So begins the educational process that Robert Kuttner called for in his new book.

You must read the book Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Robert Kuttner.  This book and author were the subjects of the interview mentioned in my previous post, Obama’s Challenge: A Transformative Opportunity.

Since Lyndon Johnson’s administration got mired in the war in Viet Nam in the late 1960s, a fog has descended over politics in the United States. In this fog we have forgotten what a positive force government can be. Not since Robert Kennedy quoted George Bernard Shaw, “You see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream things as they never were and ask, ‘Why not?'” have I been lifted from this fog the way this book lifts me. This book reminds me why I want to be a Progressive Democrat.

This book starts off by putting into words all the reasons why I have been an Obama supporter from nearly the beginning of his presidential candidacy. It explains what qualities I saw in Obama that made me think he could be the transformative president of the book’s title. There was no other candidate who came any where near having these qualities to the degree that Obama did.

The book goes on to explain why even the Clinton administration did a disservice to the ideals of progressive politics. If I were tempted to think that Clinton’s tenure might have represented the best that could be, this book lifts my sights higher. Kuttner further explains how Obama’s differences from Clinton could lead to a much better outcome.

Kuttner devotes a large portion of the book to describing a set of steps that Obama should take to lift the country out of  the predicament in which it finds itself.

Read the interview of Doris Kearns Goodwin by Robert Kuttner that furthered the inspiration to write this book.

A search of this blog will show you a number of posts that refer to the ideas in the book.

See also my review of The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama

On Thursday, November 20th, at over 1,000 gatherings nationwide, MoveOn members will celebrate Obama’s historic victory and launch a new campaign to help him make real change in Washington.

There is MoveOn.org web page to find a gathering.

The idea seems to be to start a petition drive to support various of Obama’s initiatives.  The petitioner signature collectors will gather pictures of signers to show the world the diversity of the people continuing to support Obama.

I decided that such an effort is not really my cup of tea.  I have been trying to imagine an effort that would help Obama overcome opposition to the initiatives that he is going to take.

The book Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Robert Kuttner suggests that one of the things that a leader like Obama must do is to educate the people on the wisdom of taking the steps that he proposes.  I have started to imiagine an effort where, we the citizens, help Obama in this education endeavor.

I can picture local gatherings addressed by people who can explain the thinking behind the initiative of the moment.  Perhaps it can be gatherings in peoples’ homes to watch a webcast on the topic and then have discussions about it.  This might be something that Obama is planning to do using his transition web site after the transition is over.

I even sent the above suggestion to Obama using his suggestion web page.

The web site, The Baseline Scenario, provides resources to understand the current global financial and economic crisis.

The first item on the web site, Global Crisis Orientation, suggests four ways for getting the most out of the site.

Today there was a webcast of Simon Johnson’s class on the global crisis at the Sloan School of Management at MIT.  A recording will be available to download later in the week, probably on Thursday.

There was some tutorial information at the beginning of the class to explain some of the issues in the crisis.  In particular, I learned some facts about CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) that I wish I had understood months ago.

The members of the class had diverse backgrounds in industry, finance, real-estate, and government from many countries around the world. The information and points of view  that they contributed to the discussion was most enlightening.

Thanks to RichardH for letting me know about the webcast in time for me to view it live.

In the description for the Senate Budget Committee hearing at which he was supposed to testify today, the listing is Dr. Simon Johnson — Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

According to the book Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Robert Kuttner,

Peter G. Peterson, the onetime secretary of commerce under Richard Nixon and billionaire former partner of the Blackstone Group, a private  equity firm, has written four books over the past two decades bemoaning the cost of entitlements and forecasting disaster.  Peterson recently endowed the Peter G. Peterson Foundation with a personal gift of a billion dollars, about half of his windfall from his sale of Blackstone just before the markets crashed

Kuttner finds Peterson’s view on entitlements profoundly naive and misleading.

I do not know how this association affects the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

As I was posting this, I was imagining my feelings if the discussion had been about a think tank funded by George Soros.  Maybe I am over-reacting to Pete Peterson.

In my previous post Obama’s Challenge: A Transformative Opportunity, I extolled the interview with Robert Kuttner. I said:

Robert Kuttner provides the facts and figures that dispel the notion that we don’t have the resources to solve these problems.

Well, I stumbled across a post on another blog called The Only Winning Move written by Joshua Herring. I was stunned at how someone could hear the same interview that I did, and yet come up with such a different reaction. I post the link to the blog just so you too can see how one’s prior convictions can blind you to information (I am sure that is true of me too). I hope that Joshua does a better job of looking for the truth in his PhD studies than he does in the political/economic realm.

Joshua is so sure of his own set of facts, that he couldn’t believe anything that Kuttner said.  If Joshua had to mis-hear what Kuttner said to reconcile with his own inner demons, then that is apparently what Joshua did.

When Joshua says such things about Kuttner as

He happens to know off the top of his head that the debt is $5.6trillion

then you know he is clutching at straws.  Kuttner is being interviewed about a book that he has just written.  Joshua is sure that numbers that Kuttner is using just came into his mind and were not the product of research for the book.