The Future Now

Progressive America

I'm just back from an inspiring trip to the United States where I was invited to speak on the subject of Ressurecting the American Dream, at Missouri Sate University and Drury University, both in Springfield, Missouri.

The talks were well received and I was exceptionally well looked after by my American hosts.  By way of promotion, this piece was published in the Springfield News Leader, and I also did this radio interview.

I had a stimulating and constructive meeting with members of the League of Women Voters and the Senior Democrats, which confirmed my belief in the crucial role that older people have to play in shaping the future of politics - so much wisdom and experience of life.

I was very impressed by the progressive spirit of many I met, and the enthusiasm with which they are embracing the possibilities for progressive change in America, and therefore the world, following the election of Barack Obama.

Thanks to everyone I met, and to all those who came to the talks.  The talk itself will soon emerge as an article which, once published, will be accessible from this site.

Don't cheer too loudly

I have a new piece over at Comment is Free this evening urging caution in the wake of Barack Obama's victory.  I certainly believe his success makes the world a better place, but the kind of progress which would make a real difference to the lives of millions of excluded and disposessed people worldwide, will take more than the election of one man, however remarkable.

Simon Schama, Magnus Pike and the typical blowhard

Alongside the obvious pleasure at Barack Obama's victory in this week's presidential election, there was much to smile at in the election coverage.  The sight of Jeremy Vine on the BBC struggling to get his touch screen controlled map of the United States to work properly will have brought pleasure to many people who, like me, spend hours cursing such devices for their inability to deliver a simple train ticket.

But the highlight of the last week has to be Simon Schama's pre-election rebuttal of a rather unpleasant American gentleman on Question Time from New York.  Against my better judgement I really rather like Schama, although as you can see from the clip, without his own production team to restrain his bizzare limb, and indeed whole body, movements, he is rapidly turning himself into a new Magnus Pike for the noughties.

The Possibility of Progress

The chances of creating a more just, inclusive, sustainable and human world are a little better after the victory of Barack Obama.  America is a country full of contradictions, but as Mike Tomasky - who now deserves a vacation as much as the cadidate himself - observes here, it could not have happened anywhere else.

When America has a good day, the rest of us can afford to celebrate the fact that the United States remains the world's only superpower.  I have my doubts about Obama: anyone who achieves his stunning level of success must necessarily have kept very quiet about any plans to change the world. But, for those of us who know how urgent the need for substantial, structural change is, an Obama White House provides a much better context in which to make our case.  As Tomasky concludes, it's been a good night.

Let's not get too excited

If, as now seems very likely, Barack Obama is elected to the Presidency today, it will be an historic moment.  But what it will mean for United States policy - both domestic and foreign - remains unclear.  The world moves very slowly, especially in respect of building a more inclusive and sustainable global society.

There's been little in his rhetoric to suggest Obama is a radical, and in any case, as veteran US commentator James Ridgeway points out, the realities of congressional inertia and the country's continuing dependence on foreign oil suggest that while the place might look very different to outsiders, it will take some considerable time before any real progressive gains are made.

Economic justice by the book

I have a new piece over at Comment is Free this afternoon, this one inspired by John Stewart's excellent political novel, The President.

Cake and eat it capitalism

This piece by Larry Elliott in yesterday's Guardian on the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae perfectly describes the hypocrisy of the current economic system, and those who support it.

As Elliot says,

If ever there was a time to bring in controls on the ability of banks to create unlimited amounts of credit, to restrict the more toxic forms of derivatives, to rein in the activities of hedge funds, to insist that remuneration structures are not biased in favour of reckless speculation, and to use anti-trust law to break up the power of the big institutions then this, surely, is it.

But as he correctly points out, no one, from Gordon Brown to Barack Obama is making the right noises.  Surely we can't let the interests of elite wealth and privilege off the hook again, while taxpayers pick up the tab?

ps: for anyone who, like me, intensely dislikes the use of ghastly American nicknames to describe some of the largest financial institutions in the world, their real names are: the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie) and Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie).

Obama plays hardball

On his tour of Europe and the Middle East Barack Obama has been making all the right noises as far as getting elected in November is concerned.  On Tuesday he went out of his way to make clear that "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon".

Although he said he wished to see "a viable and peaceful Palestinian state",  he was at his most forthright when he said "I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat", thus aligning himself with a policy that even senior figures in the Bush administration now appear to be having second thoughts about.

Now, I didn't assume for one minute that Obama was a fundamentally different kind of politician; although in many ways he is a breath of fresh air.  You don't get almost to the top of the greasy pole of American politics without being hard as nails, and without being willing to sacrifice whatever principles you started out with in pursuit of electoral success.

But it would be good to know what Obama really thinks and feels about issues like the Middle East; and, assuming he is inclined towards a more balanced view on the Israel/Palestine question than is usual for senior (ie successful)  American politicians, whether he has a plan, post-election, to rekindle a peace process that is effectively dead in the water.

My bet is that, although a man of substance and intellect, like nearly all politicians today, Obama has no principled position on this issue (or indeed any other).  What he may have is a general sense that the long term interests of the United States are best served by a more collaborative and inclusive foreign policy than that practiced by the current administration, but you can be sure that the degree of inclusiveness will be determined by electoral realities. 

Obama will do and say whatever it takes to get elected, and in the process will commit himself to policies, and to relationships with vested interests, in the United States and elsewhere, that have little to do with genuine democracy.   That process has already begun.  Hawks in the Israeli administration will be breathing a sigh of relief.  Decent Israelis, who long for a just peace with the Palestinians, and, of course, the Palestinians themselves, would appear to have little to get excited about at the prospect of an Obama White House.

The capture of Keynesianism

Now I'm no Keynesian, although I do recognise the crucial role Keynesianism played, post-1945, in ensuring that the re-built western economies delivered full-employment to populations for which the experience of the 1930s was still painfully etched in the memory.  Rarely can the democratic will have been expressed so successfully through economic policy as it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

Quite different structural reforms are required today if the global economy is going to deliver on that same promise; it is a task beyond Keynes. 

Nonetheless, Thomas Palley has a thought-provoking piece over at comment is free right now, in which he describes how governments that are keen not be associated with Keynes' thinking, are happy to take up his policy prescriptions when it suits them, especially when the economy starts failing in precisely the 1930s kind of way that Keynes said it would if everything was left to the markets, and systemic deficiencies were not addressed.

While I don't fully agree with Palley's prescription, his analysis of what's been happening to the US economy is spot on:

The current US economic expansion looks like being the first ever in which median household income fails to recover its previous peak. Job growth has been tepid for much of the time, and the employment-to-population ratio has remained well below its previous peak. This dismal experience comes on top of three decades of wage stagnation, during which household income only grew because of longer working hours and having both household heads at work.

Changing health

As ever, an interesting piece from Michael Tomasky on the importance of the debate over health care in the battle for the Democratic nomination.  It sounds as if Clinton is gaining support by having a policy that can never be implemented, and Obama is losing support because it's just too difficult to explain to the electorate why the Clinton plan (mandatory insurance) is a non-starter. 

The comment below Tomasky's piece by Don Reynolds, who appears to know a thing or two about this, is at once the most enlightening and depressing thing I've read during during the campaign.  Reynolds says,

There are no politicians, including Hillary and Obama, that are able to stand up to the physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, and pharm corporations (and their lobbyists). The only one that honestly wanted to try was John Edwards and he is no longer in the race. (I doubt he would have met with any success either.)

The USA is clearly unable to deliver on the promise of universal health care, which puts it way down the league table in terms of social progress among the rich nations.  But this should send out warning signals to other countries about the problems to be faced over the coming decades, as science races ahead, the population gets older, and we find ourselves unable to fund the quality and quantity of health inputs we would like in an ideal world.

Not-so-super Tuesday

Well, it looks as if the nomination process for both Democrats and Republicans will rumble on a little longer, after yesterday's super-Tuesday primaries proved less conclusive than had been widely touted.

It's pleasing to see that Obama and Clinton have been making an effort to appear like members of the same party with very similar policies over the last couple of days, instead of tearing strips off each other at every opportunity.

Nobody seemed to rate Huckabee's chances of getting back into things yesterday, but his victories in several southern states mean I am happy to stick my earlier predictions for both tickets: Clinton/Obama and McCain/Huckabee.

Keeping McCain out

In case you were thinking that, in the unlikely event of the Republican's retaining the White House in November, it wouldn't be so bad, because John McCain has to be an improvement on George W Bush, you should read this from Johann Hari:

... the truth is that McCain is the candidate we should most fear. Not only is he to the right of Bush on a whole range of subjects, he is also the Republican candidate most likely to dispense with Hillary or Barack.

Let's hope Super-Tuesday provides a clear winner for the Democractic nomination so the campaign proper can begin.  It would be catastrophic if an increasingly bitter primary campaign between the Democratic rivals dragged on, and so left the door open for the Republicans.  As Hari concludes,

It is a sign of how far to the right the Republican Party has drifted that [McCain's policies] are considered signs of liberalism, rather than basic humanity.

The poverty of American politics

It was probably inevitable that John Edwards would be forced out of the campaign for the Democratic nomination before Super-Tuesday.  But as this piece from The Nation points out, despite the media clamour around Clinton and Obama, he did manage to shine a light on the continuing poverty that blights American society, and has vowed to continue his struggle.

That the richest country in history is unable to address endemic poverty is not just a symptom of a dysfunctional democracy, it proves beyond doubt that the economy is unable to deliver basic rights to millions in America and elsewhere.

Let's hope that under the next (hopefully Democratic) administration Edwards is able to further raise his profile (perhaps as Vice-President?) and continue putting his message across.

When the truth counts for nothing

This piece in The Nation is rather depressing.  It points out that Bill Clinton's recent attacks on Barack Obama seem to be having the desired effect of increasing overall support for his wife's candidacy.

What's depressing is not that the former President's assertions appear rather short on factual accuracy (that's par for the course), but that Hillary's campaign has calculated that the bad publicity arising from the use of such smear tactics is likely to have a positive impact electorally. 

I'm still unsure about who to support, although this story pushes me a little closer to Obama.

Although I reckon (the) Clinton('s) will be more effective in power; if he can pull it off, an Obama White House could provide a launch pad for a new and radical era in US and therefore global politics.

That said, as I have argued elsewhere, this is more evidence that democracy is still very much in its infancy.

Buttocks are not a sexual organ

This unbelievable but true story from Fred Foldvary over at The Progress Report provides another reminder of why the world, and growing numbers of Americans, are so looking forward to George Bush's departure from the White House and his likely replacement by a Democrat, be it Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

The cultural impact of such a seismic change in the corridors of power will be considerable.  Although neither has yet made any reference to specific parts of the human anatomy in their campaign speeches (as far as I am aware), I'm sure Obama and Clinton would both take a much more sensible approach to uncovered buttocks on national television.

America's choices

With the presidential primaries entering a crucial phase (super Tuesday is now less than a fortnight away), the New York Times has published it's endorsements.  And they're worth a read.

It's supporting Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, largely on the basis of her experience and the fact that she's demonstrated a willingness to learn from her mistakes.  And because the new President will need to hit the ground running, and Clinton would seem more able in that respect.

As it points out, there is little difference between Clinton and Obama on policy issues, both  ...

.... promise an end to the war in Iraq, more equitable taxation, more effective government spending, more concern for social issues, a restoration of civil liberties and an end to the politics of division of George W. Bush and Karl Rove.

If either of them make it to the White House and are able to make serious progress in respect of any of these aims, there will be much cause for celebration, both in the States and around the world.  Encouragingly Americans seem ready for change.

The Times doesn't mention the possibility of a dream ticket, with Obama as Clinton's running mate, but it does urge an end to the current feuding.  I don't think the recent spats between the two campaigns preclude such a partnership, assuming Mrs Clinton does take a clear lead.  It's inevitable when politics is driven by the media and voters are encouraged to make up their minds on the basis of candidates' gladiatorial qualities, that things will get nasty.

As for the Republicans: while unable to get too excited, the paper goes for John McCain as the best of a bad bunch.  McCain at least has some integrity, and while not the moderate he would make himself out to be, his would be a clear improvement on the Bush administration.

Rudolph Giuliani, who despite not having yet properly entered the campaign remains in contention, gets very short shrift.  Despite his initially positive record as Mayor of New York,

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

I didn't like him the first time I set eyes on him!

My prediction:  Clinton/Obama versus McCain/Huckabee, with a comfortable win for the Democrats, but no landslide.

When the rich pay no taxes

If you think George W. Bush has been bad for America, take a look at this piece by Paul A. Moore over at Counterpunch.  Moore describes the way the president's brother, Jeb Bush, has used his time as Governor of Florida as to destroy the traditional, mildly progressive, tax structure in the state and replace it with a system by which the poorest are forced to underwrite the totally irresponsible investment decisions of a few powerful politicians and wealthy business people (well, businessmen actually), who run the state.

As Moore writes:

.... Bush tried to privatize all things profitable and make the people assume all risk associated with investment.

And it seems that he pretty well succeeded.  The only consolation is that just as America's sensible term limits have now forced the ex-Florida Governor from office, so the constitution will later this year see his brother leave the White House.  It's hard to imagine how future historians will view this short, disastrous, episode in the country's history.

Small change in the USA

Fred Foldvary has an informative piece over at The Progress Report in which he rates the policies of US presidential candidates from both parties against the essential change criteria of the geolibertarian movement.  He's especially good on the wacky tax plans of Republican hopeful, Mike Huckabee. 

And why not check out  Fred's fledgling political party, Free Earth.  It's easy to dismiss such initiatives as marginal and therefore inconsequential, but as a concise programme for transformative social change, it's right on the button.

American barbarism

I think there's far too much America bashing on this side of the pond, but occasionally one hears a story which forces the conclusion that aspects of American society and culture are quite beyond the pail for a nation which claims to be civilised and an example to the rest of the world.  One such tale was recounted on Radio Four's Saturday Live this morning, where Fi Glover interviewed Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

Unlike some survivors of death row injustices, Yarris is articulate and passionate, and now gives public talks for Reprieve, the anti-death penalty organisation founded by the remarkable human rights lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith.  If you missed it, the interview is well worth a listen.