Medieval Politics in America.

For hire: Duke Assistant

This reminds us of medieval times in Italy – when superrich folks were playing games with the fates of city-states, pitting one against the other and gladly sacrificing a couple in pursuit of ever more.

Sheldon Adelson quickly got hang of this game with superpac nukes – now he’s arming Newt against Rick so Mitt will be stronger.

And we’re just waiting for some old billionaire foe of Sheldon to join the game, crushing the one or the other to prevent Mitt from winning.

So much for the people’s rule.

More.

WH and smaller government.

Yep, a new website! Let's see if Congress approves..

Seems like the President finally has started making some moves all by himself, suddenly going first and setting the agenda for election year word games and fighting back:

After a year of interminable feuds with congressional Republicans who made smaller, cheaper federal government a political crusade, President Obama on Friday signaled his intention to do some sail-trimming of his own.

Obama asked Congress for the authority to consolidate the roles of several federal agencies which he said would lead to streamlined services and a smaller government workforce.

And this effort looks like one tiny grain of substance, and a huge barrel of symbolics and diversion. 2.000 jobs, if correct, is nothing – but after stealing the hallmarks of Security and Taxes from the Gop, they’ve now moved on to the bumper sticker of “Smaller Government”. Any counter-attacks like “not that kind of smaller government” would just be more sound-bite gifts to the re-election campaign.

Full story.

The presser. A couple of thoughts.

Getting better. (©CNN)

So the week started out with a new briefing from the President. Smart choice, content ok, but still -  so much lost opportunity.

A few points and reflections:

• Making fun of the others is nice for those who agree, but unnecessary provocative for the opponent. Or put another way, it’s fun but unprofessional.
• Educating people is good. If a chart or a fact appears on Think Progress or DailyKos – half the country dismiss it as propaganda and communist lies. If spoken by the president, it’s taken more seriously. The source matters.
• The centrist-first pose is problematic. “I stand in the center, and take heat from the left” is bad politics and craftmanship. You run as Democrat, a moderate liberal, so you stand firmly on the progressive side and then walk to the center. To get things done. Starting on compromise doesn’t work in practice.
• As usual, the best statements come when the president is fed up. At journalists. Then he spells it out.

Other than this – the donors will probably go for tax hikes rather then treasury downgrade, so this “no” stuff might be entertainment or show-off for the far right base. Unless, as might be the case, they whipped up the anti-tax and anti-”government” sentiments too strong, and lost control of their own agenda.

But all in all, a productive presser.

The problem is the Rig – not the politics.

Another good article from Time last night was a take on innovation by Fareed Zakaria. How to fix the current problems in the economy by growth and innovation. And this time – our thoughts drifted more towards to root of the problems in the US at the moment – which is the whole rig of society and government – and not the lack of growth and innovation.

How things have become..

That is, those things are mostly a consequence of something systemic, which must be addressed first, or at least in parallel to these other measures for inventing and making new things.

And this is where nothing is being done.

And 2011 could have been a very different story of prosperity and sunshine – if different choices had been done in the past.

So once the rig is starting to change for the better, the economy, infrastructure, education, innovation, employment, and some degree of sustainable resource management will slowly drift towards improvement – through a joint effort to establish a better and more fair workings of communities and job markets.

And – more quality of life.

Machiavelli on human nature..

Doing some follow-up reading after the splendid Borgia series.. here’s the famous passage about love or fear as a ruling tactic.

Kind eyes... practical thinking..

First, on human nature:

Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.

And even if love and fear is the best authority – love has to go first:

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.

But – as the 15th century Italy was a lump of independent cities in constant battle – this context shaped his thinking. A prolonged peaceful period of time for a government was never experienced or even thought possible.

Same goes for his experience of human nature – it was a somewhat tilted society he grew up and worked in. All he ever saw was permanent games of power and wealth – even the church was about to split religion and politics apart, as the absolutes of faith often proved impractical in governing the papal state.

Israel blocks $105M to Palestine, EU gives $124M.

The tide now seems to have shifted against Israel on many fronts, even within Europe. France recently fell on recognition of Palestine in September, along with 110 countries worldwide including the BRICS and several EU States.

On the latest rebuffal of money transfers:

The European Union said on Friday it would provide an extra 85 million euros (124 million dollars) to the Palestinian Authority to help pay salaries of essential workers and to support vulnerable families.

The move was decided on after Israel on Sunday blocked the transfer of 105 million dollars in customs duties and other levies it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, following a deal to reunite the two rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah.

More..

Lose-lose for Boehner.

The burdens of power..

Sen. Schumer is now slamming the House Speaker straight in the face – framing the budgetcut endgame as a simple choice between compromise or shutdown. Both will be an enormous disappointment and loss of face for the GOP and the House Leadership, in large part because Mr. Boehner himself previously condemned the whole concept of “compromise” as a weakness and a “sell-out”.

From the statement by Chuck Schumer today:

A compromise on the budget is right there for the taking, assuming the Speaker still wants one. We take it for granted that because of the intense political pressure being applied by the Tea Party, the Speaker needs to play an outside game as well as an inside game. As long as he continues to negotiate, it’s OK by us if he needs to strike a different pose publicly. Since last week, the two sides have made steady progress on a package of $33 billion in cuts. This is an historic level of spending cuts, it is the halfway mark between the two sides, and the Speaker has already agreed to this number privately. Differences may remain over where exactly the cuts should come from, but the only real question left is whether the political will exists to buck the Tea Party. At this point, we are so far down the road towards an agreement, and so little time remains before Friday’s deadline, that it would be a dramatic about-face for the Speaker to suddenly let things devolve into a shutdown, as many in the Tea Party are urging. As a result, we remain hopeful a deal will be reached.

Take that.

More.

US – people and industry.

Industries have grabbed for mostly everything since the 1980s – and the pushback is inevitable at some point.

A diary over at DailyKos gives a perspective on the game in Wisconsin:

1) Koch Brothers get their puppet Governor Walker in power
2) Governor Walker gins up a crisis
3) Democrats and Progressives take the bait and counter-protest on collective bargaining
4) Governor Walker will compromise on collective bargaining if the rest of the budget is passed as is
5) Bill passes, with trojan horse give-a-way to the Koch Brothers nested in
6) Koch Brothers will buy Wisconsin state-owned power plants for pennies on the dollar in closed unsolicitated bids for which there will be no oversight
7) Koch Brothers get the best vertical monopoly in a generation

The legislative stuff is described in bigger detail here.