Why Progressive Austerians do the Greatest Damage
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Counterproductive Behavior
In William Black’s excellent blog, New Economic Perspectives, he has written the post, Why Progressive Austerians do the Greatest Damage.
To many people, it seems paradoxical that conservatives target not the worst social programs, but the best. There is no paradox. Bad government programs are desirable from the right’s perspective – they discredit government intervention. Good government programs pose an existential challenge to conservative memes, so they are the prime target for attack.
This is exactly the kind of paradox that falls under Greenberg’s Law Of Counterproductive Behavior, which states:
If you see a behavior that seems to you to be counterproductive, perhaps you have misunderstood what the actor was trying to produce.
I recommend Black’s article to you because it has many other interesting things to say besides the one I focused on above.
As an exercise to the reader, I suggest seeing if you can name the politicians who are most guilty of being progressive auterians. Also ask yourself if you are guilty of being a progressive auterian.
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The Troll On The Elizabeth Warren Facebook Page
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Counterproductive Behavior
In my opinion, there is a troll on the Elizabeth Warren Facebook page. It is possible that the Elizabeth Warren campaign is not getting the full benefit from Facebook that it could because of the behavior of the troll.
Of course, as one would expect, there is much praise for Elizabeth Warren from the postings on her page. Occasionally a Warren supporter, such as myself, tries to convey some constructive criticisms of the way we feel that the campaign is missing opportunities to further promote Warren’s candidacy.
The troll seems to take it upon himself to disparage all criticism in what seems to be an attempt to intimidate people who make such criticisms. It is unfortunate that the campaign seems more intent in quieting criticism than it is in learning from it. This troll just reinforces this image which some supporters find so extremely frustrating.
It is not even clear if the troll has any official responsibility for the Facebook page. One suspects that he does not. If a person with administrative privileges on the Facebook page thought that a post was detrimental, then it would be better to just delete the post rather than try to intimidate the poster from further posts.
I start to wonder why a purported volunteer in the campaign and presumably a supporter would spend so much effort to patrol the Facebook page and turn off people who want to post there.
I would think a truly committed supporter would thoughtfully read the criticism and help to pass on the good ideas to the campaign. If the troll is not the one charged with this responsibility, then who is? Surely the campaign would not consider Facebook to be a one way medium of communication. Surely they would have someone officially responsible for reading the feedback and not just responsible for writing posts. If there is nobody charged with this duty, then this is just another example of missed opportunities to further the cause of getting Elizabeth Warren elected.
Is this a case of Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior? “If you see a behavior that seems to you to be counterproductive, perhaps you have misunderstood what the actor was trying to produce.”
Speaking of that law, why would I want to post this on the Warren Facebook page? Am I being the troll that I have just talked about? That is not my intention. I would like to communicate with the other posters and readers of the Facebook page and urge them to use whatever connections they have to the campaign to get the message through. One or two (or is that a hundred) voices of concern do not seem to be enough.
The question is, can we get our concerns addressed in time to rescue this campaign? Can we stop the people who are doing so much damage to the campaign? Can we break through the wall surrounding Elizabeth Warren and get her to realize who her real friends are?
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The Republican Field Of Hawks
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Counterproductive Behavior
Truth Out has Eugene Robinson’s article A Field of Hawks.
The article starts with:
Unless Ron Paul somehow wins the nomination, it looks as if a vote for the Republican presidential candidate this fall will be a vote for war with Iran.
and ends with:
The United States and its allies should seek to eliminate the Iranian government’s will to make a bomb, not its capacity. I hope Romney realizes that while sanctions and diplomacy may not be working as well as we’d like, they’re the best tools we have — and that an attack at this point gets us nowhere. But if he believes his own rhetoric, this election may be about more than the economy. It may be about war and peace.
I can think of few things that would strengthen Iran’s will to make a bomb than the constant threats and sanctions. Iran may observe that we are a little more careful how we deal with countries that have a nuclear capability. If they are trying to build a bomb, which I might remind you our intelligence agencies say they have no proof of, it could just be so that they can get more fear if not respect from the international community.
So if threatening and sanctioning Iran seems to be counterproductive to the aims of the United States, then it would put our actions in the category of Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior, “If you see a behavior that seems to you to be counterproductive, perhaps you have misunderstood what the actor was trying to produce.”
I don’t know if this is the reason, but the most obvious one would be that our real motives are to gain control of Iranian oil or to at least take it off the market so that oil prices will rise. That may not be the public’s motive, but you can bet the big oil company backers of the politicians would appreciate that.
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Democratic darling has also been critic
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Counterproductive Behavior
Well, this seems to be the week for the press to catch up to my blog. The Boston Globe came out with the story Democratic darling has also been critic, subtitled “In book, Warren targeted key figures”.
In her best-selling book, she charged that Senator Hillary Clinton abandoned her principles and supported a bankruptcy bill in exchange for campaign contributions. Warren accused Joe Biden, also a senator at the time, of selling out women. And she chided Patty Murray – the Washington senator who later helped recruit her into the race and is now leading the national effort to elect her – for wanting to shame bankrupt families.
This mirrors my post back in December, Elizabeth Warren And Hillary Clinton Trade Lessons. The headline on the continuation of The Boston Globe story on an inside page says, “Warren book may help or hurt her run.”
This furthers the point that I have been making to the Warren campaign with zero success. You cannot change the fact that Elizabeth Warren has written several books. I think the books are a tremendous asset to her campaign and should be advertised by her campaign rather than hidden by them. If she doesn’t make a big deal of her books in a positive way, someone else will turn them into a negative. Why wait around for the inevitable? Why not get out in front of the curve?
I don’t know how many times the campaign will have to be hit over the head with these ideas before they finally wake up. One almosts suspects that this behavior of the campaign falls under the category Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior, “If you see a behavior that seems to you to be counterproductive, perhaps you have misunderstood what the actor was trying to produce.”
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The Challenge of the Productivity Revolution
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Economic Progress
Truth-out is carrying the blog post Bye Bye American Pie: The Challenge of the Productivity Revolution by Robert Reich.
Insufficient demand – as everyone but regressive supply-siders now recognize – is a big reason why the current recovery has been so anemic and the pie isn’t growing faster.
So while the productivity revolution is indubitably good, the task ahead is to figure out how to distribute more of its gains to more of our people.
For a long time I have been promoting this understanding of the problems and potential of productivity growth.
Reich proposes a solution to the problem:
One possibility: higher taxes on the rich that go into wage subsidies for lower-income workers, combined with job sharing.
I have a “market” based solution to the problem that I think will work much better. It is time for the U.S. Government to start enabling the formation of labor unions instead of trying to strangle them. Rather than centralize the planning of wealth distribution in the government, let each union in each industry help decide what will work best in their particular situation. Let the workers negotiate with the capitalists on how the rewards of productivity growth should be shared. Since we are now in a more global economy, we also need to ensure that other countries promote real labor unions also. Unions are not the problem, they are the solution.
Without unions, the only way that people have of enforcing their power of numbers is to take action that will be much less acceptable to the 1% who are hoarding all the wealth.
I think Reich’s post also falls into the category of Greenberg’s Law of Economic Progress:
Any measure of economic growth that counts progress as an increase in the total amount of wealth in the country while a large number of people are still unemployed is a faulty measure.
Corollary:
Any measure of economic growth that counts progress as achieving full employment while decreasing everybody’s wealth to the poverty level is a faulty measure.
The Republicans (and probably the Democrats, too) have tried to fool the public about the health of our economy. While many individuals have realized that their personal economic situation was getting worse, the politicians have been trying to fool the people into thinking they are alone in their problems. They use the faulty measure of growth to pretend the overall economy is growing, when, in fact, the only growth is in the money flowing to the 1%.
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China issues framework for settling Syrian crisis
Filed Under Greenberg’s Law of Inexplicable Behavior, SteveG's Posts
CNN has the article China issues framework for settling Syrian crisis.
China is calling on the Syrian government and others involved to “immediately” stop violence, particularly against innocent civilians, and pursue a political solution to the Middle East nation’s grim and bloody yearlong crisis.
The position is one part of a six-point framework “for realizing a political solution” issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry early Sunday.
“It is deeply worrying that the situation in Syria remains grave,” the statement said. “China follows closely the developments of the situation in Syria, firmly maintains that the current crisis should be resolved through political dialogue in a peaceful and appropriate manner, and has made unremitting efforts to this end.”
As I read this, I kept thinking how refreshing it would have been for Obama to have made this statement. It is quite startling to have my preconceptions so thoroughly shaken. China and Russia are the peacemakers and the U.S. is the leading warmonger.
Why does Obama have to go right to the war and regime change demand? We might like to see regime change, but it is not our call as I feebly understand international law. I would think that is up to the Syrians to decide.
How would we like it if Syria decided that the Libertarians should have power in the United States and talked about sanctions against us until we complied? They might decide to start arming the libertarians if we refuse. I know this is a rather absurd example, but we need something that will get us out of our war mongering attitude.
Stopping the violence is something all the world except perhaps for Assad can agree to. Whoever thought that the U.S. really is the imperialist nation interfering in other country’s internal affairs, and China is the one to call for calming down and handling things with diplomacy.
I know that the fact that I am so surprised is more an indication of the environment I am steeped in. What I am realizing is not something that has only become true very recently. Of course, I have long known of the U.S.’s imperialist policy. I guess the real surprise to me is China’s quite reasonable stance in comparison to ours.
For those who still find it impossible to think of the Chinese government in a positive light, pretend that you didn’t know this position came from China, and ask yourself if this doesn’t sound quite rational.
From Greenberg’s Law of Inexplicable Behavior – When the media report on the existence of some seemingly inexplicable behavior, they owe us a report on what are the reasons that the actor uses to justify this behavior. Until you are able to read such an explanation, you have to realize that the media is not reporting the whole story – you had to know that prior reports of Russia and China vetoing the UN resolution were incomplete. Using some of Greenberg’s laws is how I detect that the media is not telling me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
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Burning of Korans in Afghanistan
Filed Under Greenberg’s Law of Inexplicable Behavior
Truthout has an essay Burning of Korans in Afghanistan. Near the top of the essay is the following startling statement:
This past weekend, two senior American military officers were shot and killed within the Interior Ministry in Kabul by an Afghan colleague, who was allegedly provoked, according to Afghan government sources, by the Americans’ open mockery of the protests.
I have not heard such an allegation reported in the lame stream press. If true, it would go a long way to explaining some of what is happening. (I said explaining, not condoning.)
This definitely falls under Greenberg’s Law of Inexplicable Behavior, “When the media report on the existence of some seemingly inexplicable behavior, they owe us a report on what are the reasons that the actor uses to justify this behavior. Until you are able to read such an explanation, you have to realize that the media is not reporting the whole story.”
With a lot of justification in the intervening parts of the essay, it concludes with the following:
We are staring into a terrifying abyss of our own making. Were the Korans burned by accident or not? Does that really matter anymore? The following truism is all that matters; any sufficiently advanced incompetence is completely indistinguishable from malice. Ten years of brutal war, hundreds of billions of dollars expended, thousands of lives lost and destroyed, and we still have not learned the sine qua non of that most basic maxim.
And I don’t want to hear any rejoinders that the Afghanis or Muslims are just as intolerant. We can’t control how other people behave (Duh!! isn’t that obvious now?), so we rightly need to concentrate on controlling our own behavior.
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Greenberg’s Law Of Reverence
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Reverence, SteveG's Posts
My previous post, Tell Scott Brown To Stop Attacking Women’s Health Care, leads me to coin this new law.
Principles are not great because a revered person spoke of them. A person is revered because she or he spoke of great principles.
Referring to this law allows you to avoid having to defend stupid remarks by that revered person.
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Tell Scott Brown To Stop Attacking Women’s Health Care
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Reverence, SteveG's Posts
The Elizabeth Warren campaign sent me an email titled, “Stop Distorting Ted Kennedy’s Record”, that wants me to sign onto a letter shown below. However, I think they are taking the wrong approach. Even though I signed the letter, I attached the following comment:
As a volunteer for Elizabeth Warren and a collector of signatures for her primary ballot access, I must tell you that you are taking the wrong approach.
Politicians distort other politician’s records all the time. The public does not care that much, they are used to it.
This approach to what Brown is doing plays right into Brown’s bit about this is not being the Kennedy seat. It also sounds a little whiny. What famous politician got nowhere by asking, “Tell him to stop lying about my record?”
Instead, attack Brown’s policy because it is the wrong policy.
Previous accommodations for religious reasons to allow personal non-compliance with legal mandates were an attempt to be reasonable. Give these Republicans an inch, and they want to take a mile. They cannot use the granting of previous accommodations which were granted out of the goodness of people’s hearts to ask for even more accommodations. The previous accommodations were a stretch to grant in the first place.
Granting an accommodation so a person can block the right of someone else to get health care is not a reasonable (or perhaps not even a Constitutionally permissible) thing to do.
I suppose you could mention that even with his Catholic principles firmly intact, Senator Kennedy understood the limits of granting accommodations.
In referring to Senator Kennedy, we might wish to remember Greenberg’s Law of Reverence.
We do not quote a revered historical figure because of our reverence for that person, we revere that historical figure because of what he or she said that is worth quoting.
I am being a little weaselly in this post because I used the Warren campaign’s headline, “Stop Distorting Ted Kennedy’s Record” to attract your attention. Let me know what you think of that. Would you have read the post if the headline had been “Tell Scott Brown To Stop Attacking Women’s Health Care?” [Without waiting for feedback, I changed the headline.]
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I helped end the Bush tax cuts for the rich
Filed Under Greenberg's Law of Idle Threats, SteveG's Posts
MoveOn sent me an email telling me that I helped end the Bush tax cuts for the rich. This is what MoveOn wanted me to share on the web.
I joined over 250,000 MoveOn member and progressives calling for President Obama to veto any extension the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans–and he just made a public commitment to do it! Share this victory for the 99% with your friends, family, and co-workers.
When I posted this to my Facebook page, I added the comment:
Unfortunately, didn’t Obama back out of that commitment the last time? I will breathe easier when he actually does the veto as promised.
After receiving some psuh back on that remark, I explained why I made it.
Fairly early in life I recognized a principle that I have stuck to. “Never make a threat that you won’t be willing to carry out if developments take you to the threshold you warned about.” There must be some equivalent idea in poker.
Once you have backed down from carrying out a threat, then no threat in the future will carry any weight. So, if you have any doubts about your ability to carry out the threat, do not make it.
If your opposition knows from past experience that you operate under that principle, they will take your words more seriously.
Otherwise, they know your spine is weak and they can walk all over you. I can’t count the number of times I have emailed the President about this, and how many times he has been walked all over because he won’t take any advice.
So am I supposed to pretend that this threat is serious? Should I be willing to look like a fool in front of the opposition, by pretending that I believe these threats?
This isn’t just about Obama’s credibility anymore. This is now about my credibility. That is why I take his failures personally.
I will now add a new law to this blog, Greenberg’s Law Of Idle Threats. “Never make a threat you don’t intend to carry out. If you have any doubts about your ability to carry out the threat, do not make it.”
Corollary:
“If you never test the opposition about whether they make idle threats, then you enable them to ignore this law.”
How many people remember George Bush’s threat, “Read my lips, No New Taxes.” Remember how he was ridiculed in and lost his bid for re-election because of his failure to carry out his threat?
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