There Will Be Blood
Paul Krugman
NY Times Op-Ed: November 22, 2010
Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be - after
all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on
deficit reduction.
So here's what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: "I can't wait
for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they're going
to look around and say, 'What in the hell do we do now? We've got guys who
will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give 'em a piece of
meat, real meat,' " meaning spending cuts. "And boy, the blood bath will be
extraordinary," he continued.
Think of Mr. Simpson's blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our
nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than
most people realize.
Some explanation: There's a legal limit to federal debt, which must be
raised periodically if the government keeps running deficits; the limit will
be reached again this spring. And since nobody, not even the hawkiest of
deficit hawks, thinks the budget can be balanced immediately, the debt limit
must be raised to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans will probably
try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in effect,
holding the government hostage; they've done it before.
Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might
deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and
undermine America's role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But
no, Mr. Simpson "can't wait." And he's what passes, these days, for a
reasonable Republican.
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear
that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it's doing the
governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means
that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party's
cooperation - cooperation that won't be forthcoming.
Elite opinion has been slow to recognize this reality. Thus on the same day
that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the
Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass
unemployment. He asked for "a fiscal program that combines near-term
measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce
longer-term structural deficits."
My immediate thought was, why not ask for a pony, too? After all, the G.O.P.
isn't interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the
White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke's efforts,
Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on
trying to reduce unemployment.
And on matters fiscal, the G.O.P. program is to do almost exactly the
opposite of what Mr. Bernanke called for. On one side, Republicans oppose
just about everything that might reduce structural deficits: they demand
that the Bush tax cuts be made permanent while demagoguing efforts to limit
the rise in Medicare costs, which are essential to any attempts to get the
budget under control. On the other, the G.O.P. opposes anything that might
help sustain demand in a depressed economy - even aid to small businesses,
which the party claims to love.
Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of
unemployment benefits - an action that will both cause immense hardship and
drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there's no
point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn't
work that way anymore.
And opposition for the sake of opposition isn't limited to economic policy.
Politics, they used to tell us, stops at the water's edge - but that was
then.
These days, national security experts are tearing their hair out over the
decision of Senate Republicans to block a desperately needed new strategic
arms treaty. And everyone knows that these Republicans oppose the treaty,
not because of legitimate objections, but simply because it's an Obama
administration initiative; if sabotaging the president endangers the nation,
so be it.
How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and
maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this
spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just
not interested in helping a Democrat govern.
My sense is that most Americans still don't understand this reality. They
still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come
together to do what's necessary. But that was another country.
It's hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of
some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this
April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that
the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.
***
From: Peter Dreier
To: Ed Pearl
What: "Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice" -
When: Tuesday, Nov. 30
Where: Occidental College
Mark Warren, associate professor of sociology at Harvard, will be speaking
at Occidental College on Tuesday, November 30, at 7 pm (in Johnson Hall,
Room 200) about his new book, Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace
Racial Justice, just published by Oxford University Press.
Fire in the Heart uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white
Americans become activists for racial justice. The book reports powerful
accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth
interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing,
education, and criminal justice reform.
The first study of its kind, Fire in the Heart brings to light the
perspectives of white people who are working day-to-day to build a truly
multiracial America rooted in a caring, human community with equity and
justice at its core.
Warren shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of
color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with
people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a
racially just future that they understand to benefit everyone-themselves,
other whites, and people of color.
The activists include
· Mark Soler, Mark is Executive Director of the Center for Children's
Law and Policy in Washington, DC.
· Ingrid Chapman, an anti-racist organizer and trainer for the
Catalyst Project in the Bay Area
· David Utter, director of the Florida Youth Initiative of the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
· Cathy Rion, a youth organizer, Unitarian Universalist minister,
and former member of the board of Californians for Justice.
· Alex Caputo-Pearl, a teacher at Crenshaw High School in Los
Angeles, and one of the founders of the Coalition for Educational Justice,
a parent-student-teacher activist organization
· Lewis Pitts, a lawyer with a long history of supporting racial
justice organizing in the South.
· Z. Holler, one of the leaders of the Beloved Community Center in
Greensboro, North Carolina, and a founder of the Greensboro Truth and
Reconciliation Commission,
· Joseph Ellwanger, a retired Lutheran minister and one of the
leaders of the faith-based community organizing group called MICAH in
Milwaukee..
· Madeline Talbott, a long-time community organizer in Chicago with
ACORN and Action Now.
· Bob Peterson, a 5th grade teacher at La Escuela Fratney, a
bilingual public school in Milwaukee.
· Seth Newton, a former labor organizer for HERE, SEIU and AFSCME,
where he helped organize and represent mostly immigrant workers in hotels
and the service industry in California.
You can learn more about the book, and about Professor Warren, at this
website: http://mark-warren.com/fireintheheart.
Professor Warren is an engaging speaker, a former community organizer, and a
highly-regarded scholar. His previous book, Dry Bones Rattling: Community
Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton University Press),
received outstanding reviews. He is currently directing a large-scale study
of community organizing efforts at school reform and educational justice in
six localities across the country, including Los Angeles.
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