Jim Nichols

Writer, Blogger, Candidate for GA State House 

I forgot...

I always forget that Francis Fukuyama was a student of Leo Strauss. 
 
An eternal reoccurrence of mine... 

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More examples of populist rage against Obama...

November of 2010 will see a Republican surge, which is normal in a second year--a la Reagan--especially with the levels of unemployment we are, and will be facing this November.  But like much of the  spin after the Brown victory a few weeks back. Talking heads will be focused on the discontent and populist rage at Obama that is coming from average working Americans.
 
I posted an example earlier this week.
 
Came across another example of that populist rage today...
Wingnuts and major sectors of wealth and power do not a "working and middle class backlash" against Obama make....
 
Privatizing social security and medicare in order to balance the budget in 50 years as Republican leaders are proposing; are not exactly top priorities of most citizens of this nation.... though voter frustration can certainly be harnessed by Republicans in November.

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Thank a talking head... any talking head will do...

For helping to create/perpetuate The Populism Problem

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No taxation without representation! errr...no taxation.... err...and these other things too!

Return Of the Repressed? Birtherism, Homophobia, Racial Paranoia Rise To Surface At Tea Party Confab

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Your must read for the day.... on why Obama is floundering...

Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency

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Campaign journal 2.8.10 on the run...

Between work, class at GA State, I haven't had time to create as many youtube journal's as I've hoped.
 
My goal in creating youtube journals of the general assembly session and my campaign at large is to give you one persons perspective on the political process.
 
Hopefully I can inspire others to get involved and thats what this journal entry was about--on creating positive political discourse.  I tried to write a script a few times--as I hoped to add more about whats going on in the session but I've been stuck on the challenge/question of political engagement. 
 
So I decided to go ahead and speak my mind--hopefully I'll come back to this and create a more coherent streamlined piece.  But this is a first draft--I'm just thinking outloud!  Thats what i've been campaigning on after all. 
 
When politicians think out loud the voters have an opportunity to share thoughts, ideas, articles, and information that can help make me a better representative.  That way you know how I reach the conclusions I reach, why I hold the positions I hold, and places where my ideas or positions could be improved or even changed.
 
I just wanted to take a moment in starting my day to ask you to roll up your sleeve and get involved...
 
There is a feeling of distrust and apathy that can only be overcome through engagement and education but time and time again I've come across people with a lot of anger at the process but no engagement or interest in actually rolling up their sleeves. 
 
Between reading Arendt's truth in politics and watching some good people on all sides of the political spectrum giving a 100% while far too many people are sitting back I wanted to make an "ask."
 
In a number of political trainings I've been to tell you that you always have to make an "ask" so that people know there are things that need to be done and that you hope you can count on their help.
 
So my ask for the day is to do something.  Read an article in the paper and email it to a friend telling them what you think about the article or what that issue matters to you.  Set up a house party for later on in the month to talk with friends and neighbors about the budget cuts and ways that people can get involved.  I don't really have the answers but I trust in individuals to come together to help find solutions.
 
So sorry for the ramble---but then again thats what a journal is about.
 
Anyways go do something today to help break the cycle of apathy, and frustration; do something to improve the political discourse.
 
--Jim 


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We need automated voter registration in the state of GA

Anyone know if there has been a bill to automate voter registration from DMV records in the state?  Citizens then could opt-out of being a voter rather than opt in which creates the voter registration problems and issues we currently have.
 

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all eyes right now should be on europe...

Global market turmoil hints that U.S. recovery may founder 

If the jobs report confounded investors Friday, problems in the European Union scared them. The problem isn't so much that a nation defaults on its sovereign debt — the bonds that individual countries issue — but that such a default could trigger a chain reaction of global panic similar to what happened after the bankruptcy of U.S. investment giant Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

That scenario would add to the hurt on American shores, since it would slow the global economy, bring more bank losses and hurt U.S. exports.

Even without a panic, weaker European economies such as Spain's and Portugal's already face a credit crisis as they're hit with higher borrowing costs because investors consider them riskier bets.

An economic slowdown in Europe would hurt Main Street America because exports have been one of the few drivers of economic growth, and Europe is a chief buyer of everything from farm products to expensive U.S. technology.

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the voice of populist rage?? or just rich people?

Republican leadership isn't stupid... they are just out of touch with working Americans...
 
Steele: ‘Trust Me, After Taxes, A Million Dollars Is Not A Lot Of Money’
RNC Chairman Michael Steele and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) held a joint appearance Thursday night at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. When the debate turned to President Obama’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire on families making over $250,000, Steele “joke[d]” that that wasn’t very much money:

The two often traded jokes, especially when Steele panned President Barack Obama’s long-stated plan to let income tax rates return to higher levels for families making more than $250,000 a year.

Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money,” Steele said.

Ford later asked the audience of mostly college students, “Who in here makes a million dollars a year?”

“How many of you want to make a million dollars a year?” Steele quickly responded when no hands were raised.

Of course, to most Americans, $250,000 — let alone a million — is “a lot of money.” The median household income is about $52,000 and only two percent of Americans make $250,000 or more. Fewer than half-a-percent make more than a million dollars. “After taxes,” someone making a million dollars can still expect to keep about $675,000.

Yet Steele is not alone in his out-of-touch assertion. Hate radio host Rush Limbaugh — who reportedly makes about $50 million a year — also recently argued that “$250,000 is not wealthy.” And like Limbaugh, we can “trust” Steele about high income. In addition to his $223,500-a-year RNC post, Steele charges between $8,000 and $20,000 for personal speaking engagements. Indeed, the University paid Steele and Ford a combined $40,000 for Thursday’s event.

Steele’s claim reflects a larger conservative attempt to falsely claim that tax hikes for the very wealth will hurt the middle class.

The irony is that media talking heads play them up as the voice of populist rage against the Obama Administration...

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Stiglitz on Muddling Out of Freefall

Joseph E. Stiglitz
Defeat in the Massachusetts senatorial election has deprived America’s Democrats of the 60 votes needed to pass health-care reform and other legislation, and it has changed American politics – at least for the moment. But what does that vote say about American voters and the economy?

It does not herald a shift to the right, as some pundits suggest. Rather, the message it sends is the same as that sent by voters to President Bill Clinton 17 years ago:  “It’s the economy, stupid!” and “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” Indeed, on the other side of the United States from Massachusetts, voters in Oregon passed a referendum supporting a tax increase.

The US economy is in a mess – even if growth has resumed, and bankers are once again receiving huge bonuses. More than one out of six Americans who would like a full-time job cannot get one; and 40% of the unemployed have been out of a job for more than six months.

As Europe learned long ago, hardship increases with the length of unemployment, as job skills and prospects deteriorate and savings gets wiped out. The 2.5-3.5 million foreclosures expected this year will exceed those of 2009, and the year began with what is expected to be the first of many large commercial real-estate bankruptcies. Even the Congressional Budget Office is predicting that it will be the middle of the decade before unemployment returns to more normal levels, as America experiences its own version of “Japanese malaise.”

As I wrote in my new book Freefall, President Barack Obama took a big gamble at the start of his administration. Instead of the marked change that his campaign had promised, he kept many of the same officials and maintained the same “trickle down” strategy to confront the financial crisis. Providing enough money to the banks was, his team seemed to say, the best way to help ordinary homeowners and workers.

When America reformed its welfare programs for the poor under Clinton, it put conditions on recipients: they had to look for a job or enroll in training programs. But when the banks received welfare benefits, no conditions were imposed on them. Had Obama’s attempt at muddling through worked, it would have avoided some big philosophical battles. But it didn’t work, and it has been a long time since popular antipathy to banks has been so great.

Obama wanted to bridge the divides among Americans that George W. Bush had opened. But now those divides are wider. His attempts to please everyone, so evident in the last few weeks, are likely to mollify no one.

Deficit hawks – especially among the bankers who laid low during the government bailout of their institutions, but who have now come back with a vengeance – use worries about the growing deficit to justify cutbacks in spending.  But these views on how to run the economy are no better than the bankers’ approach to running their own institutions.

Cutting spending now will weaken the economy. So long as spending goes to investments yielding a modest return of 6%, the long-term debt will be reduced, even as the short-term deficit increases, owing to the higher tax revenues generated by the larger output in the short run and the more rapid growth in the long run.

Trying to “square the circle” between the need to stimulate the economy and please the deficit hawks, Obama has proposed deficit reductions that, while alienating liberal democrats, were too small to please the hawks. Other gestures to help struggling middle-class Americans may show where his heart is, but are too small to make a meaningful difference.

Three things can make a difference: a second stimulus, stemming the tide of housing foreclosures by addressing the roughly 25% of mortgages that are worth more than the value the house, and reshaping our financial system to rein in the banks.

There was a moment a year ago when Obama, with his enormous political capital, might have been able to achieve this ambitious agenda, and, building on these successes, go on to deal with America’s other problems. But anger about the bailout, confusion between the bailout (which didn’t restart lending, as it was supposed to do) and the stimulus (which did what it was supposed to do, but was too small), and disappointment about mounting job losses, has vastly circumscribed his room for maneuver.

Indeed, there is even skepticism about whether Obama will be able to push through his welcome and long overdue efforts to curtail the too-big-to-fail banks and their reckless risk-taking. And, without that, more likely than not, the economy will face another crisis in the not-too-distant future.

Most Americans, however, are focused on today’s downturn, not tomorrow’s. Growth over the next two years is expected to be so anemic that it will barely be able to create enough jobs for new entrants to the labor force, let alone to return unemployment to an acceptable level.

Unfettered markets may have caused this calamity, and markets by themselves won’t get us out, at least any time soon. Government action is needed, and that will require effective and forceful political leadership.

 

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