The New Republican Strategy: Attack Success!

So, the latest strategy of the Republican Party is to label the Obama administration's economic strategies a failure because they. . . uh, well, worked?  Now that is an interesting take.  On the other hand, had Obama and his team done what FDR did to Hoover back in 1932, then Republicanism would be as dead as it was then.  Desperate for a way to stem the avalanche toward a deep and irreversible depression, President Hoover asked President-elect Roosevelt to join with him in developing a bi-partisan economic strategy that would work.  Roosevelt refused, believing there was nothing politically to gain by helping a Republican government head off an economic disaster.  Further complicating things for average Americans back then, was the tradition of waiting until March to swear in a new president.  For by late winter in 1932, the country was in complete financial and credit collapse, banks were failing at the rate of one per day, and jobs in the private sector were all but gone.

As any high school graduate can tell you, the cause of the Great Depression was the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929.  Too bad it isn't quite true.  Without a doubt, Wall Street played a pivotal role in the Depression scenario, but it was the banking failures of 1931 and especially '32 that really crushed the American economy.  Then as now, American businesses, both large and small, were dependent on a steady supply of credit to pay their day to day business expenses.  Everything from payrolls to the purchase of necessary raw materials was funded by short term loans from commercial banks.  Boiled down, the business cycle was pretty simple:  borrow money at the beginning of each month to cover expenses, and then pay down the loan with end of the month receivables, so one could borrow again.

The collapse of the booming securities markets of the 1920s was definitely alarming, but to average Americans it was little more than an interesting side show.  Very few workers were in the market, and for most it was almost fun to see the rich Wall Street fat cats skewered by their own insatiable greed.  But right beneath the quaking investment houses in New York, was a heavily leveraged American banking system without the reserves in capital to cover the speculation they had financed.  By the time FDR took office, and the American people really took notice, it was too late.  Banks were failing at an all time record pace, as panicked customers tried to withdraw all their savings. Credit had completely dried up, businesses could not cover their operating expenses, the work force was cut, inventories piled-up, prices plummeted and, well, you have all seen the history text photos of bread lines and shanty towns.

Leap ahead to 2008.  Wall Street is teetering on the edge as the Great American Mortgage Bubble has burst.  Investment, commercial, and retail banks, having been de-regulated by fifteen years of Republican leadership in Washington, are heavily leveraged in the bundled mortgage securities industry, and they are beginning to fail.  But this time, a Republican president, along with a Democratic President-elect, cooperate on a strategy to prevent a total collapse of our banking system.  The Bush program, called the Toxic Assets Relief Program, pumps almost a trillion dollars into the critically ill banking industry, followed in January (thanks to the Twentieth Amendment) by another trillion dollars in President Obama's Economic Stimulus package.  And guess what?  All but a handful of banks are saved.  Ten percent, rather than thirty percent unemployment, no bread lines and no Hoovervilles!  The investment markets are now recovering and most economists predict that 2010 will mark the beginning of a robust period of re-hiring and new job creation.

So what is the Republican strategy for the upcoming mid-term election cycle?  Easy, invent a problem where none really exists.  Taking a page from the failed policies of the 1920s, the Republican party is claiming that the deficits created by the Bush/Obama/Bernanke monetary policies will doom the country.  Add to that, a comical assertion that the above mentioned spending policies hurt rather than helped the economy, and you have their formula for electoral success.  Never mind the lessons of history, since there was no depression in 2008, then there would not have been one, right?  And all that shoring up of our nation's most important financial institutions was completely unnecessary, as the "Free Market" would have solved everything. . . you know, like it did in 1929, 1930, 1931, well, you get the picture.

But then what do you expect from the party that claims that Global Warming is an illusion, America has the best health care system in the world, escalating military involvement is the answer for all foreign policy dilemmas, Fred Flintstone and the dinosaurs actually lived together, and Sarah Palin is a great American.  Too bad President Obama put his country ahead of his politics back in 2008.  If only he'd acted like Franklin Roosevelt and allowed our finacial system to collapse.  Yeah, that is what we needed, the good old days of the Grapes of Wrath.  Now if only he would come to his senses in foreign policy too and start dropping nuclear bombs on Iran. . . you know, like Cheney suggested.

All the Way with LBJ, or Here We Go With BHO!

OK, I lied!  Even though it was a great idea to move over while my students were blogging, I found that I missed the therapeutic value of ranting.  So I am once again going to start up my left-wing, commie, radical, secular-humanistic, pinko, diatribes.  To my supporters, thanks for sticking around and to my detractors, well. . . if this bothers you so much then start a blog of your own.  I am always up for a battle of wits.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself about not being able to retire yet, when I decided to distract myself by diving into some light-hearted reading.  My choice of tomes:  General McChrystal's op-ed plea for more soldiers and Marines for Afghanistan.  Yes, I know, my idea of light reading is probably different than yours.  Anyway, I was over come by a Rod Serling-like creepiness that I had somehow witnessed this before.  Since I am not a believer in any multiple-life philosophies, nor was I in a chemically altered state, it seemed to me that I  must have indeed seen this before.  So, off I went to the Library of Congress website and found some interesting position papers written back in 1965.

Do you remember all those brainiacs that David Halberstam tabbed "The Best and Brightest?" Yeah those guys, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, and LBJ's favorite general, William Westmoreland.  Well they were all weighing in with their expert assessments that if only the President, and then the American people, would send more troops to Vietnam, we could break the back of the Vietcong insurgency and their allies the North Vietnamese.  And there were all those Congressional stooges, falling all over themselves to get in front of a TV camera, waxing-on about how no one would know more about appropriate military strategy than the generals who were fighting the war.  Well. . . we all know how that one turned out, don't we?  Fifty-nine thousand dead and missing brave young American men and women, untold losses and suffering inflicted on the people of Vietnam, and within weeks after our hasty departure, Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Oh yeah, don't forget McNamara's mea culpa, "The Fog of War," where he matter of factly states that he got things wrong!

Turns out that the soldier on the ground and the Pentagon experts are often the worst people to be consulted about overall strategy, especially when it involves nation building, as was the case in Vietnam and is now the case in Afghanistan.  Remember our moist revered president, Abraham Lincoln?  He knew from the outset how to win the Civil War, but he spent over two years following the advice of one incompetent general after another, until he and Secretary of War Stanton found someone who would carry out his plan.  It took tremendous courage for Lincoln to buck the West Point establishment, but he did it and now has a really cool personal monument in Washington, and another in South Dakota.  Then there was President Truman in Korea.  The Military establishment in the Pentagon was pushing for him to adopt the strategy of another legendary military hero, Douglas MacArthur. The original "Big Mac" was calling for a nuclear attack in Manchuria and all out war with China as the way forward in the Korean War.  Hey, that would have worked out really well, World War Three!  Before the mushroom clouds had stopped glowing in northern China, the Soviets would have invaded western Europe and well, more work for the "Greatest Generation!"

So now it is President Obama's turn.  While we are all worrying about the state of our economy and the pending healthcare reform legislation, the president is about to make a series of decisions that may have consequences for our country deep into the 21st century.  Once again, the same old saber-rattling voices are clamoring for more troops as the only viable answer in Afghanistan.  And once again, those very same voices are warning us that only professional soldiers know what is best.  Hmm, it seems to me that when our Constitution was adopted, we created a political system where top level policy and strategy was determined by elected officials, not by economic, social, or military elites.

I have great respect for the opinions of General McChrystal, but they are just that, opinions. Further, they are based on years of training as an Army officer, not a diplomat.  Granted,  President Obama needs to listen carefully to the general's military advice, but he also needs to heed the political advice from those who see the world from a different perspective. On the other hand, I have no respect for those Beltway Warriors, and right wing pundits who are so damned eager to send other people's children off to war.  Perhaps I would feel differently if we still had a lottery-driven draft, and the war hawks actually stood to lose some of the their own children in this war.  But then, if we still had a draft, my guess is that we would be long gone from Afghanistan. . . . Funny, but I do not remember anyone named Bush, Clinton, Chaney, Gore, Reagan, Limbaugh, or Beck in my Basic Training company at Fort Lewis back in '67.  But then, I am getting old, and maybe I just forgot those guys.