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

We’re now at Chapter 3 of Mitt Romney’s book, and if you’ve read the title of this post, you already know it’s called “The Pursuit of Power.” Today we’ll learn about Romney’s general thoughts on nations getting power and China a case study. Next time* Russia and Jihad. He starts the chapter:

The best ally peace has ever known is a strong America.

I agree that a strong America is better than a strong his other examples in this chapter. But when Romney wrote this, we were at no-end-in-sight wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. I think we’re stronger and better as a nation because we got out of Iraq and are slowly, slowly, too damn slowly figuring out how to get ourselves out of Afghanistan. I doubt that’s what Romney meant.

After this statement, he spends several paragraphs saying that America is good. He talks in general about how America promotes human rights and peace but always in generalities. The only specific thing he mentions is after the 2004 Tsunami, the relief efforts. And, of course, we all support keeping America strong when it does those things. But the section doesn’t mention when America doesn’t live up to those things. It doesn’t talk about how we’re often selective in what human rights we enforce. Additionally, he admits that countries that are good may stop being good, but he doesn’t say how he’ll make sure America stays on the right path.

Then he starts the section “The Middle Kingdom Flexes its Muscles.” There’s a Cliff Notes version of China’s history in the 20th century. Mostly losing ground to the Japanese** but also the British make an appearance. And then Mao and the Korean war. After that war ended:

Mao never really took to modernity and technology, and his military continued to reflect that prejudice, maintaining a massive four-million solder army as only a weak compensation for the nation’s obsolete or nonexistent weapons systems and logistical support. It wasn’t until approximately twenty years ago that China decided to build a modern world-class military. Since the mid 1980s, the People’s Liberation Army has been reduced by two million soldiers, cutting its size in half even as military spending was doubled time and again. The new funds went to programs designed to professionalize and train Chinese soldiers as well as toward the purchase of modern arms from Russia: fighter aircraft, helicopters, destroyers, submarines, and antiship missiles.

Then he talks about China’s submarines and their cyber war capabilities. And he draws two conclusions from this. “First, China is catching up” to America. “Second, they have not yet built their military to challenge us heat-to-head around the globe. Instead, they have shaped it to deter us, to match us, or even to defeat us in the specific theaters that are most important to them.” Look, if you’re going to characterize China’s cyber war as mostly deterrent, then that makes it seem reasonable.***

“China has very little interest today in constructing a military capable of fighting us in Africa, Europe, the Americas of the Middle East.” God, I hope we don’t fight their military anywhere. That would be terrible. He gets into some specifics of America’s capabilities, and then, “they build submarines capable of checkmating our battle groups and they invest in cyber- and space-warefare that can blind or at least blinker our navy and air force. And if they become capable of declawing America’s military in Asia, they will gain freedom of action to do whatever they choose in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” Look, they make a lot of aggressive moves in the South China Sea, and that’s pretty terrible. But I’m not sure it follows that they’ve stopped America (and our allies (?)) from responding in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Or that the other players in the region are just going to let China do anything they want without responding.

Also, other than the we’re good thing earlier, there’s no real reason why Romney thinks America should be the major player in that part of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. I mean China is there and we aren’t. And it’s not that difficult of a thing to come up with something: stability of commerce around the world yada, yada, commitments to our allies, blah blah blah. The point isn’t that there isn’t an argument to be made about why America has a role in the region, especially over China, but it would be nice if Romeny would actually make the argument.

Then there’s a discussion of Taiwan that will (if the Chinese take this book seriously) probably give him headaches.

Taiwan is not China. It is an independent democratic country of 23 million people–more than Australia and more than four times the population of Israel. Taiwan holds free and fair elections, guards its citizens’ civil rights and political liberties, and is also a model of free enterprise, having the twentieth largest economy in the world. If the people of Taiwan were to unite with China, that would be their right, but that has never been the choice of a modern, free Taiwan.

To be clear, I think that’s largely true (except for the fact that Taiwan still largely sees itself as representative of all of China). But it’s always been the sort of thing that Americans with diplomatic power tend to finesse.

Anyway, then Romney is worried that if China takes over Taiwan (as if anyone is saying they should do that) then the next step is maybe Korea and Japan. Then the section ends with Romney saying we still have a lot of influence, and we should keep a strong military presence in the region and support our allies.

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Another day, another horrendous shooting.

Several people were shot, one of them fatally, by a gunman outside the Empire State Building shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday, according to the police and city officials. The gunman was killed by the police, officials said.

One city official said that eight people were wounded.

“There are two people on site dead, a civilian and the gunman,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information to the media.

While the details are still murky, I think we can all agree that the shooter knew exactly what the founders were going for when they wrote the Second Amendment.

– Todd Akin is the logical conclusion of flattering people like Todd Akin for 30 years.

– You would think Tim Eyman would learn something after the biggest lie of his life. But no.

– Jay Inslee releases his tax returns.

– I was afraid for over 60 years and those 60 years were wasted

– First of all, I am neither an empty man-socket nor a fucking venus flytrap. I am not looking to “attract a man.” I am just trying to do my stuff and then maybe meet a person who likes me because I am also a person.

– If you must fact-check, develop a cutesy scale that talks down to your audience.

Following Todd Akin is a Jackass Gate, Josh Feit did an interview with US Senate candidate Michael Baumgartner. Then Baumgartner decided he wanted to talk about Afghanistan, but Feit still asked him questions about his positions on abortion and wrote about those extremist positions. Then, I guess because Feit’s focus, Baumgartner emailed him to “go fuck yourself” and has been digging himself deeper since. Now look, as someone who has been protesting the war in Afghanistan for over a decade, I’m sympathetic to complaints that the media do a bad job covering it. And I agree that Cantwell hasn’t been particularly good on war issues. And Christ knows there are times when Josh Feit has written stupid things and completely missed the mark.

But you know what, you don’t get to chose what the media write about. The best way to get better coverage of war issues is to be more compelling on those issues. And you really don’t have a leg to stand on when the media are responding to your press release.

Further, you don’t get to call a truce on social issues if you’re still planning to vote to force a woman to carry her rapist’s baby to term, or to force women — and other people who can become pregnant — to have to have all the medical problems that can go along with pregnancy and child birth. When you’re still planning to vote with the extreme elements of the forced pregnancy wing of the party, you haven’t actually declared a truce, and people are still going to talk about that.

Over at Publicola, Erica C. Barnett takes the piss out of this King 5 report.

But first, KING offers viewers a lesson in transportation taxonomy. Specifically: Cars are “traffic”; transit is not.

“Here on Alaska, two traffic lanes have been taken away and turned into bus-only lanes,” reporter Natasha Ryan intones, gesturing—with no apparent irony—at the completely empty street behind her. (Screen shot above). “Residents say there already aren’t enough parking spots. … Now residents fear that once the RapidRide stops that are already in place here on Alaska actually start service it’s going to mean even less parking.”

Got that? Bus-only lanes “take away” lanes from the streets’ rightful users—single-occupant cars.

This is fine as far as it goes, but it got me thinking: it’s yet another TV report that assumes its viewers are drivers. I assume a majority of its viewers are drivers as a majority of the people in the region are drivers. But plenty of their viewers must take the bus, as the bus is regularly quite crowed.

A while ago, I wrote that I was always surprised when newspapers aren’t the biggest advocates of public transit. Since we’re getting to an era when TV news can be watched on the bus (but still not in the car, hopefully), I wonder if maybe the knee jerk anti-transit stuff will come to an end. But I won’t think it’ll come any time soon.

– I love the fact that The Stranger are trying to bring down Frank Chopp with a Socialist candidate.

– Last year I paid 22.6 percent in federal taxes after all the special deductions afforded me. That’s a pretty darn low effective rate by historical standards, and it’s low for all I receive from this country. My business depends on a country that continues to make savvy investments in its infrastructure, in its oversight of industry and in its people. Those public investments are instrumental to private market growth.

– He just said in public what these conservative fiends say behind closed doors after refusing to allow a vote on legislation that would establish a consistent standard of care in emergency rooms that includes information about emergency contraception.

– But one thing to keep in mind is there is no real penalty for respectable lying in our world of intellectual discourse.

– Want [h/t]

– This is the best headline I’ve seen in a while.

The ordinance that passed last year will officially be the city law on September 1. But the law is only as good as the people working and employing people in Seattle know about it. In that vein, Council Member Bagshaw has a post on her blog with details. Who is and isn’t covered, and what the law actually does. There are also 3 workshops open to the public.

• Tuesday, August 21, 12 noon: North Seattle (Ballard Campus Swedish Medical Center, 5300 Tallman Ave. NW)
• Tuesday, August 28, 5:30 pm: West Seattle (Neighborhood House, 6400 Sylvan Way SW)
• Wednesday, August 29, 3 pm: Capitol Hill (Century Ballroom, 915 E. Pine Street)

– The real solution to streets like this involve engineering: road diets, curb bulbs, striped crosswalks, and/or crossing signals. But for now, I recommend crossing with a camera.

– This is a horrible story, but it did get respectable news organizations to say “Pussy Riot.”

– On the one hand, I don’t care about the Republicans on a junket in the Sea of Galilee boozing it up and skinny dipping. On the other hand, if it were a bunch of Democrats.

– Pro life

– Taylor Bridge fire is 47% contained.

– The ghost of Ayn Rand

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

I don’t know if Mitt Romney still thinks global warming is a thing. But whenever his ghost writer ghost wrote this chapter, they acknowledged at least that public opinion moved in that direction. This is good, and hopefully he still believes it. But since half of my notes in the margins in these sections are about how maybe he could look into global warming, I wish he’d have stated it earlier instead of almost at the end. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Now we’re at the section “Common Causes?” and the question mark is because even Romney isn’t sure he can get anything useful out of the bare sketches he wrote about nations and empires collapsing. He starts off saying that both cultural and economic isolation lead to the collapse of empires. “China, Spain, Britain, and the Ottomans expressly or effectively retreated behind barriers to foreign trade, each convinced that competition had made them weaker. Their retreat from the marketplace of ideas and their retreat from the marketplace of goods inevitably led to their retreat from the pinnacle of leadership.”

(a) I think we can all agree that Britain was best known for its economic isolation. Who doesn’t remember that stirring line, “Rule Britannia, Britannia, stay home because the waves might be choppy”? (b) There’s no evidence in this book to suggest that empires that isolated themselves did it because they were losing ground or if they had already lost ground and their isolationism was a way to stave off/slow down the process.

“This is a lesson that shouldn’t be lost on us. When we face challenge, there will always be cries for protection”. I know: those cries of we shouldn’t have to compete with prepubescent girls paid almost nothing for factory work. Don’t they know that they’re the ones destroying the country?

“They will be heartfelt and not entirely illogical. Foreign competition will seem unfair — after all, if foreign products and services are more desirable to consumers, it must be due to some form of advantage. And if one’s competitor has an advantage, that doesn’t feel fair.” So what if it actually isn’t fair? It’s tough to quantify how much of China’s advantage is due to unfair things like child labor, shit environmental laws, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and trade barriers, and how much is due to fair competition. But calls to not have to compete with those unfair things aren’t in and of themselves shutting down legit trade or calls to close off all ties.

“The only successful way to overcome foreign advantage, however, is to create an advantage of one’s own — to innovate.” There’s no evidence that you can’t innovate and have certain trade restrictions. The US had plenty of trade barriers for most of our history, and we did a fine job innovating. In large measure it helped build our manufacturing base. China is doing the same thing now and out competing us at the moment.

It goes on like this, but you get the point. Moving on to the next reason for failure:

Some of these failed powers were weakened as well by wealth and spending that exceeded their own production–in other words, by easy money. The spoils of Ottoman pillage, the gold the Spanish stole from the Americas, the tribute the Portuguese exacted from trade–all allowed each of those nations to live well in excess of their productivity. In the same way that inherited wealth can lead descendents to profligate spending and economic ruin, easy money weakened these nations’ willingness to work and invest.

Totally. People who inherited their wealth don’t know what hard work is. Excellent point, Mitt Romney. Then I’m not sure if it’s the same point or bad transitions, but culture in general makes a difference in collapse of empires. Finally we can learn from this outline of failure to avoid “the same path that has led to the great decline in the past.” His prescription is don’t save industries that were once successful and avoid protectionism.

And we’re on to “Why Nations Fiddle as they Burn” the story of Nero Mitt Romney explaining with hindsight how he would have saved various places. He has a paragraph about Spain that doesn’t really say anything new. Then because he hadn’t mentioned the Dutch up to this point, he talks about them. “The Dutch also suffered from unearned wealth. Their trade monopolies, underinvestment in productive industry, and cultural decay led this condition to be called ‘Dutch disease.’ Lack of vision, lack of awareness, is an integral part of the malady.” I think Dutch disease is generally shifting from industrialization to a resource based economy. The parts about culture and trade monopoly seem out of place to me.

This leads to a discussion of other countries that have the problems generally actually associated with “Dutch disease.” The countries who have oil wealth in particular. He tries to shoehorn the Ottoman empire into that, but it doesn’t really work. Then to us:

Our own lack of vision led to the collapse of our financial markets and our economy. It precipitated a global recession, triggered the loss of $12 trillion of our citizen’s net worth and dealt a sharp blow to freedom. We simply did not see the so-called subprime home mortgages, liar loans, and nonliquified loans had the potential to cause such destruction. I know some believe that “the powers that be” saw it all along–that the greed of Wall Street tycoons, for example, was the root cause. But I believe a lack of vision played every bit as big a role.

I agree that it wasn’t a conspiracy. Too many people lost too much money. But, we were sold for decades before the crash that these sorts of investments were American innovation. That they were part of a new ownership society. It wasn’t a lack of vision, it was a lack of oversight, and common sense with a too far reaching vision. Also, if you think nobody saw the collapse, I’d recommend The Big Short. There’s no mention of who specifically Romney would blame for lacking vision, maybe because he wants largely to go back to the policies that he says lack vision.

However, lack of vision is the exception when it comes to the decline of great powers. In most cases, there were warnings. Farsighted Ottomans warned that adherence to religious dogma and reliance on oversized bureaucracy would doom the empire.

If only Mitt Romney were in charge of the Ottoman Empire, things would have turned out differently. There are several other examples of empires not having far reaching visions of the future. Here’s where my notes say “global warming” a bunch when he says things like “we seize on the opinion of someone who tells us what we want to hear” rather than face hard truths or look to large scale change.

It goes on for several pages, but I want to mention his calling out the media’s problem reporting on the Iraq war. Now you might think getting into pointless wars would be part of why empires decline. Finding enemies to rally against instead of using that energy to solve our actual problems. Perhaps things like Friedman Units where were promised everything would turn around in 6 months every 6 months? Point is: media criticism leading up to and during the Iraq war is a target rich case study for the decline of nations. Guess what Romney’s example was?

The media elite similarly took the early view that Iraq was a hopeless quagmire. There was often thereafter a perceptible snickering in the coverage, especially when the surge was unveiled. Then, when the surge actually worked, the media coverage of Iraq noticeably fell off.

Yeah, that’s the problem. The media didn’t cheer lead enough. Christ on the Cross. Anyway, now were to an unlabeled section about countries that turn things around. He mentions the emperors after Nero without saying why they were “Five Good Emperors.” The Ottoman apparently staved off their decline for a while. He says “after an eleven-year civil war” but doesn’t put it in the context of his previous Ottoman musings. And Churchill.

Then he talks about the Clinton era as a time of decline for America. Because peace and prosperity: ick. Then 9/11 and “America changed course” without mentioning why a decade stuck in Afghanistan is good for America. He has four reasons some countries can turn things around and why some can’t:

“The first is the occurrence of a catastrophic event that is alarming enough to spur action but not so large that it dooms the nation.” He mentions Sputnik and Pearl Harbor. I guess America was in decline before Sputnik? I don’t know.

“The second catalyst is the presence of a great leader.” He says they should be persuasive and a great statesman. Then without expanding on those qualities, he just lists a bunch of leaders.

“A third condition is national consensus.” He says usually national consensus comes from the top, but sometimes it’s from the bottom. “Lech Walesa galvanized a movement that brought down the Iron Curtain first in Poland and then across Eastern Europe.” Great, but not exactly how nations stay strong. And then he fucks with me: “Scientists, concerned citizens and* the world media succeeded in convincing the public that global warming is a real and present danger.” I haven’t finished the book, or the presidential campaign, but I look forward to his addressing global warming head on.

“The final conducive condition for turnaround is when a nation enjoys deep, broad-based national strength.” This seems like question begging to me. Why are nations able to stay strong? Because of their national strength!

There’s another small section, but it’s just recapping and setting up the next chapter, so we’ll end this here.

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I’m a bit surprised that the National Organization for Marriage hasn’t come through (first point) with their promise of a huge pile of money to people who primary Republicans who voted for the marriage equality bill. They both advance, but having lost almost 2-1 in the primary, it’s tough to make the case that the general will be anything different. Maybe NOM wanted to spend the money in the general election so it’s a force multiplier for their opposition to R-74.

The National Organization for Marriage, the D.C.-based anti-gay marriage group, pledged to donate $250,000 to any Republican primary candidate that stepped up to run against a Republican in Washington State who “crosses the party platform and votes for gay marriage.”

[…]

Litzow does not have a Republican challenger, but Walsh does—staunch gay-marriage opponent Mary Edwards. While Walsh has raised $62,000, including big donations from gay rights advocates such as Lambda Legal board member Eric Nilson ($900) from Cleveland, Ohio, Edwards has raised $3,633—and no check from NOM.

Obviously a primary challenge means something different in Washington than elsewhere, and their goal was to unseat Walsh not to make a show of it in August. But by starting so late (if they start at all) they’ve made that difficult.

Not that I’m complaining. I’d rather the seat go to a Democrat, but if there are intramural fights between the Republicans, I’d rather it go to ones who are at least decent people in this one area.

For fuck’s sake, the Libertarian Party.

Today the Libertarian Party of Washington State filed suit (PDF) to have Romney’s name removed from the November ballot:

The suit seeks an order declaring that the Washington State Republican Party is “minor party” for purposes of the 2012 general election and directing the Secretary of State to issue ballots for the November election that do not contain the printed name of any Republican Party nominee.

The only statewide race in the last even numbered year was Cantwell in 2010, and the GOP didn’t endorse because they wanted to wait it out. So fine, they might technically be a minor party and thus too late to nominate someone. But really, fuck that.

This isn’t the sort of thing that needs suing over. The injustice here would be if the Libertarians won their suit and Romney wasn’t on the ballot. He’ll be the nominee of the Republican party, and if people are dumb enough to vote for him, they deserve the right to do so.

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– People pointed out a year ago that Ryan’s plan will destroy Medicare. The Washington Post, the paper that brought down Nixon, responded by awarding that fact four cartoon Pinnochio heads. Journalism.

– The Greenwood food bank is running low.

– There are a lot of questions about the Chicks for Rob button. Not the least is how it got through whatever campaign bureaucracy there should be to stop this sort of thing.

– The supposedly liberal Seattle City Council can’t even support the tiniest bit of campaign finance reform. O’Brien’s proposal isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the status quo.

– And honestly, I’m surprised and impressed that the White House seems to have strengthened its spine and is resisting the silly demands of Republicans and their media abettors for apologies and denunciations when none are needed.

– RIP Johnny Pesky

King Felix pitches a perfect game. At Safeco. On a glorious afternoon for baseball. Sad to say, I missed it at work, and didn’t know until after.*

I know it’s a meaningless thing. A W is a W, and how you get there won’t change the standings. And the Mariners’ season is still shot. But there is something magical. Especially with Felix. He’s home grown. I have a friend who went to Tacoma specifically to see him pitch a year before he broke into the majors. And since he’s been up, it always felt like it was just a matter of time before at least a no-no; he has been that good.

* For serious, someone text me or someone I work with if this is going on. Like in the 7th.

There was a shooting at the Family Research Council this morning. A security guard was shot and is in the hospital. Like these LGBT organizations, I don’t know if it was politically motivated. Still, when anything like this happens to a political organization, you have to assume their politics was part of what made them a target.

I condemn political violence of any stripe, and I hope the guard makes a full recovery. I’m saddened that we live in a country where this sort of thing is common. I don’t agree with anything the Family Research Council stands for, but nobody deserves this for their political beliefs. Nobody.

The story of Romney claiming bipartisan cred for Paul Ryan over the fact that he once wrote a policy paper with Ron Wyden is strange on a few levels. First, what? It’s not a bipartisan accomplishment to write a paper. A bipartisan accomplishment would be turning that paper into actual legislation. And Wyden handled that pretty well.

Governor Romney is talking nonsense. Bipartisanship requires that you not make up the facts.

I did not “co-lead a piece of legislation.” I wrote a policy paper on options for Medicare. Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget.

I mean Romney had to know that Wyden would respond. And that he’d do it in a partisan manner. It’s sloppy campaigning.

The other thing is he didn’t pick him as the VP nominee for his bipartisanship. Ryan is a partisan ideologue on budget issues and on social issues. He fires up the base. He gives them something to vote for instead of just against Obama.