Oct 02 2009
Random Thoughts
不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年？
———————–
Read John Cassidy’s article Oct 3rd NYKr – Need to add “retain financial stability” to Fed’s mandate. Good question – “why didn’t we build the most advanced airplanes for airlines?”
———————–
Need to add those before thoughts slipping away -
George Pecker’s article in the New Yorker on Richard Holbrooke – Afghanistan and Vietnam comparison
Very pessimistic view: no clear-cut difference
My thoughts: although it is said the populace is with “us”, the next question to ask is, is it as important a factor as it is implied to be? People are looking for political order based on fairness (e.g. rule and justice), not ideology (aka the China model?)
David Gopnik’s review of books on the Dreyfus Affair.
Echo from the past: the bitterness of the Conservative losers.
Related article: NYT French public opinion turned sour after elites protested the arrest of Roman Polanski. “La People”
Question: why there is an elitist class in France, amongst a pretty violent/nonchalant mass? Nowhere else is the division-cohabitation so striking.
Some clues from the Dreyfus Affair:
Question of the day: Nation or the Republic. The elites stood up for the latter and won the battle, overthrown the Catholic hierarchy! Isn’t this the modern Republic’s coming-to-age story?
My letter to YSL – the separation of Church and State is an outgrowth of the Enlightenment, the triumph of reason.
The elites are the vanguard. Nation built on a secular myth?
My new found preacher, Bill Maher
“Some one who says the same thing on your mind, but say it with so much eloquence and passion, week after week.”
His cynicism, his feistiness, his misplaced attack against religion as a whole
Why fights every battle?
- People are stupid. They believe everything you yelled “Truth”
- Look at what happened with Whitewater. Sidetrack – Clinton’s oral history, taped conversation with his confidant, his assumption of “reason and common sense” in politics, Hillary’s instinct proven right
- His impatience and disgust with Obama
That leads to my thoughts -
1. Healthcare Reform is complicated. So much so that “what is right” is a shifting goal as one starts to go after it.
2. There are things I learn to agree that are the ideal situation -
a. Consumers must be financially linked to the cost of the overall healthcare. Without the pain, there is no consensus of problem, let along to say action.
b. Mandatory coverage, e.g. tax on the young and healthy or savings for the young and healthy
c. Move coverage away from employment-based. See point a. Also from personal experience.
d. The physicians should not be business owners. There should be premium placed on physicians who choose to go alone instead of joining a hospital or coop.
For “moderates”, it is self-deceiving to deny the uproar as race-based.
For a while, I gave the opposition the benefit of the doubt as I myself witnessed vehement and personal attacks against GWB. There is some truth in “to call them racist is the same as they call you unpatriotic”
Yet to say there is no race factor at all in all the townhall, in tea-bagging, in the name-calling—that is pathetic.
Even those moderate oppositions–how many tolerated/acquiesced to the extreme because they are uncomfortable with Obama? Did the extreme say things they didn’t want to say themselves?
In general, there is lack of trust with Obama than with other presidents. Others made obvious wrong decisions in the past, all were tolerated as if parents do to their misbehaving children. Obama never had nearly as much benefit of doubt. Why? Is it something he said? Is it something he did?
Can a diversifying society, in face of internal/external difficulties, still stay together? If so, how? Obama is trying with an appeal of moderation. Would it work? Will people be persuaded by him? Even those who don’t instinctively trust him at all, those with whom he can do no right? Or those who are sitting on the fence to see him fail? I used to be afraid of flying. Now I say I am not, but every time I dreamed of an airplane, it either exploded or plunged to earth. Can Obama’s personal good-ness overcome that kind of fear? On the other side of coin – if Obama thinks being a black president is something needed to be atoned for, maybe he is not the right person at the juncture of history after all.
I don’t think Obama is so stupid as to insisting on reaching out the extreme elements. The real battle is to win the silent majority. I am not sure the masses react to reason very well, particularly when facing complexity or uncertainty. Taking a page from Cheney’s playbook, the only way out for Obama is to overpower his opponents, ram his agenda through, make them facts and leave them to history. The brute force may or may not drive the devoted haters underground, it will nevertheless convert those on the fence. They will sing your praise not too soon.
However, that is no democracy anymore. When I had this thought, it gave me chills. Roman Republic fell apart as it granted citizenship to more and more outsiders, as the military force had to engage more and more enemies afar. The nation couldn’t agree on a course through political means. Then came Julius Caesar and the dictatorship.
Has history evolved out of this pattern? Or that is the fate of any empire?