Peace and Light

 

For 2000 years, Christians have been celebrating the birth of Jesus. Born in a stable, surrounded by shepherds and farm animals, He was not recognized by many on that first Christmas Day.

Coming near the Winter Solstice, Christmas is also a celebration that the Light is returning to the World, the days are lengthening. It is a time of hope and a time of peace. It is a time for family and friends. It is a time to recognize anew the Christ Child in our fellow man and treat all accordingly.

The world is not yet at peace. A recent tally at the Wars in the World website shows 60 nations plus 368 separate armed groups, militia, or guerrillas involved in conflict of some kind or other. And we are not yet at peace with ourselves. The twenty first century finds us inundated daily with anxiety producing events and with incredibly ignorant comments on those events. 

No we are not there yet. But each of us can commit to a less violent, more supportive world and hope that soon all will do likewise – that the arms dealers and war mongers, the haters and the dividers finally recognize the true meaning of the Christmas message. Each of us can look to our families and friends and communities and understand what is truly important in our lives.

Here's are two great videos of the Christmas song "O Holy Night!":

 

A beautiful video with Pavarotti, Charlotte Church and Celine Dion singing separate verses in the background.

Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo at a 1999 concert in Vienna


Have a Happy, Peace-filled and Hopeful Christmas!

Picture Credit, Silent Night

 

 

 

Gun Madness

Sportscaster Bob Costas ignited a firestorm when he referenced a piece by former NFL player Jason Whitlock on the murder-suicide by a Kansas City Chief linebacker.  Whitlock's primary point was that the Chiefs' game should not have been played the day after the tragedy.  His secondary point was that our gun culture is out out of control.  Costas, paraphrasing Whitlock, said during his halftime editorial: "“If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”  The response from the right-wing echo chamber and Second Amenment rights nuts was as expected.  Outrage.  Costas knows nothing. He should be fired.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Actually Costas was just stating a fact.  It's easier to kill someone and yourself with a gun than almost any other weapon.  Domestic disputes, arguments - these can escalate easily.  That the ready availability of guns increases the murder rates is uncontestable.  A 2003 study of gun violence in 23 populous high- income countries found the following:

• The United States has more firearms per capita than the other countries, more handguns per capita, and has the most permissive gun control laws of all the countries.
• Among the 23 countries studied, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States; 86 % of women killed by firearms were U.S. women, and 87% of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.
• U.S. homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. was 19.5 times higher. 
• For 15-year olds to 24-year olds, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 42.7 times higher than in the other countries.
• For U.S. males, firearm homicide rates were 22.0 times higher, and for U.S. females, firearm homicide rates were 11.4 times higher.
• U.S. suicide rates overall were 30 percent lower than the other countries, but the U.S. firearm suicide rate was 5.8 times higher.
• The U.S. unintentional firearm death rate was 5.2 times higher than that of the other high-income countries combined.

Need a gun for protection?  Think again.  A family member is twelve times more likely to die than for you to use it on a violent intruder. 

Somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 murders per year in the US are caused by guns, NRA money bankrolls elections, and gun nuts control the national conversation on this deadly issue.  There was hardly a whisper about the inadequacy of our gun control laws during the Presidential campaign.  Senator Frank Lautenberg's bill to reinstate the assault weapons ban didn't even make it to the floor of the Senate. 

December 8 marks the 32 nd anniversary of John Lennon's murder by a crazed gunman in New York.  By my count, that makes more than 300,000 gun murders committed since then.  It's time to stop the madness.

Links

Useful organizations
Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Mayors Against Illegal Guns

What the Rest of the Civilized World Thinks and How It Acts
A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
The Rest of the First World Is Astounded by America's Enduring Gun Culture



  

  

Looking for 26 Republicans with Balls

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi intends to force a tax cut vote for people earning less than $250k/year by filing a discharge petition.  This measure extending the Bush tax cuts to 98% of the country was passed by the Senate this summer.  A discharge petition is a parliamentary maneuver to allow a vote on legislation when the House Speaker will not permit it to get to the floor for a vote.  As the Washington Post reports , though, this is "rarely used successfully".  It requires 218 votes to pass and the House Democrats number 192.  So they need 26 Republicans to break ranks.  Do you think there are 26 such creatures on the GOP side of the aisle? 

I'm not going to hold my breath.   We are talking about a political party that is funded by corporate and business interests and is the happy home to folks with some of the most bizarre positions and beliefs on the planet.  Birthers, climate change and evolution deniers, gun nuts, self-proclaimed "patriots", and on and on - we've seen it for years.  And it doesn't look like things are getting any better as far as rationality goes.  In a recent poll of GOP members:

• 49% believe ACORN, a grass roots community organization that was disbanded in 2010, helped President Obama steal the 2012 election.  (This from the party that tried to suppress Democratic votes with a fervor not seen since the days of Jim Crow and poll taxes.)
• 25% want to secede because Obama was re-elected.  (As of now seven states - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas - have reached the 25,000 mark which will require a response from the President.  I don't know, maybe we should let Texas secede and take its 38 electoral votes with it.  This would guarantee that Republicans would never win a national election again.)

As for our self-imposed, so-called "fiscal cliff", if anything is more disturbing than the Republicans' desperate attempts to maintain tax breaks for the wealthiest in the country, it is the attention being given to maintaining that most bloated part of our budget - military expenditures.  A co-chair of the supercommittee created by the Budget Control Act, Washington Senator Democrat Patty Murray expressed concerns that "the most vulnerable groups depending on domestic programs may get lost in the shuffle” during the deficit negotiations...It’s very concerning to me that so much of the focus in D.C. and across the country has been on the other half of sequestration -- the defense cuts.” 

I'll close with more pathetic news from the Right.  Today 38 Republican Senators blocked the US signing of the UN Disability Treaty - a treaty based on our own Americans with Disabilities Act and already ratified by 126 countries.   As the Boston Globe reports "supporters fell five votes short of the 66 needed for ratification of the international pact known as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — hailed by advocates as a human rights effort to transform how nations across the world treat those with long-term physical, mental, and intellectual impairments, particularly children who face a future of bleakness because of their disabilities."

Another Link
The Nation "A Wake Up Call on Housing and Homelessness" - on possible impacts of the debt negotiations

Past the Point of No Return

Climate change deniers are put on official notice.  Stating that greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 20% since 2000, a recent United Nations report indicated that it was unlikely that the goal of stalling global warming at the 2 degree Celsius level by 2020 could be met.  The temperature rise is more likely to be 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.  "So what?" you say - what's a degree or two more?  Well, the significance is that once above the 2 degree Celsius level, the projected costs for dealing with climate change escalate dramatically. 

After our own recent bout with climate change effects (aka Hurricane Sandy), the United States perhaps will awaken to become a leader in halting this doomsday march.  More than 110 deaths and an estimated $50 billion damage have been attributed to the storm that ransacked the East Coast in late October.  Sandy was dubbed a megastorm but it may soon become the norm.  Strong storms such as Sandy and higher level hurricanes will become more and more common because of the increasing global warming. 

Although China has now overtaken the United States in terms of total energy consumption, the United States remains the leading per capita energy consumer with neighbor Canada right behind.  Canada and the United States both are consuming energy at a rate over 8 tons oil equivalent (TOE) per person.  For comparison, other developed nations are generally in the range of 3 (Italy) to 6 (Finland) TOE per person.  China is below 2.   

A major UN climate change conference starts next week in Qatar.  Expect the conferrees to stress the need for drastic reductions in fossil fuels consumption and the development of alternate forms of energy.  Based on their current assessment, one would hope that they also start focusing on engineering solutions to minimize the damage that will surely come.

All of this will take money as well as cooperation among nations.  The time for narrow-minded nationalism and know nothing/do nothing attitudes is over.  The time to invest in the future of the planet, in sustainable energy and infrastructure, is now.

What can I do?
The web is filled with pages on energy conservation and stopping global warming at the personal level.  Here are three of them.
Global Warming Facts: 50 Tips
Power Scorecard: Twenty Things to Conserve Energy   
NRDC: How to Reduce Energy Consumption (This is a link to "Easy Energy Saving Habits".  On that page you will find links to Simple Household Tools and Gadgets, Long Term Efficiency and  Further Resources.)

Article- Related Links
Huffington Post Nov 23 Article
Common Dreams Nov 21 Post
Per Capita Energy Use
Total Energy Use

Forward? One Day After the Election

In the end, Team Obama pulled out a victory. The victory is a tribute to the best organized presidential campaign in history, to a massive get out the vote effort, to organized labor support, and to the campaign's messages of economic fairness and inclusivenss. Democrats will increase very slightly their non-filibuster-proof Senate majority. The House, as expected, remains in the firm control of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.

In an election held in the midst of a struggling economy with high unemployment, the Republicans should have easily won a majority in the Senate and likewise defeated the incumbent President. They did not. All their Citizens United cash and their voter suppression efforts failed to take down President Obama and the Senate Democrats. Several of the extremist Tea Party candidates for Senate lost their races. The Republican portion of the non-white vote in the general election remained at just 20% - what it was in 2008.

Whether Republicans learned anything about the political downside of extremism on the national stage remains to be seen. While the moderate corporate media and leading Democrats are saying “surely the Republicans will stop being obstructionist” and while some in the Republican party are supporting a bipartisan approach - notably as evidenced by Romney's classy and gracious concession speech and New Jersey Governor Christie's response to President Obama's support for the hurricane-ravaged Garden State – most of the public talk from the Republican “pundits” remains the same: “Obama really has to do more to reach across the aisle. It's his fault that we've had gridlock in these miserable economic times.” They continue to be deluded about the causes of the Great Recession and their own obstructionist role in prolonging it. Most of their talk for the 2016 presdiential campaign has been on how can they recapture the 20% of Hispanic voters they've lost since W's years – not on how they can help instead of hurt the economic recovery.

Will wiser heads prevail or will last night's ranting of Donald Trump be the norm for Republicans? I would like to say I'm cautiously optimistic but I am not yet there. Where is the leadership going to come from in the Republican Party? As a defeated candidate, Mitt Romney will certainly not be the leader of the Republican Party any more than defeated candidate John McCain was. Representative Boehner has shown zero ability to reign in the Tea Party extremists in the House. We will likely continue to see Paul-Ryan-Draconian budgets cutting up the social safety net, increasing military spending, and continuing the advantages of the wealthiest from that house of Congress. What about the Senate? Well, thanks to Presidential term limits, Senator McConnell no longer can have his number one goal be preventing another Obama term. Maybe he should declare victory here – “See we did it, President Obama will never have another term after this one.” But that doesn't necessarily mean that McConnell will be any more willing to compromise. The only sure way to prevent the Senate from obstructing is to change the Senate rules on the filibuster – maybe requiring 55 votes instead of 60 to pass legislation (Senator Reid – please note.)

Given this state of affairs, what will the next four years look like and what has to be done to improve the country?

On the plus side, Obamacare survived, we won't be getting a voucher system for Medicare, we won't be privatizing Social Security, and we will be able to keep the Republican Supreme Court majority at 5-4. The financial reforms of Dodd-Frank will remain in place. We will be out of Afghanistan in 2014 and probably will not go to war with Iran.

The challenges will be to maintain the social safety net for the neediest in our society – the Food Stamp Program, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Medicaid, to improve educational opportunities, and to create jobs (including rebuilding our transportation infrastructure) to get us out of the Recession. None of this will be possible without increasing the taxes on the wealthiest and without reducing wasteful and unnecessary military expenditures.

More leadership from Obama and the Democrats is needed on the environment and climate change. This is the major long-term challenge for America – to lead rather than lag on this issue which continues to worsen with time. That the issue was virtually ignored by both campaigns was somewhat understandable – politically this issue is yet to resonate with Americans. That's why leadership is needed. If Hurricane Sandy was “unprecedented” in 2012, it may well become the norm by 2020 if nothing is done.

Where else is leadership needed? Campaign finance reform plus a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and to reassert Americans' right-to-vote are must's if we are to prevent what one WBAI commentator rightly called the “desecration of democracy” seen in this election. Real movement towards a two-state Israel/Palestine solution in the Middle East would go a long way to improve America's relations in the Middle East and restore our moral ability to lead globally. It would also allow Obama to earn his admittedly premature Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, we have seen a serious erosion of civil liberties since 9/11. The policies begun under Bush have continued under Obama. To point out two of the most glaring examples: Guantanamo is still open and the President has the right to indefinitely detain Americans without due process. If the Tea Party really cares about “freedom”, they should turn their attention here rather than to their freedom to not have health care and to carry guns. As attributed to Benjamin Franklin and as inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell at the Statue of Liberty, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

 

Links

National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms' 2011 Post: "A Decade of Civil Liberties Erosion in America"

Also see The Left Bank Cafe's four posts on Global Warming from August 2011:  Link to the first of these posts.
 

 

Hurricane Thoughts: One Week Before the Election

Hunkering down in the hours before Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, I've been making calls to Florida as part of MoveOn's get out the vote effort for President Obama. The wind is really picking up. the lights have been flickering off occasionally and I've lost my internet connection three times in the past couple of hours.  Being 40 or so miles inland, though, I don't expect too much trouble from the “megastorm”.

Along with their expressions of concern for us in the Northeast, Floridians have given some practical advice (“We always stocked up on peanut butter and bread to get us through the outages.”) and, with a few exceptions, have expressed their appreciation for MoveOn's efforts. Several of the voters were optimistic about the outcome in Florida. Most thought it was too close to say or thought their state might, unbelievably as it seems, go for Romney. No doubt about it - the first debate took what had been a comfortable lead for the President in the Sunshine State and turned into horse race to the finish. Early voter turnout is high – but that's even in the Tea Party counties so who knows what the early voting portends.

With eight days until the election, the race remains pretty much undecided nationally. The most recent poll in Ohio, one of the Republican voter suppression states, has Obama and Romeny tied among likely voters for the first time this election – i.e., Obama's lead has been wiped out in this critical state. The 2012 election will be as close as 2000. We need to hope and pray that there won't be a similar result as in 2000 because a Romney-Ryan victory will bring us back to the Bush era. We'd see a return to both the domestic and foreign policies of those years. There is too much at stake – health care, war and peace, the entire social safety net, the Supreme Court composition, the economy...one could go on and on. As Kevin Baker wrote in the October Harper's, “To vote for a Mitt Romney—to vote for the modern right anywhere in the West today—is an act of national suicide.”

The odds of Democrats regaining control of the House appear negligible as evidenced by the surge in Romney's share of the popular vote and the fact that nearly all Republican House seats are in “safe” districts such as my own in western New Jersey. Even if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, Republicans will use the filibuster to the great, detrimental effect to the nation unless wiser heads than may be available in their party prevail. 

Meanwhile, newspapers have been declaring for one candidate or the other – some predictably, some not so. Perhaps the most surprising and disappointing endorsement was the Des Moines Register's support for Romney. This is an important endorsement in a swing state and is a turnabout for the paper which normally supports Democratic candidates. The reason for the endorsement, which came “after great internal debate”, was because the majority of the editorial board thought Romney would work better “across the aisle” with Congress. This has no basis in fact if you look to Romney's record as Massachusetts' governor. In addition and more importantly, it lets Congressional Republicans off the hook for their obstructionist tactics that have seriously delayed the recovery of the economy. Even with Republican cooperation, recovery would have been difficult With their determination to actively obstruct and to make Obama a one-term President, it became impossible.

Perhaps the most predictable endorsement was that of the New York Times. Just a couple of excerpts from the NYT endorsement that I wish every voter would read (or better, commit to memory) before casting his or her ballot...

“Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent. Poverty would have been much worse without the billions spent on Medicaid, food stamps and jobless benefits.”

 

“[Mr. Obama] has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect.”

So what else is affecting the outcome of this election? The unlimited money pouring into GOP coffers from the Citizens United ruling will certainly make a difference. And there is another, less understood impact of this infamous decision: it overturned laws banning employers from discussing political opinions with their employees. Employers have come out in force advising their employees on the alleged consequences of a vote for Barack Obama. Although companies cannot fire their workers for voting a particular way, how would you like to receive political advertising in your payroll envelope, as the US Chamber of Commerce has been encouraging businesses to do?

Then there is the intimidation and suppression effort mounted by Republican operatives. When they have lost in the courts, they have resorted to tactics such as reported earlier this month in Ohio urban areas where billboards sprang up promising 3 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for “voter fraud”. Next door, in Republican-held Pennsylvania, there has been little official dissemination of the information that due to the recent court injunction, one does not need voter id to vote in this election.

Finally, of course, there is the race issue. Four years after the United State commendably elected its first African-American President, we have definitely not entered a post-racial era as some had hoped. Racism is even more widespread now than in 2008. Reporting on recent Associated Press surveys conducted by university researchers, Daniel Politi writes in Slate: “A full 51 percent of Americans explicitly express anti-black prejudice, up from 48 percent in 2008... When an implicit racial attitudes test is used the number increases to 56 percent, compared to 49 percent four years ago. The AP surveys... ultimately found that President Obama could lose a net 2 percentage points of the popular vote due to anti-black attitudes.” I can believe that - several voters that I've spoken to in the swing states said that they know people whose sole reason for not voting for the President is that he is black.

I'm not sure how much good the calls I've been making will do. The people I've been speaking to are good people – some with stories that would break your heart. Their lives will be greatly affected by a Romney-Ryan victory - much more so than my own. So I'll keep making the calls for them and to them. Win or lose on November 6, I'd like to feel that I've done all that I could to help prevent a Republican takeover of the Executive Branch and the disaster, or in Kevin Baker's words, “the national suicide”, that would entail.

Oh yeah, just so there is no doubt, I endorse Barack Obama for the President.

 

Links

 

New York Times Endorsement

 

Slate Article on Employers Advising Employees How to Vote

 

Slate Article on Racism Survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering George McGovern

I met George McGovern when he gave a talk at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I cannot recall now whether it was during his 1972 run for the Presidency or, more likely, after it. I went up to him after his talk and we spoke briefly. He was one of the heroes of my idealistic youth, a thoroughly decent man with a populist, compassionate approach to his politics. With his passing this Sunday October 21 at the age of 90, the country lost one of its strongest advocates for peace and social justice. The world lost one of its finest citizens.

The former Senator from South Dakota is most remembered for his opposition to the Vietnam War - the defining issue for those coming of age in the mid to late 1960's, such as myself. He had an understanding of the evils of war rooted in his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. McGovern was one of the earliest opponents of our misguided Vietnam policy – his opposition dates to the Kennedy years. If only the rest of the country had the same vision, we would have been spared this great American tragedy. When the war escalated again and again and ground on interminably during the Johnson and Nixon years, he continued to oppose the war, culminating in his capture of the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1972.

The son of a Methodist minister, George McGovern was a man of great moral clarity with the courage to speak out even when what he had to say was unpopular with his listeners. In a speech at Wheaton College in October 1972 as the Democratic candidate for President, he was greeted with catcalls and jeers from the conservative audience as students with Nixon banners paraded on the periphery of the chapel where he was speaking. He nonetheless delivered a remarkable speech. Bruce Miroff in a NYTimes OpeEd piece relates it this way: “Mr. McGovern called upon his audience to grieve not only for American casualties in Vietnam but also for the Vietnamese lives lost from American military actions. Indifference to Vietnamese deaths troubled him, so he insisted that Americans confront their own responsibility for the consequences of war and 'change those things in our character which turned us astray, away from the truth that the people of Vietnam are, like us, children of God.'...”

Even after his landslide defeat to Richard Nixon in 1972 and the loss of his Sneate seat in 1980, McGovern remained active in public life – continually advocating for a less aggressive American foreign policy and devoting his time and energy to the fight against world hunger.

He was a midwestern liberal in the mold of the prairie populists and New Deal Democrats that came from that region. That he was two-term Democratic Representative and a three-term Democratic Senator in the very red state of South Dakota speaks volumes to his ability to appeal to the best in voters of all inclinations – he was as Robert Kennedy said “the most decent man in the U.S. Senate.”

 

 

Times have changed. The odds of a return to a progressive tradition in the country's midsection are non-existent. Our political conversation drifts ever to the right and even centrists such as President Obama are painted as socialists.

In some ways, though, times have not changed at all. America has not lost its touch for engaging in senseless and unjustifiable wars. The defenders and benefactors of the miltary-industrial complex remain in control of the national defense discussion and we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican Presidential candidate offering a budget that will add two trillion dollars in unneeded and unrequested military expenditures over the next decade. Forty years ago, we at least had morally courageous leaders such as George McGovern to give us hope that someday things might be different. He will be missed.

 

Links

 

Bruce Miroff''s New York Times Op Ed "The Moral Clarity of Geroge McGovern"

 

Randall Balmer's Des Moines Register Article on George McGovern.  Randall Balmer was at Wheaton College to hear Senator McGovern's speech.  

 

Sample NYTimes OpEds by George McGovern

Katrina vanden Heuvel's article in The Nation (includes links to Nation articles by George McGovern)

Tom Daschle's article in The American Prospect

It's the Economy, Stupid(s)

As we lurch to our Citizens United-fueled 2012 election, President Obama has lost his lead among registered voters and trails Romney handily among likely voters by 6 points, according to the latest Gallup Poll.   Obama dug himself into a huge hole in the first debate and apparently is not climbing out of it.  Amazingly, even after this Tuesday's debate, Romney is considered to be the person most capable of handling the economy.  As the occasionally sage Bill Clinton once said, "It's the economy, stupid."  No other issue resonates more with the American voter.

The prevailing attitude among those favoring Romney appears to be "Well, Obama has had long enough to fix the mess."  They totally fail to understand the causes of the Great Recession, rooted as it is in Republican deregulation ideology and in the supply-side economics to which Romney will return us  (aka, "trickle down").  They totally fail to grasp the obstructionist role of the Republicans in Congress in preventing a more rapid recovery - in the neighborhood of 2 million jobs not created due to their inaction.  The Administration has not hammered on (or even articulated) these misconceptions for the past several years and it is likely a case of "too little, too late" in the closing weeks of this campaign. 

What other factors will be affecting the outcome? 

Voter suppression laws will have less than their desired effect due to a couple of recent court victories.  Pennsylvania voter ID won't take effect before this election and Ohio was ordered to allow early voting the weekend before Election Day.  On the other hand, I spoke to a Florida voter who was concerned that he had not received his absentee ballot yet.  In Ohio, anonymous groups have launched a voter-intimidation billboard campaign to scare people across Columbus and Cleveland—two Democratic strongholds—out of voting. It's a "saturation-level" advertising campaign that goes both deep and wide, promising prison time and a $10,000 fine for "voter fraud." Let's not forget Ohio 2004 election night when what appeared to be a victory for Kerry was turned around in the wee hours of the morning.  Or Florida 2000 when the Republican-controlled Supreme Court prevented a recount and crowned George Bush President.  (Now, there's something to think about - 4 SCOTUS justices will be in their late 70's or early 80's by the end of the next President's term.)

Democrats are mounting strong get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts in swing states.   But here we have to be cautious.   The formidable grassroots GOTV effort in the Wisconsin recall election could not overcome the huge money advantage of the Republican incumbent Scott Walker.  In a money neutral race with an informed citizenry, Democratic Congrssional candidates should win in a landslide - Republican Congressional approval rating was down to as low as 7% earlier this year.  But Democrats will be lucky if they can hold onto the Senate and make modest gains in the House thanks to the money pouring into Republican coffers.  For just one example, Republicans have so far spent more than $20 million in an attempt to defeat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

As the French philosopher, writer and diplomat Joseph De Maistre wrote in 1811, "Every nation has the government it deserves."  (The more common "Every country gets the government it deserves" is often wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville or Abraham Lincoln.)  So to the willfully ignorant and to the artfully misinformed, if you elect Romney-Ryan and a Republican congress, you will have the government you deserve.  Unfortunately, for the rest of us, we will also have the same government and the social safety net that has protected the vulnerable will be shredded.

Existence (a novel)

It’s been a decade since writer David Brin’s last science fiction novel appeared. This June, he came back to the genre.   Existence is an epic, near-future novel that speculates about what contact would look like in the "cosmos that we see" - that is, the relativistic universe limited by the speed of light. No warp drives, no wormholes - just old fashioned slower than light travel. As in most near-future sci-fi works, there is plenty of artificial intelligence, bionic modifications, advanced medical techniques, virtual reality, nanotechnology, class strife, factions trying to stop the advance of technology, and, of course, enhanced global electronic networking (the "infomesh" where you are literally plugged in 24/7).

Except when written by world class authors such as Margaret Atwood, these near-future scenarios and the apocalyptic scenarios that usually accompany them bore me. Attempts to create a futuristic atmosphere by peppering the work with obscure neologisms usually fail. Give me a space opera millions or at least tens of thousands of years in the future with imaginative ways to cheat the speed of light any day.

But Brin being Brin, the author puts together a captivating story that debates some of the "big questions" science fiction likes to ponder.

Gerald Livingstone, an astronaut clearing debris from Earth orbit, and Peng Xiang Bin, a shore-home-salvager working the flooded Chinese coast, both come into possession of alien artifacts - holographic crystals with messages from the stars. Powerful political factions compete for control of the crystals, which only communicate through the persons who found them. In time, humans discover the remnants of thousands of these space farers in the asteroid belt. They also discover evidence of an all-encompassing war fought there a hundred million years ago. The crystals contain uploaded minds in a twisted type of von Neumann probe - sent by their civilizations to virally spread their culture to worlds capable of supporting intelligent life. Are all these civilizations now destroyed? Is there an "intelligence trap" that prevents technological civilizations from surviving? Are we alone? Will heeding the crystals' messages save humanity or doom it?

Sapient dolphins (see Brin's Uplift novels), "auties" (autistic individuals with extra-human capabilities), androids, and a couple of Neanderthals all play a role helping "normal" humans in their efforts to understand the crystals. This gives Brin and the reader a chance to implicitly question what makes one human. What is self-awareness and how does a species achieve it?

Existence unfolds through a multitude of interesting characters and voices. Each chapter is preceded by a blog entry from one of the novel’s characters and each major section is introduced with a quote from a scientist or a writer. Two of my favorites are an imagined conversation between John von Neumann and Enrico Fermi on whether we are alone in the universe and the following quote from Charles Darwin: “We need not marvel at extinction; if we must marvel, let it be at our presumption in imagining that we understand the many complex contingencies, on which the existence of each species depends."

These get to the heart of Brin’s novel.   Are we the only technological civilization to have survived? Do we have the maturity to advance further as a species ? Or will we devolve into nationalistic tribalism in a world racked by ecological disaster? 

　

Miscellany

The Existence website is www.davidbrin.com/existence.html. Besides the usual review blurbs and PR, there are also  comments by readers and bloggers, a study guide, and a link to articles related to Existence and its themes.


Related The Left Bank Café posts

- Anybody Out There? August 9, 2012

- Why Does the World Exist? September 29, 2012


　
Von Neumann Probes

Von Neumann probes and their variants have formed a staple for science fiction works for decades. A von Neumann probe is a self-replicating robotic probe first proposed by mathematician and physicist John von Neumann.   Probes would be sent out in all directions to explore the galaxy for life or worlds capable of sustaining life. Landing on an asteroid, moon, or planet, each probe would be programmed to manufacture additional versions of itself. These probes would in turn be sent further out into the galaxy...and so on until the galaxy was totally explored.

In the 1980’s the von Neumann machine concept generated a debate between physicist/cosmologist Frank Tipler (co-author of The Cosmological Anthropic Principle) on the one hand and Carl Sagan and William Newman on the other. Tipler argued that, given the age of the Universe, a von Neumann probe should have reached the solar system by now; no probe has ever been detected…therefore no other technological intelligent species exists.  Sagan, one of the biggest proponents of the Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence (SETI), and Newman responded that, given the age of the Universe, von Neumann probes would have devoured much of the mass of the galaxy by now. So an intelligent race would not have built them and would destroy them if any came into their star system.

What's with Florida?

It's sort of like when “W” extended the so called “War on Terror” to Iraq. There were absolutely no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until our misguided invasion inspired their recruitment and drew them there. Now Florida, one of the Republican-held voter suppression states, finally has some real cases of voter fraud to talk about. The fraud is the work of Republican operatives.

I heard of the growing scandal on Saturday while I was making get-out-the-vote calls for MoveOn. I was talking to a MoveOn member from Detroit when he asked what we were going to do about the voter fraud in Florida. I looked up the various posts and, sure enough, Republican operatives were engaged in voter registration fraud. The operative's firm has ties deep within the Republican party and has received $3 million from the RNC over the past two months. The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, was finally fired by the RNC Thursday. The widespread nature of the fraud (11 counties so far) became apparent late in the week and that's when the story went (more or less) national. Frankly, it's not getting nearly the exposure that it should in the national news media. The New York Times had a short article on September 28, as did the Washington Post.

By far the best coverage is coming from the Brad Friedman's watchdog BRAD BLOG, which broke the story as it started to unveil on Tuesday. From the September 30 BRAD BLOG post: “The strategy [of registering only Romney supporters] resulted in...fraudulent registration forms collected by the firm and then submitted in Florida by the state GOP with voter addresses, signatures and party affiliations changed.... Election officials in the state have told The BRAD BLOG that they fear the scheme could result in the disenfranchisement of a still-unknown number of otherwise legal voters.”

 

So here we go again. In the key swing state of Florida, the poster child for the Republican voter suppression effort and the scene for the infamous “no recount” SCOTUS decision that handed the 2000 election to Bush, Republicans have registered voters fraudulently. In the process, they have possibly disenfranchised many additional legal voters not already disenfranchised by the voter suppression effort. In this state of affairs, the polls showing an Obama lead in Florida mean nothing.

Other Republican tactics to discourage Democratic-leaning voters include closing or changing polling places (a voter in Ohio told me that in his town the number of polling locations was reduced from 15 to 4) and sending operatives to polling places as vote challengers (voters in both Florida and Michigan mentioned this to me). On the latter, there were some encouraging words from a lawyer in Michigan, who said she was going to go to the polls to ensure in Wayne County (Detroit) that voters were not intimidated by what she called “young men with clipboards”. The MoveOn member from Detroit mentioned earlier had a good response too: “I vote in Detroit and those [poll watchers] are not going to dare to intimidate anyone.”

Even if President Obama wins in November, there is a good possibility that Republicans will still control the House and may pick up the Senate. Thanks to the Citizens United decision, Democrats across the board are being outspent many-times-to-one, in these races. Even Kirsten Gillebrand in heavily Democratic New York State appears to be in a tight race. We should never underestimate what money can do to swing the election. Just look at Scott Walker's victory in the Wisconsin governor recall election and at the 2010 Congressional midterm elections. Money wins elections and until Citizens United is overturned, Republicans will have an insurmountable money advantage. Voter turnout (and protection) and message framing are key to overcoming the money advantage. Democrats need to make sure their message is heard. They need to respond to falsely accusing attack ads immediately (please, no more swiftboat “responses”) - before the lies take on a patina of truth in the mind of the American public.

 

After going on about the missed opportunities and disappointments of Obama's first term, Kevin Baker in the October Harper's Magazine, concludes his article “Why Vote?” this way: “So yes, go out and vote. Go vote for Barack Obama, and whatever other Democrats or progressives are running for office where you live. To vote for a Mitt Romney—to vote for the modern right anywhere in the West today—is an act of national suicide. The right is hollow to its core; it has no dreams, no vision, no plans to deal with any of the problems that confront us, only infantile fantasies of violence and consumption. But it is, at the moment, well funded, well organized, and feeling especially threatened. It is capable of anything.”

 

Miscellany – Links to Articles of Interest

 

Wisconsin's anti-union law advanced by Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin State Legilature was struck down as unconstitutional on September 14. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas struck down the law, which essentially eliminated collective-bargaining rights for most public employees, as a violation of the state and U.S. Constitution. (Politico)

 

Pennsylvania's strict voter ID law remains in limbo although a Pennsylvania judge (to whom the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “punted”) said on Thursday that he may issue an injunction. As the sage Yogi Berra once sid: “It ain't over 'til it's over.” Opponents argue the law could create "a very large problem" for as many as half a million voters in Pennsylvania. They argue that a disproportionate number of those impacted would be racial minorities, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. (CBS News, Sept. 27)

 

Robert Reich's video on the 7 Biggest Economic Lies (MoveOn clip)

 

 

 

 

Why Does The World Exist?

Jim Holt's recently published Why Does the World Exist? attempts to answer (or at least ponder) what William James called the “darkest question in all philosophy” - to wit, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Holt explores philosophical, theological, and scientific attempts to answer the question. In the process, he interviews several modern day thinkers on the subject.   Reading a review of Holt's book started me thinking. I recalled reading some years ago about the “anthropic principle", a relatively recent development in cosmology.

That this universe exists at all is indeed a particularly awesome and wondrous fact. Consider that, if any one of numerous fundamental physical constants were off by the smallest fraction, the universe as we know it would not exist. For example, if the strong nuclear force were not exactly what it is, elements would not be able to form. Or, if protons were not exactly 1836 times the size of an electron, elements would not be able to combine into molecules. Two other important examples are the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force (this keeps stars from immediately collapsing) and the excited energy level of the carbon atom (without this exact level of 7.65 million electron-volts, insufficient carbon would be formed in stars to form the basis for life). And there are many, many more.

Many physicists and cosmologists who have considered these facts subscribe to one version or another of the anthropic principle. The phrase “anthropic principle” was coined by astrophysicist Brandon Carter at a 1973 symposium in Krakow that marked the 500^th anniversary of Copernicus' birth. Copernicus, as you recall, was the Renaissance astronomer who first formulated a cosmology wherein the earth was not at the center of the universe but rather revolved around the Sun. Carter created the phrase in reaction to a recent extension and generalization of Copernican Principle - i.e., not only is the Earth not at the center of the universe but humans are not even privileged observers of the universe. Carter, examining the remarkable coincidences similar to those noted above, disagreed. As he stated: “Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent.”

The anthropic principle comes in several flavors. The most basic distinction is between the “Weak” and “Strong” anthropic principles. Beyond these two versions, there are the more scientifically speculative “Participatory” and “Final” Anthropic Principles. Here is a short description of each for your consideration.

Let's start with the Weak Anthropic Principle and work our way up. The Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) basically states that all the possible values for the physical and cosmological constants are not equally probable. Some are more probable than others. Specifically the values of these constants are restricted to what is compatible with the observable facts: namely, that there are sites where carbon-based life can evolve and that the Universe has existed long enough for carbon-based life to have done so. 

Now let's up the ante a bit and consider the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP). Simply stated: the Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop at some stage in its history.

One interpretation of the SAP is that the Universe requires observers and is designed with the goal of generating and sustaining these observers.  Humanity (or some other intelligent, information-gathering life form) is thus necessary to the Universe's existence.  This is sometimes referred to as the Participatory Anthropic Principle.  It is derived from the concepts of quantum mechanics - i.e., it takes an intelligent observer to collapse the Universe's probability waves into relatively concrete reality.

Last and most speculative is the Final Anthropic Principle. In this version, intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.

The Anthropic Principle has its scientific supporters and detractors, as does each of its various interpretations. Theologians favor the Anthropic Principle because it appears to give a glimpse of a Creative God.   I'm not sure what philosophers think of it or if it answers Jim Holt's question to his satisfaction but it sure gives us something to think about. The Universe is wondrous and contingent. The Anthropic Principle is one plausible attempt to explain it.

Miscellany

Today, September 29th, is the 58th anniversary of "The Catch" - Willie Mays' astounding catch and throw in the 1954 World Series, the greatest fielding play in baseball history.  In an application of the Participatory Anthropic Principle, I have no doubt that one of the reasons I exist at this time is to have observed The Catch.  ;-)

Here are links to a great video and some neat still shots.

Readings/references

The basic text on this subject (the Anthropic Principle not The Catch) is The Cosmological Anthropic Principle by John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler, and John A. Wheeler.

Wikipedia

J. Redmane's “The Anthropic Principle” website

http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lwilliam/sota/anth/anthropic_principle_index.html


 

The Price of Inequality

The Price of Inequality by Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz is a book filled with insight into the workings (or non-workings) of the markets and on the roles of government and of central banks in the economy. A major theme of the book is that “inequality is as much the result of political forces as of economic ones.” He explodes prevailing myths about the “free” market place, globalization, the effectiveness of austerity programs, GDP as an indicator of economic performance, and government vs. private efficiency. He also exposes the policies enacted since the 1980’s that brought about the Great Recession and the current state of inequality in this country. This historic inequality has potentially serious consequences as the book’s subtitle states: “How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future”.

Let’s face it. It is not a level playing field. The rules of the game have been shaped by the powerful. One concept that Stiglitz introduces and that is at the heart of inequality is what economists call rent seeking. Broadly defined, rent seeking occurs when those at the top get income “not as a reward [for] creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort.” Some examples of rent-seeking include sale of natural resource leases on public lands at below market value, statutes that allow corporations to pass costs on to the rest of society, government subsidies and noncompetitive procurement practices (e.g., private contracting for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). Basically, it’s the corporate welfare that is so engrained in our tax codes and government policies.

In the section on “history of the deficit“, Stiglitz reviews how the country went from the large surpluses of the Clinton years to the seemingly out-of-control deficits of today. He lays the blame squarely where it belongs: the Bush tax cuts (about 1/5 of the 2012 deficit; $3.3 trillion dollars if extended for 2011-2020), the expenses incurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (long-term this will exceed $2-3 trillion), the provision that the Federal government, the largest buyer of drugs in the world, couldn’t negotiate price with drug companies as part of the Medicare Drug Benefit (worth “by some estimates, a half trillion dollars over ten years”) and, of course, the biggest contributor by far - The Great Recession brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble and the deregulated financial environment so dear to those on the Right. As Stiglitz states, “16 percent of the deficit was for measures to stimulate the economy…but almost half (48 percent) of the entire deficit was a result of underperformance of the economy.” The latter, he explains, “led to lower tax revenues and higher expenditures on unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other social protection programs.”

Stiglitz is well aware that the major problem now is not the deficit but the joblessness and lack of demand in the economy. Companies are not investing in capital or labor - not because they are unprofitable or lack confidence in the government but because there is a lack of demand brought about by the Great Recession. This lack of demand could be alleviated by government spending (for example, on infrastructure and education) and by benefits to those that would spend the money and put it back into the economy (e.g., unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc.) There is a multiplicative return to the economy on these expenditures - exactly the expenditures demonized by those on the Right.

In addition to discussions on the history of austerity program failures from the time of Hoover to the current European economic crisis, the deleterious effects of central bank policies on real wages, the evisceration of our democracy and the causes for the loss of American leadership abroad, the author throws out an occasional gem such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Striker Fighter project. This weapon that we don’t need for a type of conflict we will not be fighting, at $382 billion, “costs half of the entire Obama stimulus program.”

The book is not about the politics of envy but, as Stiglitz states in his concluding chapter, it is “instead about the politics of efficiency and fairness.” After reading more than 250 pages on how the system was rigged for inequality, I was beginning to lose hope. Is there any way out of this mess? Is there any way to restore upward mobility to the 99%?

In the last chapter, the author presents a well thought out program of economic reform. Among the reforms that would make a big difference are curbing the financial sector (“Dodd Frank is a start but only a start”), stronger and more effectively enforced competition laws, improved corporate governance, comprehensive bankruptcy law reform, ending government giveaways in the disposition of public assets and in procurement, ending corporate welfare including hidden subsidies, and comprehensive legal reform to democratize access to justice. In addition, he proposes two significant tax reforms - a more progressive income and corporate tax system with fewer loopholes and a more effective estate tax system. Several additional actions “would make a big difference in the plight of the 99 percent”: improving access to education, helping ordinary Americans save (“say, a matching grant or expansion of first-time home owner programs”), universal health care, and strengthening other social protection programs.

There are additional proposals on tempering globalization (“ending the race to the bottom” as Stiglitz phrases it), fiscal and monetary policies to restore and maintain full employment, and a growth agenda based on public investment. He also addresses “immediate issues” - fixing the mortgage problem by restructuring mortgages, more aggressive stimulation of the economy to increase employment and more active labor market policies to train workers for new jobs.

Citizens United has ensured the dominance of the 1% agenda in national politics for the foreseeable future. Without major political reforms, it is doubtful that the political process would allow even the “barest elements of this agenda.” So we are probably looking at a long-term thing. It has taken the Right 30 years of relentless propagandizing of a failed economic theory and policies to bring us to the inequality and economic crisis that we see today. Perhaps it will take as long for the country to regain its senses.

In light of this, “Is There Hope?” - as the concluding section of the book asks. Stiglitz sees two routes by which reform might happen. “Those in the 99 percent could come to realize that they have been duped by the 1 percent: that what is in the interests of the 1 percent is not in their interests…and…the second way that reform could happen [is that] the 1 percent could realize that what’s been happening in the United States is not only inconsistent with our values but not even in the 1 percent’s own interest.”

He then presents two visions for America a half century from now. One is of a society even more divided between the haves in gated communities and have-nots with ever decreasing opportunity for advancement. We would devolve to a plutocracy.

The other is a vision of a society of “shared destiny and a common commitment to opportunity and fairness, where the words ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually mean what they seem to mean…This second vision is the only one consistent with our heritage and our values.”

So is there hope? Stiglitz concludes that yes, there is hope but time is running out. “Four years ago there was a moment where most Americans had the audacity to hope. Trends more than a quarter century in the making might have been reversed…Today, that hope is flickering.”

If Obama does win a second term, this book should be required reading both for him and for his entire economic policy team. They really need to be better informed. Better yet, he should bring in Joseph Stiglitz to head up and reorganize his team. (See #4 on the October 24, 2011 post: Obama Short(falls) List.)  Of course, if the 1% wins in November and Republicans control Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency, we will lose any chance to even begin implementing the slightest of the necessary reforms for at least four years.

Romney. the Neocons, and Iran

Remember how “W”, advised by the Neocon cabal, took us to war and invaded a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, absolutely no Al-Qaeda presence, and absolutely no weapons of mass destruction?

Well, watch out if the Mittster is elected. Many of these same Neocons are whispering in Romney's ear about Iran. His rhetoric over the past couple of weeks has made it clear that the nation would have to be crazy to elect this man to lead the country. (Of course, if the Republicans can effectively deny five million voters their basic democratic right to vote, he may just pull it off.) Besides taking hundreds of billions of dollars from domestic programs for military weapons that even the armed forces don't want, Romney has given every indication of letting the right wing Israeli leader Netanyahu call the shots on the timing of “military action” against Iran regardless of how damaging that would be to the United States. His political posturing and criticism of Obama's handling of the attacks on American embassies were totally offbase and show him unfit to lead this country in any capacity.

I've criticized Obama for staying in Afghanistan, for taking too long to extricate the US from Iraq, and for being played like a fiddle by Isreal's right wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu on the Palestinian – Israeli peace process. But at least Obama has finally gotten the troops out of Iraq and set a date when US combat forces will be out of Afghanistan. He appears to be making a good faith effort to negotiate a solution to the Iran nuclear program. In addition, Israeli overreaction to Palestinian actions has been relatively muted with nothing to date to compare with the devastating incursion into Palestinian territority at the end of the Bush's second term that more than 1000 Palestinians dead, many or most of the victims civilians. Can you imagine Romney putting any kind of restraint on Netanyahu? Yes that same Netanyahu who said earlier this week, in the middle of the election cycle in an effort to try to force Obama's hand, that if the Obama administration was unwilling to set fixed red lines that Iran could not cross, it “has no ‘moral right’ to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own” ?

Bad as his domestic policies would be, Romney's foreign and defense policies would bring about the same loss of US influence and respect seen during the Bush years. Combined with his tax breaks for the very wealthy and his deregulation, another costly war would be the crowning blow to the United States economy. We'd be worse off than with Bush. To say Romney knows nothing about foreign affairs may have been a mistatement on my part. If he really believes the garbage that's been coming out of his mouth recently, he would be downright dangerous.

Now the real work begins

The conventions are over and now the critical work of re-electing the President begins. There is much at stake for individual Americans and for the country as a whole. Every vote will be needed if we are to prevent a return to the policies that brought about the Great Recession still affecting so many and a retraction of the social safety net upon which so many depend.

I have to admit that I did not watch one minute of the Republican convention. So I did not experience first hand their negative alternate reality of an America in sad decline solely because Barack Obama and his policies have placed the boot of government on our necks. I understand that the RNC was a bit of a ho-hum, nostalgic look back to earlier times.  Yes, some things don't change – like the Republican disregard for the truth. Can you believe a Republican strategist actually said that they would not devise their ads and campaign strategy based on “fact checkers”. Paul Ryan, the “brains” of the Republican Party, showed both his disregard for the facts (blaming an auto plant closing that happened at the end of the Bush era on Obama) and in the memorable words of Bill Clinton, his “brass” (condemning Obama for making efficiency savings in Medicare that, to the dollar, are part and parcel of his own Medicare plan). As Clinton put it: “You got to admit one thing — it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.” And of course, there was little mention of foreign policy in the RNC because their Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates have absolutely no experience in the area – other than to want to take us back to a cold war mentality and spend hundreds of billions more on the defense budget than even the Joint Chiefs of Staff want.

I did see Michelle's moving personal tribute to the President and Bill Clinton's superb take down of the Republican talking points. Republican strategists to the contrary, it helps when you have facts on your side: 42 million private sector jobs created in the last 24 years of Democratic administrations vs. 24 million such jobs created in the last 28 years of Republican administrations. And of course I tuned in for Obama's closing speech which fired the admittedly partisan audience up to a fever pitch - not something I suspect happened at the RNC. In his speech, the President turned the tables on the Republicans for criticizing hope and change. Yes, he said, change is difficult and we are not satisfied with the incomplete progress made towards repairing the still-struggling economy.  But we need to keep in mind that we have been facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression:  "The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over the decades."

Most importantly, the President presented a vision of a future America changed for the better – one where we work together instead of going it alone. As the President said: "But when all is said and done — when you pick up that ballot to vote — you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation. Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace — decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come. On every issue, the choice you face won't be just between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future."

There is much at stake – domestically and internationally – if the Romney-Ryan ticket is victorious in November. I've been speaking to people as a volunteer for a MoveOn get-out-the-vote effort in swing states. One Pennsylvania voter replied to my comment that a lot is at stake in this election. She said “I know. It's my life.” With the reduction of the social safety net in this country that would result from a Romney-Ryan administration - including programs for the poor and healthcare, I had the distinct feeling that she meant this literally. Disappointing as Obama's foreign policy has been (too long to get out of Iraq, still in Afghanistan), at least there is a commitment to bring the troops home in 2014. What can we expect from the Republican Presidential candidate who referred to the final withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as “tragic”?

Drowned in an avalanche of right wing political ads and outright hatred, the Democratic message is not getting through to many. I spoke to one voter, a teacher and former Obama supporter, who said that she was voting for Romney because her husband, a small business owner, says that he has suffered under Obama and that Obama was leading us to socialism. Also that Obama had had enough time and hadn't been able to turn the economy around. I guess she hadn't listened to Bill Clinton's speech. I wished I pursued it more but the effort may have been fruitless. Her mind was made up.

You can expect much more of this reaction in the coming months. Robocalls that misleadingly state that Obama is weakening the welfare to work requirements play to the baser instincts of some voters. The flood of Citizens United money will inundate the airwaves with negative and misleading sound bites. And although Obama has been a very centrist President, the charge of socialism will be levied at him. It's been more effective with independent voters than the charge that he is Muslim, which plays well with the ignorant, the paranoid and the racist.

If all the negative ads and nutcase virulence don't do the trick, then voter suppression laws very well might. Up to 5 million primarily Democratic voters could be disenfranchised this November. Voter turnout will be key. Guess it's time for me to make a few more phone calls.

Update: I just saw this video of John Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders of the early 1960's.  I am sorry I missed this speech at the Democratic National Convention- a powerful, moving indictment of the Republican voter suppression effort.
http://front.moveon.org/one-of-the-most-powerful-speeches-of-the-entire-democratic-national-convention/?rc=daily.share
 

Night Fishing at Antibes

Musée Picasso is located at the Chateau Grimaldi in Antibes overlooking the Mediterranean. The museum has some spectacular views of the sea from its outdoor sculpture garden, which contains works by Picasso and others.

Picasso had stayed at the chateau for a couple of very productive months in 1946 and had visited and stayed in Antibes on other occasions.  My favorite work in this modest-sized collection is a remarkable tapestry of the painting "Night Fishing at Antibes".   Picasso had done the oil painting that is the subject of the tapestry in 1939 shortly before the outbreak of World War II.  The oil painting itself is at MOMA in New York (and I now understand the museum shop salesperson's confusing answer to my question as to where I could get a print of the tapestry).  Unfortunately, according to the MOMA website, the work is "not on view" at the present.  Copies are widely available on the web - here's one of them. 



(Note: this artwork may be protected by copyright. It is posted on the site in accordance with fair use principles.)

Picasso was inspired to paint this dream-like scene after observing fisherman in Antibes using acetylene lamps at night to lure fish.  The central figure is a large-headed man spear-fishing off the coast of Antibes.  Two young women to the right of the painting - one on a bicycle enjoying an ice cream -  are watching the action while another fisherman is peering over the side of the boat into the water trying, unsuccessfully it seems, to catch a fish with a line attached to his foot.  The large areas of black contrast with the brighter highlighted fishing scene.

The scale of the painting (nearly 7 ft high and more than 11 ft long) has suggested to some that this is more than just an idyllic beach tableau from an August night in 1939.  The interspersion of black throughout the scene, the almost ritualistic killing of the fish and the strange moon (?) that may or may not be an ancient symbol of death have suggested to some that the painting reflects the rising political tensions just prior to the outbreak of World War II or perhaps the outcome of the Spanish Civil War.  If so, Night  Fishing at Antibes is nowhere near as directly stated as his more famous Guernica, which was painted two years earlier during the Spanish Civil War. 

Perhaps Night Fishing is just an idyllic summer beach scene.  Or perhaps it is one with a foreboding that this enjoyable personal time will not last.  One of the great things about modern art is that it is so open to personal interpretation.  In any case, I am eagerly awaiting MOMA to put this great work of art on view again and I hope that you can get to see it too someday.


UPDATE:  February, 2015 - "Night Fishing at Antibes" is now on view at MOMA.  See comments below.


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Cezanne's Pig
The Turning of the Centuries

Keystone State is Key

Wednesday, a Republican judge in Pennsylvania denied the request for an injunction to stop Pennsylvania's voter ID law from going into effect. This was done in spite of the acknowledgement of all involved with the case that in person voting fraud is practically nonexistent in Pennsylvania. Although the plaintiffs are filing an appeal with the 6 member state Supreme Court, they need four votes to overturn Judge Simpson's ruling. Three of the PA Supreme Court justices are Republican and three Democratic. I don't hold much hope for the appeal to be successful. We've already seen what an ideological, politically motivated court can do – from the denial of the Bush Florida recount to Citizens United. I will be totally surprised if one Republican judge votes on the side of fairness, on the side of the defining right of a democracy.

There is no question but that this law, as others passed in states with Republican-held state legislatures, is intended solely to suppress the vote of minorities and other Democratic voters. These are the voters least likely or able to have the ID's or afford them or, in the case of elderly voters, obtain the birth certificates and other documents necessary. Some grassroots efforts are being started by Al Sharpton and others to help the voters get their ID's. The task they are facing in Pennsylvania is monumental – up to 750,000 registered voters who voted in the 2008 election could be denied their right to vote. All told there are a million registered voters in Pennsylvania without the required ID and one third of registered voters are unaware that an ID law even exists. And there are just 82 days to get the job done – i.e., more than 12,000 people per day need to be getting their ID's.

How important is this? Well, in 2008 Obama took Pennsylvania by 600,000 votes. The math is clear – if 750,000 overwhelmingly Democratic voters were denied their right to vote, John McCain would have carried Pennsylvania in 2008. The race in 2012 is much closer – Obama is not running against the backdrop of the huge Bush failures this time. If these votes are denied or if voters can't get their ID's, Romney will win Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is critical for Obama's re-election. Obama will not win the Presidency if he loses Pennsylvania.

NY Times columnist Charles Blow has written several insightful columns on the upcoming election recently. In an August 1 blog, he pointed out how the voter suppression laws will, at a minimum, hold down turnout and that polls showing an Obama lead, especially in the many swing states with voter suppression laws, need to be taken with a large grain of salt. In a July 27 column, he notes that Democratic voters are not as enthusiastic about going to the polls as they were in 2008 or even 2004. That column also has some interesting statistics on the money unleashed by Citizen's United and the potential impact of the voter suppression laws. States that have passed restrictive voting laws account for 214 electoral votes – about 79% of the amount needed to win the Presidency.

The right to vote has come under its worst, most outrageous attack since before the Civil Rights era. This has been a well-funded, organized effort to deny legitimate voters one of the most important rights in a democracy. Republicans should be ashamed and Democrats should be outraged. Outraged enough to go to the polls in droves. Get your ID if you can but go to the polls even if you can't get your ID. Demand that your vote be taken and counted. Let the state of Pennsylvania (or any other democracy-deficient state) prove you are not who you say you are.

Cezanne's Pig

One of the many pleasures of our vacation in the South of France was the opportunity to visit the sites where artists created their paintings, to view and experience the landscapes and light that inspired them and informed their work. Aix-en-Provence is a graceful, elegant city steeped in art history and culture. Its fountains, squares, mansions and museums help Aix retain its architectural heritage.  It is a cosmopolitan city and home to 40,000 university students.  Its central boulevard, the plane-tree-and café-lined Cours Mirabeau, is considered one of the most beautiful in France. 

The Cours Mirabeau, Aix-en-Provence

Aix is the city of Cézanne. He lived and painted here - his studio (Atelier Cézanne) as well as his family estate (the Jas de Bouffan) are both in Aix. We visited these as well as a café that Cézanne frequented with writer Emile Zola and the building that housed his father's hat store before his career change to the banking profession. Unfortunately we did not have time to visit the quarries at Bibemus with its view of Mt. Saint Victoire,

The Atelier, located up a steep hill from the city center, preserves Cézanne's indoor work area where he composed many of his still lifes. There is a peaceful garden surrounding the workshop and you can imagine Cézanne setting up his easel and painting Mt. Sainte Victoire – still visible in the distance.

If you only have time to visit just one of the Cézanne sites, I'd suggest the Jas de Bouffan. Although the family home is now almost completely devoid of furnishings and has none of Cézanne's paintings (long since departed for the museums of Paris, New York, etc.), there is an excellent tour that provides a great introduction to Cézanne and his works. Cézanne's paintings are projected on the walls of the main room. You tour the estate and see the locations where he painted many of his landscapes. The description of the stages of his artistic development and the biographical sketch of the artist are informative and interesting. What my wife Diane christened as “Cézanne's pig” made its appearance during one explanation in the back garden. A black and white baby pig sauntered over to the tour group, sniffed around the tree near which we were standing (looking for truffles?), and then wandered slowly away. I have no idea where the pig came from – perhaps one of the neighboring properties - but I'd like to think of him (or her) as the descendant of one of the pigs that lived at Jas de Bouffan while Cézanne was painting. Alas, I have been unable to find any Cézanne painting featuring a pig.

Jas de Bouffan, the family estate from 1859-1899



Paul Cézanne was born in Aix in 1839. He certainly qualifies as one of the cultural giants of the nineteenth century who paved the way for the revolutionary changes at the turn of the twentieth century. (See the August 3 post, TheTurning of the Centuries). Recognition of his genius came late in life but time has been kind to his reputation and lucrative to those who own his painitngs. Earlier this year, the nation of Qatar paid 250 million dollars to purchase one of his “Card Player” paintings. This was the highest price paid for any painting. Ever.

Cézanne is sometimes classified as a Post-Impressionist but, over the course of his life, he painted in many styles and art historians have identified four stages of his development. His earliest paintings, through 1870, were emotional and expressive – the output of an intense young man. Some had violent or erotic subjects. These paintings were generally composed in dark colors, which led some to name this stage of Cézanne's artistic development the “dark period”.

The paintings of the next stage were influenced by the techniques and colors of the Impressionists. It included many landscapes created in the open air. Cézanne was a slow and exacting artist. One wonders how he kept pace with his Impressionist friend Camille Pissaro, who strongly influenced Cézanne and with whom Cézanne often painted outdoors. Perhaps he did not. In comparing paintings by the two artists of the identical scene (an orchard in Pontoise), Richard Murphy in The World of Cézanne [WOC] contrasts Cézanne's greater interest in the architectural elements – the buildings and walls near the orchard - with Pissaro's emphasis on the light variations and colors around the leaves and the trees. Pissaro's painting shows the orchard in full blossom while Cézanne's has most of the leaves and blossoms gone from the trees and the building and wall more clearly seen. Murphy writes: “...there was quite possibly a purely practical reason for the differences... Cézanne worked so slowly that the blossoms may very well have fallen from the trees before he could complete his picture.”

Beginning about 1878, Cézanne entered what has been called his “Constructive Period.” Cézanne referred to his paintings as “constructions after nature”, built out of “plastic equivalents and color”, and urged that we “see in nature the cylinder, the sphere and the cone”. [WOC] This artistic philosophy seems almost Platonic – looking for an ideal form beyond the immediate visual impression, imbuing meaning beyond that given by our senses. For twenty years, he had spent time painting in both Paris and in Provence. Then in the late 1870's, he moved back to Aix more or less permanently and away from the influence of the Impressionists. Besides landscapes and portraits, he began painting still lifes (more than 200 over the course of his life) - bringing back a genre that had lost favor over the years. A still life lends itself easily to his artistic philosophy – the forms are more distinct and the painting could be “constructed” more easily.

The last stage of his development was “a peiod of synthesis during which his painting, incorporating elements of all the previous styles, became freer and more nearly abstract.” [WOC] His later works laid the groundwork for the abstract painting of the twentieth century. Cézanne died in 1906 at the age of 67, having contracted pneumonia after painting in a downpour for two hours. Both Matisse and Picasso have been credited with the line that “Cézanne is the father of us all”.

Here are several paintings that I think show both the stages of Cézanne's artistic development and the changes in art styles through the nineteenth century.  From top to bottom are examples from his early Expressionist/emotional/"dark" period ( Portrait of Achille Emperaire, Cézanne's friend - c. 1868), his Impressionist period (Jas de Bouffan, 1876), the Constructive period (Still Life with Open Drawer, c. 1879) and the Synthesis Period (Le Mont Sainte Victoire, c.1904).

 

 

 

Attribution

The Time-Life Library of Art series has an excellent summary and analysis of Cézanne, his life, his art, and his times: “The World of Cézanne: 1839-1906” by Richard W. Murphy. If you can get your hands on a copy (it was published/copyrighted in 1968), it would be a great way to explore Cézanne further. The notation [WOC] designates direct quotes from the book.

Links

No blog entry can capture even a small portion of Cézanne's work. The paintings above are simply examples to illustrate the various stages of the development of his art. The web has many images of of his paintings. Here are links to images of ten more of his works along with their current locale.

The Card Players                                                                    Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Bathers                                                                              The National Gallery, London

This YouTube video includes a brief discussion of the work.

The Black Clock                                                                      Private collection

The Railway Cutting                                                                Neue Pinakothek, Munich

At the right of this 1870 painting is Mt. Sainte Victoire.  This is the first time this favorite subject appeared in a Cézanne painting.

Mont-Sainte-Victoire from Bibemus Quarry                            Baltimore Museum of Art

This is a later painting of Mt. Sainte Victoire (1898-1900).  There is a brief discussion of the work at the Baltimore Museum of Art's webpage. Click here to go there.

Mardi Gras (Harlequin andPierrot)                                             Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Still Life with Apples and Fruit Bowl

The Gulf of Marseille Seen from L'Estaque                              Art Institute of Chicago

View of Gardanne                                                                      Brooklyn Museum of Art

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The Turn in the Road atAuvers                                                  Private Collection

Here are two websites with thorough (complete?) collections of the paintings.

http://www.paul-cezanne.org/

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/paul-cezanne