Outliving the US: the comments

[nancylebov]

The other day, I asked whether people expected to outlive the US, and got some very interesting replies.

The most noticeable similarity was that no one expected anything good to come of an end to the US, which probably supports the idea that the US is very stable.

tahkhleet posted a substantial core dump about politics and the state of the culture. I'm feeling rather swamped. This is unfair. Overloading people is *my* job.

Still, I'm going to pick out some bits. However, I recommend reading the whole thing.

Is Obama genuinely that awful? I'm disappointed that he isn't prosecuting those responsible for torture (and NPR did a bit about how he used the word torture before he was elected, but has dropped it since then). Is he letting *everything* important slide?

I'd have thought he's at least smart enough to take a lesson from what Katrina did to Bush's reputation.

Two "do my homework" questions:

Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?

How did he handle things when he was a community organizer? Did he get useful work done?
Slightly different angle about the financial elite: One of my friends believes that credentialism is part of the problem. The most likely way to get one of those very well-paid jobs is to be totally focused on the exhausting work of getting the right degrees. Aside from tahkhleet's point that only someone who's got bad values will be willing to do the work, getting the credentials means being totally focused on incentives rather than paying attention to the larger system.

Back to my pov: Having a system which makes room for competence is a very subtle problem. If people are totally shielded from consequences, whoever is good at social climbing will get the rewards, and the quality of work goes to hell. If there is too much effort to make sure the right thing is done, people game the measurement system, and the work goes to heck.

Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed). It just seems as though people go nuts that way occasionally, and people are much more dependent on infrastructure than they used to be. Still, I don't know that the elites are dreaming of wiping a lot of the rest of us out, though worries about overpopulation can be read that way.

For purposes of this discussion, it isn't necessary that the elites would actually benefit from genocide, just whether enough of them strongly believe they would.

Comments

[n5red.livejournal.com]

I don't think Obama is all that bad, but there is a lot of pent up hostility from the damage the previous administration did to the country. There are a lot of people who are tired of being screwed over by the government, no matter which of the two parties is in control. Both sides seem to do less and less with more and more of our money.

My politics are generally somewhere in the middle. The vocal "liberals" who try to classify me as a Christian Fundamentalist because I disagree with some of the things the current administration wants to do really irritate me.

I'm sure the fact that I have a copy of the Constitution on my phone is enough for some people to brand me as a wingnut. The fact that I am a strong believer in the right to own firearms really offends the liberals. The fact that I defend the 1st Amendment right of some nutjob to say what he believes really ticks of folks on both ends of the spectrum.

Will the country split up? I don't know, but I would like to see a lot more local governance and a lot less Federal governance.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?

No. They're technically from the "realist" school, which is opposed to change in general. So they'll pull out from Iraq to the extent that nothing bad will happen that they can be blamed for (cf Germany, Japan, Korea), escalate in Afghanistan to prevent disaster (cf Viet Nam), talk about preventing Iran and North Korea from getting (more?) nukes but not take direct action (cf USSR, China). Hawks would be threatening blockades of Iran and air strikes on Somali pirate havens.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed).

It happened in the 19th century. Google on Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance. (Nutshell: Paraguay tried to conquer the whole of South America by attacking Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay simultaneously. This Did Not End Well.)

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Have now skimmed the original comments page.

The issue is extremely complex and messy (what I surprise that I say that). Most folks also don't appreciate the level of structural damage done during the last 8 years to the underlying structures of government -- from the purge of experienced federal workers to the destruction of agency morale to the failure to upgrade needed equipment to, above all else, the legitimacy of the decisionmaking process.

That's not something fixed in a hundred days. Frankly, we won't really have a good sense on how this is going to work out for another year or so when the Administration is actually up to functioning strength in terms of appointments and implementation of critical legislative goals.

But no, I do not believe that Obama is "genuinely awful." He is a man trying to negotiate tough decisions in difficult times, aware that being President is not the same as being king and that he therefore needs to make political judgments. Some of these will, IMO, be wrong -- including on very important moral matters. But that I disagree with him does not make him awful.

[sethg]

What osewalrus said.

Obama is quite a distance from my ideal Presidential candidate, but my ideal candidate would probably get no more than 40% of the popular vote, and if by some fluke he or she were elected, Congress would be routinely blocking his/her proposals by veto-proof majorities. Compared with the actual Democratic politicians that have had a snowball's chance of becoming President from Carter onward, Obama is the messiah.

I'm disappointed by how he's dealt with the financial crisis so far, but Wall Street has methodically corrupted the power structures of both parties, so I can't say I'm surprised he hasn't found better lieutenants to manage that end of things.

[madfilkentist]

Obama provides the second stage of the ratchet effect in increasing presidential power; or if you prefer a different metaphor, he's the good cop to Bush's bad cop. He's scaled back on rhetoric and to a lesser extent on details, but has not made any significant reduction to how much power the president holds. He hasn't revoked the claim to be entitled to hold prisoners indefinitely without charges. He's given the torturers a free pass. He's outdone Bush on deficit spending. He isn't touching the harassment of airline passengers or other gratuitous "security" measures, as far as I can tell.

People will be grateful because we've gained back a little of what we lost to Bush, and forget what things were like in the 20th century; after a while, those of us who want to restore that degree of sanity will be called "reactionaries."

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Sorry about being late with moderation-- it isn't usually something I need to do, and I wanted some time to think.

osewalrus, if you find yourself apologizing in advance for something you're about to do, this is probably a sign it isn't a great idea. This rule may well apply to anyone who isn't a compulsive apologizer.

I was distracted by your mention of friendship. You're my friend. takhkleet is something who's said some interesting things and some plausible things in my lj.

One of the questions I mull in the background is how to use anger productively-- insults get people's attention, but unfortunately they're apt to put the attention on the insult rather than any other message.

This applies both to tahkhleet's insults to Obama and osewalrus's insults to tahkhleet.

I was expecting much less of Obama than a lot of people-- I was hoping for a president who wouldn't initiate new disasters. Anything else is gravy.

I'm not going address every point about Obama, just a couple of easy ones. Obama can't decree payments to Americans in financial trouble (as tahkhleet implied on the first pass). He could push for them.

It's pretty clear that Obama prefers systems solutions. Reining in the credit card companies means that fewer people will be pushed over the edge.

I have no idea whether this approach has something to do with his experiences as a poor person and/or as a community organizer.

Allowing stem cell research isn't just cosmetic, but it is long haul. I'm sure it will take more than four years for new life-saving therapies to show up. And a lot of the promise of stem cells is for chronic diseases-- very debilitating but only somewhat deadly (diabetes) or afaik not deadly with proper care (Parkinson's).

I can't figure out if giving money to banks that don't lend it makes any difference. To anything. One thing I've learned from the crisis is that I know a lot less about the economy than I thought.

On the other hand, I'm concerned that if any of the banks start lending, they'll all start lending the bailout money simultaneously, leading to serious inflation.

If I pressure the government, it's going to be about torture. At least I understand the issue.

Just erase the part that says "Republicans."

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's not limited to either party -- but I have heard *much* more of this from the left than the right. I suspect osewalrus has too.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14851926/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/6/