The shootings at Texas A&M today come after a long line of this shit. Auorra, Cafe Racer. The list goes on and on. And those are only the ones that gain large scale attention. There are plenty of other acts of gun violence that don’t get reported, or don’t get reported outside the region where they happen.

Of course there are other reasons that these sorts of things happen. And we should work to deal with all of them. But one of those reasons, that we never deal with, that we’re going in the wrong direction on, is the country is awash in guns.

People will point to the Second Amendment when any attempt at gun control no matter how minimum is raised. Now, I think the Second Amendment was intended to be about well regulated militias, hence the first clause. But even if you think it’s about private ownership of all firearms, surely this wasn’t what Madison intended when he wrote it. Surely they didn’t mean that these sorts of shootings should be inevitable as they are common. I don’t know what the solution is, but I can’t imagine the Constitution makes it intractable.

– Koster and DelBene should really listen closely to what the Seattle Times says the district’s voters want. And then do the opposite.

– Phyllis Schlafly lies about Obama as night remains dark.

– Support the Sisters

– I’d have mentioned this last week if I wasn’t on vacation, but my endorsements went 2 for 2 in the primary.

– Oh, Romney has a VP selection.

– In a twist, Ryan isn’t the deficit hawk he claims to be.

– The fact that Democrats have oppo research on him proves he’s great.

– Shaun has a good question about the vetting process.

[I’m on vacation this week, but I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

Another short one today. Just to let you know that the Chinese and British Empires fell. Since the last one was just called “The Ottomans” these two subchapters are simply a summary in a few words. Consistency is the hobgoblin of good writing, someone must have told him.

The subchapter “The Great Wall” has the advantage of just being about China and not some random collection of China like empires as the Ottoman section was. Of course since the unofficial name of this chapter is Mitt Romney paraphrases the Wikipedia Entries on the Printing Press and since that’s actually a legit thing to write for China, it gets several mentions in this short but still rambling section.

Advances in astronomy, physics, chemistry, meteorology, seismology, engineering, and mathematics came to the West from China. In the first century, China was the first to manufacture paper–a huge improvement over papyrus or and parchment. They published the first book, and they invented moveable type around 1041–four hundred years before a German named Johannes Gutenberg developed similar technology.

Several more paragraphs about how China was number one a thousand years ago. They had the best weapons and the best ships. “And then China declined” is a paragraph in itself. Useful. Useful information. Very specific. But is there more information about printing presses* is what I’d like to know.

The Chinese rejected not only all things foreign but even technology that they had devised themselves. For the Ottomans the Qur’an contained everything that life required; for the Chinese, it was their ancient culture that was to be revered and sustained, even at the cost of abandoning innovations like the printing press.

So, like, when Romney says in the intro how we need to go back to how the founding generation left America for us, I guess he’s imitating the Chinese who failed. I don’t know. The point is people getting stuck on something from the past will get them in trouble. Now we’re at The Sun Sets on the British Empire.

“England is just a small island.” Well, England is part of an island that also has Scotland and Wales. It’s not that small of an island. The UK also has part of another island, and some other possessions around the globe. It’s complex. You know what it doesn’t matter.

“With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy.” I really like their fruit and nut bars. The ones Cadbury sell in the US are fine, but it’s not the same. Seriously, if you’re ever in the UK or Ireland, bring me back some. I’m not kidding about this, people who know me and are reading this. Also, they have a thriving culture. Some of the best comedy and drama get exported all around the globe.

“And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions.” Yeah, I’m sure they would have planned their defenses the exact same way if there was a land bridge between Portsmouth and Normandy. Also, would history have been the same up to the war? Would this land have a lot of people on it? Would it be fertile land? I guess what I’m saying is the British Channel was kind of part of their defenses, and both sides in that war would have acted differently if it hadn’t been there.

“Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth’s land and a quarter of the earth’s population.” And now they’re still a great country. Their empire pushed many of my ancestors here. People were boarded up and sent to Canada or Australia. And nonwhite people fared much worse. While the British Empire eventually went to the right side of things like the slave trade and moved toward democracy, it was still brutal for the people who lived under it.

So Romney says the British had the industrial revolution and it paid for the best navy in ever. “But maintaining leadership proved more difficult than achieving it” because they have a class system. They weren’t able to go beyond the status quo. No mention on how come their class system didn’t stop the industrial revolution in the first place. Then they had to pay for World War Two, so now they aren’t an empire. No mention if life is better for the average Briton now that they don’t have to pay to maintain an empire. Personally, I’d rather have the BBC and universal health care than know that the queen was also in charge of India. But that’s not my decision to make.

That’s the decline of the British Empire for you. I’m not sure who this book is written for. I doubt that Romney knows either. These brief overviews don’t tell us enough to learn anything. Anyone who picks up the book of a presidential candidate surely knows the barest outlines of past empires. Yet he felt the need to include three (or 5 if you include Spain and Portugal). Is it just he thinks nobody will actually read it, and it seems more presidential to have written something so he pulled an all nighter and wrote the damn thing once?

We’ve got half of this chapter to go, and I’m not writing for the weekends. So I think I’ll just do it sometime next week. I had fun writing these, so I’ll probably continue even after that. Not every day, because that’s brutal if I’m writing other things. Would you guys be interested in a half a chapter a week or so? Maybe make it a Wednesday thing?

[Read more…]

[I’m on vacation this week, but I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

Today we join Mitt Romney’s ghost writer to see Why Nations Decline. First a general commentary that nations decline and then several examples. Then he’ll have a couple annoying sections trying to tie it together. Because I’m on vacation, I’m only going to deal with the intro and the “Ottomans” section that deals with the Ottoman Empire, and somewhat surprisingly Spain and Portugal. So the intro.

America is the best, and it looks like we’ll never decline but other countries used to think that about themselves and “they’ve all been surpassed.” Of course since Romney talking about nations, what we need here is a corporate metaphor.

This kind of collapse is not unique to nations. We’ve witnessed business powerhouses lose their lead to upstarts. United Airlines was upstaged by Southwest.* Sears and Kmart were passed by Wal-Mart. Western Union and AT&T watched Verizon speed by. And look at General Motors: it was once the undisputed automotive heavyweight, the champion here and around the world. No More.

Romney worked for someone who had a mathematical model of why corporations with a head start have an advantage. But that didn’t work out. Then he remembers he’s writing a book about nations, so:

Why is it that the great fail? It’s a question America must ask, not only because we are the world’s leading nation, but because of the continuation of our lead has been called into question

So now we’re on the section called “The Ottomans” that’s also about Spain and Portugal (I know I say this like 50 times in this short for this series post, but it’s that strange). But at least it starts with the Ottoman Empire. Well, mostly it’s about him learning about the Ottoman empire in school.

But after that intro of Romney coloring in maps we learn that, the empire was great for centuries until “Christian Europeans won the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and decimated the Ottoman navy. Rebellion and war were overwhelming.”

First off, The Ottoman Empire lasted until the end of the First World War, so the collapse didn’t really happen in 1571. A long decline would be interesting to write about. Especially if you’re worried about America being a power in the future, but not the preeminent one. But instead it’s a paragraph of mostly meaningless cliche as to why.

Highly beneficial global trade routes that had traditionally passed through Ottoman territory had been abandoned for Ocean passages, and the empire’s revenues dropped accordingly. More important, while Europe** embarked on the early stages of manufacturing, the Ottomans did not; they were confident that their pillaged wealth would sustain them indefinitely. The Ottomans’ growing isolation from the dynamic world of manufacture and trade was reinforced by the conviction that their holy scriptures provided all the knowledge that was necessary; foreign technology was infidel technology. The Empire banned the printing press for half a century.

And that’s all you need to know about the decline, er collapse, of the Ottoman Empire. In chapter of case studies of why empires and nations fail, there’s more about coloring in maps in high school than there is about his first case study. These I’m-a-deep-thinker-make-me-president books are sure serious business when they come from Republicans.

But even though the Ottoman case study is over, the section continues with Spain and Portugal. I think the point here is that they were all closed societies based on pillage. But the title is “The Ottomans” not “Empires Based on Pillage Eventually Run Out Of Shit To Pillage” or something with less swearing. So Spain and Portugal. It’s only 2 paragraphs, so I don’t want to quote too much, but I totally am going to:

“Like the Ottomans, the Spanish and Portuguese achieved wealth through plunder, and their empires fell for remarkably similar reasons.” So they plundered the rest of the world, and took the resources but didn’t build anything with them. England, France, and Germany were making things, but Spain and Portugal were buying them. And, I think Romney just found the Wikipedia entry on when the printing press was introduced to various countries, because that comes up again.

The Protestant Reformation to the north had spawned not only dissent and skepticism but also literacy and innovation. Spain and Portugal isolated themselves from such heresy. Portugal placed strict controls on printing presses. The Spanish crown banned scientific works by Protestant authors. They banned study abroad in any non-Catholic country. Spain went so far as to impose the death penalty on anyone who imported an unauthorized foreign book. Like the Ottomans, Spanish and Portuguese isolation became complete. They eschewed the manufacture and trade of goods that was sweeping the rest of Europe, and they closed their borders to outside thought.

So the guy who exported, piece by piece, American manufacturing is saying stopping making things is a problem. Ugh this book.

OK, tomorrow China, Britain, and maybe Romney’s conclusions if I’m up for it.

[Read more…]

[I’m on vacation this week, but I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

We’re at Mitt Romney explains the West, China, Russia and Jihad like you’re 12 and super interested in what a corporation is. It’s a subsection called “Four strategies to Achieve World Power.” So corporations pursue different strategies. Apple had to “appeal to a different segment of customers and win those buyers” than Microsoft. And guess what, it’s not just corporations that compete with each other! It’s also countries.

Countries, like businesses, need strategies to survive and prosper. A nation’s strategy should be designed to propel it beyond its competitors and to increase the security and prosperity of its citizens. While there are as many strategies as there are countries on the global map, there are four specific approaches to geopolitics that have been embraced by various major players on the world stage. We must recognize and understand these if we are to be fully aware of the challenges ahead.

So three things. First, “global map,” that’s how you want to phrase it? Second, not everything is a business metaphor. We understand that countries compete without needing to start out in the business world. Finally, countries and corporations do very different things, so the metaphor only works so well. We expect much more cooperation between countries than between corporations, for example.

I don’t know why he has written like this, but he lays out these strategies one by one instead of saying what they are and then expanding on it like a person who wasn’t used to hiding the ball all of their life might write it. I’m just going to say his 4 strategies outlined are the West with our free markets and free people, the Chinese model of freeish markets and not free people, the Russian model of “authoritarian rule … based on energy,” and the final one is jihad, like Iran has embraced.

The first is the West. He devotes all of two paragraphs to how free markets and free people work. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here that it’s because he assumes the reader knows about how those work, and not because he doesn’t know anything. But I’m going to quote the second paragraph in full here:

While the nations that pursue this “American” strategy are collectively referred to as the West, not all of them do so in a uniform manner.* Sweden and several other European nations, for example, place a far heavier governmental hand on free enterprise than does The United States. Citizens are highly taxed to provide not only a very substantial safety net but also a relatively comfortable lifestyle. Business and employment are highly regulated. Despite the differences among Western nations, economic freedom and political freedom are at the core.

So, when in the intro Obama lowered taxes (but Romney insists he raised them) and enacted a few regulations (but fewer than under the first few years of President Bush) it was because he hates free enterprise. But Sweden makes the cut as part of our Western ideals.

Anyway, we’re on to China. Their strategy is based on “free enterprise” but also “authoritarian rule.” According to Romney, “The conflict is so apparent that many Western observers have predicted that as China’s economy and trade develop, the country will trend toward democracy and freedom” as if there have never been authoritarian rulers of a country with markets before.

If you like several rambling pages, then this is the section for you. It’s not just the government, when Romney goes to China, the people “seemed much more interested in pursuing the lessons of American-style free enterprise than they were in promoting American-style freedom.” And the Olympics were a success. China saw the lesson from the fall of the Soviet Union and when “its fellow travelers like North Korea and Cuba collapsed.” Those certainly are bad regimes that do bad things to their people, but those are like the only examples of communist countries that try to remain communist and haven’t collapsed. There are so many examples, and North Korea and Cuba are examples of collapse?

And even having learned the lessons, the Chinese markets aren’t like Western markets: Businesses are state owned and operated, the rule of law hasn’t been established. The “tainted products from dog food to infant formula” get out. And intellectual property isn’t enforced. “China brazenly sells sensitive technologies to Iran and buys oil from genocidal Sudan, and it vigorously defends these nations against international sanction.” It seems like the modern GOP wouldn’t mind more crap in your dog food and infant formula if it meant the government didn’t tell people to get it out.

And there is another way in which Chinese enterprise is distinguished from other economic systems around the world: it is winning. China is fast becoming the world’s factory, successfully capturing the lion’s share of world manufacturing for a growing list of products. The country is no longer content to make only toys and trinkets.

Not discussed are things like currency manipulation and import controls. Those sorts of things are what America used to build our manufacturing base, and it’s what they’re using to build theirs now. I’m not saying we should retaliate in kind to that sort of thing, but it seems to me at least as important to their success as the fact that they sell technology to rogue states.

Anyway, on to Russia, whose strategy is to have energy resources:

Russia is pursuing a third global strategy. Like China, it favors authoritarian rule, but Russia’s economic strategy is primarily based on energy. By controlling people and energy, Russia aims to reassert itself as a global superpower.

They have oil and gas. It’s part of their economy and they manipulate the pipelines, etc. for political gain. But it’s not the entirety of their economy. And when Romney says their strategy is energy, and then he says things like “Russia also relies on the strength of its science and technology sectors” it makes me think it’s not a reliance on energy in the same way that Saudi Arabia is true of. So they have a more mixed strategy, and since they have a lot of energy resources, they were able to use them.

Romney also thinks that they’re driven by anti-Americanism: “anything that diminishes America pleases him [Putin], both because it weakens a competing power and because it gratifies his personal animus for the United States.” Mittens barely understands that they might have a foreign policy in Iran and North Korea beyond simply the opposite of what America wants. Finally Romney complains that “President Barrack Obama’s decision to walk away from our missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic was a huge concession to Putin” without noting that the technology didn’t work. It’s not much of a missile defense if it doesn’t defend against missiles.

And the final of the 4 strategies is violent jihad. “Though this strategy is formally embraced by only one country–Iran–it animates many foreign leaders and some of the most infamous names on the planet, among them Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar.”

There are only a few paragraphs about it here (don’t worry, there’s more to come in a later chapter). They all want a global caliphate, even though some just want “independence for Chechnya.”

These are the four strategies for world leadership that are in competition today. Only one is founded on freedom. Only one. Think of what that means. Only if American and the West succeed–if our economic and military strength endure–can we be confident that our children and grandchildren will be free. A strong America is good for peace, and is essential for the spread of freedom. Our superpower status and our leadership in the world, however, are not inevitable.

Then there’s a section on how freedom is great. And I agree with it for the most part. The only thing that I’ll mention because it’s strange is this: “The New Hampshire license plate reads LIVE FREE OR DIE, reminiscent of patriot Patrick Henry’s famous entreaty. There are those who insist that New Hampshire’s motto isn’t politically correct. But most Americans envy the Granite Staters their motto and believe, as I do, that this is the American resolve.”

For serous, dude: Nobody thinks they shouldn’t have that motto. I don’t even know what it means that a motto isn’t politically correct. That motto is great. Who complained to you about their license plate? “There are those”? Fuck you, there aren’t people who said that. That said, nobody is envious of a license plate. If they were, they could move to have their state change their plates.

And now we’re at the section “A Change in Foreign Policy” where he complains about Obama’s foreign policy. So he talks about the foreign policy consensus that emerged at the beginning of the Cold War. He talks about Truman remaking American foreign policy. And because it’s been like 15 pages since he mentioned a British Prime Minister, he says, “Truman and his team believed, as Winston Churchill did, that the hope of the world depended on the strength and will of the United States.”

Truman helped usher in all sorts of organizations to promote peace and to prevent another devastating war: “the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the GATT (later WTO), and NATO, among others.” Now there are many liberals who oppose some of those things, especially the ones that harm people economically. But it wasn’t Obama whose UN Ambassador wanted to take 10 stories off the UN. So if you’re asking yourself what party is against the stuff that Truman set up, well, you have to say it’s probably the GOP. Yet Romney’s contention is that Obama is the break from the post war consensus.

This sentiment manifests itself in several different ways, including President Obama’s American Apology Tour. Never before in American history has its president gone to so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined.

You’ll be SHOCKED to learn that Mitt Romney doesn’t actually quote any of the ways that Obama apologized for America. Also, the capitalizing makes it seem like that was the official name of the trip instead of some nonsense he made up. He does mention the apologies in broad outlines. “He has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for acting unilaterally, and for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in internal affairs of other nations, and for feeding anti-Muslim sentiments; for committing torture, for dragging our feet on global warming, and for selectively promoting democracy.”

I wish that he had actually apologized for some of those instead of just mentioning it, and saying we can do better. I wish someone high in the administration had said, “I’m sorry we waterboarded people. I’m sorry we invaded other countries.” I’m sorry is such a powerful thing. If we care about our values, we should apologize when we don’t live up to them.

Romney says we know it was bad because some bad actors said diplomatic things about being able to work with Obama. “Muammar Quaddafi, the dictator of Libya, declared that ‘we’d be content and happy if Obama can stay president for ever.” Again, I know that several years’ hindsight after Romney wrote the book is unfair. And if Romney was making an honest case, I wouldn’t point out that how’d that work out for Quaddafi? Man, if unlike his predecessors, Obama would use force when he found it necessary against bad actors like Quaddafi!

Then Romney complains that Obama isn’t taking Israel seriously enough. Obama doesn’t know what Israel has done to make peace. And Romney doesn’t know the basics of time:

To take just one example: In 2005, Israel evacuated its settlers and handed over the Gaza strip and part of the West Bank to the Palestinians. This unilateral concession on the part of Israel was met in return by thousands of rockets fired into the cities of Israel. The Palestinians, fully aware that President Obama is pressuring Israel to make even more unilateral concessions, are content to sit back and make no concessions of any kind.

I’m always wary of wading into the Israel-Palestine conflict. But, Israel left Gaza because they thought it was in their best interest. Obama didn’t really have anything to do with that. It was a conservative Israeli government decision supported by George W. Bush. And in the here and now, Obama is putting pressure on both sides in the conflict.

Anyway, more examples of how the administration is a break from the past are that he doesn’t support human rights around the world enough. I’d argue that’s true that we don’t support human rights enough, but less so than during the Bush administration or the Cold War. In fact he chose a Secretary of State who proclaimed that women’s rights are human rights around the world. And who since the book has been written has declared the same for gay rights. The administration, more militarily than I’d like, has taken an active role in helping the Arab Spring move toward democracy in many countries.

Romney doesn’t like how Obama hasn’t finished a trade deal with Columbia. This apparently proves that he didn’t mean it when he talked about multilateral relations.

And Obama has apparently been too weak on Iran and North Korea. “President Obama sends a signal that he is eager to negotiate at any time, any place, without conditions; the effect of this is to cede all of the power and leverage to our enemies. Time and again, President Obama’s open hand has been met with a clenched fist.” Maybe, but Iran’s actions have strengthened the resolve of our allies to impose further sanctions, and made multilateral sanctions stronger.

But of course, for Romney, Obama’s attempts at multilateralism are themselves signs that Obama secretly thinks America is in decline. “It has expressed itself in President Obama’s insistence that there is ‘no junior partner’ in our relations with Europe meaning that Luxembourg and Andorra carry the same weight and influence in world affairs as the United States and Great Britain (a claim that even Andorrans and citizens of Luxembourg would probably reject).” It’s tough to have a straw man when you actually quote people, isn’t it? Take 3 words and then declare what they mean, and hope that people focus on your paraphrase instead of what you quote. Has there been any indication in his actions that he thinks the Grand Duchy has the same influence as the United States? No, of course not.

Another awesome Romney argument is that one time Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism. Obama said that he did, but noted that other countries probably believed in their own country’s exceptionalism. This, to Romney, proved that Obama didn’t believe in American exceptionalism. Because what?

We’re almost done, but there are a few more things Obama should do. He should treat our allies like allies, without ever explaining how we aren’t. But if we don’t then there will be a continent wide revolution in South America lead by Hugo Chavez, Iran will have nuclear weapons, and Japan and China will become allies (?*∞). I think we can judge some of this by what has happened. And what has happened so far in foreign policy under Obama is not those things.

Romney also thinks Obama should also strengthen the economy. While there’s still a long way to go, the economy has been improving since the book came out. We were in a huge hole, and we passed a large, but not large enough, stimulus. But Romney is worried that in the future taxes will have to be raised and that will undermine capitalism. “It is an often-remaked-upon** irony that at a time when Europe is moving away from socialism and its many failures, President Obama is moving us toward that direction.”

Don’t use the word irony, Mitt. Just don’t. Also, “toward that direction”? You move in a direction or toward a thing. Finally we aren’t moving toward or in the direction of socialism, so problem solved.

Romney thinks that because of, um all the socialism, we won’t spend enough on our military and missile defense. Romney once again doesn’t seem to realize that our missile defense system won’t defend us against missiles. He doesn’t engage this point. Also, he says that our military budget should be 4% of GDP. I don’t think that throwing out a number randomly is really appropriate, but wouldn’t that mean Romney thinks we should spend less on the military when the economy is down?

We also need to remember that our ideals are the best thing about America. But for like the thousandth time, what does it say about those ideals that Romney thinks we shouldn’t apologize when we don’t live up to them? Let’s hear what Romney says:

That doesn’t mean, of course, that America is a perfect country. We have made mistakes and committed grave offenses over the centuries. Too often we have failed to live up to our ideals. But to say that is to say that we live in this fallen world rather than a perfect one, a world composed not of angels but of flawed and imperfect beings. And, crucially, our past faults and errors have long been acknowledged and do not deserve the the repetition that suggests either that we have been reluctant to remedy them or that we are inclined to repeat them. What we should say and repeat is this: No nation has shed more blood for more noble causes than the United States. Its beneficence and benevolence are unmatched by any nation on earth, and by any nation in history.

Torture hasn’t been acknowledged. The way we fucked up in Iraq hasn’t been acknowledged by much of the country even if we believe in the abstract it was the wrong war.

But beyond suggesting that all of our problems are some ephemeral distant past, I feel like Mitt Romney has never heard a speech by President Obama. Is that possible? He continues on suggesting that “of all people, we should expect our president to understand” American greatness. Since that’s in every speech Obama has ever made: bar cleared. Romney — mercifully, finally — ends the chapter setting up the next one.

I reject the view that America must decline. I believe in American exceptionalism. I am convinced that we can act together to strengthen our nation, to preserve our global leadership and to protect freedom where it exists and promote it where it does not.

So we’ll start on Why Nations Decline tomorrow.

[Read more…]

[I’m on vacation this week, but I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

Remember in the intro, where I complained that Mitt Romney didn’t mention any of his hardships? I think it might be because his greatest hardship in life was weeding his father’s garden when he was like 14. Here’s how he opens this chapter:

I hate to weed. I’ve hated it ever since my father put me to work weeding the garden at our home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It was planted with zinnias, snapdragons, and petunias, none of which seemed to grow as heartily as the weeds. After what seemed like hours of work, I never could see much progress and I’d complain to my dad. “Mitt,” he would reply, “the pursuit of the difficult makes men strong.” It seems now like an awfully grandiose response for such a pedestrian task. I complained about the weeding often enough that I heard his homily regularly. I’m sure that’s why it sticks with me to this day.

Fathers and sons. Great stuff for literature. Unfortunately, in this case, it seems Mitt is going personal only so that in a few paragraphs he can say how America needs the same ability to face tough challenges. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first a little more of his father’s story:

My father knew what it meant to pursue the difficult. He was born in Mexico, where his Mormon grandparents had moved to escape religious persecution.

For a book that’s about USA! USA! USA! this is willing to call what America did to the Mormons “persecution.” I agree, incidentally. But I think an apology is reasonable for persecution. And as we’ll see later in this chapter, Romney thinks Obama mentioning any legit problem is the same as him apologizing for it. So I don’t know, Romney is apologizing for and complaining about America? Maybe it’s too much to hope he has a coherent narrative.

Anyway, more family history. They were forced to move back to America, not because of anything America offered, but because they were afraid of “Mexican revolutionaries.” So his grandparents suffered hardships. They had to leave everything they had and live off the land. His father had to go to work and support the family at a young age, and never graduated from college.* Anyway, all that hard work by his parents and grandparents leads back to Romney weeding.

Three decades later, by the time I was weeding that Bloomfield Hills garden, my father had become a successful businessman. I knew he worried that because my brother, sisters, and I had grown up in a prosperous family, we wouldn’t understand the lessons of hard work. That’s why he put us to work shoveling snow, raking leaves, mowing the lawn, planting the garden, and of course, weeding–always reminding us that work would make us strong.

I know that I don’t know enough to actually say lesson not learned about hard work. But Mitt doesn’t mention hard work he’s actually done since his parents did what parents do. He doesn’t mention any hard work he willingly undertook on his own. I mean, I don’t expect him to have worked a decade on the line at American Motors, but he could show something to demonstrate he knows about hard work beyond he had to mow the lawn and weed the garden sometimes.

Anyway, a bit more about his father doing actual good things at American Motors. And then it isn’t just individuals who have to work hard, but also much more broadly. Then several paragraphs about Staples that feel like he wanted to write them, but didn’t know exactly where to put them because they don’t really fit. A competent editor would help. And then:

Today the United States faces daunting challenges, and I am similarly convinced that if we confront them and overcome them, we will remain a strong and leading nation. Just like individuals, companies, and human enterprises of every kind, nations that are undaunted by the challenges they face become stronger. Those that shrink from difficult tasks become weaker.

The examples are that we defeated the British to gain our independence, we won the Second World War, and the moon launch. He mentions Detroit switching to building planes during the war, without ever mentioning that these were top down orders from the government. He talks about how there were failures of American satellite launches, but we kept making them until they did work and “we became the first** nation on earth to put a man on the moon.” I couldn’t help thinking when I read that, that I can imagine how the Tea Party and today’s GOP would have reacted each moment along the way if they were around in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

And we’re to a section called Facing our Challenges Head-on. it starts by saying we thought we didn’t have any challenges during the Clinton administration. So we cut our military and that was a terrible thing. As if our military should have been as large or larger after the collapse of global communism than before it. Then without mentioning the Bush administration, he says:

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, our economy has suffered its worst crisis since the Great Depression. We have amassed an unprecedented amount of debt and liabilities, and added to that, the Obama administration plans trillion-dollar deficits every year. Russian belligerence is on the rise. China holds over $750 billion of U.S. obligations. Iran and North Korea threaten the world with unbridled nuclear ambition. Violent jihadists like those who attacked us on 9/11 plot our destruction. The consequences of failure to act in response to these perils is unthinkable.

I know it’s a bit unfair to criticize Romney for things that happened after the book was written. But most of those things are better because Obama acted. The depression isn’t nearly as bad as if we hadn’t had a stimulus. Iran and North Korea are whatever is the opposite of unbridled. Bridled, I guess. Iran still doesn’t have nuclear weapons, and North Korea’s missiles keep exploding into the sea. They’re both more isolated than under the Bush administration. And of course, Bin Laden is dead and much of his terror network destroyed, unlike the decade we wasted in Iraq. I don’t agree with everything the administration has done to get there, but it’s silly to say they didn’t act. All that said, he clearly is attacking a caricature of President Obama.

The section concludes with a plea for a strong military without ever explaining how we’re supposed to pay for it. The only remarkable paragraph is this one:

Does America make mistakes? Absolutely. We never fully understood the enormously complex political, economic, and military issues we faced in Vietnam, and we were wrong in our assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. But in every case throughout modern history in which America has exercised military power, we have acted with good intention–not to colonize, not to subjugate, never to oppress.

First off: what do you do when you do something wrong but with good intentions? Oh, that’s right, you apologize to the people you wronged. That’s like human decency 101. So the No Apology book makes yet another case that there are places where America should apologize.

Second, does intent really matter? I mean the fact that we didn’t take the land in Iraq as our own is worth noting. But the dead in Iraq and Viet Nam don’t care about the country’s intentions. Our actions matter, and are what we should be held accountable for, good and bad.

We’ve reached the end of this section. Tomorrow, strategies countries can use to get ahead, and why Obama sux at foreign policy. Stay tuned.

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I’m on vacation this week, so to provide content in my absence, I’ll be reading/making fun of parts of Mitt Romney’s book the rest of the week (then if I’m up to it, the rest of the book when I’m home). For Monday, here are some general thoughts and the intro.

The book is called “No Apology Believe in America.” I feel like you can make apologies for the bad things America has done in the past — and continues to do — and still believe in it. You can say, people we enslaved, sorry about that, it won’t happen again. People we went to war with who maybe we shouldn’t have, including the native people we took the land from: our bad. Hey Mormons and others we’ve persecuted for your religion: We’ll try to do better next time.

In fact apologizing when we fail to live up to our ideals is something we do because we believe in those ideals. You know who doesn’t apologize when they fuck up? A goddamn sociopath! I may have stepped on your toe, but fuck you for having a toe in the first place: That’s how Mitt Romney’s book title reads to me. But perhaps that’s reading too much into a title.

So, we’ll start off with the intro. Or I think it’s an intro. On the front cover of the book it says, “FEATURING A NEW INTRODUCTION FOR THIS EDITION” and this is before chapter 1. But it’s called “Believe in America” and isn’t actually called an intro in either the table of contents or the chapter head where all of the other chapters are numbered. So maybe just call it chapter 0, or chapter “Believe in America.” It starts off with a story about going to Walmart.*

Sam Walton was all around me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Bear hug. OK, sorry it’s a metaphor. It’s also possibly the shittiest opening line I’ve read. Anyway, I swear I’m not going to quote every sentence, but here’s the next paragraph.

It was a few days before the Christmas of 2008. I was standing in the checkout line at Walmart, waiting to purchase the Tonka trucks and Buzz Lightyear action figures I has selected for my grandsons. As I looked around the store, I had to chuckle to myself. Somehow, that Walmart reminded me of Sam Walton himself. I’d never met the founder of Walmart, but I had read and heard a good deal about him over the years. People who knew him mentioned his attention to detail, his near maniacal passion about low prices, his plan to carry every single item a customer might want, and that he tended to be a spur-of-the-moment–almost impetuous–manager. I saw these very traits reflected in his store: low prices blazed** from signage, everything from tires to toothpaste were available for purchase, and, well, the store was not as organized and buttoned-down as those of other retailers I know. At target, for example, the aisles are wider and shelves are stocked and segregated like the Swiss might have done it. At Walmart, things look a bit more helter-skelter, more jumbled and maybe a little more entertaining. Yes, Walmart today is a reflection of its founder.

Wait. What about the Swiss? Is that a reference to cantons? Is that just casual racism that I don’t understand — the Swiss stock their aisles like this, but Americans stock their aisles like this. Is this some reference to his time in Europe? I know he spent a good deal of time in France, but has he ever been to Switzerland? I mean I know his money has, but has he? Target is an American store.

Anyway, then there’s a long discussion about how various companies reflect their CEO’s and founders. Microsoft and Apple reflect Gates and Jobs. Disney, reflects Walt Disney. Going to the Disney parks reflects on Walt years after he’s died. Between the Buzz Lightyear and the paragraph about how amazing Disneyland is, I think this intro might be sponsored by Disney.*** Anyway, lots of CEO’s are great. Oddly, he fails to mention that any of the employees at any of those companies might shine through when he’s visiting them. And then he transitions awkwardly from companies to all sorts of institutions, “schools, universities, charities, churches, even religions.” I’m not sure he needed to say “schools” and “universities” or “churches” and “religions.” But are those the only institutions? Please fill me in.

And it’s also true of nations. Nations are shaped by their founders, often for many generations and centuries after those founders are gone. The culture and character of America reflects the nature and convictions of the men and women who founded it.

Italics his. I’m actually going to go out on a limb and say America is better than it was at the founding. We don’t have slavery and we assume that women and people of all races and social classes are fully human. While we still have horrible wars, we’re more or less done with the stealing land phase of the country. I’m looking out my window right now and people are passing on cars and bikes and on foot. Men and women, and people of all races. This city in a place where the founding generation barely knew existed with technology they couldn’t have imagined is really better than they would have dreamed for it. Hell, just the fact that Romney felt he had to tack on “and women” is something the founding generation wouldn’t have thought to do.

Don’t get me wrong, we got a great legacy from this country’s founders. I can’t imagine anyone in the 1770’s and 1780’s anywhere in the world who would have been better to start the country. The notions of fundamental freedom they left us are important. But we also have a more difficult legacy because they were flawed people from a flawed time. This intro doesn’t deal with that beyond one aside in one sentence. “That first choice of freedom by the Founders–incomplete and only perfected by Lincoln four score years later–has made all the difference.” Yes, he thinks Lincoln solved all of our problems in 1856.

So that was cool until the 2006 and 2008 elections. Without naming names, the people who won those elections hate freedom. Then a long quote by Tony Blair, who apparently loves America more than Nancy Pelosi?

And we’re now to sub chapters (sub intros?) that start “Believing in America Means…” First Believing in America Means Believing in Freedom. He tells the story of his mother’s doctor who “hid in the coal bin of a ship that made it to America.” Since he’s a professional and white (a Russian Jew) Mitt doesn’t demand that he self deport. Instead he’s an example of freedom. And also Joe The Plumber was right. Also, Democrats passing laws they promised to pass is anti-freedom. Then he talks about checks and balances, never realizing that getting legislation through those checks might mean the laws they pass are compatible with freedom.

On to sub chapter (sub intro?) Believing in America Means Believing in Free Enterprise. You’ll be shocked to learn that there’s no mention of how large economic players use their power to distort free enterprise, despite that being something the founders knew quite well (hence all that East India Company tea in Boston Harbor). Nor is there any discussion of corporate responsibility generally to the community or to the state or to America. Freedom is letting corporations do whatever they want. Letting corporations devastate communities only increases freedom is what I get from his lack of addressing those things.

So what does he talk about? Why how Obama hates free enterprise. This feels a bit like the gentleman with a silk hat. Obama, you see, is a secret socialist. Then he says because in North Korea unlike South Korea, “citizens are nearly**** starved so that government and the military can be amply fed” any government jobs are inherently bad.

So, what are the awful things that are making us like North Korea? Using TARP money “for bailouts” instead of for saving the financial system, the fact that some unnamed trade talks haven’t been completed, health care, investing in green energy, “the rule of law was ignored in order to reward the auto workers union at General Motors” meaning that it’s different than the bailouts thing, the fact that there are boards and commissions in government, and that business people are being demonized in speeches. You know, socialism. He quotes a friend thinking about moving to France because at least those socialists have “really good food” because America love it or leave it, amirite? Also, if you’re privileged enough that you can seriously consider moving to France, you can get great food in America.

Then he quotes Thatcher, and I suddenly wonder if he meant to call it “Believe in the United Kingdom.” Then he half complains that rich people give “a lot more money” to Democrats than Republicans. I can’t write the infinity question marks to respond to that, so I’ll just write this instead (?*∞). Finally, he gets our history vis-a-vis Europe with the size government exactly backwards, claiming that our system was no government in the market place and not that we rebelled against that in England. So instead of the American System that brought us prosperity versus the rest of the world, he wants to go back to how economics was in England when we rebelled.

And so we’re on to Believing in America Means Believing in Opportunity. Sure, but guess if he points out that some people in America have less opportunity because of the circumstances of their birth? If you guessed “no” give yourself 0 points because that question is too easy. Maybe he would have mentioned it if he wrote the book before Lincoln solved our only problem in 1856.

Now in fairness to Romney, he does mention that at some point in the past there wasn’t equal opportunity, what with slavery and Jim Crow. Also, policies that harmed the Native Americans are mentioned vaguely. But he doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a legacy of those things in the here and now. He mentions rising above the situation of your birth, and that’s great for individuals. But he doesn’t seem to see that that situation of birth can be a problem if anyone can rise above it. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to how the Democrats are ruining everything, so:

Government can promote opportunity or it can crush it. Laws and regulations that govern business practices are essential for markets to function efficiently, fostering economic opportunity.

And you’ll be surprised to learn that elites (people wanting a level playing field are the definition of elites, no doy) who were elected in 2008***** are destroying free enterprise. He lies about tax increases on business and complains that financial regulations, without mentioning those regulations, are “not only depressing opportunity in that sector but also making it more difficult for businesses and entrepreneurs in other sectors to obtain necessary financing.” You’ll be shocked to your core to learn that he doesn’t mention that people weren’t lending before those regulations were enacted.

And now we’re to the penultimate subintro: Believing in America Means Providing for a Better Future. It starts off with a bold declaration that he completely fails to live up to. “I know how John Adams felt.” It goes on to talk about the hardships he suffered being away from his wife and children during the American Revolution to make this country what it would become. And yes, that was tough. But Romney fails to show how he has sacrificed anything at all to provide a better future.

Piggybacking onto Adams’ hardships wasn’t enough though. He then praises the sacrifice of the military. And God bless them, but they aren’t Romney. He doesn’t get to reflect their glory just because he writes a few paragraphs about them. Then he tries to tie them together, “In ways as different as our many occupations, we all make sacrifices for our children, and for the generations of descendents to come.” This would probably be better if he mentioned any of the sacrifices he has made. But he can’t because he has lived a life so privileged that he hasn’t really ever had to make sacrifices.

The rest of the subintro is about how Democrats are ruining everything. Borrowing is bad, blah blah teachers unions. You know who hates children? Teachers! Clearly.

And the final subintro is called The Choice for America. It’s more or less the same arguments he’s already made. The founders all agreed that we should have equal opportunity but that same “liberal elite” want equal outcomes. Again, he doesn’t mention how financial regulation or moderate tax increase on the wealthy or regulations would lead to equal outcomes: it’s just a given.
And finally (finally!) the last couple paragraphs.

They are also highly suspicious of free enterprise because it offers unparalleled opportunity for individual success and reward, and thus enables inequality. They endeavor to grow the scale of government, to empower it to guide the economy and make better choices for the people. While few of the liberal elite would ever openly advocate for the diminution of freedom and opportunity, that is the inevitable product of their policies.

OK player. A tax rate well below what it was for decades in the postwar period and regulation that you don’t like are going to destroy freedom and opportunity. This is logical.

These fellow Americans fail to appreciate the power of the choice that was made by the Founders—theirs was the creed of the pioneer, the innovator, the striver who expects no guarantee of success but asks only to live and work in freedom. This liberating inventing, creating, independent, current now runs from coast to coast. It has produced not only the renown, like Bill Gates. It also accounts for the men and women of every occupation who strive, who explore, who go beyond what is expected of them to reach for breakthrough and accomplishment. It is the engineer who tries to get one more mile from a gallon of gasoline, the chef who creates new recipes, the salesperson who goes off-script to make the sale, the educator who works with a child after school, the programmer who can’t rest until she has eliminated every excess line of code, the entrepreneur who starts his own business, the kid who launches a commercial site on the Internet, the person who edits an entry on Wikipedia, the farmer who plants a new variety—the list is endless. The pursuit of achievement, of discovery, of greatness, is what has made America the powerhouse of the world. And it has made us happy as well. Smother this spirit with the weight of government and America ceases to be America. That is what Washington is doing, and we must not allow it. Washington believes in itself. The American people believe in America.

Holy balls was that a long paragraph. And yet, I’m guessing the list isn’t as endless as Mitt thinks if editing Wikipedia part of what he mentions. That feels like he’s padding it. But does he not understand that that list can apply to pretty much every country? My God, if the marginal tax rate goes up, nobody will teach children or edit Wikipedia! Also, that engineer is probably striving to meet government standards to increase efficiency, so government regulation didn’t diminish that. Look, the entrepreneurial spirit is great. But whatever Mitt Romney’s straw man attacks mean for America, it isn’t what Democrats are doing to the country.

OK, this chapter took a lot longer to write than I’d thought when I started it (the only other thing I’ve tried was Lou Guzzo’s gigantic font, tiny chapter nonsense, and I just breezed through those). And this post is too long. So I think I’m going to break up the chapters for the rest of the book. The beginning of chapter 1 tomorrow.

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While I was never as much of a supporter of Mike McGinn as, say, the folks at The Stranger, I volunteered with his campaign and was happy with the result. While voting for him didn’t stop the tunnel, I think he’s been good on more issues the city faces than he’s been bad, but there have been plenty of times when he fucked up. So sometimes when he fucks up people will ask me if I regret supporting him. But no I don’t. I honestly can’t think of a single time where having corporate anti-choice conservative Joe Mallahan as mayor would have been better for the city. And I can only count a few times where Nickles might have been better.

And McGinn has handled most of the things a mayor is supposed to handle in the way people want. The roads were clear pretty soon after the snow storm.* Crime has generally been down during his term, although is going up recently, and it’s tough to know how much you can attribute that to any specific policy or set of policies. He helped get more money for the Families and Education levy (you can argue how much is him and how much is, say the council and education activists, but replace him with Mallahan and I don’t see how it doubles). And now he’s helped make sure the garbage strike ended quickly in a way that the union appreciated [h/t to Howie on Facebook].

“Behind the scenes, we’re being told that was really instrumental in getting Waste Management back to the table. That’s what pushed them,” said Heather Weiner, political action director for Washington Teamsters Joint Council 28. Local 117, which represents the 153 recycle drivers who went on strike July 25, overwhelmingly approved a new six-year contract with the company Thursday morning.

Weiner said the calculus of the strike changed when the mayors of Federal Way and Seattle said they intended to hold the company accountable for missed collections.

The cities’ contracts with Waste Management allow them to impose fines for every service missed. Those fines could have amounted to $1.25 million a day in Seattle alone. When the mayors made clear their intention to collect those fines, the strike became more expensive for the company, Weiner said.

…

“We’ve had our differences with the mayor, but he stood up and did what he thought was best for the city,” [Weiner] said. “We’re very grateful that he decided to be public about enforcing the contract. ”

Within hours of the press conference, she said, the company was back at the negotiating table.

Obviously, you can’t know for sure how another person would have handled the situation. But it’s hard to see Mallahan not blaming the union. It’s hard to see this being resolved quickly and efficiently. It’s hard to see Waste Management feeling the same pressure to go back to the table if he was mayor. So I don’t know if I’ll vote for McGinn again. But I don’t regret voting for him last time.

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I’m going on vacation next week, so I thought I’d check out the new downtown Target and see if there are any shorts or a bathing suit. Here’s my review. Like when I went to the Rack a few months ago (and like when I do all my clothing shopping) I looked for made in America. Unlike the Rack, I was able to find a few. It was a very few; most of the stuff was made elsewhere.

I found one nice pair of shorts that were the right size. No shirts that I saw were made in America.

The layout was fine there were signs to where everything was. It was well lit, and there was staff around.

I popped down to the grocery, and it looks fine. But it’s a block away from Pike Place and from the IGA, so I’m not sure when I’d pop in.

– No scab drivers as Waste Management and the union reach an agreement.

– Finally, women have access to preventive care. Now let’s get the word out

– Kirby Wilbur thinks that because Rick Steves has taken positions on things that will be on the ballot, he can’t do a bland, nonpartisan PSA on voting in the top two primary.

– Steve King is awful and kind of stupid [h/t].

– It will not be like this forever. Progress is being made. At times the pace seems glacial when we’d rather it poured forth like the Niagara, but attitudes are changing.

– “Domestic violence protections for all women shouldn’t be a Democratic or a Republican issue”

– This represents the kind of country I want to live in!

– Crisis Diversion Center to open Monday.

– Get your tickets to the Liberty Ball.

Is there any actual news when the Olympics are on? I don’t know, probably. I mean, the presidential candidates could go on multi-state bank robbery sprees and it would only be half reported because we’re concerned with gymnastics right now. But there really is a magic to the people who are the best in the world competing against each other in the most meaningful sports event there is.

So what have you been watching? Do you understand the gymnastics scoring? What would you eliminate? Do you like the coverage? If you’ve been able to watch it on the web, how has that been? Any news sources you particularly like or dislike?

For me: I’ve only been watching the prime time coverage, out of the house since I don’t own a TV box. I don’t think anyone really understands the gymnastics, but they love NBC’s helpful coverage of it. I’d eliminate the competitions with animals and the ones that there are world championships that are more important. So I’d eliminate the dressage because an Olympic horse sounds like a joke. And I’d eliminate Tennis and Soccer since the Grand Slam and World Cup events are more important in those sports. Coverage has been fine if you watch it at bars with the sound off. Having multiple channels do different events is pretty good. I always like Joe Posnanski and think his coverage has been solid.

– The King County Council approved the Sonics arena.

– There are plenty of health and environmental benefits for cities of bicycling.

– Decent first ad by the marriage equality people.

– So there’s your answer, America. We don’t need gun control. If we all become good Christians and armed ourselves, then when someone opens fire and sends a few Christians to a wonderful place, we can return fire and send them to a terrible place.

– One of the toughest Olympic moments was the fencer who refused to leave the piste.

– Nobody vetted Mittens.

– Chick-fil-a-holes

– Boxed in.

It’s been a long time coming, and it felt like it was just a matter of time since President Obama supported it. But now it looks like marriage equality has the support to make it to the final platform.

Leaders of the Democratic Party have apparently agreed to include language endorsing same-sex marriage in the party’s 2012 platform, to be ratified at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

The formal platform language will be hammered out when the party’s platform committee convenes in Detroit in mid-August.

It has been a lot of work from a lot of committed activists for decades to bring us to this point. And of course there’s still a long way to go before it’s the law of the land in all 50 states. But the tide is turning. If this happens, it’ll be an important step along the way.

– This may be the most ignorant thing anyone has possibly said to anyone ever in any circumstance.

– Why does Thomas Paine hate free enterprise?

– In addition to all of these points, I’m not sure the leaderless Occupy movement and Bane go hand in glove.

– The settlement between Seattle and the DOJ (pdf). I haven’t read it, but most of the commentary about it sounds encouraging. The proof of the pudding will of course be in the eating.

– Charter school advocates are totally above board.

– Not the Olympics, but a great gold medal.

– And as far as I know, this may be the first time ant babies have been given haircuts for science.

Here are all of the answers we got for the primary:

Sec. of State:

• Kathleen Drew

Treasurer:

Nobody answered

36th District:

• Gael Tarleton

46th District:

• Sarajane Siegfriedt

• Jessyn Farrell

• Shelly Crocker

• Dusty Hoerler

Once again, I emailed the same questions (per position) to all of the Democratic candidates in these contested primaries, and gave them as much space as they wanted to answer. I think we got some interesting ones. Sadly, this time more candidates didn’t answer than did; I don’t normally endorse because who cares, but I’ll say since they were the only people in their races who bothered to answer, the official Carl Ballard endorsement goes to Drew and Tarleton. If they have any sense they won’t put it on any literature. Any candidate who reads this and feels bad is free to get in late, I guess.

So, going forward, is this something you guys would like to see in the general or future elections?