Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The Big Fool Said to Push On

By

I hear echoes of Pete Seeger in admonitions and exhortations from our leaders on the issues of our time:

“Sergeant, don’t be a Nervous Nellie,”

The Captain said to him.

“All we need is a little determination;

Men, follow me, I’ll lead on.”

We were — neck deep in the Big Muddy

And the big fool said to push on.

2009 draws to a close and Obama has done a few good things. But in the biggest-ticket items – war, economic reform, jobs-creation, health care reform – he has grandly disappointed IMHO. And no matter how crappy the policy, our leaders use fear or machismo to keep the people in line:

Boston Globe, 12/27/09:

If the health care package fails, warned Senator Paul Kirk, Democrat of Massachusetts, the Democrats will appear weak and ineffective and are likely to have great trouble passing any more significant legislation. Such a development could ruin Obama’s presidency, Kirk said.

Peter Brookes, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow, 11/9/09:

It is also not outlandish to assume that defeat in Afghanistan to the Taliban would leave the United States looking soft and undependable with both allies and enemies, having a negative effect on American interests across the globe.

Iraq? Afghanistan? Health care reform? Bailouts for Wall Street? Don’t be a Nervous Nellie! Follow me, I’ll lead on. All we need is a little determination!

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Comments

  1. I’ve habituated (don’t even notice it anymore) to being exhorted by fear (…not faith in change for the better.)    

    • Most Democratic senators unfortunately were calling for determination to pass the watered-down version.

  3. <

    p>Republicans want to use spending and debt concerns as a lever to restrain Democratic initiatives. Democrats want to appear fiscally responsible, perhaps even be fiscally responsible, as they make progress/”progress” on the issues of the day.  

    <

    p>Bush’s tax cuts, cut three ways; 1) They accrued political benefits to Republicans while 2) increasing deficit spending and national debt (shrink government down until you can drowned it in a bath tub,) and 3) leverage national debt as a restraint on government growth during Democratic administrations.  

    <

    p>If you watched Scott Brown in the debate this morning, you heard the Republican “cut taxes shrink government (will create jobs)” strategy embraced in full.

    • There are some things we should fear, obviously. To name a couple: needless wars and pork-barrel spending. The problem is that politicians sometimes employ phrases like “the people are worried about” and “Americans are scared about,” as meaninglessly or deceitfully as phrases like “the truth of the matter is.” One has to decide for oneself which officials are credible and when (sometimes they are credible on one issue but full of it on another). This requires paying attention and thinking critically (this video displays classic examples of the opposite).

      • “Americans are scared” a part of political rhetoric worth recognizing when you hear it.

        <

        p>Perhaps we should differentiate fear from fear-mongering in the broadest sense of the compound word.  

        • “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

          <

          p>Perhaps some of us are “grandly disappointed.” I am not.

          • Re the areas of war, economic reform, jobs-creation and health care reform, I am sincerely interested in understanding why you are not grandly disappointed if you care to elaborate a bit.

            • I am encouraged because in the areas of war, economic reform, jobs-creation, and health care reform I see President Obama making tough, disciplined, and relentlessly sustainable progress towards well-articulated and well-reasoned goals.

              <

              p>Of course I am disappointed that the going is so tough. Yes, I wish that the effluent had not piled up quite as high as it clearly has. Yet, it seems to me that most of us knew, when we elected President Obama, that this was going to be a long, slow, difficult process.

              <

              p>I admire his discipline in forcing himself to listen to all the arguments, especially those he personally finds most unpalatable. Let me offer an example &#8212 economic reform.

              <

              p>As much as I abhor putting yet more wealth in the hands of those who brought about this disaster through their own unrestrained greed, I want President Obama to take seriously the consequences of literally bringing down the financial system we rely on. Major cities in the US, especially Boston, have something on the order of a three-day food supply on hand in the event that gasoline suddenly stopped being available. Neither the FDIC nor the federal government has the ability to protect their millions of small depositors in institutions like Bank of America should those large banks actually fail. None of us have needed to pick up arms to protect our homes from marauding hordes. Our merchants still accept our currency in exchange for food we need for ourselves and our children. We have, so far, not faced widespread riots and chaos in our cities. The consequences of catastrophic economic failure dwarf the comparably small price we have paid so far.

              <

              p>It took decades to create the unstable, insecure, and towering house of cards that started tumbling down a year ago. Much of the apparent growth in the US economy since the beginning of the prior administration has turned out to be as empty as the paper gains of Enron and Madoff. We risk falling into a solvency — not a liquidity — collapse.

              <

              p>I want and support a president who has the intellect, character, and discipline to face these issues head-on. I can’t imagine what this year would have been like had John McCain been elected.

              <

              p>I think President Obama is far and away a better President than any of the candidates offered by any of the parties. That’s why I’m not “grandly disappointed.”

              • We have no disagreement that immediate action was needed to prevent an economic catastrophe. I am glad the President and Congress took action. Where we disagree, I imagine, is that I believe they could have and should have included concrete requirements around the behavior of the financial institutions that were bailed out. When they passed the $700 billion bailout bill, despite the claims of Barney Frank, there were few strings attached, just “recommendations.”  

                • Can anyone point to concrete actions insisted upon by Obama to prevent another collapse/bailout situation from occurring?
                  And have our Democratic congressmen (Frank, etc) helped to scuttle such measures if they were in fact proposed?

  4. Re: groupthink, peer group pressure, excessive deference to authority and other forces that stifle dissent and independent thinking, a couple of additional quotes of note:

    <

    p>Lincoln:

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

    Göring:

    But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. …voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

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