Across the Great Divide

Midweek Diversions.

Two local events this week combine irreverent thought and maybe beer, or as Solutions Twin Cities says, "where happy hour meets show and tell."

Tonight, Wednesday the 24th, Solutions Twin Cities presents Give & Take, a new monthly event co-presented with Intermedia Arts. There's a 7:30 - 9pm program with a social hour to follow. They say:
the format is based on asking everybody in attendance, presenters and audience, two questions:

1) What do you know about?
2) What do you want to know about?

Some of the presenters:

Peter Rich knows about traveling the country as a costume character unbound by brand or affiliation.

Kristen Murray and Sarah Peters know how to build community around building boats by hand.

Bill Prouty knows about the monkey man of India, and how one might track him.

It's happening at:

Intermedia Arts
2822 Lyndale Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55408

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Drinking Liberally is at its usual 331 Club location. The guests of honor will be Ken Avidor and some of the other creators of "False Witness," the Michele Bachmann comic book previewed awhile back at City Pages.

Nobody Home.

You want to know the most horrifying thing I've seen from the whole scandal about Nevada Senator John Ensign's affair? Not that he was a Promise Keeper, or that he loudly called for Bill Clinton to resign, or that the woman, her husband and their adult son were all on the senator’s payroll. 

No, it's soul-sucking pictures of the Las Vegas house where Ensign's friends and neighbors live.

Evangelical Hammer Says He's Not a Nail.

A recent comment left on an old post about Kenneth Copeland reminded me it has been nearly six months since we checked in on him and the other five Prosperity Gospel evangelists being investigated by Sen. Charles Grassley.

And there's not much new to report on the Grassley Six. Although Grassley has put himself back in the news with this.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to call on Congress to enact legislation to reform the health-care system.

Grassley responded by texting, "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

A short time later, Grassley sent, "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

A Grassley spokeswoman verified that the senator wrote the messages.

Riiiight.

It may be that some elected officials do tweet. But when you figure John McCain was still learning how to get on the internet a year ago, how many of these cosseted old farts, who have staffers write their speeches, committee statements, correspondence and bills, do you think could even snap a picture with their cell phones, let alone figure out Twitter?

Meanwhile, Benny Hinn is touring Africa. In Uganda, he charged the equivalent of $50 to those attending his healing show, and his host pastor commented: “these days even the word of God is not for free.”

Joyce Meyer Ministries, always the most cooperative with Grassley's committee and disclosing more than any of the Six, has met the standards of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), the Christian accreditation agency that oversees the financial accountability, fund-raising and board governance of many leading Christian nonprofit organizations.

Without Walls International Church, run by Paula and Randy White, has been fighting foreclosure by the Evangelical Christian Credit Union that had called its loans.

Creflo Dollar has declared himself to be on another Change Tour and is featured in the new book, Crooks and Homos in the Pulpit, which its author calls "a wake-up call to the Body of Christ."

Eddie Long, who defied Grassley's Committee, and Copeland, who openly ridiculed it, seem to remain untouched by the investigation so far.

Whether on not Grassley was right about them, I wonder if they were right about Grassley?

Wit and Learning in Equal Parts.

"Young Cons" displays wit and learning in equal parts, with a dash of the mandatory braggadocio thrown in for good measure.
– Scott Johnson, Power Line

Can't argue with that statement.

What happens when two Dartmouth freshman (with a Dartmouth man's rhythm and freshman's command of political philosophy) lay down a hip hop conservative anthem?

Why, they get praised right and, well, right.

We will be hearing more from these two remarkable young men.

I couldn't believe how funny it was and how biting it was. I was just laughing about it all day.

If this were a goof, surely there’d be some sign — an obviously jokey line, a bit of comic overacting, something.

Young Con Josh Riddle said "his views are 'more valid' because of the diverse influences that contribute to his conservatism."

The inaccurate manifestations of conservatism cloud the real mettle in its core. Flawed politicians lay on both sides of the political spectrum, however, we believe the core conservative principles of Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr.¹, and arguably Jesus² are the flag-bearers of the true conservative movement.

They say their goal is not to pursue a rap career, but to get young Americans involved in politics.

Good call, lads.

References:
1. "Was Jesus A Conservative" http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2258938/posts
2. Martin Luther Kings Conservative Legacy http://www.heritage.org/research/americanfoundingandhistory/wm961.cfm

Finish the Revolution Without Me.

On the bus ride to Tiananmen Square, our guide James told us how his brother and a cousin went out the night the demonstrations turned deadly. They were teens; James was 11 and stayed home.

His cousin did not come home.

Once we get off the bus, James said, I will lead you through the square and describe its history. Please do not ask me any questions while we are there, because I will not be able to answer them. There may be people in the crowd who look like tourists, listening, but they are agents. Once we are back on the bus, you can ask me any question you want. And do not take pictures of the soldiers. They may take your camera.

So, of course, I contrived to get a picture of the soldiers. A tiny expression of freedom in the place where freedom once meant stepping in front of a tank.

On the surface, it was impossible to tell if the square held any  resonance of democracy for the non-western visitors there. Mao's portrait is still the focal point. Soldiers patrol in a non-threatening, honor guard sort of way. A man and kite merge. Tour guides do not take questions.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the massacre of hundreds of Chinese citizens by their own army. Things have been changing fast in China, and doubtless have changed since our visit more than three years ago.

But The Economist does not expect much in the way of acknowledgment: "For many in China the nationwide pro-democracy protests of 1989 and their bloody end have become a muddled and half-forgotten tale."

The China Beat offers a different perspective on the silence — that it is neither the result of suppression or fading memories.

Generally, the urban educated today have what they wanted at the time of the Tiananmen protests. They feel they can make such recommendations and that their expertise is respected. They and their children also now have their personal space, in the shape of access to websites, chat rooms, and a wide variety of publications and films. They can say what they want so long as they stay within increasingly generous boundaries and do not challenge the Party’s political monopoly.

Above all, in their material livelihoods the urban educated are doing very well, whereas at the time of the Tiananmen protests in 1989, they had good reason to be angry. Their salaries were low, and sour jokes circulated about private barbers earning more with their razors than hospital surgeons with their scalpels. But in the years since, there has been a deliberate government policy to favor the well-educated. Year after year the professionals on government payrolls have been offered repeatedly higher salaries. During one year in the late 1990s, the pay of all of the academics at China’s most prestigious public universities was literally doubled in one go. Opportunities to earn high salaries opened up just as much in the private sector. Many of the university students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 now drive cars and live in fancy high-rise apartments. They have gained a lifestyle that they had never imagined possible, and they do not want to upset the apple cart. If the government’s plan was to co-opt the salaried middle class, it has worked.

Reflecting on the Tiananmen protests, one of the most famous of the student leaders, Wuer Kaixi, flippantly articulated their desires, “So what do we want? Nike shoes. Lots of free time to take our girlfriends to a bar. The freedom to discuss an issue with someone. And to get a little respect from society.” They now have all that, in spades.

As a result, the members of the educated middle class, including many of the former university students who crowded Tiananmen Square two decades ago, have become a bulwark of the current regime. Summarizing a large survey of political attitudes in Beijing, a recent book concludes that, among all urban groups, “those who perceive themselves to belong to the middle class and who are government bureaucrats are more likely to support the incumbent authorities.” If there is another outbreak like Tiananmen, in fact, many of them might prefer to be on the government side of the barricades.

In this land where our former revolutionaries become stock brokers, college professors and community theater matrons, why should we be surprised?

It's All About Cuts, Stupid.

Governor Pawlenty wants your ideas about how to cut state spending.

No, really, he does. He's asked legislators to forward their ideas for general fund spending cuts, just in case any new ideas occur to them after working on the budget for the past four months. And he's even set up a special email address for you: [email protected]

Maybe the governor sees this empty PR gesture as conciliatory. But judging from the suggestions made by the public so far, I doubt he'll get anything new beyond what he already has — and certainly nothing that will change his basic course of cutting expenditures that benefit the poorest and least politically powerful Minnesotans.

Early this year, the Minnesota Senate created a web site dedicated to discussion of the budget. The section on the HHS budget alone received 140 comments, with the first comment out of the box:

Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut…I am sick of the welfare queens in this state.

[Reagan-era imagery of welfare queens living high on the hog was also popular with pig farmer and GOP Rep. Rod Hamilton, who remarked in the closing days of the session how people on welfare drive nicer cars than most of the rest of us do.]

In February, a coalition of conservative organizations introduced their budget solutions site. It seems to have received only four comments before they were closed out of embarrassment. Minnesota Public Radio created a Budget Shortfall Idea Generator that attracted about 100 comments.

The Star Tribune announced a Streamlining Minnesota series that proposed "new ideas for the public sector." It ran out of steam after only three more op-eds in two weeks, and the promised section for reader comments devoted to the series is indistinguishable from the regular opinion exchange section.

And, of course, DFL legislators conducted budget-focused listening sessions throughout the state.

Through all this, progressives were wasting our time talking about "needs" and "quality of life" and "human suffering" and "fairness." And forget major structural reforms.

It's all about cuts, stupid.

We have a governor, an extremely skilled politician, who appears to be looking through Laffer-colored glasses at a run for the presidency. And people's fears about the economy are enabling his boldness.

His approach is as simple as his message. In times of economic uncertainty, people don't know the right course, so they follow the guy who most looks like he knows what he's doing. To a large extent, that's the Obama formula once you extract the hope stuff.

Gov. Pawlenty knows what he's doing politically. If he doesn't plan to be around to clean up his own mess, it matters to him a bit less whether he knows what he's doing economically. Any negative results will be manifest as a continued decline, not a fall off the cliff, so they might not hurt him while he's still in office here. 

He wants your ideas for cover, not because he can't decide where to cut. I can hear the speech now:

"Ralph, a farmer in New Harmony, suggested I should cut welfare by $300 million. Well, actually Minnesota's public assistance spending is only 1.4% of the state's budget; the national average for all states 1.8%. So I figured he meant cut publicly funded health insurance — and sure enough, I was able to find $381 million to cut. Thanks, Ralph!

"Eloise, who owns a small business in Blackduck and has a son in Iraq, said 'why are we taxpayers paying all this local government aid to places we don't even visit?' And she's right. So I'm cutting Blackduck's LGA by — oh, let's say somewhere between 20 and 40 grand. And I see Minneapolis can spare another $35 million.

"And Bob Smith of Circle Pines said: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut...."

Appreciating the Opposition.

I learned long ago that your opponents can either make you better or make you worse. The outcome is largely your choice.

Over the last decade, we've seen a coarsening of what passes for public discourse and a lack of respect for our opponents coming from both sides. Pres. Obama's practice of engaging people with whom he may disagree may have helped him get elected, but it still runs counter to the prevailing winds in politics — seen most recently in the current impasse over the Minnesota state budget.

Although the legislators I heard today on MPR were conciliatory and talked about how hard and well both parties worked together in committee, when it came to actual votes and legislative outcomes, their respective political positions seemed as polarized than ever.

More than a year ago, Jeff Dege showed up here, attracted by an American Crosscut post about gun rights, and left his first strongly worded comment. Since then, he's stuck around and done more of the same — 124 times in all by my official count.

I've wondered at times why he has stayed a faithful reader, and whether he has been assigned my case by the vast right-wing conspiracy. Either way, I'd put my shadow up against Dave Thul at The Cucking Stool and Angry Clown at Shot in the Dark any day.

Throughout it all, Jeff has been provocative and challenging, but he's also been civil and careful to back up his point of view. (His citation of the Laffer study on rich and poor states will likely inspire a few posts here.) His comments have also done much to promote discussion, force me to sharpen my thinking and to clarify my positions. We don't often agree, and I don't expect we will ever sing Kumbaya together in New Hampshire.

But like my other readers who usually agree with me, he has made this a better, more interesting blog.

The only question is whether he can take a compliment.

Earth Day Weekend.

Earth Day did not start out well for the rabbit.

My sister was poking around in her yard, next door to us, and met a bobcat giving the jack rabbit one last shake. I have no idea whether the cat is simply killing the rabbit or whether the shake is integral to food preparation, like making a martini or tossing a salad.

The bobcat wasn't talking with its mouth full.

After that, we hiked a canyon near the spot on the Gunnison River where a high school classmate tossed the weighted bodies of his wife, a neighbor woman and two kids back in 1975. As we crossed the pedestrian bridge, we saw about 9 desert mountain sheep and further up the canyon, 20 more.

Cool as that was, we also encountered one ringtail crossing the trail. It slipped into a crack in the rock, its gorgeous furry tail sweeping along behind like a different animal on some kind of wilderness mammalian internship.

Sorry, but the sheep were the only ones who sat still for the Earth Day portraits.

*****

Is the woman in this image from a Blue Cross web ad really flipping me off? (Yeah, I know, she's really flipping off her husband who's shooting the snap.)

Did anyone from Blue Cross approve the creative? Does the web agency just turn the 20-somethings loose on the Medicare account, or is this really sophisticated marketing?

*****

Speaking of flipping off, new data from the Congressional Budget Office confirms the widening gap between top earners and the rest of us.

The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) summarizes it in this chart [click to enlarge].

Now, it's easy to beat up on households making more than a million a year, and conservative apologists will tell you that it wasn't the same exact households in the top one percent between 1979 and 2006. And hey, wouldn't you like a piece of the American Dream?

But the fact remains that the table is tilted, and over the last decade, someone put a couple unused Yellow Pages under two of the legs.

Compensation rose for people at the top, but the Bush tax cuts topped it off. All the cuts haven't quite phased in, but according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, as reported by the CBPP:

In 2010, when all of the 2001-2008 tax cuts will be in effect, their combined effect will be to reduce taxes by an average of 0.7 percent — or $74 per household — for the bottom fifth of households, by 2.6 percent — or $1,149 — for the middle fifth, and by 7.7 percent — or $168,000 — for those with incomes of more than $1 million.

*****

One out of every 6.66 Americans hates other Americans more than they hate Islam, atheism, and Alex Baldwin put together. Teabagging isn’t about patriotism, it’s about declaring your contempt for other Americans.
— Norwegianity

The Not Party: Anger, Liberty and Low Taxes.

Some of the tax day tea rallies around the country yesterday may have had professional organizing help, but none was apparent in the Grand Junction events. Organizers quoted in local stories even gave the wrong location in the city's central park. And not even the craftiest PR firm determined to hide its involvement could have come up with the two amateur-hour websites belonging to the sponsoring organizations.

The actual festivities were well within the capabilities of a Kiwanis Club vice president, a classic rock DJ and a couple retirees with a card table. These basic efforts were elevated by the presence of several thousand participants bearing signs, flags and willingness to applaud any platitude.

The speakers obliged with "freedom, not slavery," "a hand up, not a hand out" and "capitalism, not socialism" to name only a few.

The lineup featured local Glenn Beck wannabees, some of the town's most notable Christo-conservative officials and a Denver-area councilman running for U.S. Senate who has contentless patriotism down pat. Ryan Frazier was only a couple minutes into his stump speech when he delivered this line...

"We want a government that respects that this is the United States of America, not the European Union.

... and a man leaned over to a woman and said, "He's got my vote." And she said, "Mine, too."

I'm kicking myself for not saying, "Mine, too. And remind me, who are we voting for?"

Not to mention what. 

To be fair, this sort of rhetoric is a staple of all kinds of political rallies. Missing was anything close to a coherent assessment of how the country got in this mess. Nothing about the war, education, innovation, affordable housing, health care, the environment. And certainly no solutions proposed, unless you count lower taxes and electing people who don't understand how government works, then throwing them out before they learn.

The only clear call for action was to support good conservative candidates who believe in small government and that this is a still a Christian Nation. The level of discourse here made a Ron Paul rally seem like a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Some speakers at the noon event stressed this was an anti-tax, anti-incumbent rally that held both parties in low regard. But they somehow never came up with any Republican names or policies responsible for their contempt. The name of George W. Bush may have been spoken once, but his reign was neither invoked nor blamed.

A sample of the wit:

"Both kinds of B.O. smell the same."

A joke about how the speakers didn't need teleprompters to tell them what to say — as speakers read without irony from their notes.

There was a strong anti-Democrat tenor aimed at specific figures, including President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, their Congressman John Salazar and Senator Michael Bennet, who has been in the job for less time than Obama.

For such a historically oriented crowd, they seemed pretty focused on the present tense when it came to the source of the country's problems. As the photos show, some estimates of our decline may vary. I asked the man with the sandwich board what exactly "went from plus to minus in 73 days."

The deficit, he told me. When I pointed out that was a fairly revisionist view of what had been going on, he told me, "well, it got a lot worse."

It didn't seem worthwhile arguing that the deficit got worse lately because someone finally faced up to the problems. Or that the grownups in the White House are actually trying to do something to address the deficit he's decrying.

There's no question some fired up people were in attendance, and their disdain for government is real. They do see that large corporate interests have undue influence in Washington, but they don't seem to attribute any blame to private enterprise — another word for liberty. 

They believe they are overtaxed, and don't think they'll see that change. They want a simple, leave-me-alone solution for problems they can only articulate in generalities. And they are unlikely to find common cause with Americans see some of the same problems, but who think government can have a constructive role in their lives. 

As the rally broke up and the sign carriers went to a major intersection for a little rabble-rousing, a huge red Halliburton truck drove through, blasting its air horn for a block. The atmosphere was giddy. But for the sound and fury to translate into a movement, a bit more community organizing will be required.

[The No Socialism Dude had a passel of kids running around a Don't Tread on Me flag waved by his wife, who along with her daughter wore a long pioneer skirt. The man with the red coffee cup wore his veteran's cap and an understated sticker that said: Bush left a big mess. Clearly an infiltrator.]

The Stepford Kid.

It's wrong to pick on little kids, but it's everyone's obligation to speak out against child abuse. Which situation is in force here? It's hard to know when a 13-year-old starts every conversation with, "In my book..."

If CPAC had given Jonathan Krohn a couple more minutes in front of the cameras, I fully expected him to belt out an over-wrought version of "Tomorrow."

But maybe he's a better actor than that, and these are just stills from a next-generation Borat.