Do Liberals Have a Problem with Populism?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by politicaloptic

During the past four years, the Right has shown a marked ability to take advantage of popular discontent. In the face of one of the most severe financial crises of modern times, it was able to adopt a highly successful populist strategy to serve its anti-governmental cause. Using the rhetoric of anti-elitism, liberty, and free enterprise, it showed how it could manufacture an uprising of suburbanites in a matter of months. Liberals, by contrast, reacted to the same crisis by seeking establishment solutions and by focusing on process and the minutiae of policy. They in essence squandered an opportunity to appeal directly to the people, leaving an open field to the opposition.

T’was not always the case. The word populism itself was actually coined in the year 1892 to describe a progressive, not a conservative movement. The original Populist Movement was a rural-urban alliance that articulated the grievances of indebted farmers and oppressed laborers in opposition to the big monied interests. While rooted in anger and discontent, the movement was able to offer a mature vision for the future. It created its own party and proposed a program of reforms–including the graduated income tax, the eight-hour workday, and the direct election of senators–that was to constitute much of America’s progressive agenda over the next fifty years. As E. J. Dionne points out in his recent book, Our Divided Political Heart, late 19th century populism was “rational, reformist, egalitarian, and democratic.”

But in spite of this hallowed populist tradition and its apparent link to the liberal achievements of the New Deal that were to follow, liberals began at a certain moment in history to lose their taste for populism. In the years following World War II, liberal thinkers commonly saw populism as anti-intellectual and irrational. Making common cause with the people was, in their view, an exercise for sentimentalists. Their attitude seems to have been bolstered by their increasing identification with the new technocratic elite guiding the complex institutions of government begun in the Depression era. Viewing themselves as realists and experts, they showed little outward empathy for the uncontrollable and unruly masses. Their most famous representative in academia was Richard Hofstadter, whose book The Age of Reform stressed the less positive side of mass movements. Hofstadter, an impressive scholar who influenced a generation of college graduates, facilitated the branding of liberals as stereotypical egg-heads.

Meanwhile, as Dionne shows, populism was increasingly embraced by the Right, with often spectacular success. In the 1950’s and 60’s it was developed as an art form by two talented  demagogues, Joe McCarthy and George Wallace. McCarthy’s form of populism grabbed the nation’s attention during a period of fear and finger-pointing, but was soon discredited, as it proved too volatile even for its potential Republican beneficiaries. But Wallace’s populism, masking a not-so-subtle racism, soon showed how potent it could be in mobilizing alienated voters for the conservative cause. It was soon mimicked by Nixon and Agnew, who used law-and-order appeals to rouse the “silent majority,” and employed with consummate skill by Reagan in his efforts to skewer elites and the welfare state.

To be sure, there have been populists on the liberal side as well who have been true to the progressive traditions of the Populist Party.  Two from the Lone Star State stand out with particular distinction, the journalist Molly Ivins and the former Texan commissioner of agriculture, James Hightower. But such progressive voices more often than not arise in the hinterlands where their impact is limited. Other than perhaps Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, one can count few liberal/progressive populists at the national level.

This is immensely unfortunate because, especially in critical times, the nation’s citizens require an engaged leadership to connect with their deepest concerns. When the sky fell in 2008 and 2009, the Obama administration showed little ability to make the connection. Instead of directly addressing the people’s discontents, it deferred to the experts. Presented with a golden opportunity and no competition, the Right steered people’s anger away from the abuses of financial institutions to the ostensible sins of government. After this ideological detour, a confused populace was more likely to believe that the near collapse of the financial system was caused by too much regulation than too little!

Only with the emergence of the Occupy Movement in 2011 did the Left discover some remnant of its populist voice. The movement took up the real concern of citizens that their economic and political system was working in the interests of a small minority. By highlighting the dwindling of opportunity for the working and middle classes, it provided a retort to the Right and showed how it was possible to appeal on a gut level to the vast majority of Americans.

In spite of its contribution to a progressive narrative of events, the Occupy Movement is still not all that it can be. Any successful movement must go beyond slogans and generalities to be be lastingly effective. In this regard, liberals and progressives have many lessons of style and substance to learn from their populist ancestors. A fuller treatment of this topic we leave for a coming blog.

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Ayn Rand Nation

Posted on July 11, 2012 by politicaloptic

There are more of them out there than you think. They hold to a philosophy of stripped down government, undiluted capitalism, and deliberate selfishness. Their guru is the 20th century novelist and essayist Ayn Rand, apostle of über individualism. Some idea of their numbers can be gleaned from a Zogby poll commissioned by the Ayn Rand Institute, now the official vehicle for the founder’s ideas. Of 2,100 adult Americans surveyed in 2010, 29 percent professed to having read Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. As a proportion of the American populace, that would be equivalent to as many as 75 million people! Even more eye-popping is the fact that among those who read the book, 49 percent stated that it changed the way they “think about political or ethical issues.” That’s a degree of influence that most writers would not dream of in their mother of all fantasies.

The Ayn Rand vogue did not emerge over night. It has been on the ascent for some sixty plus years, from the time she began producing her epic novels in the 1940’s and 50’s. Over the intervening years, her books have spurred the imaginations of legions of young individualists. What is different today is that the undertow has become a surging current. The financial crisis and the Obama presidency radically changed the political landscape, making possible a swelling outcry by self-made citizens against government intervention. The Ayn Rand philosophy found its near-perfect expression in the Tea Party movement, a rebellion that denounces any tinkering with the sacred workings of the market and gives special honor to a new kind of national hero, the job-creator.

One does not think of most Americans as natural philosophers, and certainly not systematic ones. The sudden expansion of a movement largely inspired by Ayn Rand’s uncompromising worldview thus raises tantalizing questions as to how committed her followers actually are to her core principles. Who are these people, and how do they think?  To help us sort it all out, Gary Weiss, a journalist known for his investigations of the inner workings of high finance, has stepped into the breach with Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America.

It soon becomes clear to the author that Randians come in all shapes and sizes. There are the official protectors of the founder’s doctrines and reputation, the associates of the Ayn Rand Institute, nurtured by a group of prestigious donors. Less well endowed but still active are the breakaway Atlas Society and an assortment of deauthorized individuals who endorse a less straight-jacketed version of the Randian philosophy. And finally there are the troops on the ground, those whose view of Rand is unofficial and who range from devoted disciples to fellow travelers.

Although Ayn Rand’s philosophy, called Objectivism, rests on a tight set of  “rationalistic” principles, most of her disciples have a way of asserting their own priorities. Weiss, who conducts his investigation largely by interview, enjoys focusing in on the gnawing inconsistencies. His probing questions invariably receive uncomfortable responses. He asks, for instance, a Randian Tea Party spokesman who wants to put a friendly face on the movement what he thinks of the virtue of selfishness; a business admirer of Rand how he reconciles himself to group decision-making (very un-Randian); a Christian devotee of Atlas Shrugged how she deals with Rand’s denial of God. One concludes from these encounters that the typical Rand devotee seizes upon certain isolated Randian themes, especially the liberty of the thinking individual, but ignores their full ramifications when applied to the real world.

A closer look at the whole Randian worldview might open some eyes. Indeed, while it may proclaim the virtues of liberty in an appealing way, it does so through unwarranted hyperbole and dramatization. It envisions enemies and evils to be confronted at every turn, and portrays the embattled individual in idealized, heroic fashion. Randian objectivists assert that they are nothing but objective, since they ostensibly refuse to let individual subjectivity determine what lies in front of them. “Existence is,” as the founder puts it, and the individual must use her powers of reason to face it clinically. But there is nothing clinical about a worldview that sees government as the epitome of evil, the market as the solution to all problems, or the virtue of helping others as a faulty ideal. These are assertions based on fervent commitments, not balanced or objective observation.

Progressives who would simply dismiss Ayn Rand or refuse to engage with her at all, however, should perhaps rethink their position. Weiss’ book, for all its vigorous skepticism, asks us to take her seriously. We must come to grips with the fact that many of our fellow Americans, imbued with individualism, find her books alluring. Understanding her views allows us to reexamine our own core values and more effectively oppose a new reactionary  trend in our political culture.

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Deregulation Fever

Posted on July 1, 2012 by politicaloptic

Congressional Republicans, unlike the elephant that symbolizes their party, act as though they have short memories. A key example is their embrace of deregulation in the wake of two of the biggest regulatory screw-ups in generations: the 2008 financial meltdown and the BP Gulf disaster. Both of these events, by the reckoning of most, were disasters that could have been avoided if regulations had been properly maintained and applied.

Economic regulations that secure our long-term health and safety obviously make sense from a societal standpoint, protecting the public from abuses based on narrow, profit-related considerations. It is important to remember, however, that regulations can be defended from a purely economic standpoint as well. Evidence suggests, for example, that while regulatory policies may affect industry priorities, they do not harm job creation in a significant way. In many cases, compliance requirements actually encourage innovation and competitiveness. Think only of the fuel mileage standards legislated for the American automobile industry which had the effect of enhancing its competitive standing vis-a-vis Japanese auto makers.

But this is a message that Republican advocates do not want to hear. Since the 2010 GOP take-over of the House of Representatives, congressional deregulators have been conducting a war on the whole concept of regulations, egged on by industry lobbyists and large corporate donors. Thus, on the heels of their House victory, Darrell Issa wasted no time in directing his Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to explore ways of freeing businesses from the burden of rules. The committee sent out a missive asking those affected, especially major corporations and trade associations like the American Petroleum Institute, for a wish-list of their least favorite regulations to put to the axe. Its rallying cry was that regulations hurt the economy and prevent job-creation.

The problem for the Republicans, of course, is that the idea of having clean air and water, fuel-efficient cars, and fair banking practices is generally popular with the public. Conversely, the average citizen has no huge interest in maintaining Exxon’s and Morgan Stanley’s high profit margins. Realizing this, the deregulators have crafted a message with appeal for a broad middle class audience. In essence, they speak of relieving the regulatory burdens on small businesses. Since a large number of Americans engage in small business, or have friends and relatives who do, messages conveyed in their name are much more likely to be have the sympathetic ear of the public. In light of this, the small entrepreneur has become a ready symbol for the “job-creator” harrassed by the regulatory system.

There is thus a bogus quality to the whole deregulation campaign. In advancing their message, the Republicans essentially obscure the difference between small and big businesses and the role regulation plays in the activities of each. In sheer numbers, small business owners tend to be store keepers, restauranteurs, electricians, and the like who see regulations primarily as filling out forms and meeting petty requirements. As Mike Taibbi has noted, “they see regulation as an ADA inspector or a health inspector coming to bother them and ring them up with little fines here and there.” Darrell Issa would love to have the public think of regulating British Petroleum or Morgan Stanley as the same sort of thing, a nuisance that needs to be done away with so that the company simply can perform more efficiently.

The fact is, regulating the big fellas is different in both its nature and consequences. It is not so much a matter of niggling paperwork as a “law enforcement problem” affecting the basic welfare of the public. Failure to regulate adequately can lead to massive fraud or involve deep costs for society. Just speak to entrepreneurs on the Gulf coast or the millions who lost their houses during the mortgage scandal.

By and large, small business people understand the distinction. Counter to the impression that Rep. Issa would like us to have, they are not reflexively opposed to regulation when it involves safety and quality-of-life issues. A recent poll of small business owners (half of whom identified as Republican or leaning Republican) sponsored by the American Sustainable Business Council confirms this fact. It showed that 93% of those questioned believed that business can live with some regulation “if it is fair, manageable and reasonable.” 80% were for “product safety standards,” 80% for regulation of toxic materials, and 61 % for “moving the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.”

In essence, the current crew of deregulators is blurring distinctions to sow confusion, using small business as a decoy to protect the bigger fish. Clearly their efforts to blow a hole in the regulatory system help the latter, not the former. It is a smart but cynical ploy that becomes persuasive only when both parties accept a Republican frame, which has been the case of late. Democrats need to understand that most Americans, including small business owners, support the idea of an economy that works for everybody and where reasonable regulation plays a central role.

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On the Use (and Abuse) of History

Posted on June 25, 2012 by politicaloptic

Most would agree that right-wing advocates have been adept at employing history in the service of their cause. David Barton’s lessons on the Christian roots of liberty and Glenn Beck’s chalkboard seminars on the sins of American Progressives are but two examples of conservatives using the past (i.e., their version of it) to score political points. By stressing certain historical themes, notably the role of individualistic freedom and private enterprise, they have been able to add a sheen of legitimacy to current right-wing agendas.

The Tea Party has been particularly effective in identifying with historical symbols and ideas. Its use of the tea party label itself, synonymous with rebellion, its embrace of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and its reference to constitutional amendments on guns and state prerogatives all add heft to its individualistic message. An emphasis on America’s capitalist past and stern disapproval of FDR’s “socialistic” New Deal  round out the economic side of its historical worldview.

Partisan history of this sort can, of course, involve embarrassing problems of accuracy. Barton’s pro-Christian interpretations have become rich targets for internet watchdogs, while two mavens of the Tea Party movement, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, have made themselves the butt of jokes over simple questions of geography (where is Concord?) and history (was Paul Revere ringing bells for the British?). Still, the mere focus on America’s heritage enables conservatives to repeat and inculcate certain clarion themes.

Liberals, by contrast, have been much slower to appreciate the connection between current ideas and the esteemed precedent of history. As a result they find themselves less able to sustain an overall narrative for their point of view. E.J. Dionne, in his recent book Our Divided Political Heart, points out that this has not always been the case. Franklin Roosevelt was skilled in using history to buttress his governing approach, and even Bill Clinton knew how to evoke national symbols to underline a message.

Dionne argues that a counter-narrative is now sorely needed to correct the one-sided portrait of history offered by today’s right. While acknowledging that  individualistic freedom was a valid strain of the American tradition, he stresses that it was almost always counterbalanced by an idea of the common good, the community, and the role of a supportive government. The current Tea Party rhetoric, which sees a sharp division between private and public, was simply not typical of an earlier America.

The Constitution itself provides a good corrective to the view that individual and states rights were ultimate priorities. It was established, one needs to be  reminded, to strengthen government after the country’s failed experiment with the Articles of Confederation. Its Preamble speaks of promoting “a more perfect Union” and “the General Welfare.” And while Madison stressed “checks and balances,” Hamilton was just as forceful in support of government involvement in “matters of internal concern.” He stood for an energetic policy of supporting industry and national development, a concern taken up later by Henry Clay and the Whig Party.

For most of the nation’s first century, it was assumed that public life and private endeavor were interrelated and often complementary. Government activity was not inconsistent with the development of individual freedom, but rather supportive of it. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was following accepted tradition when he used federal power to foster growth and opportunity for all. During his tenure, he was noted for supporting the Homestead Act (offering free land for homesteaders), the Morrill Act (granting land to states for the founding of colleges), and the creation of the National Academy of Sciences.

The whole idea of radical individualism, so dear to the current Tea Party, has a parallel of sorts only during one brief period of American history, i.e. the age of the robber barons, between about 1877 and 1900. It was reflected in the Supreme Court decisions of the time, which supported the rights of corporations (Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad) and prevented states from legislating on such things as child labor (Lochner v. New York). Private and public were starkly distinguished from each other, and the government’s role in regulating the market was limited.

This changed, of course, with the introduction of progressive reforms under Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR, which provided at least minimal protection for consumers, workers, retirees, and the unemployed. Far from being outside of America’s traditions, such reforms were a way of restoring a balance between runaway individualism, on the one hand, and community, or public mindedness, on the other.  By regulating markets so that they were more in tune with public needs and the “general welfare,” such reforms were able to further the national interest while still maintaining a wide scope for individual activity.

Today’s liberals and progressives need to brush up on their history and realize that it is hardly the simple-minded narrative that the right portrays it as. Broadening the discussion can help in smashing some persistent stereotypes and furthering progressive goals.

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The Public Starting to See Through the Republicans’ Game

Posted on June 15, 2012 by politicaloptic

Many Americans seem to realize what the Republicans are up to on the economy. According to a recent Daily Kos-SEIU poll, a plurality of citizens now believe the Republican Party is intentionally stalling the recovery. Most informed progressives would view this as an unstartling observation in light of the Republicans’ record of obstruction and their leaders’ expressed desire to discredit Obama. It is significant, nonetheless, that the idea of Republican sabotage has trickled down to the population at large.

Republicans would no doubt deny the assertion. They claim that their conservative principles rule out direct fiscal stimulation of the economy because of the danger of expanding the deficit. Moreover, they point to two of their proposals, unheeded by the Democrats, that would ostensibly give the economy a boost: a tax reform program  that would put more money in the pockets of “job-creators”; and a proposal to reduce regulations, allowing employers to apparently concentrate more on hiring new employees.

But these claims and proposals raise obvious skepticism. First, why have the Republicans, who have long been fans of fiscal stimulus under Republican administrations (e.g. Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II), become so allergic to that idea under a Democratic administration, especially when economists overwhelmingly agree that stimulus is essential during hard times. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist under Reagan and Bush One who has recently avoided the political fray, expresses exasperation at the increasingly rigid Republican posture. In an article entitled “It’s the Aggregate Demand, Stupid,” he points out what the vast preponderance of economists have long held, namely, that stimulating aggregate demand, a catchall term for spending by households, businesses, and governments, is a basic prerequisite for getting an economy out from behind the eight-ball. Without stimulus in the midst of a depressed economy, a vicious circle of stagnation results. Some agent has to ignite the process, and government is usually that agent. It’s basic economics, and Bartlett’s frustration with what he politely calls “political gridlock” on the issue is palpable.

Second, emphasizing side issues like rejuggling the tax code (in favor of high earners, of course) and cutting regulations for businesses does not even vaguely address the economic problem of unemployment. Placing more after-tax money in the hands of so-called job-creators, who are already sitting on a mountain of liquid assets to the tune of nearly two trillion dollars, will not inspire them to hire more workers if consumers aren’t out there buying. And decreasing regulations, studies show, will not appreciably raise the employment rate even if in some cases it allows producers to perform more profitably.

In essence, the Republican Party is actively committing itself to an austerity program with parallels to the feckless policies of the European Union, where there has been an icy disregard for the problems of unemployment. A vivid example of this attitude in the American case is the stout refusal of Congressional Republicans to assist cash-strapped state governments, knowing full well that without such aid the states would be forced to fire their employees by the hundreds of thousands. Such firings currently come close to negating the otherwise encouraging employment figures coming out of the private sector.

The Republican approach clearly thwarts economic growth by prioritizing budget-balancing and austerity when the country can least afford them. Nonetheless, the stance serves Republican political interests in three ways: it allows them to portray themselves as responsible belt-tighteners; it serves to disemploy and disempower people who would normally identify as Democrats (public employees);  and it discredits the economic record of a Democratic administration by slowing the economy.

The Republicans’ undeclared policy of economic sabotage could well succeed in electing Mitt Romney in November, relying as it apparently does on the inattention or indifference of the electorate. The good news is that voters are showing more awareness of Republican cynicism than might be expected. Now it is up to Democrats to keep talking about it.

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Religious Liberty, or the Prerogatives of the Bishops?

Posted on June 7, 2012 by politicaloptic

The American bishops of the Catholic church have a problem with their parishioners, who tend to be pragmatic about how they apply Church principles. The divide between dogma and actual practice is perhaps best exemplified by the split over birth control. The hierarchy condemns the use of modern birth control because it contradicts its teaching on the role of sex in marriage, namely, that sex is for procreation, not pleasure. Meanwhile, most Catholics simply ignore the Church on the issue, unwilling to wait around for it to catch up with the modern world. Like most Americans, they overwhelmingly believe that family planning decisions are a matter of personal choice and that the Church has no business restricting one’s liberty in that area.

It is thus acutely ironic that the Catholic bishops are lining up to restrict access to contraceptives under the new health law in the name of  “freedom” and “conscience.” In a document entitled “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty” released on April 12, the bishops take deep offense at the mandate requiring religiously affiliated institutions to allow access to birth control coverage in their health plans. The mandate, the bishops declare, denies “the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices.” Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that most “Catholic individuals” do not view such practices as “evil” and can freely abstain even if they do, plus the fact that many of the Catholic “institutions” affected by the law have been dealing contentedly with the issue for years at the state level. If we simply look at how the issue is being articulated, what is truly striking  is the way the bishops couch it so emphatically in the rhetoric of liberty.

One questions, indeed, whether the Catholic hierarchy understands at all the meaning of conscience and religious liberty in their commonly used sense: i.e., an inner voice that requires respect, and a freedom of choice on religious matters. In the case of conscience, the Church applies the term in a way that seems to deny the individual or affiliated institution any independent standing. In a document entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship issued in 2007, the bishops make clear that conscience must be “formed,” preferably with outside help, so that it strictly conforms with the authorized interpretation of doctrine. Otherwise conscience must be dismissed as “misguided” and presumably subjected to further instruction. This attitude is descended from the view held by zealots in centuries past that “error has no rights.”  

Freedom of religion, likewise, is understood more in the sense of granting rights to the Church as an institution and truth-bearer than of safeguarding the individual in her right to religious choice. The bishops take religious freedom to be primarily the Church’s freedom to perform its mission as its leaders see fit. This includes, according to the document just mentioned, the right to wield secular influence and to bring the Church’s “principles and moral convictions into the public arena” (to an unspecified degree, I would add). The religious rights of Catholic lay people or of non-Catholics are given little if any attention.

But while their understanding of First Amendment concepts is dubious, to say the least, the bishops have played the freedom-of-religion card with a keen understanding of how it can aid their conservative agenda. With considerable skill they have highlighted the issue by waving the flag of persecution, focusing on the so-called overreach of the Obama administration’s health plan. The Church’s claim of arrogance on the part of the administration is not overly impressive in light of the latter’s earlier capitulation on abortion coverage and its current efforts to bend over backward on an issue that most people thought was settled decades ago. But the claim plays conveniently into the hierarchy’s narrative of a war being waged by secularists against the faithful, a narrative pushed in Rome as well as in the U.S. And the bishops’ aggressive posture, supposedly in support of religious freedom, has succeeded in creating a groundswell of conservative support for the Church’s active role in the public forum.

Sadly, the whole incident may auger a more assertive stance against the Catholic faithful themselves, who are now being given a lesson on how the Church responds to slights to its perceived authority. America’s nuns can attest to this intensified attitude on the part of their freedom-loving superiors. Only one factor will cause the hierarchy to think twice about continuing its campaign for the long term. It can push its authority only so far before its efforts backfire in a new wave of cynicism.

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Is Anyone Minding the Hive?

Posted on May 29, 2012 by politicaloptic

The alarming decline of our honey bee population in the United States, a concern of environmentalists and farmers for several years now, points to an imminent danger with world-wide implications. The problem, known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), has been well documented by scientists, journalists, and writers like Michael Schacker. It is one that reminds us of the frailty of life itself. As any botanist can testify, without bees to do their pollenation work, the fertilization of plant species would decline precipitously, the human food supply would be compromised, and a key link in the chain of life threatened.

One would think that the prospect of such a calamity would raise red flags among food industry executives and Washington policy makers, prompting an urgent search for answers. But instead of urgency, one senses business as usual and protect-the-bottom-line thinking. While scientific observers have a pretty clear idea of what the cause is and what the solution should be, the major players appear to show little interest in  taking the necessary steps to address the problem.

At the root of the problem is a product, a company, and a government agency. The immediate cause, on the basis of the accumulating evidence, seems to be a recently introduced pesticide in the neonicotinoid group that has been used to treat corn crops. Its corporate creator and disseminator is the Bayer Corporation, which sells a seed for genetically created corn coated with the above pesticide (clothianidin, a member of the neonicotinoid group). And the compliant enabler is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The pesticide itself is known to be highly toxic to bees when used as a dust or spray. The manufacturer claims that this fact is not relevant since, under its new formulation, the chemical is coated directly on the seed (the name of the treated seed is Poncho), making it supposedly incapable of affecting friendly insects. But in practice the new delivery system seems to be no guarantee against harmful affects. Of most concern is that the chemical is released into the plant itself, and thus the toxins are present in small amounts in the pollen and nectar. Empirical observations in both Europe and the U.S. show bee die-offs occurring in areas where the seed has been introduced. The preliminary evidence is, in fact, so striking that a number of European countries, including Germany, Italy, and France, have banned the product outright. But in the U.S., where the product has been in use since 2003, reports of bee die-offs have generally fallen on deaf ears.

Bayer, the company which produces the product, is a major player accustomed to getting its way. It is one of six major corporations (Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Syngenta, and Dupont being the other five) that have come to control much of international agro-business in recent years. These giants now dominate the world’s seed, pesticide, and agricultural biotech industries.  Their practices, involving cross licensing agreements that allow them to collude with each other and exclude small competitors, are unregulated by any national or international organization. Their commercial leverage enables them to sell homogenized products in large volume that, once established, are very difficult to compete with or challenge. Typical of these new products are integrated lines of chemicals, seeds, and genetic traits that are patented and “engineered to go together.” Poncho is a representive of this new kind of product, one that has contributed substantially to Bayer’s bottom line and can be expected to have the company’s full-throated defense.

And then there is the EPA. The EPA was well aware of the toxicity of clothianidin to bees prior to registering the product and even knew of the prospective danger of pesticide residues in the pollen and nectar of corn plants. And yet inexplicably, putting the cart before the horse, the Agency consented to a conditional registration of the new product in 2003 prior to any life-cycle study by the applicant. It merely stipulated that Bayer produce a study that verified its claims within a year. That study was delayed until 2007, during which time Bayer was busily securing and extending its market share for the product. And its eventual study, which aimed to show that the new product had no effect on bees, was widely ridiculed by scientists as improperly set up and woefully inadequate. Indeed, an unpublicized study of EPA scientists in 2010 showed it to be fundamentally unsound. But by this time, the forces of inertia had set in and a reverse set of criteria had taken hold that put the burden of proof on opponents to demonstrate that neonicotinoid pesticides should be banned, a requirement that would involve years of scientific trials!

At the heart of this slow-moving train-wreck of a process, is the unbelievable coziness between the regulators and the regulated. In this case, the elephant in the room is the American Chemical Council (ACC), of which Bayer is a leading member. Lobbying groups like the ACC try to keep a low profile, but evidence of their influence surfaces from time to time. For instance, the group was the subject of a Senate Committee investigation in 2008 for its attempts to control the membership of expert review panels hired to determine the safety of products of ACC associated companies. In the political arena, the group secures allies by donating generously to political candidates. Past recipients of ACC largesse have included George Bush and the figure who later became his EPA director, New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman. How much these favors may have become factors in the original approval of Poncho in 2003 under Whitman’s watch, and the inertia that followed it, is anybody’s guess.

There should be little doubt, however, that the process is gravely flawed. Caution on the side of public health, not a presumption in favor of the manufacturer, is an imperative in EPA decisions. A change in the way things are done will require a revolution in thinking and behavior. In the meantime, the fate of the honey bees hangs in the balance.

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Pro-Lifers at War with the Medical Profession

Posted on May 22, 2012 by politicaloptic

Republican law-makers have been up to their old tricks bashing abortion and passing invasive restrictions on women seeking it. Less publicized, but even more consequential I believe, are efforts that target a key institutional component of the issue: the teaching of abortion procedures in medical schools and residency programs. Such efforts to undermine accepted teaching protocols have been occurring both at the national and state level.

Several bills and amendments are typical of this new conservative approach. In May, 2011, for example, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) attempted to prohibit taxpayer funds, which are critical for graduate medical education, from going to pay for abortion training nationwide (it passed the U.S. House, but failed to pass the U.S. Senate). Early the same year at the state level, the governor of Arizona signed into law a pro-life bill that forbade the use of public funds for abortion training in state universities. And this spring, the Kansas legislature brought up a bill that would have banned abortion training in all state-funded institutions and medical residency programs. The Kansas bill would have made it virtually impossible for students to obtain the necessary training even outside of the state system. The measure passed the Kansas house, but died in the senate this May only because of the strong opposition of Kansas’s flagship medical institution, the University of Kansas Medical Center.

The anti-abortion movement’s focus on abortion providers, in this case the training of future ones, is hardly a new trend. Activist Randall Terry famously declared in the early 1990’s, as the wave of assassinations of medical personnel was just beginning, that the doctor was the “weak link” in the system. A central aim of the movement was, by terrorizing and demonizing those who performed abortions, to separate them from the mainstream medical profession and diminish their numbers.

This strategy seemed for a while to be working, as doctors practicing abortion declined steadily in the years following Roe v. Wade. But at a certain point the medical establishment could no longer ignore the growing gaps in health care that came as a result. Abortion, it was increasingly realized (thanks in good part to women in medicine standing up for women’s health concerns), was an integral part of providing complete OB-GYN care. The patient undergoing a dangerous pregnancy as well as the one seeking a safe abortion required dependable treatment by experienced, trained physicians.

As a result, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the medical profession’s chief accrediting organization, in 1995 made abortion training a requirement for the accreditation of OB-GYN residency programs. This crucial requirement halted a trend by medical institutions to leave the issue to outside clinics to worry about. Almost all medical schools and teaching hospitals have since brought their programs into conformity with the ACGME standards. Today 90% of OB-GYN residency programs offer abortion training as either a regular or elective component. Increasingly, though still in small numbers, doctors in family and women’s health are viewing abortion as an integral part of their health care responsibilities.

Predictably enough, social conservatives have  reacted furiously to this trend since it negates their effort to marginalize abortion and place it outside of mainstream medicine. Shortly after the ACGME’s action, conservatives  attached an amendment to health legislation (the Coats Amendment of 1996) that upheld the legal status of institutions eschewing abortion training, making it more difficult to enforce ACGME standards. The recent proposals of today’s tea party Republicans are an even more overt attempt to eviscerate those standards and prevent them from being followed.

Make no mistake: the current pro-life movement’s war is not limited to a war against Planned Parenthood and feminist activists, if indeed it ever was. It is one waged against the medical profession itself and the fundamental health standards it seeks to uphold. This fact needs to be highlighted when progressives fight to hold the line against reactionary abortion legislation.

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What’s Wrong with Our Politics: “Asymmetric” Polarization

Posted on May 16, 2012 by politicaloptic

Not many would argue with the claim that our politics has become dysfunctional. The parties can’t seem to agree on anything, and the legislative process has been tied in knots for most of President Obama’s tenure as president. But typically, most scholars and journalists, in a desire to appear balanced and objective, have been reluctant to assign blame to any one side. Instead they have preferred to rise above the fray and speak in generalizations about the bad political “climate” and the failure of the “system.” This is why a new study by two respected political scientists who have long been known as honest brokers (one works for the moderate to liberal Brookings Institution, the other for the conservative American Enterprise Institute) has raised eyebrows. Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein assert in their book It’s Even Worse Than It Looks that one side, the Republican Party in its present form, bears most of the blame for the current impasse. The polarization, in their words, is “asymmetric,” or attributable to one side more than the other.

Mann and Ornstein, who seem almost embarrassed for taking a stance that might be construed as partisan, obviously felt moved by the pressing nature of the facts.  Their conclusions will not come as a shock to sophisticated political observers. Republicans have in essence become rejectionists, making no secret of their goal to see the current Democratic administration fail at whatever cost. In the face of the worst economic crisis since the New Deal, they have refused cooperation on virtually all major legislation. Throwing sand in the gears of government, they have used holds and filibusters to an unprecedented extent, all for the purpose of hampering the legislative process, slowing down appointments,  and even blocking the implementation of already passed laws.

In the summer of 2011, the party’s obstructive behavior rose to the level of what the authors call a “new politics of hostage taking.” For the first time in history, congressional Republicans attached preconditions to raising the nation’s debt limit, a messy Washington ritual even in normal times. Their non-negotiable demand for broad spending cuts with no corresponding tax increases–and to hell with the opposing party–was a brazen show of unilateralism that brought government to the brink of crisis and resulted in a U.S. credit downgrade. 

As Mann and Ornstein point out, such behavior did not arise overnight. The GOP’s position as an ” insurgent outlier,” as they put it, can be traced back to the polarizing strategy adopted by Newt Gingrich and like-minded Republicans in their bid to take control of Congress starting in the late 1970’s.  Through a long process of attempting to discredit Democratic leadership, Gingrich and his allies helped to tarnish the reputation of Congress. Smearing Congress actually advanced their long-term goals by putting them on the side of anti-Washington sentiment. Eventually the strategy came back to bite Gingrich, as he sank in the 90’s under the same kind of accusations he had launched against his enemies. But his “guerrilla” tactics of treating Congress as a field for combat rather than an organ for practical governance became, over time, a part of the GOP playbook.

Along with this institutional polarization came more ideological uniformity on the Republican side of the aisle in comparison with the Democratic side. Part of this had to do with what seemed like a clarification of the GOP’s conservative mission during and after the Reagan presidency, as seen in its increased critique of social  programs and the regulatory state. By this time, it had become much more of a southern party, as Republican politicians increasingly became the choice of conservative southern whites in the post-civil rights era. In contrast, the Democrats retained a broader range of opinion and a “more diverse constituency base” even after the disappearance of their former block of southern conservative Democrats. 

The tendency toward purity among Republicans is perhaps best illustrated by the rising influence of Grover Norquist, a key driver of ideological politics. Norquist, who was part of the tax revolt in the late 1970’s, turned the anti-tax movement into a vast lobbying operation and an irrestible political force. His “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” which commits signers to oppose all tax increases, has become a virtual requirement for today’s House Republicans.

The authors could well have discussed another force that has contributed greatly to Republican ideological extremism: the Christian Right.  The culture war it promotes under the banner of anti-secularism has, over time, helped to demonize liberals and Democrats. The conservative Christian hold over the Republican Party is strikingly obvious today from the social-issue orientation of the 2012 Republican presidential primary and the almost unanimous support for socially conservative legislation it can count on from Republican legislators.  

In general, Mann and Ornstein have given us plenty to chew over. Perhaps just as significant as their assignment of political blame is where they envision a change of direction. Specifically, they look for a solution not so much with the politicians as with the media and the voters. The media, they believe, needs to start understanding that a mechanical sort of balance is inadequate to explaining the current gridlock. Filibusters and holds do not occur anonymously, and the resulting impasse cannot simply be blamed on Congress as a whole. One side is doing these things and for political reasons. The media has a duty to raise the public’s awareness of the politicians who engage in such activities and to “clarify the choices voters face” at the voting booth.

Voters, for their part, need to be more engaged and less cynical. Simply voting the “bums” in Washington out when the system fails is simplistic and often counter-productive, since by placing in office new, more righteous politicans it often only reinforces the polarized status quo. Voters need to remove, not reward, those who are allergic to realistic compromise. It goes without saying that the end of gridlock can only occur through the choices of an educated citizenry.

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Andrew Breitbart’s Role in the Media War

Posted on May 9, 2012 by politicaloptic

The American right has been waging a campaign against the so-called liberal media from as far back as the Nixon era. It mostly began in the late 1960’s and early 70s with concerted attacks on news organizations by Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, fed by speechwriters Pat Buchanan and William Safire. The media, according to them, was in the pocket of those who wished to destroy the Republican Party and sully the Republic. The theme of liberal media domination, which was soon packaged in the book The News Twisters (1971) by conservative journalist Edith Efron, has since grown into an urban legend. The theme has been advanced in more recent times by Robert and Linda Lichter in The Media Elite (1986), Bernard Goldberg in Bias (2001), and Bill O’Reilly in Culture Warrior (2006). Efforts to correct the historical record, for example by Eric Alterman and David Brock, have been only partially successful in countering the conservative frame of liberal control.

Andrew Breitbart, the internet provocateur who has received much attention since his death in early March, was one of the right’s most vocal media denigrators. Breitbart will no doubt be missed by his political comrades in arms. He rang the liberty bell for conservative internet junkies and pushed the theory of a liberal-media nexus to new extremes, portraying it as a grand tale of collusion and conspiracy. In his book Righteous Indignation, he asserts that the “Democrat-Media Complex,” as he calls it, rigs facts to support its statist goals and promotes group-think in the form of political correctness. It presents, in his mind, an existential threat to libertarian freedom.

Like Glen Beck with a wink and a chalk board, Breitbart treats us to a “brief history lesson” on the dark origins of the Complex–a bit too brief it turns out. In his presentation, he presents a grab bag of wispy but menacing associations of the “guilt-by” variety. The Complex apparently took its message from a combination of alien philosophies based on Hegel and Marx that were imported into the U.S. with the help of fellow travelers and took root in American academic institutions. Their destructive critique of capitalism supposedly tainted the thinking of a long line of American progressives and guided the activities of wily practitioners like pediatrician Benjamin Spock and, especially, old-time labor organizer Saul Alinsky, who has become a favorite target of today’s tea partiers.

Breitbart believed that this palpable threat to American liberties had to be confronted head on. He was encouraged by the new kinds of journalistic media represented by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. But, for him, the most exciting challenge to the old, sluggish news establishment was the ability of independent internet users like himself to create their own alternative news websites and to “out” provocative information on them. The resourceful individual could gather his or her own unofficial news from anonymous sources, coordinate the timing of its release, and then disseminate it to the world with the aid of a sympathetic political network. Breitbart’s model in this regard was Matt Drudge, creator of the Drudge Report, which rocked the media world by trafficking in gossip and leaked information. The Drudge Report was the pivotal source of revelations in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other socio-political happenings. 

While working by the Drudge formula, Breitbart developed his own distinctive approach to fighting the establishment. By personal preference his style was more provocative and in-your-face than that of the reclusive Matt Drudge. Being knowledgeable about Hollywood and the youth culture, he used techniques that could appeal to a popular sensibility. His major innovation was the use and manipulation of video and audio evidence to embarrass opponents. Breitbart’s brazen methods have been widely reported on. He devised a right-wing primer for “realistic revolutionaries” that purported to borrow tactics from the devil’s own playbook: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. These included taking the fight to the enemy’s  sanctuaries (e.g. MSNBC and the New York Times), not letting the enemy forget his own rules (i.e exposing hypocrites), and using ridicule.

While Breitbart’s practices were potentially headline-producing, in the end they met with mixed results. His use of the gotcha videos of ACORN employees by prankster James O’Keefe was certainly successful in bringing down a liberal community organization. The defunding of ACORN by a congressional vote was, no doubt, Breitbart’s greatest victory in the culture wars. On the other hand, his botched and mean-spirited attack on Shirley Sherrod based on spliced and misleading videos is a vivid illustration of how drive-by, attack journalism can backfire on its perpetrators. Driven by a need for instantaneous point scoring, it is a hit-or-miss proposition with little guarantee of accuracy or public acceptance.

Given the current emphasis on journalistic ambush and blood-letting, there seems little chance of going back to the way things were without a change in the political climate. For the moment at least, the right seems to have achieved its goal of discrediting objective news sources and invoking media warfare. When media and government can no longer be trusted, conspiracy theory and extreme ideas have a better chance of flourishing. The obvious victims are reason, moderation, and civility. Along with truth.

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