Clinton County Democrats Ad Blitz Begins This Week

I have a part-time, totally unpaid role as strategic communications director for the county Democratic Party. I'm pretty proud of how we have leveraged about $3,000 into what I think is a pretty clever and effective comprehensive advertising campaign for the General Election. The first element in that campaign will go up this week in the form of a couple of billboards in town. Here they are:









This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

We will also have a pretty agressive TV and radio buy beginning later this month.

Invigorating the Arts in Clinton.

As part of my continuing work on the Iowa Great Places projects in town, Tuesday night I sat in on a reorganization meeting for the River Cities America Arts Council. The RCAAC has been around for many years. They were responsible for putting on the Arts Alive festivals back in the day. Recently they have mostly been an non-profit of convenience for special events, e.g. the sesquicentennial and RAGBRAI.

The vision is to turn the group back into a full-time organization promoting the visual, performing and popular arts in the Gateway Region. What does that mean? Well, here are some of the projects that have come up in conversations with community members.

• Working to implement the Great Places Sculpture Garden.


• Allowing students and community artists to submit ideas for and paint the winning ideas for painting traffic signal boxes. This turns the drab, silver growths on light poles and street corners into works of art. This is from an idea in Brisbane, Australia


• Adding a juried art show to the Art In The Park Festival.


• Writing grants to support and increase teaching of visual and performing arts in schools.


• Introducing a program to record performances of the local theater, ballet, symphonies and other arts groups for later video or audio podcasting for shut-ins.


• Establishing an Arts To The Elderly program that would allow rotating artwork to be displayed in elderly care facilities, and allow for hands-on art programs for residents and the elderly.


• Establishing a One Percent for Arts policy in regional cities where one percent of all new industrial, commercial and residentail real estate development would be set aside for public art either as part of the new project or put into a public kitty. This program is very successful in both large and small cities.

Can you think of others? The next meeting of the RCAAC will be on Monday, October 30 at 7:00 p.m. at the Chamber of Commerce. If you or your organization are interested in contributing to any of the above or have ideas of your own, you are invited. This meeting will elect a new Board of Directors and establish membership policies. The organization will keep membership dues minimal in order to encourage participation. If you are interested or have further questions, please contact Liz Allen, Great Places Intern at the Chamber, 563.242.5702.

Wednesday Soccer Bloggin': Fire Win Open Cup!

The Chicago Fire won their fourth U.S. Open Cup tonight beating the detested LA Galaxy 3-1. That's four Open Cups in eight years. The US Open Cup is the oldest trophy in US Soccer, having been played for since 1914. All professional teams in the country are eligible to win the competition, although the last non-MLS team to win was Rochester in 1999. Although they've only won one MLS Cup (the league trophy), they've appeared in three cup finals.

I make a big point of telling my young soccer atheletes and their parents how important it is to go see real, professional soccer matches either on TV or in person. The Fire play at a gorgeous, brand new stadium in Bridgeview, just south of Chicago. It is abotu 2 and-a-half hours and the stadium is about a mile off the expressway. Tickets start at $20. It's a great time and the fans in Section 8 bring a European atmosphere to the games. No excuse not to take the young soccer fan. Go to team website, and check it out. Root the Fire on to the double.

The whipping of LA tonight caps a week where LA soccer teams went 0-3 in Chicago. The Galaxy also lost last Saturday night to the Fire in a league game. Saturday afternoon, the two teams' supporters clubs got together for a game and I suited up in the Fire kit.

I'm second from the left in the first row. Here is something else you don't often see, my 41 year-old butt dribbling past someone, albeit on the end of a nice pass from Jason.


Fire 'till I die;
Fire 'till I die;
I know I am, I swear I am;
Fire 'till I die.

Soccer geeks rule.

Rural Voters Poll: Comments from the Center for Rural Strategies

Last Sunday, I wrote about a Center for Rural Strategies Poll or rural voters showing a trend towards the Democrats.

I was shocked and flattered to get e-mail from Tim Marema, Vice President for the Center for Rural Strategies. We had an exchange of messages and he elaborated on the poll's findings.

Here are a couple thoughts:

About the war: One of the things we found in the poll is that 73 percent of the rural respondents knew someone who has served in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan. We don't have a way to compare that directly to metro areas, but that seems like a large percentage and it would support the notion that wars come home to rural areas in very personal ways.

Second, don't sell the impact of the rural vote short. While the number of rural voters is about 20 percent of the national electorate, you can make the case that rural voters in Ohio determined the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Rural voters in Ohio broke 64-36 for Bush, helping him overcome the increased turnout in urban areas that favored Kerry.

I also asked him about my assertion that in a very noisy (that is to say overwhelming ly negative, misinformation-fille) advertising environment that voters will swing back to their mean behavior. Here is his response:

In 2004 Kerry was far more competitive in rural battleground in June than he was in September and October. So there's a case to be made that the rural vote will swing Republican in the remaining weeks, as you say. Our Republican advisor, Bill Greener, says he thinks the GOP numbers are about where they should be, given that these are competitive districts and not walkaways. And they hold up well with congressional preferences from our 2004 poll. He thinks the GOP will open a lead before the election.

Our Democratic advisor, Anna Greenberg, says the apt comparison from 2006 is to 2002 off year, when the GOP had a substantial lead among rural voters in the congressional races (instead of dead even, like we found last week). If that's the comparison to make, then rural is currently more Democratic than you would expect.

We will do another poll in late October and I'll add you to the list to get a notice when it's out. That poll will sample the same states and districts. Therefore we should be able to observe whether there is a swing and if so how much. My hunch is that will say a lot about the outcome of the election.

I'm looking forward to that second poll and will publish the results as soon as they become avialable. Big, big ups to Tim Marema for having his blogger tracking radar on and engaging with C-list bloggers like me.

Hollowing Out The Military

Are you more secure now than you were five years ago? Well, over the weekend the New York Times provided us with the answer that your 16 intelligence agencies came up with. The answer is, "no" in cas you have to ask. But that's just the terrorism threat. Here is an interesting statistic: One has as much chance of being shot by an American police officer or being struck by lightning, as one does of being killed in a terrorist attack. See cute graphic below.


But surely the GOP, the only party trusworthy of maintaining our military, is taking care of our business with the U.S. Armed forces right? Wrong. The Army is worn out, tapped out, runnin' on fumes. The 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) is "part of the XVIII Airborne Corps, one of the nation's premier units for dealing with contingencies." It is currently facing it's third rotation through Iraq. But it is just barely at strength and most of those troops are green, just out of basic. The Division has left most of its equipment in Iraq and only has two of its four brigades equipped for deployment anywhere but Iraq, say Korea. Which is a bit of a drag since the 3rd ID is the go-to mechanized unit for reinforcing Korea or anywhere else where an attack ocurrs.

Col. Tom James, who commands the division’s Second Brigade, acknowledged that his unit’s equipment levels had fallen so low that it now had no tanks or other armored vehicles to use in training and that his soldiers were rated as largely untrained in attack and defense.

The rest of the division, which helped lead the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and conducted the first probes into Baghdad, is moving back to full strength after many months of being a shell of its former self.

...

Other than the 17 brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, only two or three combat brigades in the entire Army — perhaps 7,000 to 10,000 troops — are fully trained and sufficiently equipped to respond quickly to crises, said a senior Army general.

Most other units of the active-duty Army, which is growing to 42 brigades, are resting or being refitted at their home bases. But even that cycle, which is supposed to take two years, is being compressed to a year or less because of the need to prepare units quickly to return to Iraq.

After coming from Iraq in 2003, the Third Infantry Division was sent back in 2005. Then, within weeks of returning home last January, it was told by the Army that one of its four brigades had to be ready to go back again, this time in only 11 months. The three other brigades would have to be ready by mid-2007, Army planners said.

Yet almost all of the division’s equipment had been left in Iraq for their replacements, and thousands of its soldiers left the Army or were reassigned shortly after coming home, leaving the division largely hollow. Most senior officers were replaced in June.

Congressment Dave Obey and John Murtha have put together their own readiness report since the Pentagon won't put one out. (PDF download)

Army military readiness rates have declined to levels not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. Roughly one-half of all Army units (deployed and non-deployed, active and reserves) received the lowest readiness rating any fully formed unit can receive. Prior to 9/11, only about 20 percent of the Army received this lowest rating – a fact driven almost exclusively by shortfalls in the reserves...

Of the 16 active-duty, non-deployed combat brigades in the United States managed by the Army’s Forces Command, the vast majority of them are rated at the lowest readiness ratings. These ratings are caused by severe equipment shortages.

Of particular concern is the readiness rates of the units scheduled to deploy later this year, particularly the 1st Cavalry Division. This division and its 4 brigades will deploy to Iraq in October at the lowest level of readiness because of equipment shortfalls. To meet its needs, this unit – like virtually all other units that have recently deployed or will soon deploy to Iraq – must fall-in on equipment in theater. Operating unfamiliar, battle weary equipment increases the potential for casualties and accidents...

Funding shortfalls have created backlogs at all of the Army’s key depot maintenance facilities. At Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, some 600 M1 tanks sit in disuse. At Red River Army Depot in Texas, 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and over 450 trucks have not been serviced. Roughly 2,600 Humvees are sitting idle at various Army depots. Tens of thousands of small arms, communications sets, and other key items have been similarly backlogged.

That's not just partisan rhetoric. Army memos have been making the rounds for months saying the same thing and using the word Vietnam with alarming frequency.

All that is going to add up. Thousands of vehicles to be repaired or replaced. Thousands of soldiers to be trained up. Billions of dollars in consumable inventory to be built back up. So, it is hardly any wonder that the DoD is asking for a 41% increase in its budget in FY 2008.

Again, its not that I have a problem with the policies per se. I never expected to agree with this administration. It's the incompetence I can't stand. I really need to stop this now. I'm going to go find some interesting local issues to write about later in the week.

The Bush Administration, Fractally F***ed Up, Pt. 2

Of course, as a progressive, I'm not really in love with the polices of the Bush Administration. That's merely to be expected. But I think that the least any American can ask is that the Administration at least execute its disagreeable policies and programs with an iota of competence or honesty. And that has been my main beef with this Administration: there seems to be no corner of it that is not completely mismanaged or full of grasping, featherbeading, party hacks.

Take for example, the Reading First program. The administration considers this program to be one of the success stories in the No Child Left Behind policy initiative. It is designed to promote youth reading through scientifically-proven programs. An audit from the Office of the Inspector General -- one of several ongoing audits of the program -- has found subtantial misconduct. From the AP:

The government audit is unsparing in its review of how Reading First, a billion-dollar program each year, that it says has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.

It also depicts a program in which review panels were stacked with people who shared the director’s views and in which only favored publishers of reading curricula could get money.

...

In one e-mail, the director told a staff member to come down hard on a company he didn’t support, according to the report released Friday by the department’s inspector general.

“They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the (expletive deleted) out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags,” the Reading First director wrote, according to the report.

That official, Chris Doherty, is resigning in the coming days, department spokeswoman Katherine McLane said Friday. Asked if his quitting was in response to the report, she said only that Doherty is returning to the private sector after five years at the agency.

...

About 1,500 school districts have received $4.8 billion in Reading First grants.

Later, he was to decide that the Bush Administration was fractally fucked up. That is, you could take any small piece of it and examine it in detail and it, in and of itself, would turn out to be just as complicated and fucked up as the whole thing in its entirety.

Rural Voters Turning Their Backs On The GOP?

The rural vote has traditionally been a pretty solid bloc for the Republican Party. Of course their (our?) small population makes them pretty marginal on the national level, at the congressional district level, rural voters are swing voters in many states and they have been very supportive of the GOP. For example, Al Gore received only 37 percent of the rural vote in 2000 and Kerry fared only a smidgen better in 2004 with 40 percent.

Therefore, it is a bit of a shock to see a new poll from The Center for Rural Strategies, conducted by democratic and republican pollsters.

The poll of rural voters in 41 contested congressional districts with significant rural populations found Democratic and Republican candidates running a dead heat, with each party receiving 45 percent of the possible votes. In six contested Senate races in states with significant rural populations, rural voters favored Republican candidates 47 to 43 percent, but the gap falls within the poll’s margin of error of 4.3 percentage points, making a statistical tie.

The most important issue on rural voters’ minds is the war in Iraq, followed closely by jobs and the economy and terrorism and national security, the poll found. Strikingly, nearly three-quarters of the respondents said they knew someone who has served in the armed forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This backs up something I have been trying to hammer into recalcitrant skulls in the local party: that the war matters locally... A LOT.

It will be interesting to see if this holds up through the last six weeks as both parties drop the big negative bombs. Usually, in the face of nausea-inducing negative ad, overload voters just sort of reset back to their default patterns.

The Unitarian Jihad.

I am cman no more. my Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Rail Gun of Sweet Reason. Get yours.

This is an old joke, from a John Caroll article in the San Francisco Chronicle more than a year ago. The Unitarian Jihad exists, if it exists at all as an Internet discussion group. Still, as we enter the silly season it is worth hitting the highlights.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.
We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution. We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.

More Polling

Data points are coming in fast and furious now. The latest Des Moines Register poll came out Monday. Hey, sue me, I've been a bit preoccupied. Short version: Governor's race is a toss up, First District looks like Braley has a good lead but less than in previous polls.

The Governor's race is still tied within the margin of error as it has been through most of the polls done this far. The poll has the two candidates tied at 44 percent each with 10 percent undecided. Party loyalty is pretty strong but among Independents Nussle shows a slight edge, 42 to 40. Negatives for both candidates are pretty low, especially considering the advertising climate, only 10 percent claim negative feelings towards Culver while 16 percent feel negative about Nussle. Positive feelings are also low, Culver gets 13 percent warm fuzzies while Nussle gets 16 percent cuddly feelings.

That tells me that support is soft for both candidates. Combine that with a tight race and I think we are looking at a quick race into the mud as the race closes down.

Braley maintains a 44-37 lead over Mike Whalen. That is smaller than previous polls. Crucially however, Whalen trails Braley by 10 percent among Independents, with only 32 percent favoring him as opposed to the 42 percent for Braley. Also telling, the poll shows 11 percent support among Republicans for Bruce Braley wile Whalen picks up only 4 percent of Democrats.

Lastly, the generic ballot question shows a seven point lead for Democrats, 43 to 36 percent.

Visualizing Your Tax Dollars

The website The Budgetgraph houses a huge representation of where your federal taxes are spent. ot only does it show the amount spent on each item, but it also shows the percentage change from last year so you can see what is emphasized and can spot trends. It is well researched and justified in supporting materials. You can also buy a poster. Buy one for the kids or for your congressman!

One Door Closes, Another One Opens

It wasn't a great shock but as of Monday I am no longer employed by Clifton Gunderson. No real drama (unless you are me) associated with it. Just a change in the way they want to go after business in this region and a lowering of expectations. It's been wonderful working with the people in the Clinton office and they are working to make this as easy as possible during the transition.

I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. So, for the time being I guess this just means one thing: more bloggy goodness.

Sunday Soccer Bloggin'

Got to watch two entire games and bits of two others this weekend. If that sounds like a lot, it's really only about five hours worth or less than two complete football games. By my count, last week's Iowa-Syracuse game came in at just under four and-a-half hours. Granted there were two overtimes, but those play pretty fast what with no game clock, only a play clock.

Anyway, all is right in my soccer world. The Fire beat league leading D.C. United 1-0 in a downpour in Chicago last night, clinching their own post-season berth and denying D.C. home field advantage, at least for the moment. The Fire are the only conference team to beat United this year and have done so in two straight games, whacking them 3-0 and knocking them out of the U.S. Open Cup semi-finals. After knocking DC out of the playoffs last year with a 4-0 shellacking in D.C. the rivalry has become somewhat personal. There were seven yellow cards and two red cards yesterday.

Finally, there is this little tidbit from Barcelona. Long the team for the discerning new soccer fan to follow, Barcelona has set a new standard for quality of play and social relevancy of the fan-owned club. They just signed their first-ever shirt sponsorhsip deal... with UNICEF.

“If you look at our history, this is a club that has always represented the values of citizenship, sport and democracy in the Catalan capital,” [Club President, Joan] Laporta said in an interview Friday before returning to Spain. “We are a club that appreciates talent and tolerance. Through 107 years we have represented those values, and in that time our shirt has never been sold.”

Barcelona was alone among the top clubs in the world in spurning lucrative offers to sell advertising space on its jersey. Laporta said the club had repeatedly declined offers, including one that would have paid it $22 million a year and another from the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. By comparison, Chelsea of England began a five-year sponsorship deal with Samsung Electronics in 2005 that pays it $18.7 million a season.

Instead, it is Barcelona that will pay Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, nearly $2 million a year for the next five years for the right to use the Unicef logo in all competitions, Laporta said. The first program to benefit will focus on AIDS education for children in Swaziland.

“Our message is that Barcelona is more than a club, and a new global hope for vulnerable children,” he said. “It is a humanitarian message. It represents the identify of our club that we see as a defender of freedom and democratic rights and facing up to others in a time of governments without tolerance.”

Laporta declined to say whether he was drawing a comparison between his club and its main rival, Real Madrid. Barcelona and Catalonia, an autonomous region of Spain, have long had a contentious relationship with the central government. That was especially true in the days of the dictator Francisco Franco, an unabashed Real supporter.

In yesterday’s game, five different players scored as Barcelona defeated Levski Sofia, 5-0. Barcelona is trying to become the first team to win back-to-back European club championships since A.C. Milan in 1989 and 1990. Those Milan teams included Barcelona’s current coach, Frank Rijkaard.

“It is important that we try to present an image of sport in the world that changes the idea that football is only about money, but that it has a heart and a soul,” Laporta said.

Washington Stock Exchange

Okay political junkies, time to put your (virtual) money where your mouth is. The Washington Stock Exchange is open for business! While there are real current event futures markets such as Intrade, this kind of thing is just for fun.

BTW, over at Intrade the Culver - Nussle race is listed at 70-30. A contract expires at $100 for a win and $0 for a loss meaning a high confidence in Culver. Whereas over at The WSX it is at 54.98 Culver and 57.44 Nussle. WSX is brand spanking new and it was fun to watch my paltry trades move the market.

WSX follows in the footsteps of the Hollywood Stock Exchange which has been open for about six or seven years now. I've been playing it desultorily for most of that time and have a portfolio in the 85th percentile. HSX has been seriously studied as predictive indexes and even the play money markets have been shown to be very accurate.

So, line up your portfolios and let's see who the real prognositcators are!

Classes I Wish I Could Take

Via Brad DeLong, over in the People's Republic Of Berkeley

It is a fair criticism that we Berkeley Economics people (Ed: Aw, come on Brad, don't be so hard on yourself, most North American and European economists. ) think Economic History is Atlantic Economic History, and overwhelmingly North Atlantic Economic History.

Well, now I have a new course's worth of readings to compile--and I know I will have read only an appallingly small portion of it:

Un-Atlantic Economic History: The Economies Bordering the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, 1000-1950

Where to start? Where to start? Start with what I have read and know:

* Fernand Braudel, The Structure of Everyday Life (Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0520081145/braddelong00
* Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (Paperback) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0195067746/braddelong00
* K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0521285429/braddelong00
* Tirthankar Roy, The Economic History of India 1857-1947 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0195684303/braddelong00

Bernanke on Global Economic Integration

This is pertinent to some of the conclusions of my previous post, that Globalism has a lot to answer for in regards to those who are negatively affected. Just to clarify, being mostly a utilitarian, I remain convinced that Globalism produces far more in net benefits than it does in negatives. That said, the system is far, far from perfect.

The current Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke is a breath of fresh air compared to his predecessor. All kudos to the Oracle Greenspan, but Ben is actually comprehensible and shows signs of wanting to engage in a dialog with his constituency. Worth reading in its entirety is his Aug 25 speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Thirtieth Annual Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. A very good synopsis of the history of global economic integration going from the Romans to the present day coupled with an open-eyed analysis of the problems of Globalism.

The physical distance along a great circle from Wausau, Wisconsin to Wuhan, China is fixed at 7,020 miles. But to an economist, the distance from Wausau to Wuhan can also be expressed in other metrics, such as the cost of shipping goods between the two cities, the time it takes for a message to travel those 7,020 miles, and the cost of sending and receiving the message. Economically relevant distances between Wausau and Wuhan may also depend on what trade economists refer to as the "width of the border," which reflects the extra costs of economic exchange imposed by factors such as tariff and nontariff barriers, as well as costs arising from differences in language, culture, legal traditions, and political systems.

...

A second conclusion from history is that national policy choices may be critical determinants of the extent of international economic integration. Britain's embrace of free trade and free capital flows helped to catalyze international integration in the nineteenth century. Fifteenth-century China provides an opposing example. In the early decades of that century, the Chinese sailed great fleets to the ports of Asia and East Africa, including ships much larger than those that the Europeans were to use later in the voyages of discovery. These expeditions apparently had only limited economic impact, however. Ultimately, internal political struggles led to a curtailment of further Chinese exploration (Findlay, 1992). Evidently, in this case, different choices by political leaders might have led to very different historical outcomes.

A third observation is that social dislocation, and consequently often social resistance, may result when economies become more open. An important source of dislocation is that--as the principle of comparative advantage suggests--the expansion of trade opportunities tends to change the mix of goods that each country produces and the relative returns to capital and labor. The resulting shifts in the structure of production impose costs on workers and business owners in some industries and thus create a constituency that opposes the process of economic integration. More broadly, increased economic interdependence may also engender opposition by stimulating social or cultural change, or by being perceived as benefiting some groups much more than others.

...

By almost any economically relevant metric, distances have shrunk considerably in recent decades. As a consequence, economically speaking, Wausau and Wuhan are today closer and more interdependent than ever before. Economic and technological changes are likely to shrink effective distances still further in coming years, creating the potential for continued improvements in productivity and living standards and for a reduction in global poverty.

Further progress in global economic integration should not be taken for granted, however. Geopolitical concerns, including international tensions and the risks of terrorism, already constrain the pace of worldwide economic integration and may do so even more in the future. And, as in the past, the social and political opposition to openness can be strong. Although this opposition has many sources, I have suggested that much of it arises because changes in the patterns of production are likely to threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the profits of some firms, even when these changes lead to greater productivity and output overall. The natural reaction of those so affected is to resist change, for example, by seeking the passage of protectionist measures. The challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared--for example, by helping displaced workers get the necessary training to take advantage of new opportunities--that a consensus for welfare-enhancing change can be obtained. Building such a consensus may be far from easy, at both the national and the global levels. However, the effort is well worth making, as the potential benefits of increased global economic integration are large indeed.

I will say that he does not go far enough. Most economists agree that worker training programs do not do much for workers dislocated by the demand for their current skills moving offshore. But he does realize that the entire regieme is shaped by political consensus. What is needed is a consensus in the "core" consuming contries of the US and EU that some global standards of labor rights (wage cost harmonization) and environmental protection (eliminating hidden subsidies on natural resource use) are important. That can get us moving towards helpful tweaks to the globalization system that can begin to provide some relief for those left behind.

IA-02 Polling. Leach In Trouble?

Over at Iowa True Blue, former Dem. Party Chair, Gordon Fischer highlights a story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. PDF download.

Jim Leach has only a 38% re-elect, in a district he won with 59% in 2004, and 52% in 2002. He also has an upside down job approval rating, 42-49. In an initial head-to-head with Democratic challenger Dave Loebsack, a professor at Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon Iowa, making his first run for office, Leach is held to 47%, with 53% either choosing Loebsack or uncertain between the two. Following a paragraph of biographical and issue information about Loebsack, the ballot test swings widely, with Loebsack on top, 51%-28%.

Take with a grain of salt because this poll was conducted by the Loesback campaign. But even if they are massaging the numbers a bit it is only because the real numbers are encouraging enough that they think an additional injection of resources -- which is what they are fishing for here -- will put them into serious contention. Or possibly the numbers are real and we are looking at a landslide election.

Sixty-two days will tell the tale. As my friend The State's Attorney is fond of saying of basketball games with two minutes left on the clock, "There's an eternity left in this game."

Five Years After 9/11: What Have We Learned?

So says the banner headline in yesterday's Quad City Times. Indeed. Good questions to ask ourselves on this solemn day. Introspection is good for the spirit. Well then, what have we learned? Let's start with the basics, things on which most rational people will agree with. One: Osama Bin Laden masterminded and planned the 9/11 attacks. Two: People are terribly ingenious; there is not a whole heck of a lot one can do to stop a determined and competent person from giving his or her life to take the lives of one or more people if that's what he or she is truly bent on doing. Three: Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Four: The world has changed not necessarily because of what happened five years ago today but because of what has happened since. Five: When you're in a hole, stop digging.

Bin Laden and Hussein: Osama did it, Saddam didn't. We had Bin Laden and most of his senior leadership quite literally in our gun sights in December, 2001 at Tora Bora. And in case you missed it -- and there is no reason why you shouldn't have because it was completely ignored by the media -- Pakistan has declared a cease fire against pro-Taliban militias in Northwest Pakistan. So, we are essentially back to a situation that mirrors the status quo ante minus an actual Taliban "government" in Afghanistan. In case anyone wonders why thing in Afghanistan are starting to look so dire, that's one of your top reasons. That and the record poppy crop injecting cash into the warlords' pockets.

Two: Five years ago, once the initial shock and horror had worn off a bit, the reaction to the 9/11 attacks among many people around the world -- especially in Europe and Israel where dealing with terrorism had been an ongoing struggle for decades -- was, "welcome to our world." We learned with a dismal certainly what most real security experts have known for years: that a smart, committed bad guy can get through any defense. Smart defenses will weed out the stupid and/or crazy ones. Good police work and ubiquitous surveillance will snag the ones with less than perfect security. But the really smart ones, the ones with a good plan are going to get through.

Even if the possible Almighty were to reach out and touch the souls of every misguided madrassa mullah and every angry, disenchanted, and twisted Muslim youth tomorrow there would still be a world full of very, very angry people with grievances both real (and there are real ones) and imagined who would be willing to exchange their lives for the lives of x Americans, where x equals as many as they can get away with. I'll refer you back down a few paragraphs to the passage about the global marketplace and the resources available to the smart and dedicated mass murderer/guerilla. We all live on United 93 now bitches. Deal with it.

Does that seem cold and cynical? Too bad. This is the world we have made. It is the world we will have to live in forever, or as near as matters for anyone alive today. War on Terror? What a joke! Wars end. Wars have two or more state combatants, one of whom can surrender and submit and stop the violence. What are the victory conditions of the War on Terror? Whose surrender do we take? Whose country do we occupy and transform into a vibrant, democratic, market-based nation with a New Marshall Plan? What guarantees do we have that hostilities will not begin again?

Most importantly: In who's interest is it to maintain in the public mind the metaphor (if not the actuality) of Long War that has such fuzzy outlines? See end of post.

Three, Iraq: Today at least I want to try to stay away from the usual thrashing of the Administration. So let us not dwell on the affair other than to look at the lesson's learned in a strategic sense. Collapsing a state is easy. Putting one back together isn't. A bit like putting the toothpaste back in the tube isn't it? Three years on, 150,000 plus boots on the ground, 2,600 plus dead and close to 20,000 wounded, practically every unit in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps inventory having rotated through at one time or another and what have we got to show for it? A couple of elections that split the country along sectarian/cultural lines and a coalition government that might last say, half an hour if we and the Brits were to disappear overnight. Kind of feels makes you wonder what the point is of having this almighty military doesn't it? I mean if we are really serious with ourselves we can probably count on two hands the number of countries that the U.S. military couldn't roll up in a matter of a month if that was what we chose to do.

But then what? There you are, a collapsed state, a pissed off population with access to three thousand years of history, computers and the Internet. You've got a global marketplace awash in the makings of all kinds of nasty things: shaped, remotely detonated explosives; unmanned aerial vehicles, night vision goggles, chemical weapons, dirty nuclear bombs, all available for smart people to build from off-the-shelf parts and for really rich people to buy ready-made from arms dealers (well, except for the dirty bombs). At the end of the day there you are, 150,000 American troops with their figurative dicks in the meat grinder and if the folks in the country don't want you there badly enough there isn't jack we can do about it.

Four: There were two paths to be taken after 9/11. The path not taken would have leveraged the sympathy of a shocked world to work to solve the root causes of terrorism: tyranny, poverty, ignorance and helplessness. It would have looked hard at our globalized economy of goods and ideas and perhaps have come to grips with the fact that there are losers in this new world order and that their grievances are genuine and well-founded. What starry=eyed fools we were. In the end we all knew that we would lash out like a macho man-child. Five years later and literally all the good will in the world has been pissed away like a six-pack of PBR

Mostly, we have investigated and measured the limits of military power in the world of the 21st Century. As we have learned in Iraq, as the Sabras learned in Lebanon, and as NATO forces are now learning in Afghanistan, war is no longer what we thought it was and is increasingly unable to achieve its traditional aims. As John Robb explains in clear bullet points:

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it's increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following:

• Operations of low lethality. Western militaries do not have the desire, nor the sanction, to conduct the high casualty operations typically associated with real wars. Technology has been leveraged to increase the precision of attacks to limit collateral damage and save the lives of civilians. The corollary to this is that western militaries are also fiercely protective of the lives of their soldiers. Warfare, increasingly, is supposed to be costless. What this means is that we will not see Sherman's 'March to the Sea' or Hama in the near future - and - the loss of a hundred soldiers in southern Lebanon will be enough to stop the Israeli army.


• Marginal placement within national priorities. Militaries are increasingly professional (with a trend towards the use of mercenaries) and conscription has become impossible. This drastically limits the number of soldiers that can be applied to any conflict. In addition, to retain competitive positioning on the global stage, states and their economies are operated as if war is not going on. To wit: military budgets are considered just another line item on a more complex national budget. Gone are the days of massive mobilization and economic restructuring for war.


• Muddled objectives. Given the lack of the cohesive and singular reason for war -- the survival of the state and its people through the elimination of its enemies -- the reasons for warfare will drift. This translates into a constantly shifting landscape of military objectives, where current objectives recede in favor of replacements before they can be reached. The result is confusion, mission creep, and conflict escalation.

Playing with War
The upshot of this diminishment of warfare is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win. The reasons are straightforward:

• Asymmetric motivation. In almost all instances, the opposition will approach the conflict as an existential war. This motivation both allows them to fight harder and longer than those western forces sent against it. The only aspects of warfare left in the west's favor are training and technology.


• New methods of warfare will emerge to level (flatten) the playing field. Since warfare is a conflict between minds, its natural to expect that as the rest of the world gains capacity through globalization, the delta in training and technology will diminish. We have already seen this in the emergence of open source warfare (Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and more) and 4GW light infantry (Hezbollah).


• Proliferation of opposition. As we have often seen, as western militaries apply violence, they often destroy the structures that hold together societies. This results in the proliferation of groups that adopt violence. Much, if not all, of that violence will eventually be directed at the western militaries themselves.

Learning to Live with Limits
Ultimately, western societies will need to learn to live within the limits of this new framework. It is not possible for us to reverse the clock on this trend. Any mass mobilization for war that lifts existing limitations will be severely punished by both global markets and opinion (both domestically and abroad) if it ever was attempted. Given the inevitability of the limited nature of western warfare from now and into the future, we should avoid the following traps:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives -- they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.


• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.


• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this.

Five: God, what depressing litany. Had enough? Good. So, let's get down to learnin' some serious lessons.

• In order to secure true, long-term security America must actually walk the talk of standing for liberty, justice and human rights. As it says in Luke: To whom much is given much is expected.


• Perhaps it is time to reconsider the terms of the globalized market economy. What if we worked to add some "friction" to globalization in the way of better working conditions, labor laws, environmental controls? Wouldn't the relative increase in cost of business for the current low-cost producers who don't have to contend with such troublesome issues (which, incidentally are also often the most troublesome nations) improve the situation for the very productive workforce in the United States. It is possible to do well by doing good.


• If wars of conquest and occupation are pretty much futile in the context of 4th Generation War, then what is the point of having a superpower-class military? Our nuclear arsenal provides protection against aggression or threat to vital national interests. Perhaps it is finally time to consider a leaner, meaner military more suited to unconventional warfare and peacekeeping than the conventional mass maneuver wars of the 20th Century. What new mechanisms can we find for collective security that leverage our current military investment and decrease our exposure to go-it-alone debacles? What could we do with the resulting savings in the defense budget?


• Terrorists will always be with us. Destroy a couple of buildings... Heck, nuke a whole city. Unthinkable atrocities that might shatter the soul. But at the end of the day, what have they taken from us? The United States is 3.5 billion square miles and 275 million people with an annual gross domestic product of eleven point seven-five trillion dollars. The United States is an idea. No terrorist can threaten our existence as a nation, no terrorist can break our economy, no terrorist can take threaten the ideas and ideals this country is founded upon. Only we can do that.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

- Dune, Frank Herbert.

If George Ryan doesn't rot in jail he will surely burn in hell.

I'm not much of a believer in Christian dogma actually. Rather, I believe that we make our own Heaven and Hell in our final moments. As we feel the life slip out of us and look back on what that life has been, the brain in its ineffable way stretches those moments out into the oft-mentioned life flashing before our eyes. In those moments -- which may seem like an eternety -- we review what we have done and left undone. Those of us who do believe or who at least possess a positive uncertainty about the literal existence of Heaven and Hell must certainly go through throes of agony regarding our possible Judgement pefore a possible Almighty.

Thus, when the day finally comes that I hear former Illinois Governor, George Ryan, has at last shuffled his ponderous mortal coil off the face of a protesting Earth, I will grin with the satisfaction of a fine, cold dish of revenge. For I will know that as surely as there is a human bone in his body his last moments were filled with the anguish of a man who knows he is surely damned.

Why do I have such loathing for George Ryan? It is because his ferally corrupt rule killed six of my neices and nephews. On November 8, 1994, my brother-in-law, Scott and my wife's sister, Janet Willis, were driving home from Milwaukee on I-84. Their minivan hit a large iron rear mud flap assembly that had fallen off a truck just ahead of them. The driver, who did not speak English, had not understood several warnings from other truckers over the CB radio. What happened next, in Scott's own words:

I was looking at the road and was alert. Our little baby was behind us; Ben was behind us on the other side. In the back were the other four children; they were all buckled in. I saw the object (a metal brace, 6"x30", 30 lbs.). I thought it was one of those blocks that maybe came off a flatbed truck. The car in front of me swerved, and I knew I couldn't miss hitting the object. I thought if I took it on the tire I might roll the car. It was a split-second decision.

When we hit the object, the rear gas tank exploded, taking the car out of control. I was able to grip the wheel and take the car out of the slide. When we were sliding and the flames were coming around the seat, it was a shock--a surprise--like, 'What is this?' It was just roaring flames coming up on both sides. I was yelling to get out of the car. Janet and I had to consciously put our hands into the flames to unbuckle the seat belts and reach for the door handles.

Janet fell out the door while the car was still moving. Benny was in the midst of the burning; his clothes were mostly burned off by the time he got out. The five youngest children, who had been asleep, died instantly. No sound was heard by Janet or me as we struggled to get out of the van. An unknown man took his shirt off his back to soak Benny's wounds, and another beat out the burning clothes on Janet's back. Benny died in intensive care around midnight.

It was later revealed that the truck driver -- unqualified for a commercial license in Illinois -- had acquired his license through a license-for-bribe scheme whereby trucking companies would get licenses for their unqualified drivers in exchange for money that went through the local Secretary of State employees hands directly to the campaign war-chest of George Ryan.

Ryan has been sentenced to a laughable 6.5 year stretch that in all likelyhood he will never serve a day of. During the pre-sentencing period, Janet and Scott sent a number of letters to U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer. Pallmeyer refused to let Janet and Scott make any pre-sentencing statements bit did say that she read them before handing down her sentence.

Today, in the Chicago Tribune, John Kass publishes the Willis' letters.

On Nov. 8, 1994, I voted to re-elect George Ryan as secretary of state to be in charge of road safety. I am a mother. I loved my children, home-schooled them, and with God's help, poured my heart into trying to be the best mother I could be. We were very close. A few hours after that vote was cast, I watched as my children were trapped in an inferno. I have had to ask God to help me to forget the sights and thoughts of that day and all that occurred.

...

Gov. Ryan must have understood as a father what the loss of six young, innocent children meant to Janet and me, yet no personal contact or written contact concerning the accident was ever made. Instead the investigation was terminated and suppressed, and our efforts to investigate were criticized.

Because he was the secretary of state and because of the massive publicity following the accident, he cannot claim ignorance. Thus he bears the ultimate responsibility in the suppression of the investigation.

How could this happen? How could a man, a father, a public servant allow this? What was done was a crime, according to the rule of this court. But the question remains as to the motivation. [Ryan defense attorney Dan Webb] correctly answered this: "It was politics." Thus, decisions concerning life and death were not decided on principle but on politics.

For the vast majority of Americans is it fairly simple to put out of mind the very real, human cost of political venality and stupidity. From the local to the international very few of us ever pay the ultimate price of Machiavellian calculation. But that price is paid, day after day whether it is six innocent children burning to death on the interstate or a young Lebanese boy or girl dying by inches, crushed in the shattered ruins of their home. Of course we all pay in one way or another for poor, misguided or just plain venal public policy but it is usually abstract and simple to dismiss as, politcs-as-usual, whaddyagonnado?. Few Americans have to deal with the literally bloody ruins of a polical scheme gone pear-shaped.

So, in case you ever wondered why I get so worked up about politics in general and George Ryan in particular, now you know. There are also the stories of Russian and Czech political prisoners heard in 1990 and the red-baiting of my grandfather in the 1950's. But those are tales for another day. Suffice it to say that for me, politics is personal.

IA-01 Polling and Oh Shit! What if we win the House?

At last we the unwashed masses get to see the numbers that have the Republican National Committee pulling money out of the First District Congressional race. Daily Kos has results from polling firm, Constituent Dynamics (pdf file). It shows Braley 54 - 41 Whalen. Also Boswell 54 - 43 Lamberti. Margin of error 3.1%

The other races polled show a lot of good news for the Democratic party and give more hope -- if that's what you want to call it -- that we'll take at least the house. Forgive me for not being super enthusiastic (Yay Team!), but I kind of have to agree with Billmon when he said back on August 1:

More and more, I've come to believe the Dems are insane for even wanting a share of the responsibility for running this out-of-control madhouse of a country. It's like being invited to grab hold of a downed high-voltage power line.

As for those of us who still think of ourselves as progressives, the question is this: Is it really worth swallowing so much shit to see John Conyers become the next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee? After watching our purported opposition party's disgraceful foreign policy performance, first in Iraq and now in Lebanon, I've finally come to the conclusion that it isn't.

I used to argue that progressives in this country had no choice but to support the Democrats -- even pathetic frauds like Howard Dean and inept Thurston Howell III clones like John Kerry. I used to quote Frederick Douglas's despairing comment about what the Republican Party of his day represented for African Americans: the rock; all else is the sea.

Maybe that was true, once. But I've finally come to realize that in modern-day America there is no rock -- just a vast, featureless expanse of reactionary ocean, like something from the set of Waterworld, except without a gilled Kevin Costner.

So here's my confession: At this point I really don't give a flying fuck whether the Democrats take the House or the Senate back. No, wait, that's not true. The truth is I hope they don't. It wouldn't save us from what's coming down the road, in the Middle East and elsewhere. It wouldn't force President Psychopath to change course or seek therapy. But it would make sure that the "left" (ha ha ha) gets more than its fair share of blame for the approaching debacle.

That may well be the natural role of the Democratic Party in our one-and-a-half party system, but I don't want any part of it any more. Which means that when I say it's a bad sign (consensus opinion always being wrong) that Charlie Cook now thinks the Republicans are likely to lose their House and/or Senate majorities in November, I just mean that it's a bad sign for the Democratic Party and its professional hangers on.

For the rest of us, and for whatever is left of this country's soul, it doesn't really matter. We've already lost.

Been a crazy couple of weeks. Getting back into the post-Labor Day groove now though.