Culprits

What, you may ask, do Wall Street bonuses have to do with the NASA budget?  Bear with me for a moment. By now most of us have heard about the tone-deaf avarice of executives at AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup etc. etc. taking huge amounts of “stimulus” money from the taxpayers and then spending millions on luxury trips, private jets, ostentatious decorations, and bonuses.  The only surprise here is that the angry mobs with torches and pitchforks haven’t materialized…yet.

Now, it is common these days whenever the subject of NASA and space exploration comes up for people (sad to say, including many Liberals with whom I agree on the vast majority of issues) to say things like, “Who cares about space? We should be spending that money here on Earth.”  Well, that is just wrong on so many levels.  NASA and the U.S. space program has been the source of so much benefit, from the mundane to the existential to the simply practical, that it’s hard to list all the ways.  Yes, it costs a lot of money.  That’s why the government has to do it.  But wait…

How much does it really cost, in context? That’s the point I’m working toward here.

According to the New York Times, Wall Street firms paid out an estimated $18.4 Billion in bonuses in 2008.  That’s right, the geniuses who are largely responsible for the worldwide financial crisis got $18.4 Billion last year in addition to their already obscene salaries and benefits.  Now, for comparison, the proposed 2009 budget for NASA is $17.6 Billion.  Let that sink in for a moment.

All the money for the space shuttle program, the Mars program, the various planetary and Earth-sciences missions, the salaries for the engineers, astronauts and support personnel — ALL of it — is substantially less than the bonuses paid to a handful of investment bankers on Wall Street.

So what’s my point? Aside from the unrestrained soulless greed and possible criminal activity of these neo-robber barons, the real benefits we get from NASA and the space program are a bargain.  Yes, we have critical problems that are having a devastating effect on people’s lives and demand immediate attention and lots of money.  It’s is simply wrong-headed to use NASA as a scapegoat for money not being spent where it is needed.  The real goats are wearing Armani suits and jetting between their mansions.

I’ve taken a hiatus since around Thanksgiving, in case anyone noticed.  The election and the innauguration were like a sweet balm, a sense of joy and relief…and, yes, hope.  Now things are getting down to business in ernest, and I’m feeling the blogging urge again.

Let the games begin!

When people, especially those in the corporate media, discuss the costs of the war in Iraq, it most often seems to address either the monetary cost or the number of American troops killed.  After the blithe promises of a war paid for entirely by Iraqi oil revenues, the monetary cost of the war is really outrageous.  The number of Americans killed is a heart-sickening tragedy (even though that number is dwarfed by the number of Iraqi civilians killed).

But in one of the most gut-wrenching good news/bad news situations ever, improvements in medical care for wounded troops has dramatically reduced the percentage of combat wounds resulting in death. That’s the good news part.  The bad news is that those whose lives have been saved now face life with horrific damage to their bodies and psyches, years upon years of overcoming daunting physical obstacles and the associated emotional difficulties including PTSD.

As if that weren’t enough, the Bush administration has used the troops as public relations props again and again, while pulling truly despicable stunts designed to go unnoticed.  Here’s the latest via Hilzoy:

From the LATimes, another story about the Bush administration deciding to nickel-and-dime wounded veterans:

“Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq — by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

Words fail me to describe how disgusting and hypocritical this kind of maneuvering is.  You deliberately mislead people into believing that they are serving the interests of their country by going to war, and then brush them aside when they are grievously wounded.  Grrrrrrr.

That is just wrong. Moreover, it’s also wrong to make disabled vets jump through hoops in order to get the benefits they’re entitled to. If you’ve been blown up by an IED, our government should do you the courtesy of allowing you to concentrate on healing your wounds and moving on, not on arguing with them about whether your disability was “combat-related.”

I’m migrating my blog to WordPress today.  I’ll repost some of the best posts from the old site as soon as I figure out the best way to do it.

Could this be the most controversial choice so far in the Obama transition? Or are reporters barking up the wrong tree? It could be a story that comes back to bite them later.  It’s certain to breed controversy, no matter how fetching the nominee may be in that fur coat. From the report linked above:

The speculation about Rex – will he or won’t he? – has been the major topic in the media and across the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin of Hot Air called it “an affirmative action appointment” and questioned whether Rex is in fact a US citizen or a Golden Labrador. ‘If they allow a Canadian puppy onto US soil illegally, next thing you know Obama will be negotiating with terriers, and without preconditions,” she told Fox News. “Furthermore, Rex should be required to learn English first.” And Dick Morris told the Sean Hannity that passing up the black Labrador in the next kennel will definitively end the honeymoon between Obama and civil rights leaders.

We can be certain that Blue Dog’s won’t just roll over and play dead on the heels of this announcement.  But of course, with the pack mentality in Congress, it’s clear that the scenery never changes unless you’re the lead dog. And there’ll only be one alpha male in the White House, but he’ll be outnumbered by the … females. (I’m not going to go there!) So I guess there’s nothing to do but put aside our pet peeves and wait for someone to let the cat out of the bag.

First Puppy

Volt Dashboard

[UPDATED BELOW]
The latest company to go to Washington asking for a handout is General Motors, and after the less than auspicious start to the $750 Billion Wall Street/bank bailout, many people, not just “free market” conservatives, are asking, “Why should we bail out the big American auto companies?”  The underlying implication among conservatives is that labor unions are the source of the problem.  Others think, rightly so in my opinion, that the car companies got themselves into this mess by ignoring fuel efficiency and building ever bigger and heavier gas-hogs.  So why not let them go belly up?  That’ll teach ‘em a lesson!  As is usually the case, it’s not that simple.

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has an interesting post discussing the impact of a possible GM bankruptcy on the development of the greatly anticipated Volt electric car:

So maybe the people who seem to know even less about auto manufacturing than they do about economics should consider that GM is in the forefront of green engineering with the Chevy Volt.  From US News:

The prototype Volt that GM has been showing off is a sporty four-seater with futuristic touches meant to draw in mainstream gearheads. The dashboard controls are touch-sensitive and set in a white console reminiscent of an iPod. Instead of standard gauges for speed and RPMs, there’s a digital display that looks like the screen of a Sony PSP. Wind-tunnel engineering has made the Volt even more aerodynamic than a Corvette, critical for milking the most mileage possible out of the battery. GM says that recharging the car at home, through an ordinary household outlet, will cost less than $1 per day and drain less power than it takes to run a refrigerator.

But before you put the Volt on your 2010 wish list, consider that sending GM into bankruptcy would do more than just break the UAW — it could condemn the Volt from ever reaching the market:

Ever since Ronald Reagan fired all the striking air-traffic controllers in his first year in office (a strikingly irresponsible thing to do), conservatives have fantisized about ridding the country of labor unions.  Never mind that labor unions were largely responsible for the rise of the middle class in American in the mid-twentieth century.  As Hamsher points out:

In fact, in their last contract the UAW made deep concessions that put GM wages at a par with their non-union counterparts in the US.  But this isn’t about facts, this is a religious crusade where “free-marketeers” want to impose Shock Doctrine tactics for philosophical reasons with little regard for the consequences.

The president of GM once famously said “What’s good for GM is good for America.”  Most of us would probably take exception to that these days.  But there is a kernel of truth there: letting GM fail could be disastrous for America, especially now with the economy, after eight years of the Bush administration, careening like a football bouncing down a staircase.  Bush’s own suggestion is particularly poor (who would’ve guessed…).

George Bush is in favor of helping GM.  But he wants to take the $25 billion in loans to automakers from the 2007 Energy Bill and repurpose them, he doesn’t want to use funds from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout (which Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have indicated they would like to do).

Congress approved the funds for a Department of Energy program that would help the automakers to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

Got that?   George Bush wants to kill the program that would build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

There are some other ideas floating around that make a lot of sense in the long run, like this one via Atrios:

As Josh says, if we’re throwing around billions and trillions of dollars we might as well get something good. Instead of writing a big check to the auto companies or loaning them money we could, you know, enroll all their employees in the new national health insurance system.

The point has been made repeatedly that the cost of healthcare is one of the big factors that makes it difficult for U.S. automakers to compete effectively with companies in countries that have some form of national health insurance (that would be ALL of them, except the U.S.).  So, what an elegant solution it would be to remove the financial burden of providing health insurance from the car companies as part of a universal health insurance program.  Makes sense to me.

UPDATE: Digby has more on this here.  Regarding the role of unions in all this:

You simply can’t wipe out a million jobs or more as we are just going into a terrible worldwide recession. It’s like telling someone they have to go on a diet when they are in the middle of a heart attack. There has to be a bailout.

But there is something else going on, which I mentioned last week in this post — the Republicans’ reflexive political response is to take the opportunity to break the unions…

[...]

And, in the big scheme things, I think we can all agree that well paid, secure employees make for a stable society. The problem with the Big Three has far less to do with their employees than it does with their management — and a capitalistic ethos that requires a myopic obsession with quarterly profits over long term investment. The union members just make the cars they’re told to make. It’s not their fault if Americans insisted on buying behemoth gas guzzlers and the auto executives insisted on giving them to them knowing full well a day of reckoning was coming.

The overwhelming majority of Americans, as well as people around the world, have positive views of President-elect Obama, and hope has lifted us.  Unfortunately, there are those who are consumed by hate who would destroy the very foundations of our country.  No, I’m not talking about al Qaeda. I’m talking about people who would promote this kind of behavior in their children (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

Whoolery and his wife couldn’t believe it when their second and third graders got off the bus last week and told them what other students were saying.

“They just hadn’t heard anything like this before,” said Whoolery. “They were chanting on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.’ Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama and Kate.’”

The Whoolery’s explained to their kids what assassinate means then contacted the school about what was happening.

This is not funny.  It’s not harmless. It’s irresponsible at best, and traitorous at worst. For those who may have forgotten or be too young to remember, before the attacks of 9/11 the worst terrorist attack on American soil was carried out, not by scary brown people, but by these guys:

That’s right, good “patriotic” white males.  People who allow their delusions, stoked by zealots and talk show hosts, to run wild can cause catastrophic damage.  The tragedy is only increased by the fact that the “enemy” they feel compelled to fight against exists only in their minds.

Those of us who lived through the turbulence of the 1960s still remember the horror and disbelief of seeing three of our great leaders, John, Martin and Bobby, murdered.  Whether it’s the lone madman or an organized group, there’s no way to completely protect ourselves from such people.  That is part of the cost of living in a free society.  There is simply no such thing as complete security — unless you’re locked in a padded cell.  But that realization doesn’t preclude us from making every effort to eliminate such behavior by marginalizing it to the point that it gets into the “being struck by a falling meteorite” range.

To think that people would teach their children to chant words like “assassinate” while thinking of themselves as “righteous” and “patriotic” is just sick.  It’s up to every one of us to resist this kind of talk, whether it comes in a forwarded email or a casual conversation.  It is a cancer in the soul of humanity, and every individual has a responsibility to do what they can to stop it wherever it tries to spread.

It’s not funny.  It’s not patriotic.  It must stop.

In the wake of the overwhelming Democratic victory in the 2008 election, many pundits have rushed to present the notion that America is a “center-right” country.  They argue that the votes offer no justification for a liberal mandate for the incoming Obama administration.  That’s just sour grapes combined with more Republican obfuscation.  This map from the NY Times showing by county whether Americans voter more Democratic or more Republican than in 2004 shows a clear trend.

DailyKos has some good analysis. As many writers point out, America is, in fact, a nation of Moderates, who can shift to right or left politically, but not so much to extremes.  Since Reagan’s election in 1980, the pendulum has swung as far to the right as it could go.  I think the evidence points to a sustained swing to the left for many years to come — provided the Democrats do a better job of running the country than the Republicans did.  That shouldn’t be too hard.

I’ve been crazy busy every since the election, so I haven’t written a post in a while.  It seems like we really are in a different world.  It’s amazing the optimism I’ve seen on so many smiling faces of all colors in the last week.  It’s even more amazing considering that we’re still in a terrible crisis, but we can deal with crises if we have hope that we will eventually prevail.  That’s something very powerful that Barack Obama’s election has given us.  As Frank Rich said in Sunday’s New York Times, It Still Feels Good…

I’ll have more to say in the future, but for right now, I just have to let the music and images do the talking.  Here’s a cool one via Crooks and Liars: