Sarah Palin addresses attendees at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. AP Photo/Ed Reinke

I think the only thing more embarrassing would if “left” or “L” were scrawled on it.

Here’s a short MSNBC {not Olberman} story on it::

and the full speech::

It’s interesting how social media enables the viral spread of stories like this. Is this unfair? Does this really matter? Why is this news? It reinforces what many think of her and there may be more than a little “trainwreck” effect, i.e., it’s gruesome, but one cannot help but slow down and gawk. Of course, the writing on the hand—it’s satire, people.

Twitterversion:: Pic of Sarah Palin’s “crib notes” for Tea Party speech Q&A {video of full speech avail.} spread virally via social media. #ThickCulture

Song:: David Bowie-”I Keep Forgettin’”

Paul Klee's Angelus Novus {1920}

What follows is an excerpt from Frankfurt School theorist Walter Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History” {1940}::

My wing is ready to fly

I would rather turn back
For had I stayed mortal time
I would have had little luck.
– Gerhard Scholem, “Angelic Greetings”

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.

When I was in graduate school at UC-Irvine, I was in a doctoral seminar where we pondered these words. What did Benjamin really mean with his Angel of History? I struggled with it then and scholars have pondered Benjamin’s essays for decades.

I’ve been thinking of The Angel of History a lot these days, in terms of globalization, the financial meltdown, and the Big Recession. When Benjamin wrote this essay, he was thinking of the revolutions in France in of 1789, 1830 and 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1870. These “revolutions” are separated in time, but are part of a constellation. This is what the Angel sees when looking back at the rubble and the destruction of revolutions, but nothing can be done, as progress propels a trajectory. Benjamin’s view of the world was non-linear and dealt in gestalts.

In a global sense, I wonder if we are witnessing a shift. Progress and history are moving along a trajectory punctuated by discontinuities that affect the entire globe. These discontinuities aren’t isolated, but part of a constellation of ideas, concepts, events, actions, etc., such as::

1. The fall of the Soviet empire
2. The formation of the EU
3. The rise of global financial flows
4. The ubiquity of media
5. The rise of fundamentalist Islam
6. The rise of technologies and resultant efficiencies from IT and the web
7. The rise of China
8. The problem of property rights & their enforcement
9. The rise of emerging technologies like biotechnology based on the genome
10. The Big Recession of 2008-present*

What can be said of a constellation of the above? Are they isolated or interrelated? More importantly, how do these inform where we’re heading?

*Is this a discontinuity or a merely a part of ordinary business cycles?

Twitterversion:: Thoughts about Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History, as it pertains to the global economic meltdown. #ThickCulture http://url.ie/4yje @Prof_K

Song:: Young Galaxy-”Long Live the Fallen World”

First off, I think there’s little that can be done about the forthcoming yearly deficits and total debt of the US federal government. Reigning in spending at this point will just make a bad situation worse. Nevertheless, what are the implications of the deficit. People have views about it, as Pew Research shows. It is currently #7, in terms of people’s top priorities and for the past two years, both Republicans and Democrats see it as a priority, being within a percentage point of each other. Over the years, the concern has gone up and down::

What I’m not sure is whether or not people get the implications of a huge debt. I remember in macroeconomics being taught about “crowding out”, where government spending and resultant borrowing “crowds out” entities seeking capital in lending markets and drives up interest rates.  Now, the Wall Street Journal is singing cassandra’s tune, warning that foreign creditors holding US Treasury securities is a threat to the nation’s national security and Leon Panetta, CIA Director, agrees::

I don’t see this happening. Why? I think we’re in for the dollar depreciating, as I see policies on the horizon that will lead to inflation, higher interest rates, and a devalued dollar, as does Jim Jubak at MSN. Holding the dollar won’t have the appeal it once had, given that it’s likely to devalue, and the Chinese are already curbing their appetite for US debt. In any case, this level of debt isn’t a “game over” situation and the US won’t go bankrupt, no matter which “expert” says it on CNN.

Currently, inflation is practically non-existant, as is nominal GDP {i.e., national income} growth, and interest rates are rock bottom.  The inflation and interest rates give the economy some degrees of freedom. A more troubling issue is GDP growth, which might be hindered by structural problems in the economy. We may not “grow” out of this, where economic growth increases incomes and tax revenues. Unemployment is the highest it’s been since 1983 and will be a political hot button issue in 2010.

As for deficit spending and the increasing debt, total public debt as a percentage of GDP {a debt to income ratio} is high, approaching the levels it was in the late 1940s. While the numbers are mind-boggling, the debt isn’t unprecedented.

Data sources:: CPI/inflation data from BLS, nominal federal funds rate from Federal Reserve, Unemployment data from BLS, public debt from Treasury Direct, & nominal GDP from BEA. Note:: the thickness of each band at a given year represents the rate for the given variable. Kenneth M. Kambara

I’m not staying up at night worrying about the deficit, although there will be several policy implications::

1. The true danger of the deficit spending is if there isn’t a multiplier effect, i.e., the impact of a dollar spent is some multiple of that dollar. I’m afraid that spending may not be directed towards projects/endeavours that get the most “bang” for their buck.
2. Too much emphasis on the deficit may hamper spending that achieves multiplier effects.
3. Read my lips, expect higher taxes in the long haul.
4. There will political pressure to reduce unemployment and {in my opinion} spending should focus on this, in ways that achieve a multiplier effect, e.g., jobs that also increase innovativeness and/or productivity or improve infrastructure.
5. Expect programme cuts and pressures towards privatization.
6. Expect reductions in military spending.

Ideally, deficit spending is an “investment” in the country when there aren’t tax revenues to cover it, as in a recession. The real question shouldn’t be how much is being spent, but how and where it’s being spent.

Twitterversion:: Are you concerned about the US deficit? Blog post focusing on the real implications of running up the bills. @Prof_K

Song:: Hem-”When I Was Drinking”

“Living it up when the rent was due
With nothing and no one to live up to”

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?
Yes 39
No 32
Not Sure 29

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
Yes 63
No 21
Not Sure 16

Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?
Yes 42
No 36
Not Sure 22

Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
Yes 21
No 24
Not Sure 55

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?
Yes 8
No 73
Not Sure 19

I’m not sure which one of these results is more startling. Let’s go with 63% of Republicans believing that Pres. Obama is a socialist. This suggests to me that level-headed, moderates have fled the party. I still content that this “lunatic fringe” is only a fraction of the U.S. electorate and the Republicans still have structural problems they need to work out. They are primed to get closer to control of both houses of congress, but to do that, they’ll have to win back moderates and become a “normal” party again with the same problems the Dems currently enjoy.

A few caveats are in order. Research 2000 was contracted by Daily Kos to do the poll, which doesn’t mean anything in particular, but it would be useful to look at the methodology more closely. Having said that, these results give us some good insight as to why the current president is having such trouble getting health care passed through Congress. If this poll is accurate, the Republican party is a right wing party. If you’re a Republican legislator, you run a serious risk of losing your seat to a “real republican” in upcoming primaries. This fear is allowing the Republicans to enjoy an amazing amount of party discipline. In our system, the minority always wants to be the “party of no” but is usually not able to because there are centrists who can be “peeled off” by the majority. Not so with this group of Republicans.

Update: Nate Silver looks at the crosstabs and finds marginal difference between demographic groups. Take the “socialist” question for instance:

Translation…the Republican tent is shrinking. Good for maintaining party discipline…let’s see about governing.

Consider, for example, America’s staggering quantity of elected officials. If you live in Toronto, you vote for a member of the Toronto City Council, you vote for a member of the Ontario Parliament, and you vote for a member of the Canadian Parliament.

Werd!  If civic republicanism is to have any chance in the United States where we actually expect citizens to be informed about politics, then we have to give them a fair shot.  California, by contrast, treats it’s citizens like the closet organizing guy from Saturday Night Live.  Instead of dirt, we have propositions and instead of water, we have elections for Insurance Commissioner!

I’ve lived in Washington for twenty years. I saw in Obama the real hope that something constructive could emerge from the corruption and decline of the recent past. I saw last night the civil tone that marks a responsible politics, rather than the glib cynicism and mock heroism that has marked us in much of the new millennium.

I saw in the civic spirit – especially among the young – a means of renewal for the republic. And I remain convinced that those who want to “reset” Obama’s agenda to the old forms with which they are comfortable have waged a take-no-prisoners war on real change and real reform.

So this fever feels to me like either the kind that precedes the final death of this republic into a carnival of FNC-directed war and debt and drama led by charismatic media-emperors or empresses – or the fever that finally ends the sickness, and restores some sense of civic responsibility and republican virtue. Last night, I saw one of the few men left able to see the depth of the crisis and not lose faith in this country’s ability to overcome it. My faith in this country – so strong in the past – is not as strong as Obama’s now.

But I sure as hell believe in fighting for it, and for him, against the forces at home and abroad that would truly end this experiment in self-government while pretending, of course, that everything is exactly the same. I believe our crisis is deeper than many now believe – because it is not just a crisis of economics, of debt, of over-reach, of an empire now running on its own steam and unstoppable by any political force,  but because it is a crisis of civic virtue, a collapse of the good faith and serious, reasoned attention to problems that marks the distinction between a republic and a bread-and-circuses Ailes-Rove imperium.

I couldn’t agree more with Sullivan….I’m constantly struck by the absurdity of a strict pluralist view of politics. A “this is the way it is, and has always been” view of politics that sanctions acting in one’s self interest at the expense of the common interest. This is a form of nihlism that we don’t see as desirable in individuals. We tell our children to “work out your problems,” not “get that ice cream and be sure not to share it with anyone.” We don’t act in our workplaces as if it’s acceptable to “get mine” and “screw everyone else.” But we’ve decided that this behavior is acceptable in the political realm. I blame Machiavelli for this, but that’s another story James Madison was right that government is necessary because “men are not angles” but Madison didn’t discount the citizen’s ability to be civic minded. In fact it was central to the maintenance of a strong republic.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. (Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention 1788)

I mean honestly, was this stuff just randomly generated? How about — Robert Urich, cactus, donuts.

Update: OK, it’s a hoax. Not Habermas.

Via org.theory.