I have been thinking about the ramifications of a US debt default.  People worry that it will harm the US credibility in the rest of the world, and may threaten our dominant position.

Given the current dysfunction in our political system, maybe it is time for the US to be knocked out of our dominant position.

Other countries like China and India seem to be able to adopt policies that improve their countries rather than policies that only adhere to long held ideological positions.  The same is true of many countries in South America.

It is the USA and European Union that seem to want to hold onto their ideological positions despite the evidence that their policies do more harm than good. They also want to drive these positions into the policies of countries in the rest of the world.

So what do we have to teach the rest of the world, when we are so dysfunctional ourselves?  Perhaps we need to be knocked from our pedestal, and then have to earn our right to be put back there if we can.

The message to the world will be especially vivid if we manage to knock ourselves out without any help from external forces.

Maybe we progressives ought to work with the Tea Party to help with the self-inflicted blow that will finally straighten out the world order.

I introduce this blog post on Facebook and Google+ with the comment:

The progressives might want to try the political equivalent of jujitsu.

I think of jujitsu in the way described in Wikipedia.  Jujitsu represents manipulating the opponent’s force against himself rather than confronting it with one’s own force.

If progressives said to the Tea Party that they were right about having the US default on its debt, would this be the political equivalent of throwing them and pinning them to the mat?  If it  did not work out in that way, perhaps what I said above about deserving default would justify it anyway.

Think Progress has the article Despite Anti-Obamacare Crusade, Ted Cruz Admits He Supports Government-Run Health Care.

Since undergoing major reforms during the Clinton administration, the fully integrated structure of government doctors and hospitals in the Veterans Health Administration provides veterans with benefits that are the envy of the rest of the health care system. A study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.”

Cruz isn’t the only conservative to praise the program; Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann have all endorsed the government-run system.

Now I see the Tea Party Logic, they think that the military deserves the benefit of government supported health care, but the civilian population will lose their freedom if they get it. What does this say about their feelings for our military veterans, or what does it say about their feelings for civilians like themselves?

Here is a point of view that you don’t often hear anywhere else.

It is easy to be a skeptic about this presentation. Just read the comments on YouTube. However, if we act like Republicans to the rest of the world we are never going to get anywhere. As soon as Iran shows the slightest hint that they are willing to negotiate, we ask them for more.

I hope the right wingers in this country and Israel do not get to defeat the attempt for Iran and the US to start talking to each other. Unlike with dealing with the Republicans in this country who show every evidence of having no common ground with the Democrats, I’d like to see if straightforward discussions with Iran can lead to something positive.

McClatchy DC has the article Malala Yousafzai tells Obama drones are ‘fueling terrorism’.

In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she’s worried about the effect of U.S. drone strikes. (The White House statement didn’t mention that part.)

“I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees,” she said in the statement. “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”

I wonder if Obama said, “You are right, but it feels so good to claim we got some terrorists. It is so hard to put aside the instant gratification, and worry about the long term consequences.  Right now, I have to live with the long term consequences of what some fool predecessor of mine did.  I have a right to leave some foul long term consequences to my successors.”

The Atlantic has the article 3 Reasons ‘Saving Face’ Is Overrated by Eric Liu.  He expresses exactly what it is that drives me crazy about thoughts of saving face in the current political situation.

And what about President Obama? He isn’t blameless in the metastasis of this crisis. But the pattern of his dealings with congressional Republicans actually underscores the danger of caring too much about face when the other side cares too little. He tried in recent years to negotiate rationally and earnestly on taxes and spending, to give the other side something they could call a win, all the while finding that he was yielding more than he was gaining. (Remember, the funding “victory” he seeks right now would maintain Paul Ryan’s sequestration spending levels). Obama’s reward for this earnestness was a shutdown. This explains why he’s taking a hard line this time, and why his former strategist David Plouffe now concedes that by accommodating too much in the past Obama only encouraged GOP intransigence. If there’s a face-related risk for the president now, it lies only in caving.

The Republicans ought to be talking about how much punishment they are willing to take rather than getting a fig leaf to cover over their utter surrender.

For a party that always puts a priority on punishing bad behavior, this is a time for them to take what is coming to them.

Truth Out has the editorial The American Public’s Shocking Lack of Policy Knowledge is a Threat to Progress and Democracy .

The reality of a massively uninformed public, though, is simply incongruous with this vision of a progressive future. So long as colossal swaths of the population are in the dark about the major policy issues of our time, the political scene will be ripe for ultra-right-wing demagogues and faux-populists to thwart progress at every turn. Progressives have to confront the fact that, technically, Republicans are right when they say that the ACA is “unpopular” or that “the American people” want a balanced budget amendment. This has to change. The vibrancy and legitimacy of our democratic culture depend on it.

This could have been labelled “A Progressive Faces Reality”.

I doubt that the level of misinformation is much more than it has been historically.  Yellow journalism is nothing new.  If progressives want the public to be better informed, they cannot depend on someone else to do the job.

You think you’ve got pets? On October 12, 2013, we had the first actual test of our bear proof bird feeder.  All I had at hand when the test occurred was a still camera.  I have put the pictures I took into the video below as best I could.

Well, at least the bird feeder is still standing. The bear did manage to shake a fair amount of bird seed to the ground. That probably means, he (or she) will be back for another try. It will be interesting to see what the bird feeder looks like tomorrow morning.

We had the same type of bird feeder that is atop the pole, but on its normal stand that is about 5 feet tall. At the beginning of the season, it was attacked and knocked to the ground. We didn’t do any bird feeding over the summer. In the fall, we straightened out the bird feeder and reinstalled it next to the bear proof one which was empty and had been empty all summer. Within two days the bear came back and dealt it a fatal blow.

My friend, RichardH, suggested some music to accompany this video:

This was too cute to just take the music and leave out its video.

See what happens when the Bear Revisits The Not So Bear Proof Bird Feeder.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has an extended interview with the Secretary of HEW, Kathleen Sebelius.

The interview is not as bad as originally reported.  They do have a little trouble communicating. Jon asks a question that Kathleen does not answer satisfactorily for him. They go several rounds where she cannot understand what her answer is not delivering to his satisfaction, and he cannot understand why she doesn’t address the concern in his question. Actually there may be two rounds of this with two different questions.  (Or maybe it is three. You decide on the exact number.) She does at least finally get around to satisfying him (or at least me) on some of these questions.

Exclusive – Kathleen Sebelius Extended Interview Pt. 1

Exclusive – Kathleen Sebelius Extended Interview Pt. 2

The Real News Network has the video Reid: Everything Is On The Negotiating Table.

At least one of our representatives has the right attitude:

“Everything is not on the table for me, number one,” said Representative Mike Capuano (D-MA). “Number two, more importantly, Democrats have already compromised. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve already compromised too much.”

If you look this up on the internet, I am pretty sure that the phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” will have a one word definition “Democrat”.

Get ready for the Grand Betrayal.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has the article and video William Janeway: Can China Innovate at the Frontier? The sections that I have chosen to excerpt below do have a decidedly American focus. For those who have doubts that China can become an innovator at the frontier, view the video below. It won’t answer the question, but I hope it will make you less sure that you know the answer.

At the frontier, economic growth has been driven by successive processes of trial and error and error and error: upstream exercises in research and invention, and downstream experiments in exploiting the new economic space opened by innovation. Each of these activities necessarily generates much waste along the way, such as dead-end research programs, useless inventions, and failed commercial ventures. In between, the innovations that have repeatedly transformed the architecture of the market economy, from canals to the Internet, have required massive investment to construct networks whose value in use could not be imagined at the outset of deployment.
.
.
.
The U.S. is suffering the consequences of a generation-long effort to render the state illegitimate as an economic actor. Moreover, the nation is uniquely distinguished by the widespread denial of the reality of climate change and the rejection of global warming as a motive for aggressive state action of any sort. And Europe, where climate change and the need for a state-sponsored response are both generally accepted, remains mired in its self-contradictory commitment to “expansionary fiscal austerity.”