Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, wrote on the White House blog that

Let's be clear: Sen. Shelby is preventing qualified nominees who will help protect the American people from being confirmed. He’s not alone, though. This is just the latest example of this kind opposition for opposition’s sake that the President talked about earlier this week.

Which is accurate, as far as it goes, but really just a symptom of a bigger problem.

VISA, the credit card company has a new self-promotional campaign on the net, in print and on TV. Being technically quite advanced, the verbiage on the web site explaining what's up can't just be copied and pasted. So, please bear with the transcription, in case I err.

On second thought, there's probably too much verbiage to go above the fold, so let me just point out that my attention was first caught by the back cover of National Journal (Senator-elect Scott Brown is on the front) where some school teacher in Mecca, California is promoting "financial responsibility" by pointing to greenbacks pinned up on the wall. More apt than the engineers of this campaign probably intended.

What they intended seems pretty well encapsulated in the Introduction of the Currency of Progress Campaign:

Visa is celebrating how the power of digital currency is transforming lives with a new advertising campaign--Currency of Progress.

In a previous diary I called attention to the fact that our (the American people's) generosity, dispensed via low interest loans from the Commerce Department's Fisheries Program, had been repaid by the Shafmaster enterprises by polluting the waters of Great Bay. That is, to recap, Jonathan S. Shafmaster, either in his own name or as Lordco Pier Associates, had collected, over a period of six years, at least nine million dollars in low interest loans from the U.S. Department of Commerce and yet couldn't manage to keep from fouling the Bay.

I'm sure that there's an entirely logical explanation, but, whatever it is, you'd think that the beneficiaries of Uncle Sam's munificence would, out of simple gratitude, do their best to comply with all environmental rules and regulations. But, you'd be wrong.

While the following is a re-post of a comment I left on DailyKos, I first want to make the observation that the school lunch programs, which feed the children of poor people for free, provide a constant object of antagonism for people who prefer to think that poverty is tangible evidence that some people are just naturally inferior. Instead of concluding, from the evidence of the off-spring of poor people achieving significant academic and athletic success, that these are the consequences of being well fed, some people prefer to write off such achievements to preferential treatment (affirmative action) and free lunches rewarding laziness. That Senators Landrieu, DeMint and Graham have used such verbiage in connection with providing adequate health care and medical services is not co-incidental. They all subscribe to the belief that ALL social benefits have to be deserved. After all, if you can't condition rewards/bribes on "good" behavior, how do you exercise control? Government BY the people--i.e. popular government--is a nightmare and fills them with fear.

For the longest time, I was sure conservatives were intent on creating the nanny state. I was wrong. Somehow I missed that the yearning has been for Papa all along. Perhaps my eyes were opened by the newly elected Senator Scott Brown, whose life's ambition is to prove he can be a better father than his dad and, presumably, his step dad.

The "sky is falling" tenor of this organization's communications is getting tedious. I know that generating fear and anxiety was the Republican stock in trade, but, in case someone didn't notice, their schtick got retired in 2008.

We are now into 2010 and it's time to focus on accomplishments.

You say there are none? Well, find some, and do it quick.


In the mean time, the maundering over the Supreme Court decision putting an end to campaign finance regulation as Washington had come to know it is really misplaced. That McCain/Feingold was un-Constitutional was obvious from the start--a typical authoritarian effort to regulate and restrict the populace, instead of the agents of government and known malefactors.

The Constitution provides a good model in defining what the agents of government may and must do. It does less well prohibiting abuses of power because the framers probably assumed that, if our agents minded their ps and qs, they wouldn't go too far wrong.

In the interim, the long tradition of people in power doing favors for their buds keeps resurfacing. Democrats make a little effort to hide it by bragging "see, how we've got the special interests to serve the public in exchange for letting them have a monopoly." Republicans just dole out benefits to the rich and threats to the poor, so that latter get the message--"it could be worse; the rich could just be thieving without intermediation."

Similar to the White House, the Air Force has an extensive public information program with regular updates about efforts in the war zones and a steady stream of human interest stories. When I first started reading the daily Airpower Summaries, the authors had obviously fallen into the habit of simply changing the numbers in many of their stock recitations, relying on institutional jargon and verbiage to give flavor to their routine. In recent months, during which the reporting was shifted around various web sites, there's been an upgrade in both the format and the quality of information being provided. The following most recent offering is a good example:

As if we don't already have enough to do!

SOURCE:Fosters Daily Democrat

N.H. voters could get peoples' veto

Would allow citizens to override Legislature; gay marriage debate cited

By Adam D. Krauss

Sunday, January 17, 2010

DOVER — A group of state lawmakers want New Hampshire to take a page out of Maine's book and let citizens have the final say on laws.

Paul Hodes and Kelly Ayotte have something in common, in addition to striving to be elected United States Senator from New Hampshire. While Hodes, having only served as Assistant State Attorney General, under David Souter, has to cede primacy to former Attorney General Ayotte, one would assume that both are keen to bring their experience in law enforcement to the investigative functions of the Congress. Senators Whitehouse and Leahy can use all the help they can get looking into some of the illegalities which undermined the efforts of prior administrations.

Presumably, there has not been a popular revolt to derail the Obama Administration's determination to not only get the money we loaned to the banks back, but to assert as a general principle that IT'S OUR MONEY, backed by the full faith and credit of we, the American people, and, since it's ours, ours to do with as we please--no reason to beg for crumbs from the bankers' tables. It's taken a while, but the ABC "It's your money" frame has finally taken hold. The Administration's decision to forgive the loans associated with hurricane damage is another example of getting the money flowing where we want it.

America has become the land of homeless persons and personless homes--a situation providing clear evidence that something is terribly wrong. Homeless persons are always a sign of some natural or man-made catastrophe. The residents of New Orleans and Fallujah and wherever else war is being waged can attest to that. But, an abundance of personless homes, perhaps because it's an historical anomaly, gets relatively little attention. Besides, from the perspective of people who make a living matching up people with houses, a high vacancy rate translates into an opportunity for more revenue.

Persons whose assets and income are not sufficient to afford a shelter, much less a home, are a problem. But, for the most part, America has managed to solve it, at least until the most recent economic collapse, with the facile conclusion that homelessness is a matter of choice--that being homeless is what the homeless person prefers. Besides, the "homeless" designation works nicely with the universal tendency to depersonalize American life. So, the "homeless" join the "jobless" and the "childless" and whatever other categories we can devised to identify people by their peculiar conditions, rather than their personhood.

I think it's because there's an inability to anticipate what is going to happen next. And that's probably a consequence of an inability to track the sequence of events with any accuracy. It's as if information is randomized, like shuffling a deck of cards, BEFORE being stored in memory. Knowing what comes next is never identified. So, remembering the past is no help, if one wants to prevent making the same mistakes again.

The story says:

Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 25, more than 23 key insurgents, mostly Taliban and Haqqani network senior leaders, known for leading the planning and undertaking of deadly attacks directed towards Afghan citizens, Afghan government officials, ANSF and coalition forces, as well facilitating the trafficking of fighters, weapons, explosives and money to support their terrorist activities, have either been killed or captured.

The fact of the matter is that the market for goods is always going to reach a point of saturation, especially when the goods are of high quality. This means that there's an inherent conflict that's reflected in the higher valuation (by economists) of goods over service. Indeed, the lower status of service may even be associated with the fact that quality is, in a sense, the product of what's really disrespected--i.e. human input and labor (which includes intelligence and artistry). That the market for excellent service never reaches saturation is a truth that seems lost to prejudice.

What I'd argue is that perhaps the most persistent negative consequence of our historical addiction to cheap/free labor (indentured servants/slaves/women) is the persistent preference for trade (the function of middle men) over labor. It's this prejudice which accounts for products being promoted as "labor saving" devices, as if there's something bad about labor/people working with their brains and their hands.

It must be really galling to him--the prospect of going down in history as the forgotten side-kick of the worst President ever. That must be the explanation for the desperate effort to salvage the war theme, even if it means assigning that lofty accolade to that undeserving usurper in the White House.

That's actually a gigantic concession from the purported leader of a population that defines itself on the basis of heritage (who's your daddy not only defines your social status, but determines the quality of your behavior). But then, Cheney himself is a Johnny-come-lately, hanging on the coat-tails of the Bush heir. So, in a sense, the effort to derive significance from the warrior designation is consistent. If the ties of heritage are weak, the warrior stance is a traditional route to social prominence.

That someone would discount this traditional route in favor of personal achievement must be doubly galling; especially after coming to the realization that the Bush heir did not fully appreciate the role of supreme commander he'd been vouchsafed. For, when you come to think of it, most of the VP's machinations actually came to naught, since the Bush-heir's satisfaction with BEING in the driver's seat did not translate into him actually DOING anything. Which suggests that the effort to goad Obama into action is a sort of last resort to demonstrate that the misadventure in the Middle East was/is a valid endeavor.

Here's the screed Richard Bruce Cheney issued in his self-defense. Although it's couched as an attack on the current President of the United States, there's no mistaking the self-serving and self-deluding nature of the two paragraph missive--

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

While having more than two political parties--i.e. groups with enough members and support to actually elect public officials--might be a good thing, the designation of Republicans and Democrats as supporters of different governing strategies is misleading. Other than having a different linguistic heritage (Republic = Roman; Democracy = Greek), the meaning of the words is essentially the same--i.e. the affairs of the public or deme, a grouping of individuals. Which, at a minimum, suggests that the practice of collapsing and encapsulating the public interest into the will of a single ruling individual, as the proponents of a unitary executive aim to insure, is a contradiction of what's being claimed.

That's presuming, of course, that in focusing on the public interest, the intent is to promote the welfare of the body politic. That people would come together into organized groups for the purpose of doing each other harm seems far-fetched. And yet, that's what a considerable body of individuals who still call themselves Republicans have morphed into. United by hate, their aim is to deprivate--to deny to their fellows the enjoyment of rights, as well as the necessities of life.

I've long held the opinion that when it comes to environmental degradation our public agencies are some of the worst offenders. Much slip-shod waste disposal and contamination has been tolerated in the name of "balancing the public interest." Not to mention that some of our public servants consider it a benefit of their employment to impose, rather than follow regulations.

And our military agencies have been among the worst offenders, as evidenced by the fact that every site they vacate is in need of environmental cleanup and remediation. So, it's not surprising that eight years of occupation have left Iraq in a mess. Some of which our own Congresswoman has tried to address by outlawing burn pits and insisting on proper waste disposal. But, who's going to pay for it?