July 2004

Bit strange to run across one at this time of year – like Christmas in July – but this is one of the better “I went to the MLA” pieces I’ve read. It deserves a comment box. (Also, I’m sort of curious whether this post will work – sort of like a bat signal – to draw Chun out of retirement.)

There’s a lot here that exercises me tremendously. But if I started I’d never shut-up. You go first. But here’s a polite suggestion. Since the piece is in “The Believer” – and they so stern against snark – let’s try to keep the anti-MLA hatchet-work sub-Peckish, shall we? (Just a suggestion.)

Have you ever read a blog post so aggressively, ferociously wrongheaded that it temporarily sucks all the fun out of political blogging?

Case in point. Glenn Reynolds seems to think that it’s fair to associate the Kerry campaign with a poster for Fahrenheit 9/11 produced by a distributor in the Benelux countries. (I’m still waiting for an explanation from the Kerry/Edwards campaign for White Chicks.) He says that Michael Moore (who is responsible for writing and directing left-wing films of questionable accuracy) is the American version of the Iraqi rebel cleric al-Sadr (who is responsible for killing our soldiers and running a repressive fundamentalist regime in Fallujah). Etc., etc.

I could argue with this nonsense. But wouldn’t all of our time be better spent sharing a genuinely delicious recipe for braised lamb shanks in red wine? I think so.

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Spinning off from the general question of the left and third parties – what are the political consequences of the US left’s failure to create a long lasting set of social institutions independent of government? Colin Crouch, my former Ph.D. co-supervisor, gave an address which touched upon this last week, where he claimed that neither classical liberalism nor classical social democracy had much to say about society, the former obsessing about the market, and the latter obsessing about the state. He did, however, have to acknowledge that the left created a vibrant set of alternative social institutions in many European countries, which provided all sorts of social benefits to ordinary people. Usually, these networks of institutions were set up in competition with rather similiar networks that were run by the Catholic Church and Christian Democratic party. Both networks were intended to shore up political support by providing tangible goods in return. When I lived in Italy in the late 1990’s, there were a few remants of the old Leftist alternative civil society around – the _Casa del Popolo_ (People’s Palace) in Fiesole had some of the best pizza in town, and ran a great May Day festival.

Of course, none of this really ever got going in the US. The only really active set of alternative social institutions in the US isn’t socialist, or even Christian Democratic – it’s the localized networks associated with evangelical Christianity. The Catholic church also plays a role, especially in education, but isn’t anywhere near as important as far as I can tell (I may be wrong). It seems to me as an outsider that this has shaped the US debate on the proper relationship between state and society in important ways. On the one hand, most left-wingers are virulently hostile to the idea that ‘state’ type social services should be delegated to civil society, because they see civil society as composed of religious zealots who will require that anyone who accepts their services also accept Jesus into their hearts. While this may, or may not be true, it seems to me to be associated with a certain lack of imagination on the left, a failure to think beyond the state. On the other, the enthusiasm of the conservative right for outsourcing social services to civil society is equally a product of the social dominance of religious organizations. How many of them would be keen on this, if, say, there was a thriving set of social democratic third sector institutions that could compete with religious groups to provide services (and perhaps smuggle in a bit of indoctrination along the way?) Not many, I imagine.

I was looking over the forms I’ll have to fill in to get my latest US Visa, and I was struck by this question on the DS-157 form.

bq. Do You Have Any Specialized Skills or Training, Including Firearms, Explosives, Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical Experience?

Since I’m applying for a specialist skill visa, you’d kinda think I should answer “Yes” just reading the first part of the question. But I think the words after “Including” rather change the meaning of it all. At least I think I think they do. I hope I can’t get brought up on perjury charges for trying to hide my extensive philosophical skills from consular officials.

“Megan McArdle”:http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004824.html responds to my previous post about third parties, suggesting that Barbara Ehrenreich (and I) have “about as tenuous a connection to reality as the folks who brought us Pepsi Clear.” Her counter-argument:

* That ‘first-past-the-post’ voting tends to produce two party systems.
* That presidential systems are much more prone to two-partyism than parliamentary ones.
* That the reason why Ehrenreich’s (or indeed McArdle’s ideas) don’t become policy isn’t because they’re blocked by the system, but because most Americans disagree with them.

* Therefore: third-partyism is an exercise in futility.

These arguments are exactly the sort of thing that we political scientists like to claim that we know something about (I note in passing that Megan’s confident assertion of these empirical relationships sits somewhat awkwardly with her belief that political science “doesn’t have much to do with falsifiable predictions”:http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004125.html). On the first of these claims, there’s evidence from the literature to suggest that McArdle is sort of right (but not in a way that really helps her overall argument). On the second, there’s evidence to suggest that she’s fundamentally wrong. On the third, she seems to be on thin ice (if she’s making a limited claim) or falling through into the river beneath (if she’s making a strong general argument).

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Coming in a bit late, I have the opportunity to survey a range of blogospheric discussion of the topic of minimum wages, which largely supports the view (not surprising to anyone but an economist) that minimum wages are good for low-income workers. The traditional view among economists was that minimum wages reduced employment and thereby harmed workers, but this view has been overturned, or heavily qualified, by empirical evidence, beginning with the work of Card and Krueger.

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Jonathan Ichikawa, who’s been doing an excellent job maintaining the “philosophy papers blog”:http://opp.weatherson.net while I’ve been gallavanting around the world, recently posted the “following comment”:http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/Blog/Archives/cat_ethics.html about _Spider-Man 2_. (Warning mild spoilers ahead)

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There appears to be some problem with our service – new comments are being registered – but are not appearing on the site. We’re trying to figure out what the problem is …

Update: Things seem to be working again.

“Brad DeLong”:http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001173.html tells us that Barbara Ehrenreich’s version of left-wing politics are an ‘infantile disorder.’ In support of this claim, he quotes _in extenso_ from a _Nation_ piece that she wrote in 2000, advocating support for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore. Brad is being both condescending and obtuse – I have difficulty in seeing any evidence whatsover of infantilism in the piece that he quotes. Ehrenreich has two points to make. First – that if you’re really committed to major reform of the US political system, voting for the Democrats isn’t going to do it. The only way to create a real alternative is to build an alternative social movement – and alternative party – on the ground, which necessarily is going to involve conflict with the institutional interests of the Democratic party. Second – even if we are stuck in a two party system for the foreseeable future, the way for leftists to get their voice heard by the Democrats isn’t to roll over and play nice – it’s to credibly threaten to vote for somebody else unless the Democrats start pushing for the things that you care about.

There are some very good counter-arguments against voting for Nader, and they’re even better in this election than the last one. Because of basic personality flaws, he’s an improbable candidate for real social change (although I should say that I know and like some of the people who work for him). He’d be a bad President. This time around, he doesn’t have the support of the Greens, or much in the way of supporting organizations (apart from the Republicans). Thus, voting for him wouldn’t do anything to help build a viable alternative political movement. Finally, the alternative to a Kerry Presidency is demonstrably too horrible to be contemplated. Still, Ehrenreich is posing a very serious question that Brad doesn’t start to answer. If you believe (as Ehrenreich does, and as I do) that the current two party system in the US is systematically flawed, and produces deeply inequitable results, then why should you vote, year in, year out, for candidates who have no intention of changing things? The ‘lesser of two evils’ argument may cut it this year; it isn’t going to cut it forever.

Update: for a different defence of Ehrenreich, see “Kevin Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004292.php.

Update2: It seems that Brad wasn’t being quite as condescending as I thought – his ‘infantile disorder’ jibe is a “nod to Lenin”:http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001175.html. I still reckon that he doesn’t establish much of a case that Ehrenreich is in fact being infantile.

Wilco or Cat Power. Huh?

I’m happy to provide links to enable Kevin Drum to arrive at an informed decision as to which of these truly fine music offerings is preferable . Wilco has a new album out, “A ghost is born”. I don’t own it yet, but the six tracks you can listen to for free are fantastic. Zoë says “Hell is Chrome” ‘sounds like it’s about a vewy young angel.’ Newborn ghost, indeed! She thought it was too sad, but danced round and round to the piano on “Hummingbird”. I’m listening to “Muzzle of Bees” right now. Beautiful stuff.

Cat Power has a very infectious – in a good way – new album, “You Are Free”. Go to the site and hear the hypnotically simple strains of “I Don’t Blame You”. Then click through to ‘media’ and watch the video for “He War”. It’s a great pop tune with lyrics that make no sense and a nice low-budget story video without a story, set in California. I like those so long as they can’t afford clowns. Just people walking and trees and water, mostly. Like looking at someone’s photo album and wondering what’s going on in all the pictures without really caring. For all I know it’s in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1 and you’re all sick to death of it. If so, I apologize. I’m in Singapore and am not made aware of such things when they happen.

There are two other videos from older albums, but one wouldn’t load and I can’t recommend the other.

Well, which is it going to be, Kevin?

I’ve spent the last couple of days at the annual meeting of “SASE”:http://www.sase.org, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. Cass Sunstein gave one of the keynote speeches – a summary of his “much”:http://balkin.blogspot.com/2004/06/iraq-and-fdr.html “blogged”:http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_06_21.shtml#1087950677 book on Roosevelt’s ‘Second Bill of Rights.’ There was one interesting aside in his talk. While talking about Roosevelt’s talent for speaking plainly and directly to the interests of ordinary Americans, Sunstein claimed that Roosevelt’s modern rhetorical heir was John Edwards. I’m not entirely convinced – I’ve an inherent suspicion of anyone whom the _Economist_ keeps on talking up. Still, even if Edwards proves to be a disappointment in office (insofar as Vice-Presidents are ever successes), he’s already made an important contribution to US public discourse. By finding a language to express the class divisions in US society – and avoiding, somehow, the usual, tired accusations of ‘class warfare’ – he’s done us all a real service.

“Ted says”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002154.html

bq. There ought to be a word for these kinds of arguments, in which one simultaneously displays and condemns hypocrisy. They happen a lot.

There should be a word too for the kind of self-deconstructing display of bad faith that “Charles Krauthammer”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37954-2004Jul8.html treats us to in his latest piece of hackwork, entitled “Blixful Amnesia.” If someone other than Krauthammer were involved, you might imagine that a post thus entitled would be an apology for “repeated”:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer110102.asp “assertions”:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer111502.asp “that”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20021115.shtml “Hans”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/printck20030110.shtml “Blix”:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20031010.shtml was a craven, incompetent fool for not finding WMDs in Iraq. Instead it’s yet another incoherent harangue; this time against a recent talk given by Blix in Vienna. Blix’s “speech”:http://cms1.da-vienna.ac.at/userfiles/blix.pdf begins with an aside – that hundreds of millions of people are more directly threatened by hunger than by weapons of mass destruction – and then launches into a detailed and lengthy discussion of non-proliferation, Krauthammer, who doesn’t appear to have read beyond the opening paragraphs, sees this as telling evidence of the failure of the “decadent European left” to face up to the problems of proliferation of nuclear weapons. In fact, Blix offers a series of proposals for addressing proliferation – starting with a real commitment by the existing nuclear powers to stop producing nuclear weapons material.

There’s something rather odd about Krauthammer’s continued obsession with Blix. My suspicion is that it’s because Blix’s credibility (at least with regard to the most recent round of weapons inspections) has increased over time, while Krauthammer’s has evaporated. In Krauthammer’s “own words”:http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.274/transcript.asp fifteen months ago.

bq. Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

Indeed. It’s high time that the Washington Post took him at his word, and dealt with his continuing “credibility problem” by suggesting that he seek employment elsewhere.

* Katherine of Obsidian Wings is hanging up her blogging spurs. I’ll miss her. She’s written a long, thoughtful swan song about why we should care about U.S. human rights abuses towards people we suspect of terrorism.

* Tim Dunlop at The Road to Surfdom argues that right-wingers probably shouldn’t crow about this story. According to the Financial Times, a British governmental report is about to say that the British claim that Saddam was trying to buy uranium from Niger was “reasonable and consistent with the intelligence.”

The famous sixteen words in Bush’s State of the Union, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”, are arguably technically correct. However, the use of the word “learned”, and the context (in the SOTU, as part of an argument for war on Iraq) strongly implies that the United States believes that the substance of the statement is true.

Tim points out, in great detail, that the best intelligence in American hands said otherwise. (It wasn’t just Joe Wilson.) He points out that the CIA had successfully removed the claim from previous speeches. He also points out that the Administration already apologized for using the claim when Ari Fleischer said “This information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech.”

(Also, Tim reminds me to mark my calendar. July 14th is the one-year anniversary of the outing of Valerie Plame by two senior Administration officials. Congratulations to the lucky felons!)

* From Reason’s Hit and Run, Tommy Chong is out of jail, having served nine months for selling bongs over the internet. He’ll be on the Tonight Show this evening. According to the Drug Policy Alliance:

Tommy Chong was arrested and indicted following a series of DEA raids in February 2003 as part of the Government’s “Operation Pipe Dreams” crackdown on illegal drug paraphernalia. The crackdown involved at least 1200 officials, including hundreds of DEA agents, and at least 103 US Marshals. The operation led to 60 arrests. It occurred during an Orange Alert against terrorist attacks.

* The Poor Man is right about everything.

Finally, at least two evangelical Christians have written about Focus on the Family’s decision to distribute Michael Moore’s home address to their email list.

* David Wayne at Jollyblogger has a very good post arguing that FOTF is only hurting the Christian cause.

* Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost thinks that the concern is overblown. He thinks that the real issue is (surprise!) the hypocrisy of the left. I agree with him that politicially motivated outings of gays are shameful. However, I don’t understand how Carter can dismiss the right-wing invasion of privacy, condemn the left-wing invasion of privacy, and then feel secure enough in his own righteousness to condemn the left for selective outrage.

There ought to be a word for these kinds of arguments, in which one simultaneously displays and condemns hypocrisy. They happen a lot.

I should note that Carter doesn’t seem to have much support in his comments. If you choose to comment, please be polite.

The local alt-weekly, the Houston Press, has a good piece about the woes of the summer’s major concert tours. They do a good job of laying out all the fees in going to see (say) Kid Rock, concluding:

So let’s say you plan to take a date to go see the Kid. That’s $56 for two tickets, plus $42.15 in fees, of which Ticketmaster takes $18.15 and the Woodlands folks $24. Ring-ring, that’s $98.15, please, all before your first expensive beer or soggy nacho…

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