An interview for the new blu-ray of the always-interesting title-actor (and agent for British short actors) of the children's 1980s Ron Howard live-action fantasy classic 'Willow:' Warwick Davis-
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/this-week-dvd-blu-ray/warwick-davis-talks-willow-film-legacy-belly-tattoo-200435187.html
Fair warning: 'Willow' was definitively not a 'grimdark' film (which genre the last few posts have been concerned with), though it knew how to use death as an emotional weapon, and had a memorable section where a dying (and losing) war-leader literally spits into the face of his skull-helmed opponent in defiance, before the sword is twisted further. The same character told an old friend of his (who had evidently shown himself disloyal in the past), found in a compromised situation betraying impending death, to 'sit in your coffin and rot.' So keep in mind that 'grimdark' elements are not a completely new innovation, even in the relatively tame literature and film of human children. After all, were it not for the existence of 'The Princess Bride,' 'Willow' would probably be remembered as the great children's fantasy film of the 1980s (though I think it's failure to build on Phil Tippet's 'go-motion' (for the earlier 'Dragonslayer') for its own dragon-beast is an unfortunate missed opportunity in the fantasy special effects history--1988 was the perfect moment to develop such a technology, before computers were being stretched to do (fairly poor) jobs on such effects, but an era in which physical effects had developed, in films like the Star Wars and Indian Jones trilogies far beyond their previous capacaties. In fairness, though, this film does feature the first example of CG morphing anywhere, it's just a little sad that they didn't spend the time to make an effective model-and-motion-based giant fantasy beast that would've been impressive to audiences and a beautiful success to compare with the dinosaurs of five years' later's 'Jurassic Park' (which, today, look a bit dated).
In any case, my respect for the irrepressible Warwick Davis knows know bounds--or at least only the same bounds as those that contain the brilliant and much-underused Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who after a few iconic speculative fiction roles in the mid 80s, strangely got relegated to b-movie status. Humans. In any case, it looks like there'll be more use of Mr. Davis as Jawas, Yoda flash-backs, and ewoks and what-not in the new 'Star Wars' films, however they turn out, quality-wise. So that'll be something I'll be happy to see again.
-CB the undying
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
In response to Joe Abercrombie on the benefits of 'grit' in fantasy
From the previously linked posts:
"George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, surely the gold standard of gritty epic fantasy, is also rapidly becoming the most successful epic fantasy of this era, and he its definitive living writer. There are still plenty of writers and publishers very successfully putting out more traditional stuff if you really need another righteous hero endlessly prevailing against the odds.
...So, yeah, shitty gritty books are no better than shitty shiny books. But I proudly and unapologetically assert that there’s a great deal more to grit than a capacity to shock and titillate. Although I must equally proudly and unapologetically assert that I do sometimes quite enjoy being shocked and titillated."
(UPDATED: Another link, this one something of a polemic against 'splatter fantasy,' though I enjoy his calling out of Terry Goodkind for 'pornographic [&S&M] fantasy'http://bondwine.com/2013/01/28/a-song-of-gore-and-slaughter/)
I'm going to cut through the false dichotomy fallacy in Abecrombie's assertion of a choice between the 'shitty-gritty' and 'more traditional stuff' about 'another righteous hero endlessly prevailing' (obviously, good fantasy need be neither that nor gritty the gritty stuff some have a problem with, and presumably, Abercrombie is aware of such work himself if he glances at the trade magazine now and then), and note that Martin is certainly not the genre's 'definitive living writer.' Not after writing volumes four and five of his series--books characterized by a) the continued unnecessary slaughter of characters, b) the unnecessary introduction of new plotlines because Martin evidently can't stand to finish his book, and so complicates further, and c) really mostly nothing at all happening for nine-hundred or so pages each. The TV series is going to be in serious shit when it comes time to do a season for them, which I suspect is part of the reason they've split the third book in two, to buy themselves time.
Beyond that, yes, Abercrombie argues effectively that grit can add depth and realism, beyond shocking and titillating--he does not, however, contradict the observation that the 'shocking and titillating' part of grimdark is a phenomenon of diminishing returns unless one keeps increasing the level of violence/titillation, nor does he provide much, in that section of his argument, to justify grimdark by its own lights other than essentially noting that it can be fun, fun, which, unfortunately applies to a lot of bad things, and which (am I really the one forced to make the prudish argument, here?) can be problematic when measured against the potential social cost of the dissemination of continually increasing quantities and graphic of rape and murder (especially when, as with R. Scott Bakker, though not Abercrombie himself, to his credit, everything besides the demon-rapes is ungodly boring and also a straight rip-off of either Tolkien or 'Dune'). So congrats to Abercrombie for his intellectual honesty, here and elsewhere, but his argument that this type of writer are doing the best of work is not, in all cases, a particularly tight one: it should be noted that: 'I like being titillated' doesn't necessarily quite have the rhetorical consequence or throughput to get you to 'these are good books, worth the writing and the reading.' For that you have to measure the rest of his argument carefully, and think how well the bits about realism, thematic and character development apply to the human mind and world, and to the material currently being produced (hint: even the demon rape scene in R. Scott Bakker, which I desperately wanted to enjoy, considering how much effort I was putting into paying attention to the damned thousand page Dune-God-Emperor-of-Dune-LOTR rehash, was fairly boring and possibly out of place. Oops, spoiler; don't worry, Bakker is clearly a talented guy but his time is clearly better spent elsewhere, possibly in the field of fantasy criticism or editing or in hand-illustrating editions of 'Dune' for collectors who want each page illustrated with the David Llynch version of the characters).
For what it's worth, I have always been a supporter of some level of grittiness beyond that found in Lewis, Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander being included in fantasy lit (and believe the novel as a form climaxed, if anywhere, with late nineteenth-century gritty realism rather than the silliness that followed), so I do not consider myself particularly in opposition to Abercrombie's overall position (though his position is much more developed and perhaps darker than mine).
I also wonder....Abercrombie states in his post that he dislikes high-falutin old-timey language. Does this mean he also dislikes the flabby, Anglo-saxon-influenced prose (and mildly ghastly poetry) of good old JRR, too? For what it's worth, I think a position at least as regards Tolkien's later works, would be both consistent and legitimate ('The Hobbit's' language is lighter and more targeted to its audience, and the poetry probably better and more selectively and effectively deployed)
I'll close with the moneyquote from Tom Simon, above (which predates the latest and most extreme development in grimdark fantasy): 'We need to recognize that splatterporn is a beast that will devour our souls if we let it; and we need to stop feeding the beast, and instead feed our souls on something that will sustain them. We shall need such sustenance in an age where the obsessive description of acts of despicable evil is routinely mistaken for art.'
As applied to George R. R. Martin, at least the first three volumes, I'm going to call this inaccurate hyperbole. But is there something to it, after all, especially as Westeros darkens and Terry Goodkind churns out the same warmed over S&M porn horror dressed up with wizards, not to mention these newfangled authors, Morgan, Erickson, Abercrombie (who some say improves as a writer as he's aged)?
"George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, surely the gold standard of gritty epic fantasy, is also rapidly becoming the most successful epic fantasy of this era, and he its definitive living writer. There are still plenty of writers and publishers very successfully putting out more traditional stuff if you really need another righteous hero endlessly prevailing against the odds.
...So, yeah, shitty gritty books are no better than shitty shiny books. But I proudly and unapologetically assert that there’s a great deal more to grit than a capacity to shock and titillate. Although I must equally proudly and unapologetically assert that I do sometimes quite enjoy being shocked and titillated."
(UPDATED: Another link, this one something of a polemic against 'splatter fantasy,' though I enjoy his calling out of Terry Goodkind for 'pornographic [&S&M] fantasy'http://bondwine.com/2013/01/28/a-song-of-gore-and-slaughter/)
I'm going to cut through the false dichotomy fallacy in Abecrombie's assertion of a choice between the 'shitty-gritty' and 'more traditional stuff' about 'another righteous hero endlessly prevailing' (obviously, good fantasy need be neither that nor gritty the gritty stuff some have a problem with, and presumably, Abercrombie is aware of such work himself if he glances at the trade magazine now and then), and note that Martin is certainly not the genre's 'definitive living writer.' Not after writing volumes four and five of his series--books characterized by a) the continued unnecessary slaughter of characters, b) the unnecessary introduction of new plotlines because Martin evidently can't stand to finish his book, and so complicates further, and c) really mostly nothing at all happening for nine-hundred or so pages each. The TV series is going to be in serious shit when it comes time to do a season for them, which I suspect is part of the reason they've split the third book in two, to buy themselves time.
Beyond that, yes, Abercrombie argues effectively that grit can add depth and realism, beyond shocking and titillating--he does not, however, contradict the observation that the 'shocking and titillating' part of grimdark is a phenomenon of diminishing returns unless one keeps increasing the level of violence/titillation, nor does he provide much, in that section of his argument, to justify grimdark by its own lights other than essentially noting that it can be fun, fun, which, unfortunately applies to a lot of bad things, and which (am I really the one forced to make the prudish argument, here?) can be problematic when measured against the potential social cost of the dissemination of continually increasing quantities and graphic of rape and murder (especially when, as with R. Scott Bakker, though not Abercrombie himself, to his credit, everything besides the demon-rapes is ungodly boring and also a straight rip-off of either Tolkien or 'Dune'). So congrats to Abercrombie for his intellectual honesty, here and elsewhere, but his argument that this type of writer are doing the best of work is not, in all cases, a particularly tight one: it should be noted that: 'I like being titillated' doesn't necessarily quite have the rhetorical consequence or throughput to get you to 'these are good books, worth the writing and the reading.' For that you have to measure the rest of his argument carefully, and think how well the bits about realism, thematic and character development apply to the human mind and world, and to the material currently being produced (hint: even the demon rape scene in R. Scott Bakker, which I desperately wanted to enjoy, considering how much effort I was putting into paying attention to the damned thousand page Dune-God-Emperor-of-Dune-LOTR rehash, was fairly boring and possibly out of place. Oops, spoiler; don't worry, Bakker is clearly a talented guy but his time is clearly better spent elsewhere, possibly in the field of fantasy criticism or editing or in hand-illustrating editions of 'Dune' for collectors who want each page illustrated with the David Llynch version of the characters).
For what it's worth, I have always been a supporter of some level of grittiness beyond that found in Lewis, Tolkien, and Lloyd Alexander being included in fantasy lit (and believe the novel as a form climaxed, if anywhere, with late nineteenth-century gritty realism rather than the silliness that followed), so I do not consider myself particularly in opposition to Abercrombie's overall position (though his position is much more developed and perhaps darker than mine).
I also wonder....Abercrombie states in his post that he dislikes high-falutin old-timey language. Does this mean he also dislikes the flabby, Anglo-saxon-influenced prose (and mildly ghastly poetry) of good old JRR, too? For what it's worth, I think a position at least as regards Tolkien's later works, would be both consistent and legitimate ('The Hobbit's' language is lighter and more targeted to its audience, and the poetry probably better and more selectively and effectively deployed)
I'll close with the moneyquote from Tom Simon, above (which predates the latest and most extreme development in grimdark fantasy): 'We need to recognize that splatterporn is a beast that will devour our souls if we let it; and we need to stop feeding the beast, and instead feed our souls on something that will sustain them. We shall need such sustenance in an age where the obsessive description of acts of despicable evil is routinely mistaken for art.'
As applied to George R. R. Martin, at least the first three volumes, I'm going to call this inaccurate hyperbole. But is there something to it, after all, especially as Westeros darkens and Terry Goodkind churns out the same warmed over S&M porn horror dressed up with wizards, not to mention these newfangled authors, Morgan, Erickson, Abercrombie (who some say improves as a writer as he's aged)?
Gritty Realism, 'Grimdark' & the development of fantasy, good or bad?
Diapadion linked me to this response to the previously linked rant against some of the fantasy genre's (sexist, racist) excesses. I haven't read it completely, yet, and to some extent it seems to be a response to the previous critique, but so far it's reintroduced me to the idea that post 1990 'gritty realism' in fantasy is not necessarily a good thing that lends itself to social criticism and a more accurate reflection of reality. The discussion seems to still be in progress:
http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/02/25/the-value-of-grit/
"Grimdark is a phrase I’m hearing quite a lot, which seems by definition to be pejorative – excessively and unnecessarily dark, cynical, violent, brutal without purpose and beyond the point of ridiculousness. There’s often what seems to me a slightly weird double standard applied of, ‘I find this thoroughly horrible and disgusting therefore the author must have intended me to be titillated and entertained!’"
Hmm. I'd welcome any further commentary here, including on the treatment of women and races in the previous linked post (I've always found it a bit odd that Tolkien, in particular, got away in a recently post-Nazi age in writing of a beautiful high civilization of the medieval type, currently fading away for lack of genetic purity and characterized by very white men who have genetically distinctive grey eyes (and tend to sport 5 day shaves all the time, according to Peter Jackson's version. I think they must carry around those clippers, with the 4/16" shield and pouches full of AAA batteries, since I'm assuming the watchtower of Amon Sul, even back in the day, didn't have 110v power).
But I digress. So, yeah, 'grimdark.' More of a problem than a benefit to the genre? The debate has raged several years, now, it seems.
Question: is there a way George Martin's books are not equivalent to the development of 'gritty' Realist technique that still dominates English-language fiction writing to a significant extent, the art-house market partially aside, in the separate genre of 'fantasy' that developed from multiple sources but took something like its modern form around the 1980s with imitators of Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lloyd Alexander? Is Martin different from David Eddings, who began inserting realistic prose and modernish characters and describing women below the neckline, all in contrast to Tolkien? Is it not good that fantasy no longer limits itself aesthetically to the range of content acceptable to Alfred Lord Tennyson, an accusation Eddings made about Tolkien's limitations of material (hint: he also couldn't write women). David Eddings himselfwas rather a mix of generic and an innovative, story-focused writing when he first started out, a widely popular writer of the 80s and early 90s, who turned evil at the same time as George Lucas, producing more and more horrible tracts filled with trite characterizations, lazy prose self-satisfied storylines, slow pacing and myriad other sins, just because publishing houses from the mid-90s had decided to throw vast amounts of money at him to produce anything that could be sandwiched between two covers. He got even more if it could be tied back in some way to his original Belgariad, no matter how shockingly self-satisfied and trite and--by the way, contradictory to the original legends he'd set up--it was. Sigh. It should be admitted that some have nothing good to say even about Eddings' early work, but by 1998 or so, Eddings was evidently at the point in his career where he lacked the self-awarness to know what would happen if he just indulged himself. Maybe that's what happens....you grow a bit cynical when Del Rey is giving you three million a book to flatulate your way through four-hundred pages of predictable, tv-trope-filled conventionality and insults to teenage (i.e his presumed readership at that point? I don't know who else, man) intelligence--I am referring, of course to the late Eddings series 'The Tamuli,' which a good friend of mine once described, memorably and accurately as 'an offense against all human language.'
But I digress from grimdark into fantasy's 90s excesses (which all this bloody 'realism' is perhaps in part a reaction to?). Let us restart the discussion by noting that, while Tolkien is wrongly credited as the inventor of fantasy, it's true that he influenced a generation of writers to react, either in favor of his model and also in opposition to a sort of Tennyson-style aesthetic of acceptable material (i.e. the model of the widely read, influential Arthurian fantasy poems of the 19th century: 'Idylls of the King,' which rolled through major parts of the Matter of Britain in the rolling iambic pentameter that Tennyson perfected perhaps beyond any other poet (and rather specialized in) in English). Self-censorship probably occurred as a result of his, Lewis and Tolkien's visions, with widely varying results in terms of quality of material produced (Just as Tolkien's own incorporation of previous innovations yielded mixed results: Lord Dunsany's innovations in the field was mainly successful, if unacknowledged, but his and CS Lewis' use of William Morris's secondary worlds and Germanicism (explicitly acknowledged) yielded perhaps more mixed results, and Tolkien's incorporation of Morris's talent for poetry in-context went steadily downhill (i.e., it worked fairly well in 'The Hobbit,' but the less he thought of himself as producing a modern novel, and the more he thought of creating a quasi-Anglo-saxon epic complete with 'Battle of Brunanburh' type legions of dead captains listed, the less effectively his poetic interludes seemed to be (but the innovation of using poetry was Morris's, not Tolkien's; Morris was just a better poet than Tolkien, and made sure the context was more appropriate.
Arguably, Tolkien got more right than wrong, and his and Lewis and Morris' medievalising were a powerful force in the genre, and seem to have permanently changed it, though there's as much or more focus on the high and late medieval as Tolkien's beloved Anglosaxon-influenced stuff.
But back to the present topic:
"Realism, people. Lots of those who praise gritty writing talk about its realism. Lots of people who criticise it assert there’s nothing realistic about splatter and crushing cynicism. You’re both right! Realism is an interesting concept in fantasy. If we were aiming at the uncompromisingly real we probably wouldn’t be writing in made up worlds with forces that don’t actually exist. So things are often exaggerated for effect, twisted, larger than life. But we can still aim at something that approximates real life in all kinds of different ways. Where the people and their behaviour and the outcomes of their actions are believable."
Hmm. I'll buy it--yet it seems pretty incomplete as a defense of most of the Grimdark stuff out there, starting with Driz'zt and moving to Martin and into the present (as it were)...
PS - I don't knov where exactly my sympathies lie, though I will say that Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Chalion/Fivefold Pathway of the Soul' seem to me to have done as much to advance the quality of the fantasy genre as the more widely disseminated Martin. So perhaps we're focusing too much on style and form at the expense of content (I'm sorry, but this Mark Lawrence fellow kind of sounds like he just writes bad, incredibly violent books. About a sociopath. Gory details or no, that seems to be the fundamental content and I'm not convinced that the trail of blood blazes its way through to a worthwhile psychological insight. Sorry).
PPS - Here's another link, which effectively describes the escalating stages in the publication of 'grimdark' material in fantasy, and offers a pretty coherent argument as to when it ought to be considered good material (i.e. there has to be a reason for it regarding the world/characters/aesthetic developed). He doesn't pass judgment on specific work.
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2013/02/grimmy-grimmy-dark-dark.html#
http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2013/02/25/the-value-of-grit/
"Grimdark is a phrase I’m hearing quite a lot, which seems by definition to be pejorative – excessively and unnecessarily dark, cynical, violent, brutal without purpose and beyond the point of ridiculousness. There’s often what seems to me a slightly weird double standard applied of, ‘I find this thoroughly horrible and disgusting therefore the author must have intended me to be titillated and entertained!’"
Hmm. I'd welcome any further commentary here, including on the treatment of women and races in the previous linked post (I've always found it a bit odd that Tolkien, in particular, got away in a recently post-Nazi age in writing of a beautiful high civilization of the medieval type, currently fading away for lack of genetic purity and characterized by very white men who have genetically distinctive grey eyes (and tend to sport 5 day shaves all the time, according to Peter Jackson's version. I think they must carry around those clippers, with the 4/16" shield and pouches full of AAA batteries, since I'm assuming the watchtower of Amon Sul, even back in the day, didn't have 110v power).
But I digress. So, yeah, 'grimdark.' More of a problem than a benefit to the genre? The debate has raged several years, now, it seems.
Question: is there a way George Martin's books are not equivalent to the development of 'gritty' Realist technique that still dominates English-language fiction writing to a significant extent, the art-house market partially aside, in the separate genre of 'fantasy' that developed from multiple sources but took something like its modern form around the 1980s with imitators of Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lloyd Alexander? Is Martin different from David Eddings, who began inserting realistic prose and modernish characters and describing women below the neckline, all in contrast to Tolkien? Is it not good that fantasy no longer limits itself aesthetically to the range of content acceptable to Alfred Lord Tennyson, an accusation Eddings made about Tolkien's limitations of material (hint: he also couldn't write women). David Eddings himselfwas rather a mix of generic and an innovative, story-focused writing when he first started out, a widely popular writer of the 80s and early 90s, who turned evil at the same time as George Lucas, producing more and more horrible tracts filled with trite characterizations, lazy prose self-satisfied storylines, slow pacing and myriad other sins, just because publishing houses from the mid-90s had decided to throw vast amounts of money at him to produce anything that could be sandwiched between two covers. He got even more if it could be tied back in some way to his original Belgariad, no matter how shockingly self-satisfied and trite and--by the way, contradictory to the original legends he'd set up--it was. Sigh. It should be admitted that some have nothing good to say even about Eddings' early work, but by 1998 or so, Eddings was evidently at the point in his career where he lacked the self-awarness to know what would happen if he just indulged himself. Maybe that's what happens....you grow a bit cynical when Del Rey is giving you three million a book to flatulate your way through four-hundred pages of predictable, tv-trope-filled conventionality and insults to teenage (i.e his presumed readership at that point? I don't know who else, man) intelligence--I am referring, of course to the late Eddings series 'The Tamuli,' which a good friend of mine once described, memorably and accurately as 'an offense against all human language.'
But I digress from grimdark into fantasy's 90s excesses (which all this bloody 'realism' is perhaps in part a reaction to?). Let us restart the discussion by noting that, while Tolkien is wrongly credited as the inventor of fantasy, it's true that he influenced a generation of writers to react, either in favor of his model and also in opposition to a sort of Tennyson-style aesthetic of acceptable material (i.e. the model of the widely read, influential Arthurian fantasy poems of the 19th century: 'Idylls of the King,' which rolled through major parts of the Matter of Britain in the rolling iambic pentameter that Tennyson perfected perhaps beyond any other poet (and rather specialized in) in English). Self-censorship probably occurred as a result of his, Lewis and Tolkien's visions, with widely varying results in terms of quality of material produced (Just as Tolkien's own incorporation of previous innovations yielded mixed results: Lord Dunsany's innovations in the field was mainly successful, if unacknowledged, but his and CS Lewis' use of William Morris's secondary worlds and Germanicism (explicitly acknowledged) yielded perhaps more mixed results, and Tolkien's incorporation of Morris's talent for poetry in-context went steadily downhill (i.e., it worked fairly well in 'The Hobbit,' but the less he thought of himself as producing a modern novel, and the more he thought of creating a quasi-Anglo-saxon epic complete with 'Battle of Brunanburh' type legions of dead captains listed, the less effectively his poetic interludes seemed to be (but the innovation of using poetry was Morris's, not Tolkien's; Morris was just a better poet than Tolkien, and made sure the context was more appropriate.
Arguably, Tolkien got more right than wrong, and his and Lewis and Morris' medievalising were a powerful force in the genre, and seem to have permanently changed it, though there's as much or more focus on the high and late medieval as Tolkien's beloved Anglosaxon-influenced stuff.
But back to the present topic:
"Realism, people. Lots of those who praise gritty writing talk about its realism. Lots of people who criticise it assert there’s nothing realistic about splatter and crushing cynicism. You’re both right! Realism is an interesting concept in fantasy. If we were aiming at the uncompromisingly real we probably wouldn’t be writing in made up worlds with forces that don’t actually exist. So things are often exaggerated for effect, twisted, larger than life. But we can still aim at something that approximates real life in all kinds of different ways. Where the people and their behaviour and the outcomes of their actions are believable."
Hmm. I'll buy it--yet it seems pretty incomplete as a defense of most of the Grimdark stuff out there, starting with Driz'zt and moving to Martin and into the present (as it were)...
PS - I don't knov where exactly my sympathies lie, though I will say that Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Chalion/Fivefold Pathway of the Soul' seem to me to have done as much to advance the quality of the fantasy genre as the more widely disseminated Martin. So perhaps we're focusing too much on style and form at the expense of content (I'm sorry, but this Mark Lawrence fellow kind of sounds like he just writes bad, incredibly violent books. About a sociopath. Gory details or no, that seems to be the fundamental content and I'm not convinced that the trail of blood blazes its way through to a worthwhile psychological insight. Sorry).
PPS - Here's another link, which effectively describes the escalating stages in the publication of 'grimdark' material in fantasy, and offers a pretty coherent argument as to when it ought to be considered good material (i.e. there has to be a reason for it regarding the world/characters/aesthetic developed). He doesn't pass judgment on specific work.
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2013/02/grimmy-grimmy-dark-dark.html#
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Link: violence and the development of the fantasy genre
This thought-provoking blog post discusses George RR Martin and his ilk in modern fantasy. Comments to follow at some point:
http://alltheworldsbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/game-of-thorns-or-this-partially-being.html
http://alltheworldsbooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/game-of-thorns-or-this-partially-being.html
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Obama comes out as an American Liberal: Who Knew?
Well, we all did, on some level; that was part of his appeal in the primaries, and part of what led tens of thousands nobodies like me to sign a 'draft Obama' petition way back in 2006 when it seemed very unclear whether he'd run for president, or whether we'd be stuck with Hilary, who, though as of 213 very popular, above-the-fray government official, was at that time viewed by many sections of the voting public as a sort of Democratic antichrist due to fifteen solid years of (largely unfair and demonizing) personal attacks on her from the right-wing media machine. Obama's first major campaign speech (one of the few 'big event' speeches that he has deployed strategically at times to great effect, even as he often lets the opposition carry the ball the rest of the time), in Iowa in January of 2008, was an address to the party faithful claiming that, unlike the Clintons, he was not fundamentally a triangulator (i.e. one who tries to find a third position between the poles of left and right), but, rather, one who came from the left side of the aisle, yet would reach a hand across to work with the other side, to get done the business of the country.
It seemed like a pretty good pitch at the time (to anyone unfamiliar with the last thirty years of GOP ideology, I suppose, or the revolution against such compromise that's controlled GOP operating procedure since 1992). And, for what it's worth, it seemed to be what changed the momentum, winning him Iowa, and, ultimately, the presidential race. But despite all that, and in part because of the strategy there laid out, since Obama's election in 2008 politics shifted yet further to the right, aided and abetted by the President himself, whose hands-across-the-aisle approach had the practical effect of legitimizing political positions so far to the right they are certainly not conservative, but rather are some form of mixed reactionary and Libertarian (on economic issues; Conservatives are not at all Libertarian on social issues, preferring the strong hand of government to enforce their version of morality, there. On a different note, some might mark that on an objective level, when it comes to say fiscal policy [what the government spends and takes in in taxes] the GOP 'plans' have simply been out of touch with reality: their numbers don't simply don't add up [they haven't, at times, since 1981, but of late they've been remarkably aggressive and consistent about ignoring basic math). But Obama worked with them just the same; it took the Occupy Wall Street protests to let the media, and America, know that there were any other voices but the Tea Party--and the center-right-on-economics commentators in Washington--that mattered (presumably, our choice of options lay in some sort of compromise between those former two camps, neither of which, to be frank, appears to know the damndest thing about the macroeconomics of the situation, i.e. that this is a situation tailor-made for temporary Keynesian remedies which could easily relieve joblessness in huge numbers and create a stronger recovery).
The problem, from the point of view of we genuine liberals (and I'd qualify that by stating that I'm beginning to wonder whether I, at this point, should identify as a liberal, proper, or rather as some sort of fellow-traveler who's tired of modern American Liberalism's post-LBJ naivety...their aversion to using the levers of power effectively for the benefit of the public), the problem has been that, well into 2011, most of what we saw from the President was the outstretched hand, and very little of the man from the center-left we'd been promised. Most of his rhetoric and policies came pre-compromised and pre-immunized to charges of any perceivable leftish tinge. The 2013 State of the Union, combined with his Second Inaugural speech, and following on a campaign speech from a year or more ago that heralded the return (in a very modest way) of some of the ideals of Theodore Roosevelt, that has now changed all that.
I should qualify that Obama did some fairly important center-left things in his first two years, notably a (far too small) Keynesian bill that stopped the freefall of the economy (while not restoring it to healthy growth and leaving us an ugly, lingering 8-10% unemployment problem), as well as student loan reform (no more subsidies given to useless private-sector middle-men who took on no risk on the actual loans), Health Care Reform (the most right-wing version possible, with its intellectual roots in The Heritage Foundation and 'Reason' magazine, and without nation-wide exchanges, a Medicare buy-in for those over 55, or any other sort of expansion of public insurance, especially the Public Option that was at the center of Democratic hopes and which would have, while avoided forcing consumers, by law, into buying private goods, also helped drive down prices in the health care market through central bargaining power), and a softish version of financial reform (Dodd-Frank, which managed to earn the ire of the financial sector while not being strong enough to satisfy reformers on the left or, possibly, prevent the next financial crisis; the financial sector is already at work lobbying to weaken and undo the law). Obama did this in the face of absolute right-wing opposition (those few important national figures who stood with Obama on important issues were either forced from the Republican party (Gov. Charlie Crist and Senator Arlen Specter), or decided to retire, like senator Olympia Snowe, who--notwithstanding her own love of being the rightmost marginal vote in Obama's coalition at certain times, and thus the massive power that came with her position, and its ability to extract huge concessions on any bill in exchange for that...one...final...vote...(which she was perfectly willing to withhold after said concessions were given, some say in a promise on procedural votes to Mitch McConnell), ultimately decided to quit the game rather than deal with the crazies in her own party.
But Obama always with an open hand: a carrot and no stick, always playing the inside game to get bills passed (with some success in 2009 and fairly little thereafter, notwithstanding the obligatory final passage, through reconciliation, of Obamacare in March of 2010) but without bringing along outside pressure, and rarely providing, rhetorically, an alternative vision for a country that had soured on six to eight years of 'compassionate conservative' rule: unfunded and unsuccessful foreign wars, medical benefits put on the credit card, 'attaboys' to cabinet officials in charge of hurricane relief while dead people floated in the streets of New Orleans, a financial crisis and subsequent economic collapse; but which was offered no public alternative to the previous eight years but a farther-right version of the same and a centrism without a philosophy on domestic policy (that would be Obama, who I'd note set out a clear philosophy of foreign policy in his 'just war' Nobel acceptance speech, though what version of pragmatism or amoral 'realism' he follows on certain international issues is still somewhat unclear)
Through all this, the GOP maintained that their anti-government principles were, substantively, correct, and that only deviations from 'Conservative' (I use quotes because the extremities of the modern movement create a lot of space between the US movement and Conservatism's founding outlines as laid out and practiced by Edmund Burke, as well as figures like Disraeli, Oakeshott, and Salisbury--not to mention, say, Richard Nixon, once the leader of his party's right wing but far to the left of them on many issues of governance now) orthodoxy had created the present problem. And for much of this time, there was no major figure or narrative to counter this right-wing narrative of the country's problems except Paul Krugman, who has sinned by being correct on nearly all his economic predictions of the past five years, but has not been polite enough to the consensus folks who tend to be flat wrong and impervious to new evidence or new (or old) economic theories.
While Obama seemed to realize something of his mistake--the rhetorical and policy vacuum he'd created by focusing so much on compromise--some time in his embarrassing debt-limit fight (and loss) in 2011, leading to some moderately tough rhetoric during the 2012 campaign and a symbolic speech echoing Theodore Roosevelt, it was unclear what the president's actions would be in a second term. Americans have heard attractive populist rhetoric on economic issues too often since 1966, and been too often disappointed, not to be very jaded about it, and Obama's instinct for compromise with a merciless enemy had previously seemed to overwhelm his better nature: his 'hand across the aisle'--bit had amounted, in practice, to something awfully similar to triangulation, after all; there was even an offer, after the election, to raise the Medicare age of eligibility to 67 that somehow made it onto the table(such a raise would be substantively horrible policy that would have not only increased America's healthcare costs in total, but left a new portion of younger seniors out in the cold). In this context, while the Inaugural speech was a breath of fresh air for those on the center-left who feel they haven't had someone even to argue their case on the public stage for forty years, with the partial exception of Ted Kennedy's disastrous campaign of 1980, certain voices did note that that speech focused, in its specifics, more on individual rights than on the reintroduction of important Social Liberal principles necessary to govern ourselves effectively in this age of corporate dominance, a stagnant economy, and a weakening middle class:
Who Are You Calling a Liberal (2013 Inaugural edition - Michael Kazin)
(Excerpted)
"...But to believe that Obama has truly revived the great tradition of egalitarian reform is to neglect the distinction between two species of modern liberalism: that which promotes the equality of rights and that which works toward a greater equality of opportunity and wealth. The latter, the social variety, emerged from the class tumult of the Gilded Age and inspired such key New Deal measures as Social Security, the WPA, and the National Labor Relations Act. The former harks back to the abolitionists and early feminists; it demands that the promise of individual liberty be extended to every American, regardless of their skin color, national origin, gender, or whom they happen to love.
Most contemporary liberals support both types. But since the 1950s, they have devoted more time and passion to fighting for individual rights....
Yet the goal of economic equity for the majority of working Americans now seems farther away than at any time since the Great Depression. Anyone who follows the news knows the basics: beginning in the late 1970s, productivity has shot far ahead of wages, the lion’s share of wealth growth has gone to the one percent while the wealth of the bottom sixty percent has declined' the real value of the minimum wage is lower than it was during the Carter administation....
...In his inaugural speech, Obama wisely observed that “individual freedoms ultimately require collective action.” But in touting his second-term agenda, he has so far said little about what sort of collective action he has in mind." (endquote)
Well, now he has, and--more--he plans to take the show on the road, in an effort to get at least -some- of this desperately needed agenda passed through a Republican House of Representatives. While the media has focused, like the shallow and lazy fools they often are, on the optics of Marco Rubio's awkward drink of water, and on the 'emotional crescendo' of Obama's call for a vote on gun control efforts--mainly an effort to demand background checks everywhere, and possibly additional measures such as stopping the sale of new high-capacity magazines--the SOTU was also a call to war for center-left policies that will benefit the middle-class in myriad ways:
"Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour."“To hit the rest of our deficit reduction target, we should do what leaders in both parties have already suggested, and save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected. After all, why would we choose to make deeper cuts to education and Medicare just to protect special interest tax breaks? How is that fair? How does that promote growth?”
“Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime”
“…the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late.”
Not only was there a call-out for action on climate change (which came amid boasts--the first any president since the Nixon can make--of already increased energy security), and a call for worthwhile pre-K education reform (French public schools start at 3, and studies show it benefits them), this speech contained a sustained push for preventing huge cuts to domestic and military spending (the latter of which large sections of the GOP hate) which would affect domestic government operations and our ability to carry out our security commitments overseas by...a push for making up the money through closing tax loopholes for the rich--the resolution of which problem (on which he has substantial leverage over the GOP via the military cuts they hate so) will clear space for the rest of his agenda.
Friends, Americans, Liberals, it doesn't get much better than this. You wanted a Liberal cri de couer, you got it. You wanted a Liberal call for action on arenas of desperately needed policy, here it is. The best since LBJ. Enjoy it while it lasts. Some of it might even pass! And even if most of this, including the closing of tax loopholes for the rich and gun control legislation of any sort, crashes and burns 'gainst the immovable wall of House GOP intransigence (and fear of right-wing primaries)...someone has finally spoken with your voice again, while a big part of the nation listened. Too, it looks like Obama'll keep up the outside pressure for the forseeable future (he has a series of events and speeches outside Washington scheduled)--after all, the only way any of this stuff goes through, including on the all-important question of the sequester (do we cripple the government and the military or do some smart cutting and close some tax loopholes? Seems an obvious choice, no?), is if Obama keeps up his outside game, until it's clear the public is on his side and the GOP feels they have to fold.
The whole speech can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqWrotmhEo
And here's the text: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/02/12/obama_sotu_2013_text_president_obama_s_state_of_the_union_speech_as_prepared.html
Marco Rubio's official response, full of false dichotomies, hyperbole, straw man arguments and other fallacies and paranoias can be found...not on this site.If you are looking for Marco Rubio speeches, merchandise, or sweatshirts, please look elsewhere.
UPDATE - Polling shows viewers had a heavily positive response to Obama's State of the Union: 53% "very positive" to 24% "somewhat positive" and 22% negatives, in total (though the sample had a fairly heavy, twelve point, Democratic party ID bias, this appears to be who was watching the speech, and even weighted by party ID, those are good numbers for the Prez. Surprise! The public likes commonsense Liberalism clearly invested in improving life for everyone and preventing the collapse of defense and domestic government!)
It seemed like a pretty good pitch at the time (to anyone unfamiliar with the last thirty years of GOP ideology, I suppose, or the revolution against such compromise that's controlled GOP operating procedure since 1992). And, for what it's worth, it seemed to be what changed the momentum, winning him Iowa, and, ultimately, the presidential race. But despite all that, and in part because of the strategy there laid out, since Obama's election in 2008 politics shifted yet further to the right, aided and abetted by the President himself, whose hands-across-the-aisle approach had the practical effect of legitimizing political positions so far to the right they are certainly not conservative, but rather are some form of mixed reactionary and Libertarian (on economic issues; Conservatives are not at all Libertarian on social issues, preferring the strong hand of government to enforce their version of morality, there. On a different note, some might mark that on an objective level, when it comes to say fiscal policy [what the government spends and takes in in taxes] the GOP 'plans' have simply been out of touch with reality: their numbers don't simply don't add up [they haven't, at times, since 1981, but of late they've been remarkably aggressive and consistent about ignoring basic math). But Obama worked with them just the same; it took the Occupy Wall Street protests to let the media, and America, know that there were any other voices but the Tea Party--and the center-right-on-economics commentators in Washington--that mattered (presumably, our choice of options lay in some sort of compromise between those former two camps, neither of which, to be frank, appears to know the damndest thing about the macroeconomics of the situation, i.e. that this is a situation tailor-made for temporary Keynesian remedies which could easily relieve joblessness in huge numbers and create a stronger recovery).
The problem, from the point of view of we genuine liberals (and I'd qualify that by stating that I'm beginning to wonder whether I, at this point, should identify as a liberal, proper, or rather as some sort of fellow-traveler who's tired of modern American Liberalism's post-LBJ naivety...their aversion to using the levers of power effectively for the benefit of the public), the problem has been that, well into 2011, most of what we saw from the President was the outstretched hand, and very little of the man from the center-left we'd been promised. Most of his rhetoric and policies came pre-compromised and pre-immunized to charges of any perceivable leftish tinge. The 2013 State of the Union, combined with his Second Inaugural speech, and following on a campaign speech from a year or more ago that heralded the return (in a very modest way) of some of the ideals of Theodore Roosevelt, that has now changed all that.
I should qualify that Obama did some fairly important center-left things in his first two years, notably a (far too small) Keynesian bill that stopped the freefall of the economy (while not restoring it to healthy growth and leaving us an ugly, lingering 8-10% unemployment problem), as well as student loan reform (no more subsidies given to useless private-sector middle-men who took on no risk on the actual loans), Health Care Reform (the most right-wing version possible, with its intellectual roots in The Heritage Foundation and 'Reason' magazine, and without nation-wide exchanges, a Medicare buy-in for those over 55, or any other sort of expansion of public insurance, especially the Public Option that was at the center of Democratic hopes and which would have, while avoided forcing consumers, by law, into buying private goods, also helped drive down prices in the health care market through central bargaining power), and a softish version of financial reform (Dodd-Frank, which managed to earn the ire of the financial sector while not being strong enough to satisfy reformers on the left or, possibly, prevent the next financial crisis; the financial sector is already at work lobbying to weaken and undo the law). Obama did this in the face of absolute right-wing opposition (those few important national figures who stood with Obama on important issues were either forced from the Republican party (Gov. Charlie Crist and Senator Arlen Specter), or decided to retire, like senator Olympia Snowe, who--notwithstanding her own love of being the rightmost marginal vote in Obama's coalition at certain times, and thus the massive power that came with her position, and its ability to extract huge concessions on any bill in exchange for that...one...final...vote...(which she was perfectly willing to withhold after said concessions were given, some say in a promise on procedural votes to Mitch McConnell), ultimately decided to quit the game rather than deal with the crazies in her own party.
But Obama always with an open hand: a carrot and no stick, always playing the inside game to get bills passed (with some success in 2009 and fairly little thereafter, notwithstanding the obligatory final passage, through reconciliation, of Obamacare in March of 2010) but without bringing along outside pressure, and rarely providing, rhetorically, an alternative vision for a country that had soured on six to eight years of 'compassionate conservative' rule: unfunded and unsuccessful foreign wars, medical benefits put on the credit card, 'attaboys' to cabinet officials in charge of hurricane relief while dead people floated in the streets of New Orleans, a financial crisis and subsequent economic collapse; but which was offered no public alternative to the previous eight years but a farther-right version of the same and a centrism without a philosophy on domestic policy (that would be Obama, who I'd note set out a clear philosophy of foreign policy in his 'just war' Nobel acceptance speech, though what version of pragmatism or amoral 'realism' he follows on certain international issues is still somewhat unclear)
Through all this, the GOP maintained that their anti-government principles were, substantively, correct, and that only deviations from 'Conservative' (I use quotes because the extremities of the modern movement create a lot of space between the US movement and Conservatism's founding outlines as laid out and practiced by Edmund Burke, as well as figures like Disraeli, Oakeshott, and Salisbury--not to mention, say, Richard Nixon, once the leader of his party's right wing but far to the left of them on many issues of governance now) orthodoxy had created the present problem. And for much of this time, there was no major figure or narrative to counter this right-wing narrative of the country's problems except Paul Krugman, who has sinned by being correct on nearly all his economic predictions of the past five years, but has not been polite enough to the consensus folks who tend to be flat wrong and impervious to new evidence or new (or old) economic theories.
While Obama seemed to realize something of his mistake--the rhetorical and policy vacuum he'd created by focusing so much on compromise--some time in his embarrassing debt-limit fight (and loss) in 2011, leading to some moderately tough rhetoric during the 2012 campaign and a symbolic speech echoing Theodore Roosevelt, it was unclear what the president's actions would be in a second term. Americans have heard attractive populist rhetoric on economic issues too often since 1966, and been too often disappointed, not to be very jaded about it, and Obama's instinct for compromise with a merciless enemy had previously seemed to overwhelm his better nature: his 'hand across the aisle'--bit had amounted, in practice, to something awfully similar to triangulation, after all; there was even an offer, after the election, to raise the Medicare age of eligibility to 67 that somehow made it onto the table(such a raise would be substantively horrible policy that would have not only increased America's healthcare costs in total, but left a new portion of younger seniors out in the cold). In this context, while the Inaugural speech was a breath of fresh air for those on the center-left who feel they haven't had someone even to argue their case on the public stage for forty years, with the partial exception of Ted Kennedy's disastrous campaign of 1980, certain voices did note that that speech focused, in its specifics, more on individual rights than on the reintroduction of important Social Liberal principles necessary to govern ourselves effectively in this age of corporate dominance, a stagnant economy, and a weakening middle class:
Who Are You Calling a Liberal (2013 Inaugural edition - Michael Kazin)
"If Obama is liberalism's standard bearer, liberalism's in bad shape," BY
(Excerpted)
"...But to believe that Obama has truly revived the great tradition of egalitarian reform is to neglect the distinction between two species of modern liberalism: that which promotes the equality of rights and that which works toward a greater equality of opportunity and wealth. The latter, the social variety, emerged from the class tumult of the Gilded Age and inspired such key New Deal measures as Social Security, the WPA, and the National Labor Relations Act. The former harks back to the abolitionists and early feminists; it demands that the promise of individual liberty be extended to every American, regardless of their skin color, national origin, gender, or whom they happen to love.
Most contemporary liberals support both types. But since the 1950s, they have devoted more time and passion to fighting for individual rights....
Yet the goal of economic equity for the majority of working Americans now seems farther away than at any time since the Great Depression. Anyone who follows the news knows the basics: beginning in the late 1970s, productivity has shot far ahead of wages, the lion’s share of wealth growth has gone to the one percent while the wealth of the bottom sixty percent has declined' the real value of the minimum wage is lower than it was during the Carter administation....
...In his inaugural speech, Obama wisely observed that “individual freedoms ultimately require collective action.” But in touting his second-term agenda, he has so far said little about what sort of collective action he has in mind." (endquote)
Well, now he has, and--more--he plans to take the show on the road, in an effort to get at least -some- of this desperately needed agenda passed through a Republican House of Representatives. While the media has focused, like the shallow and lazy fools they often are, on the optics of Marco Rubio's awkward drink of water, and on the 'emotional crescendo' of Obama's call for a vote on gun control efforts--mainly an effort to demand background checks everywhere, and possibly additional measures such as stopping the sale of new high-capacity magazines--the SOTU was also a call to war for center-left policies that will benefit the middle-class in myriad ways:
"Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour."“To hit the rest of our deficit reduction target, we should do what leaders in both parties have already suggested, and save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected. After all, why would we choose to make deeper cuts to education and Medicare just to protect special interest tax breaks? How is that fair? How does that promote growth?”
“Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime”
“…the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it’s too late.”
Not only was there a call-out for action on climate change (which came amid boasts--the first any president since the Nixon can make--of already increased energy security), and a call for worthwhile pre-K education reform (French public schools start at 3, and studies show it benefits them), this speech contained a sustained push for preventing huge cuts to domestic and military spending (the latter of which large sections of the GOP hate) which would affect domestic government operations and our ability to carry out our security commitments overseas by...a push for making up the money through closing tax loopholes for the rich--the resolution of which problem (on which he has substantial leverage over the GOP via the military cuts they hate so) will clear space for the rest of his agenda.
Friends, Americans, Liberals, it doesn't get much better than this. You wanted a Liberal cri de couer, you got it. You wanted a Liberal call for action on arenas of desperately needed policy, here it is. The best since LBJ. Enjoy it while it lasts. Some of it might even pass! And even if most of this, including the closing of tax loopholes for the rich and gun control legislation of any sort, crashes and burns 'gainst the immovable wall of House GOP intransigence (and fear of right-wing primaries)...someone has finally spoken with your voice again, while a big part of the nation listened. Too, it looks like Obama'll keep up the outside pressure for the forseeable future (he has a series of events and speeches outside Washington scheduled)--after all, the only way any of this stuff goes through, including on the all-important question of the sequester (do we cripple the government and the military or do some smart cutting and close some tax loopholes? Seems an obvious choice, no?), is if Obama keeps up his outside game, until it's clear the public is on his side and the GOP feels they have to fold.
The whole speech can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqWrotmhEo
And here's the text: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/02/12/obama_sotu_2013_text_president_obama_s_state_of_the_union_speech_as_prepared.html
Marco Rubio's official response, full of false dichotomies, hyperbole, straw man arguments and other fallacies and paranoias can be found...not on this site.If you are looking for Marco Rubio speeches, merchandise, or sweatshirts, please look elsewhere.
UPDATE - Polling shows viewers had a heavily positive response to Obama's State of the Union: 53% "very positive" to 24% "somewhat positive" and 22% negatives, in total (though the sample had a fairly heavy, twelve point, Democratic party ID bias, this appears to be who was watching the speech, and even weighted by party ID, those are good numbers for the Prez. Surprise! The public likes commonsense Liberalism clearly invested in improving life for everyone and preventing the collapse of defense and domestic government!)
Monday, February 11, 2013
Comprehensive theory of democratic failure? Also: Abenomics
Charlie Stross, a rather more articulate fellow than me, has written the following post (thanks for the heads up, Diapadion) theorizing on why US and UK (he's from the UK) political systems, as well as others, seem not to be functioning to the best benefit of their constituents:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes-and-th.html
I don't entirely agree with his diagnosis of capitalist democracy's failures, but he raises some interesting issues. Still, if he's wrong that careerism, conservative (small c) political party dynamics, and influence from business interests are at the root of the fact that major democracies seem trapped in an era without creative and effective governance, where has he gone wrong?
I would suggest that part of the problem is simply that ideological options which used to exist, i.e. in the Labor party during its first sole government, and in the US before 1980, have been pushed off the Overton Window, so that necessary economic remedies just aren't on your average policy-maker's political radar, since they appear to have stopped learning about Keynesian economics and liquidity traps some time in the1980s or 1990s.
I would add, however,, that FINALLY someone's going full-bore Keynesian with the Japanese economy, which has had a few up points, but has, in general, been stuck in a cycle of inadequate demand, started by the collapse of a massive bubble in 1989 or so and perhaps, as Paul Krugman argues, reinforced by the massive demographic challenges the community faces now (i.e. a huge portion of the population is nearing and passing the age of 65, and so wishes to save for retirement, rather than consume, leading to a long-term deficit of consumption compared to the desire to invest). All I'm saying is that, since Japan has been in a damaging cycle of slight deflation (CPI very slightly down over the past five to ten years), Shinzo Abe's decision to commit the central bank to buying enough assets to FORCE the inflation rate up to 2% will not only increase Japanese competitiveness by devaluing their currency, but may motivate people previously holding their money in safe places (why invest in production if no one's buying and the money will be worth more in a year if you just sit on it!) to invest in production. It's pretty close to exactly what Professor Krugman has been calling for for the last couple of years, and constitutes a real-world test of modern Keynesian economic remedies for the real-world economic slump, especially as compared with the contrasting, and unpleasant, austerity economics which seems so inadequate all over the rest of the first world (I would consider the US something of a middle-way, at least compared with Europe and the UK).
So we may get to see who is right, and who is wrong, and, at the very least, it seems unlikely Abe can do much worse than his predecessors :}
Oh, and also: the White House has ruled out raising the age of Medicare eligibility in present negotiations. Yipee! Because that was a horrible idea that would cause much human suffering and cost Americans a lot of money. Good on Obama and his press secretary for knowing where to hold the line to maintain a coalition:http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/white-house-medicare-eligibility-age.php?ref=fpb
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes-and-th.html
I don't entirely agree with his diagnosis of capitalist democracy's failures, but he raises some interesting issues. Still, if he's wrong that careerism, conservative (small c) political party dynamics, and influence from business interests are at the root of the fact that major democracies seem trapped in an era without creative and effective governance, where has he gone wrong?
I would suggest that part of the problem is simply that ideological options which used to exist, i.e. in the Labor party during its first sole government, and in the US before 1980, have been pushed off the Overton Window, so that necessary economic remedies just aren't on your average policy-maker's political radar, since they appear to have stopped learning about Keynesian economics and liquidity traps some time in the1980s or 1990s.
I would add, however,, that FINALLY someone's going full-bore Keynesian with the Japanese economy, which has had a few up points, but has, in general, been stuck in a cycle of inadequate demand, started by the collapse of a massive bubble in 1989 or so and perhaps, as Paul Krugman argues, reinforced by the massive demographic challenges the community faces now (i.e. a huge portion of the population is nearing and passing the age of 65, and so wishes to save for retirement, rather than consume, leading to a long-term deficit of consumption compared to the desire to invest). All I'm saying is that, since Japan has been in a damaging cycle of slight deflation (CPI very slightly down over the past five to ten years), Shinzo Abe's decision to commit the central bank to buying enough assets to FORCE the inflation rate up to 2% will not only increase Japanese competitiveness by devaluing their currency, but may motivate people previously holding their money in safe places (why invest in production if no one's buying and the money will be worth more in a year if you just sit on it!) to invest in production. It's pretty close to exactly what Professor Krugman has been calling for for the last couple of years, and constitutes a real-world test of modern Keynesian economic remedies for the real-world economic slump, especially as compared with the contrasting, and unpleasant, austerity economics which seems so inadequate all over the rest of the first world (I would consider the US something of a middle-way, at least compared with Europe and the UK).
So we may get to see who is right, and who is wrong, and, at the very least, it seems unlikely Abe can do much worse than his predecessors :}
Oh, and also: the White House has ruled out raising the age of Medicare eligibility in present negotiations. Yipee! Because that was a horrible idea that would cause much human suffering and cost Americans a lot of money. Good on Obama and his press secretary for knowing where to hold the line to maintain a coalition:http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/white-house-medicare-eligibility-age.php?ref=fpb
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Stan Lee: Liar and Credit Hog
Amusing article from 'The New Republic's' book review section, pithily telling the story of how 'Stan Lee' (not his real name) stole credit for the creation of the Silver Age Marvel universe (i.e. everything but the Sub-Mariner and Captain America) from artists like Steve Ditko and especially Jack Kirby (also not his real name), as well as other writers, while Lee took all the fame and became Marvel's 'brand':
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112342/stan-lee-launches-kids-comics-usual-he-didnt-write-them
Editor's note: This story has been told before, but with more interviews and publications, the evidence is piling up pretty strongly in favor of this version of the Marvel story--or its theft by 'Lee.'
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112342/stan-lee-launches-kids-comics-usual-he-didnt-write-them
Editor's note: This story has been told before, but with more interviews and publications, the evidence is piling up pretty strongly in favor of this version of the Marvel story--or its theft by 'Lee.'
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