JRBehrman

Re: The Conservative Argument Against the Right to Vote

JRBehrman — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 18:22:01 -0000

States like Texas have constitutional provision for universal suffrage. But, in the absence of a uniform military obligation it is meaningless. So, the result is a "credit-scored" franchise and lots of guns.

It is important to note that since 1787 -- when the Hamilton-Jefferson abyss over arms and votes opened -- we had slavery. That was one more reason for Ben Franklin to describe new constitution as establishing "a republic, if you can keep it".

In a republic -- Rome, Venice, Switzerland, even us to all appearances -- back in the day, all politics, including suffrage, was organized fundamentally and durably around universal manhood suffrage rooted in a uniform military obligation. The militia -- like war itself -- transcended various forms of taxation and slavery but not economics or technology.

Today, the militia institution even trumps -- there I said it -- gender distinctions, for instance, in Israel.

And, of course, a militia institution has nothing to do with privately owned guns as distinct from regulation of -- standardized ordnance, drill, ranks, discipline and, oh yea, international conventions of admiralty and military law.

Now, these break down in war, especially wars which are lost but without inconveniencing a political class that is able to buy privileges and immunities -- not to mention honorary titles of nobility -- all the while shifting taxes and, indeed, every burden or obligation of citizenship on the least likely to "qualify" for a ballot.

These are the cheapest bodies to hire or, better, to rent out in order to protect or expand government concessions monopolized by that same class.

So, the republic is in peril, not least because the right has now combined "illiberal populism" with "undemocratic liberalism." Our draft-dodging and tax-shifting elites style the latter as "technocracy". Curiously, these elites have little or no proficiency with digital technology or skill other than collusive bargaining among themselves. Their only proficiency looks more and more like etiquette and couture.

It is really the same sort of rottenness however the self-serving and self-perpetuating elites dress: Be it like "communist workers" or "Edwardian capitalists". They live like degenerate courtiers and clerics they are.

Re: Watching the Second Amendment in Action by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 16:08:27 -0000

C'mon Ed,

I know you and my friend Molly Ivins tired of arguing about the Second Amendment and just wanted to get rid of it. She had cancer! I understand her fatigue.

The Second Amendment is, at this point, a failed attempt to associate "universal manhood suffrage" with a uniform military obligation in the style of Switzerland. Confederatio Helvetica was the only other Republic when our Constitution was written. Today, the roster of republican and democratic militia-republics includes Finland and Israel, but not the US or Singapore.

The Third, "Military", Amendment was a dated but obvious attempt to limit accommodation of the sort of long-term hire military that the British empire had and its Anglo-American successor in overseas concessions still has.

But, we have never had and do not have uniform suffrage on either the "universal" (Republican-Democratic), "qualified" (Federalist-Whig), or post-Jim Crow (Vietnam War) "civil rights" theories.

Unpopular but, oh so, bipartisan incumbent protection rackets and anglophile financial or legal elites probably insure that we never will have an uncontested right-to-vote.

A Swiss-style military was opposed by Federalists and was ultimately undermined by their Southern Whigs allies: This propertied class preferred the sort of "light cavalry" that were useful for chasing runaway slaves and fancy-dress mating rituals for the wealthy. Therefore, these light cavalry and private military academies were sustainable with voluntary contributions in kind and in cash from the large land and slave owners in the South as well as from their factors and financiers in the North and overseas.

These state militia, later styled "legions", in the Confederate Army were useless. General Lee took the horses for cannons and wagons, while Jefferson Davis imposed conscription even before President Lincoln.

None of this actual history conforms, of course, to literature from Robert Lewis Stevenson or the legal theories of the First and Second Klan, the NRA, Ted Cruz, and the Roberts Court.

But, historically and actually, "a well regulated militia" is simply nothing the US, other than Rhode Island, ever had or has even a vestige of today.

The Federalists and Whigs won:

So, we have a long-term hire military supported by indirect and regressive taxes. That is a toxic combination that even the British empire largely eschewed back when it was actually successful. But, they love their "all volunteer military" inside the Beltway where the soldiers, sailors, and marines are just Park Service talent and voting is something to be controlled by self-serving statutes. There is nothing universal or uniform about the right to vote or the obligation to "bear arms" or even pay taxes.

There is a word for this: plutocracy. And, the organic military institutions of a plutocracy are mercenary contractors and privateers.

Re: President Obama on Power and Change by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:20:34 -0000

I should have said "relentless" and saved "ruthless for its original context". Whether a distinction between art/tactics and substance/strategy is valid or not will be evident over time. The Predator state is intact and cannot deal effectively with domestic violence or foreign threats to our interests and commerce.

Maybe the considerable and gratifying achievements you cite will prove to be a strategic breakthrough. I hope so, and do not discount them. Hope is justified. Left-wing whining is not.

For my part, I do not see right-wing extremists losing popular support or wealthy patrons, and I do still see mushy centrists dragged ever rightwards for lack of anything transformational within the Democratic Party itself -- a latent majority party led by a self-perpetuating elite its own voters do not trust. An elite that has made Clinton, Pelosi, and Schumer anointed leaders because they raise the most money but despite their poor record of leadership and campaigning. They have been nothing but ballast for President Obama.

Re: President Obama on Power and Change by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 19:56:42 -0000

Make no mistake I am an Obama loyalist and supporter where that was swimming upstream. This country has a center-left majority. President Obama rallied and carried it twice. But, the Beltway and DNC do not have or much like majorities. They like themselves -- despised elites eager for the patronage of the merely wealthy and eager to share in their privileges through the magic of collusive bargaining over "deals".

That said, Obama's "ruthless" strategy has been persistence and economy of force. But, that is all just tactical: It is operational art, but devoid of substance on the moral, mental, and material planes of strategy.

He has out-maneuvered his enemies and made the best of a weak, undisciplined, often corrupt, party neither he nor his lieutenants have done anything about. It just sits there: a decrepit and distrusted patronage-chain on the left-wing of an ill-disguised plutocracy.

Good enough for me. I was even more active in 2012 than 2008.

But, of course, I could not do a thing and he did nothing about the gross Congressional incompetence of 2009 or the electoral catastrophes of 2010 and 2014. Those will bear heavily on developments in 2015-16, including the Iran non-proliferation regime.

So, the President was able to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he has not ended or even contained the wars there.

The Iran non-proliferation regime -- more than a "deal", less than a treaty, thank you -- is fragile, not technically, not diplomatically, not militarily ... but inside the Beltway. I hope our rogue-client state, Israel, will not prevail inside the Beltway. But, they and their stooges will go unpunished, indeed, will be further indulged.

Yes, the ACA provides some additional access to our healthcare capital and plant but those assets are still producing mostly luxury goods and are subject to the predation of claims-processing mills and policy-sales rackets. So, I do not see anything redistributive in the ACA at all whatever the right-wing whines about.

On energy and climate, we have trimmed a jib-sail. We have not "come about" and are not on a different tack. If we were, our industrial sector would be doing better and our financial sector worse. But, the Beltway favors the latter over the former.

The GOP gives the rust-belt God, Guns, and Gays.

The Democrats give them Cheap Seats and yet more Gays. So, yes, the middle class is going crazy for Trump. At least, he is not of, by, and for the Beltway.

Maybe HRC can do better. But, she needs a strategy and should articulate this as a "vision". It worked for the Maid of Orleans! I agree with Amitai Etzioni on vision:

http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

I do not fault the President. He has stuck with the constitution. But, we are still in the post-war rut, indeed, if you are black, it is plain we are still in a post-Reconstruction rut.

I blame my party and the draft-dodging generation of liberals for letting republican democracy rot at the head and the foot.

Thank you for the opportunity to share the frustrations of an Obama loyalist who will be supporting Hillary Clinton. But, I feel like a Boer auxiliary in the British Army at Isandhlwana.

Re: President Obama on Power and Change by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:57:31 -0000

That is certainly my hope, too.

Re: President Obama on Power and Change by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:34:02 -0000

I get what is being said here about "ruthless" moderation.

It is producing "wins" even Donald Trump seems to grudgingly admire. But, that is still just another Anglo-American "Washington Consensus".

At best, all it can produce is the hope of a Middle East realignment based on a complex non-proliferation regime. I support that over a relentless march to yet another war waged by armchair generals on behalf of their wealthy patrons.

Hopefully, the Senate and House Democratic delegations will do so, too, by a hair for the time being. Maybe, the P5 will, too.

But, will that last? Where is a consensus or constituency or party this President has built outside of Big Law in its pro bono mode? All I see are flimsy, contingent-fee "deals".

Has anything institutional in nature been changed in scope or scale by decisive action derived from a strategic vision? If so, when do the extremists retreat and the obstructionists get hurt. Yes, they are ridiculed or humiliated in public only to be consoled in private. This is at the expense of voters who, yes, elected President Obama but not Eric Holder or Tim Geithner.

But, can the younger generation of voters cannot afford our increasingly regressive system of federal, state, and local taxes? This is what a government responsive mostly to Big Law or Big Debt lays off on them.

Clearly, ruthless moderation beats feckless moderation and holds off ruthless extremism for the time being. But, the extremists who cannot be reached by drones operate from safe institutional havens where this Administration gives them indemnity, immunity, and impunity in return for campaign and, now, Presidential Library contributions.

Re: From “Broken Windows” To Black Codes by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 14:58:28 -0000

"Union Liberal" was a British term from the 18th-20th century epitomized by Winston Churchill who was both in the Whig (WWI) and Tory (WWII) parties. He put all that problematic experience to use in WWII with solid backing in the wartime coalition from the Socialists and the Crown.

Keyes was a Liberal and came into his own under the wartime coalitions headed by FDR and Churchill when the economic policies and theories he developed were applied under a "military" dispensation from what is now called "austerity".

"Constitutional Economics" is a fusion of 20th century "libertarian" and "anti-Keynesian" economics couched in terms of 18th century Federalist and Whig legalism. It is now reflected in GOP economic and political radicalism at the national level, but has been embedded in "non-partisan" municipal politics for decades now.
As far as I am concerned Constitutional Economics harkens back to the Pre-Civil War President, James Buchanan, Jr., not the late Economics Professor James M. Buchanan.

Re: From “Broken Windows” To Black Codes by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 11:59:06 -0000

The "key" or "flaw" to perversion of the Kelling/Wilson "broken windows" method or objective of policing reliance on his purposefully vague list of "partners".

This is still something of a code-word in municipal politics and ... finance.

Such listed partners ("others" includes investment and commercial banks) were the original nexus of post-Reconstruction "Black Codes" across the South and deep into the Northern cities with anti-black Democratic "machines" (Woodward).

Municipal politics and finance are still fundamental to even older but more durable legacies of slavery (Coates).

The buzz-word version is "public-private partnerships" describing all sorts of obscure or actually secret arrangements collusively bargained at the local level among the propertied and professional elites through their self-perpetuating elected and actually immortal (state-chartered or municipal concessionary) corporate, appointed, licensed, or, um, deputized "agents".

These agents are organized and governed, poorly, by a mish-mash of state statutes and federalized financial indentures that have effectively destroyed republican and democratic institutions at the local level of government.

Traditional patronage-politics and even the "pro-bono" community organizing undertaken by junior associates of large law firms are no substitute for "civic engagement" or republican democracy on a human-scale and in a deliberative framework.

What we have now is called "plutocracy" or just "deals". But, that is too abstract and general.

To be precise, we have an ongoing revival of Federalist-Whig government rooted in multi-generation wealth and based on profound corruption (and demoralization) of the formerly all-white Democratic Party. There is no Republican Party today.

This development was the object and method of "Constitutional Economics". This was propounded by the late Nobel Laureate, Professor James. M. Buchanan. His was and is a detailed alternative to the Anglo-American "Union Liberalism", later manifest as "Military Keynesianism".

These political-economic doctrines prevailed over and moderated the political economy of the Great, World, and Cold War, 1914-2014. But, now we have an emerging police-surveillance state and "austerity" in all but public display of private wealth, power, arrogance, and brutality.

Re: No Longer May It Wave! by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:00:24 -0000

ICONIC, IRONIC, MORONIC
It would be the duty of the Union Navy with its anchorages and installations in S.C. to take this flag down. But, then "Reconstruction" was "asymmetric warfare" that the US military lost. The plutocratic Congress conceded defeat. And, now the Navy's pursers in mess-dress disburse funds from the agro-military pork barrel to fund a reign of domestic terror mounted by white-supremacist elements in the S. C. government.

As for the battle-ensign of the Army of Northern Virginia, it is not an "iconic" symbol of "Sothern Heritage" or any other perverted literary or aesthetical movement -- protected as "Free Speech". No, it is an instrument of warfare – in this particular case of insurrection by the Third KKK or the NRA, as our legislators call it.

The ensign is a military signaling device:

To unfurl such a flag in the field is to invite enemy fire and expose otherwise hidden guns; ...

To advance it is to attack; ...

To withdraw if from the field is to retreat; ...

To fly it over a government installation is to menace; ...

To carry it into battle uncovered is almost certainly for "this man to fall;" ...

To lose it is to be become disordered and, perhaps, defeated; ...

To display an enemy battle-ensign inside an armory, mess hall, or museum is to celebrate what was, likely, hard-won victory and to remind the other side of their defeat and dishonor.

So, why does that flag fly openly today in mockery of the armed forces of the United States and in celebration of the Washington plantations’ sweet-rot: the agro-military pork barrel, actually a hog-trough in the case of the U.S. Navy?

So, after Battery Wagner and Glory and all, what is the Governor of Massachusetts doing defending the South Carolina legislature?

When will the boys in their "faggoty" white uniforms open fire on the rebels mocking them from that cemetery ridge?

Re: Harnessing the Obama Coalition and the Future of the Democratic Party by Nancy LeTourneau | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 19 May 2015 12:06:30 -0000

"Julian Castro represents the future of the Democratic Party." Really?

To the extent that is a beltway party with less and less traction in Texas or nationally, that may be so. But, that very party is suffering a crisis of exit, voice, and loyalty that pretty place-men like the Castro brothers only make worse.

The "future" they portend is a return to bi-partisan concession-tending dominated by big Democratic Congressional delegations from Texas, New York, California, and other "blue" states. Yes, the keystone to that would be turning Texas from "red" to "blue" based on projections -- now called "strategies" -- rooted in pseudo-scientific premises of (i) "centrism", (ii) public choice, and (ii) "demographic destiny".

That is what remnants of the once-powerful Texas Congressional delegation in DC believe in and perpetuate through what actual Texas Democrats in Texas call the "ATM Machine". A shrinking subset of Big Law and Big Labor, this self-serving claque of present and former incumbents flirted with John Edwards in 2008 but stuck with HRC. They fought the Obama campaign in Texas to a dead heat in the state convention, finally just buying it off through the agency of Ron Kirk.

But, those folks have been losing traction here ever since by running the state and major local parties as two-bit patronage machines for interest-group "coalitions" that exist only as statistical covariance.

The Obama campaign was not one of those. It was a refreshing and genuinely popular uprising in support of an inspiring and strategically timely campaign. That was run on the ground not just against the Bush administration but against rotten Democratic Party establishments in DC and Austin.
Those old patronage-chains actually have very little patronage today. They have gone from one defeat to another, epitomized not just by the loss of Wendy Davis last year but by strife between the mercenary consultants here this year. These parasitical hangers-on are waging a stupid fight over small change that might, but probably won't, "trickle down" back down to Austin from the "ATM machine" in DC.
Pervasive economic discrimination, articulated as race and gender "inclusion", is what the party and beltway pundits euphemize as an "Obama" or "Clinton Coalition."
But, what Democrats need in Texas is majority electorate. It is latent here, and the issue-driven, anti-establishment Obama campaign of 2008 developed it quickly and cheaply in the spring and fall of that year. But, a majority electorate has since been thoroughly oppressed by a party establishment that clings to a share of the graft derived from negotiating and settling flimsy "deals".
What Texans and Americans yearn for is a majority party that stands for more than the pandering and tokenism that mask the collusive bargaining over attorneys' fees and seniority. When not secret, that paradigm is boring and subversive of responsible government. Texas needs a party, present and future, that will (a) will unify the several nations comprising our state and county and (b) will "fight" our corrupt, unpatriotic, mock-liberal, and fake-conservative chicken-hawk elites.

The situation with Julian Castro is otherwise. He was promoted into the ceremonial Mayor's office in San Antonio by a few patrons in Big Law only to be ripped back out as HUD Secretary after a whole series of statewide campaign failures and local setbacks. He was replaced in office by a credible local Democrat who reversed his few, symbolic accomplishments here in mere days.

What does not augur well here -- besides ongoing gang-war between the state party establishment ("Bandidos") and BGTX mercenaries ("Cossacks") -- is the failure to turn the 2008 uprising into a solid electoral majority. The Castro brothers, their patrons, and entourages can hardly even imagine such a thing.

Re: The Conservative Path Not Taken by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 12 May 2015 08:50:38 -0000

The UK Conservatives welcomed victory over the LDP and UKIP. So, they now have the opportunity to form a one-party government out of a multi-party Parliament. (The SNP took down Labour. The Tories did not even have to bother.)

That is nothing today's GOP Federalist-Whig coalition of propertied concession-holders and ex-Democratic concession-tenders would want. Both efficiently target a few constituencies with their patrons money. The GOP has now wholly embraced Southern-fried one-dominant + one-submissive Fifty Shades of Gray government. Neither party today even fathoms responsible government however many parties are involved.

I think the Tories understand that they need to reconstruct their legal foundations -- constitution -- to provide federal-type accommodation not just of different political theories and elites. They have (1) cultural realities derived from four different national identities as well as (2) international security considerations in a world not dominated by Anglo-American navies and banks.
The comparatively weak and opportunistic Republican and Democratic parties here are madly searching for coalitions among incumbents and donors. They are in full flight from eleven national identities people in North America actually have. They posture over political-economic theories they do not really take seriously all the while collusively bargaining on behalf of various interest-groups here and abroad.
This is epitomized by the all-branch, multi-party, multi-national, slow, secret, bargaining over incomprehensible trade-agreements. These are, in fact, just huge concession-tending deals mostly involving trade in legal and financial "services" that are rendered by and for a financial -- not industrial, commercial, military, or diplomatic -- elite. So, the real beneficiaries are the terrorists we call pirates and brigands today: They are still the bastard offspring of corrupt parties and governments.

Re: Huckabee and the White Working Class by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 06 May 2015 13:08:48 -0000

The problem today is that the invisible primary is about money. So, if Huck exposes some GOP liability his well-financed rivals have, then the mercenary Dem operatives will just hector their charges to make a quiet bid for some of that cash.

Bidding War! Those are the distant "guns" the DCCC Tercio ponderously marches towards.

Exploit a vulnerability?

That is "politics as war". Democrats do politics as collusive bargaining.

That means everything important they say is in secret to undisclosed donors and proprietary agents. The public rhetoric is for show and not reinforced by action, not even by "reconnaissance in force", "demonstration", or "feint".

Those are maneuvers. The Hapsburg Democrats do not do maneuver, just ritual, seasonal "evolutions".

Re: Coup Foiled in Texas by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:04:43 -0000

The practical problem will come when armed crazies comprising a "militia" in their own minds encounter the Texas State Guard -- an actual -- but unarmed -- vestige of the pre-1905 state militia.

In any event, rural Texas counties with mobile meth-labs, retired but still dangerous spooks or mercs, and, of course, narcotrafficantes formerly on the CIA payroll roaming the streets and creek-beds are pretty good "human terrain" for our regular forces to train on,

We will see who monitors whom.

Re: Is a Grand Strategy for America Even Possible? by Heather Hurlburt | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 10:04:02 -0000

On grand strategy, it is good to think outside the box, which in this case is very narrow without being all that long: [weekly news cycle] x biennial appropriation cycle].

And, in military affairs, it takes a while to get out of perception-deforming conflicts as short as five-generations ago when, in fact, a lot of the ground we are back on is even older.

Here in the US we are now back rehashing late 18th-century arguments between Jefferson and Hamilton over professional-expeditionary and patriotic-militia forces.

So, I recommend Dominick Lieven's Russia versus Napoleon as an example of how a transformation of the scale and depth these three Generals contemplate took place. Again, everything did not get resolved, but the planning went operational. And, Alexander I won a European civil war and built a century of peace.

By contrast, Lincoln won an American civil war largely through improvisation, albeit eventually following the ANACONDA Plan. But, the Union lost the following insurgency.

So, here we are trying to pacify the world not having built a peaceful "empire" out of our eleven (Woodard) nations. There is much left to learn.

Re: Issenberg on the The Two Electorates and the Democratic Challenge For the Midterms by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:06:07 -0000

This is, indeed, solid. Here are two problems I see:

First, this lab stuff is all financed by the DSCC/DCCC -- the left-wing of a corrupt and sycophantic plutocracy. It has no popular foundation or mass party at all.

Second, the GOP can buy this tech stuff, too, and, indeed, they have a first-class mobilization party in Texas, as Issenberg has documented but the DNC ignores.

The DSCC/DCCC does not even attempt to operate on the "moral plane" of strategy.

So, a Newt Gingrich can crush them once again by exposing Democrats' ineffectiveness and outright hypocrisy. His "agile", pseudo-moderate scams can defeat our ponderous, semi-populist sham.

Re: Hispanic Mid-Term Falloff by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:20:50 -0000

Another, problem stems from the extraordinary cultural heterogeneity of a generic "Hispanic" category spanning many other demographic and geographic "tabs". This goes to design of GOTV programs -- which still require media and messages: Where to go and look what to say?

The CatalistVAN is not all that helpful, since it is still optimized for registered and likely voters in situ.

But, the problem is also manifest in the regressive and corrupt politics of Democratic incumbents in safe minority-majority seats originally designed by twhite, liberal patrons and now locked-down by the bi-partisan clerical/police state -- no, not the NSA, more like the police "unions" and other courthouse parasites who dominate Democratic parties at the local level.

Besides the grinding oppressiveness and corruption of local patronage rackets, nowhere is the party older or less inspiring and imaginative.

Re: Down Ballot by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:37:51 -0000

This is the way I read the numbers now. But, the question I have is how does this differ from the dystopia envisioned by T2? Granting the horror of GOP extremism in pursuit of "liberty", how is that worse than or just the complement of Congressional Democrats reducing government to concession-tending and office-holding on behalf of their patrons (1-2% of the electorate)?

Re: Down Ballot by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 23:21:21 -0000

Who is "whinging" who here.

Re: Down Ballot by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:50:53 -0000

And, how are Democratic activists supposed to counter GOP vote-suppression, superior mobilization, and ballot discipline when the lobby-driven Congressional Party has us out making excuses for their flimsy, cowardly, barely legal, incomprehensible, least-moral member legislative "deals"?

And, of course, that problem is aggravated by mercenary consultants who glamorize whichever candidate they can use to raise the most money to finance dispiriting, risk-averse, empty-suit media campaigns.

The GOP has spread the cornpone one-party system of the ex-Confederate states nationally, with one dominant (Radical-Liberal) Whig faction and one submissive (Liberal-Elite) faction.

These "Hold Harmless" Democrats compete for money by protecting wealthy patrons and for votes by hand-wringing over lower-class clients they exploit or middle-class voters they despise. They have no legislative or executive strategy for opposing extremists. Litigating settlements for attorneys' fees does not cut it.

Why should most voters trust either party? A Democratic Party with no interests other than concession-tending and office-holding ought to face the threats it does in mid-terms.

Re: The Ghost of Curtis LeMay by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 16:19:43 -0000

Duncan Hunter can talk like this. But, I do not think there are any officers in the National Command Authority "loop" or "chain" today who can launch nuclear weapons or have political patrons who want them to do so.
That was not the case during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is worth continuing to have nightmares over.

Re: The Iran-US Conflict and the Evolution of the Nation-State by Ryan Cooper | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:54:13 -0000

Iran is not in a spiral of deeper and broader extremism but, rather, still mired in political consequences of the Iran-Iraq war.

Still, there has been precisely the sort of response by Iran to US-EU-RU sanctions that they were designed to elicit. And, so, there is no reason for the countries bearing the cost of sanctions to let them get sabotaged by truculent clients like Israel and Saudi Arabia.

That would not be evolution of the nation-state but, rather, its partial dissolution.

And, while there is something unsatisfying about failure of the Obama administration to punish those responsible for certain previous policies and practices, I think that "moving on" may be the best way to insure that such a history does not turn into some sort of blood-feud and re-occur.

This may be what evolution looks like. It may not be justice or mercy, but may get us closer to that ancient standard for both peace and war:

IVSTITIA CLEMENTIAQVE.

Re: Are There Limits to Solar Efficiency? | Ten Miles Square | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:00:34 -0000

I, too, am optimistic about materials and process chemistry that will improve PV efficiently. But, this may be swamped by cruder political and economic problems involving industrial and economic policies governing DC and AC current.

AC is how centralized plants with rotational electro-magnetic devices generate "power" for long-distance re-distribution on 3-phase grids operating as government monopolies or concessions.

DC is how that power is re-used, after conversion from AC, for almost everything but some archaic motors and lighting that anybody else owns .

And, in Anglo-America all of this is still arranged as a matter of arcane industrial policy that serves to extract monopoly rent as indirect taxes for cross-subsidy of what was war-production beginning a century ago or, today, for indemnifying political elites for military sacrifices and leadership they no longer provide.

Today, innovation in electricity generation, distribution, and application is very impressive. But, it is throttled by economic privilege and financial indemnities resting on archaic military-industrial policy that is neither military nor industrial, just lucrative for parasitical ruling elites who shroud it more in obscurity than actual secrecy -- another military proficiency our elites no longer have.

Re: The Obama Administration Really Doesn’t Like Diane Ravitch by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:23:12 -0000

Agreed. The conservative as distinct from the reactionary party. So, what to conserve? A worn-out patronage-chain left over from the Great, World, and Cold War or reputable, egalitarian institutions like public schools? I favor the latter. It will be hard. But, a political party is the easiest civic institution to change.

Re: The Obama Administration Really Doesn’t Like Diane Ravitch by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 14:49:04 -0000

The problem here is what Democrats do with a majorities they have. Evidently, no matter how crazy the GOP, Democrats are unwilling to deploy a disciplined majority to actually govern without excuses.

Re: The Obama Administration Really Doesn’t Like Diane Ravitch by Daniel Luzer | College Guide | The Washington Monthly

JRBehrman — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:32:49 -0000

The Democratic Party consists today of what Michael Lind calls "charity liberals".
They are creatures of political and economic intermediation that produces and protects themselves -- a thin-skinned and defensive elite wholly dedicated to the concession-tending that produces banks-to-big-to-fail and our public school-to-prison system.
This party is a professional and racial patronage-chain rooted in large cities where the Democratic Party is wholly a creature of bond-lawyers, slum-lords, and land-speculators.
The inability of charity liberals to govern where Democrats are packed into minority-majority districts is actually more crippling than their inability to govern nationally in coalition with or impose majority rule on today's GOP. This is a moral and constitutional crisis.
That is especially true of education, where the Democratic Party is a conspicuous failure from top-to-bottom, from Chicago to Washington.