Meet the New Condi

More convention stupidity. Responding to Condoleeza Rice's speech, Bill Keller in The New York Times says:

She is also an out-of-Republican-fashion moderate on social issues like abortion…Rice has the pedigree and the chastening experience to present a more sophisticated and more temperate Republican take on the world. And Wednesday night she did so.

She did? I must have missed it. I don't recall her talking about her views on abortion. I do recall her talking about a return to her aggressive with-us-or-against-us foreign policy. She clearly has learned about as much from her chastening experience as Dick Cheney.

David Frum is a Privileged White Racist

In a good faith effort to consider viewpoints of the right wing, I've been reading David Frum for the last couple months. It took a while for me to figure out how he could claim to be a moderate. He eventually revealed that he supports gay marriage, higher inflation, and universal health care. That's pretty good for a Republican.  Of course, like other self-proclaimed moderates before him, I expected Frum to eventually write something so over the top that he would destroy his credibility with me. That day was yesterday.

What Frum wrote was so unbelievable that I checked multiple times to verify that the author was indeed David Frum and not one of his minions. The only way fore to tackle this is to go through his post paragraph by paragraph. Bear with me.

Much is being said about the overwhelming whiteness of the delegate mix at the Republican National Convention. But many political movements in this country draw more from some ethnicities than others. It would be no surprise if Republicans felt that this unique criticism of their delegate mix was one sided. How might a Republican respond? Here is one imaginative guess:

Notice Frum's technique here. By saying, "Here is one imaginative guess" at what some hypothetical Republican might say, Frum is trying to preemptively distance himself from what he's about to say. Nice try.

So now I'm reading all this criticism of us for being too white. That's nerve. This convention is no whiter than the conventions that nominated the libs' precious Franklin Roosevelt - or John F. Kennedy for that matter. And we have a damn sight more women.

Frum is proud of the Republican Party for being no whiter and having more women than the Democratic Party had -- prior to signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964! Could he set the bar any lower?

Anyway, when did it become a crime to be white? Who built this country? Not people from Kenya, I can tell you that.

Wow. Did he really write that? This is the start of Frum going off the rails. He's right though. It was white people that built this country. They built this country by enslaving black people, exterminating red people, abusing yellow people, and going to war with brown people. He's also right about the slaves not being from Kenya. They were from East Africa, but why does Frum even bring up Kenya? Is this "moderate" Republican a birther, or does he just like to use birtherism as a political tool?

The polls tell me that something like 100% of black Americans will vote for Barack Obama. Are they bigots because they rally to their guy? So why are we supposed to be bigots because maybe 60% of us rally to our guy?

Blacks have been voting for white Democrats for decades. It's not surprising that they support an incumbent black Democrat in large numbers, especially when the Republicans are using racist dog whistles (much like those in Frum's post) and disenfranchising black voters via dubious voting restrictions.

Like all white Americans, I'm a mutt: a little English, a little Irish, a little German. Probably got some Cherokee up there too, but you don't hear me making a big whoop out of it for an affirmative action board, unlike some Democrats I can mention. My wife's half-Italian. My son's married to a Chinese girl, and my grandkids will be half Chinese. Doesn't bother me. I just want us all to be Americans.

Frum blows his cover with this paragraph. He's been pretending that he's expressing the views of some hypothetical Republican, but now, he's talking specifically about himself. Frum claims he is a mutt because he's got white blood from England, white blood from Ireland, and white blood from Germany? Wow. It's a miracle that he even looks white! And Frum can't possibly be racist against blacks because he's OK with the Italians and the Chinese!? And how about that last sentence for a finale?  "I just want us all to be Americans." Translation: you're either with me or you're not an American.

But let's face it: this president has no idea what it means to be American, and I don't care whether he was born in Hawaii or Kenya or Indonesia or Uzbeky-beky-beky-stan. To be an American means to work for everything you get. When's he ever worked for anything? It was all handed to him! And now he wants to hand my work over to somebody else.

This is rich. Frum claims that Obama has no idea what it means to be an American, even when he knows, despite his nod to the birthers, that Obama was born in America. You know who wasn't born in America? David Frum! He was born in Canada, and he didn't even bother to become an American citizen until September 11, 2007! Surely, that was driven by Frum's love of America and not by his career move from George W. Bush's economic speech writer to a political pundit.

Frum says, "To be an American means to work for everything you get".  This is supposed to be an argument against Obama and in favor of Romney? Mitt Romney!? Obama was born into a middle-class single-parent family. Romney's father was the CEO of American Motors, the Governor of Michigan, and a Presidential candidate.  Frum himself is the son wealthy parents, his mother was an acclaimed journalist at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, but I'm sure he's a self-made man than never benefited from her connections.

This whole thing about us not being "diverse" enough - can we cut the crap on that? You suddenly load up the country with millions of newcomers, put them on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid and what all, put them on the voting rolls without any ID - invite them to help themselves to everything that was earned before they showed up - and what do you expect the original Americans to do?

Frum rips of his moderate mask and goes full-tilt Tea Party here. Does he think there aren't white people on food stamps, unemployment, and Medicaid? Does he know the voter fraud doesn't really exist? The Republicans who are implementing the voter ID laws have acknowledged that it doesn't. Republican officials in Ohio and Pennsylvania have even admitted that it's about disenfranchising those likely to vote for Democrats. Finally, when he talks about "the original Americans" does he include his Canadian-born self?

You think we're not diverse? This is what diversity looks like: the newcomers bunching up in one party, the old stock inhabitations bunching up in the other. It's the same in Britain and in France and in Germany, and just about everywhere. You don't like it? Maybe you should have thought of that before you invited half of Mexico to move here.

The so-called "newcomers" might be drawn to the Democratic Party, but the "old stock inhabitations" are not bunching up in the Republican Party, unless that means elderly and/or less-educated white people.  I'm not sure what "old stock inhabitations" are. Maybe he meant inhabitants? Seems rude to call the elderly old stock. In any case, there are still a large number of white people in the Democratic Party -- even elderly white people. It's not just the "newcomers". That's called diversity.

Nothing against Mexican people! Or black people! Or any kind of people! So long as they pull their weight. Maybe instead of asking us why all these so-called diverse people are not Republicans, maybe you should ask them why they don't support the party for the people who do the work and pay the bills. Maybe it's their problem, not ours, that they identify with a president who is tearing down everything I grew up with.

Frum's implied message: Mexicans (Mexican-Americans?) and black people are not pulling their weight, but hey, nothing against them! And he wonders why they don't support his party. Maybe it has something to do with his party's determination to exploit the poor to service the rich.

Whoever you blame, I don't see why I should change my beliefs just because somebody with a different color skin doesn't like them. I don't like Barack Obama's beliefs, but he won't change them on my account. Why is it that the guy with the white skin has to change his mind, not the guy with the other kind of skin? Or why can't we just respect the fact that some of us have one set of beliefs - others have different beliefs - and let us all compete on voting day and may the best team win? Why do you liberals always have to be dragging race into it? Makes me think that it's you guys, who are always blaming just one race for everything that's wrong with America, who are the real racists.

More Tea Party talk. Why should I stop being racist just because black people don't like it? In fact,  it's actually rich white males like me, David Frum, that are the victims of racism. Poor me. Of course, he's very sincere about respecting different beliefs. That's why he implied in a previous paragraph that anyone that disagrees with him is not American. As far as liberals dragging race into it, it wasn't the liberals that have been asking for birth certificates, talking about Kenyan Muslim socialism, and claiming that Obama's life experience is not a real American experience. That was the Republicans, including Romney, and you yourself, David Frum (refer to your writing above).

What you want is a country where everybody looks different, and everybody thinks the same. That's what you call diversity. No thanks. You work hard, you pay your way, you quit asking for handouts, and you're American enough for me - and you'll be up there on the podium with Bobby Jindal, Allen West, Herman Cain, and Nikki Haley as a leader of the one party in this country that isn't hung up on race.

No, what I want is a country where everybody has the same opportunities regardless of what they look like, what they think, or who there parents are. I want a country not run on the philosophy of  David Frum, Bobby Jindal, Allen West, Herman Cain, and Nikki Haley -- a philosophy that says I'm above average and everyone else should be too.

For those that think I'm being unfair to Frum because his post was satire, well then, my post is satire too! Double satire! Isn't that hilarious? Especially when the subject is racism! Good times.

You Can't Go Home Again

I haven't written anything in a long while. I'm inspired to do so after reading Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again." I guess I'm what he would have called a "futilitarian". I love that term, and wear the label proudly, even though he meant it derogatively. He describes the main character as a pessimist with hope, while his mentor in the story is a pessimist without hope. Wolfe argues that with or without hope, you have to keep trying. Ironically, when I read the following passages, and consider that they were written ~70 years ago, Wolfe himself makes the effort seem futile.

About the pre-depression real estate boom in the main character's home town:

The real estate men were everywhere. Their motors and buses roared through the streets of town and out into the country, carrying crowds of prospective clients. One could see them on the porches of houses unfolding blueprints and prospectuses as they shouted enticements and promises of sudden wealth into the ears of deaf old women. Everyone was fair game for them--the lame, the halt, and the blind, Civil War veterans or their decrepit pensioned widows, as well as high school boys and girls, Negro truck drivers, soda jerkers, elevator boys, and bootblacks.

 

Everyone bought real estate; and everyone was a "real estate man" either in name or practice. The barbers, the lawyers, the grocers, the butchers, the builders, the clothiers--all were engaged now in this single interest and obsession. And there seemed to be only one rule, universal and infallible--to buy, always to buy, to pay whatever price was asked, and to sell again within two days at any price one chose to fix. It was fantastic. Along all the streets in town the ownership of the land was constantly changing; and when the supply of streets was exhausted, new streets were feverishly created in the surrounding wilderness; and even before these streets were paved or a house had been built upon them, the land was being sold, and then resold, by the acre, by the lot, by the foot, for hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

About the pre-depression financiers:

...these men were all victims of an occupational disease--a kind of mass hypnosis that denied to them the evidence of their senses. It was a monstrous and ironic fact that the very men who had created this world in which every value was false and theatrical saw themselves, not as creatures tranced by fatal illusions, but rather as the most knowing, practical, and hard-headed men alive. They did not think of themselves as gamblers, obsessed by their own fictions of speculation, but as brilliant executives of great affairs who at every moment of the day "had their fingers on "the pulse of the nation." 

From a discussion between the main character and his maid, who was far more concerned about the welfare of the rich than the welfare of the poor:

"...good Lord...why should you worry so much about it. Those people aren't going to starve. ...Yet you come in here day after day and read me this stuff...as if you were afraid the whole lot of them would have to go on the dole. You're the one who will have to go on the dole if you get out of work. Those people are not going to suffer, not really, as the way you'll have to."

"Ah-h, yes, but then, we're used to it, aren't we? And they, poor things, they're not."

It was appalling. He couldn't fathom it. He just felt as if he'd come up smack against an impregnable wall. You could call it what you liked--servile snobbishness, blind ignorance, imbecilic stupidity--but there it was. You couldn't shatter it, you couldn't even shake it. It was the most formidible example of devotion and loyalty he had ever known. 

On the true motives and lies of our leaders:

The politician, for example, would never have us think that it is love of office, the desire for the notorious elevation of public place, that drives him on. No, the thing that governs him is his pure devotion to the common wealth, his selfless and high-minded statesmanship, his love of his fellow man, and his burning idealism to turn out the rascal who usurps the office and betrays the public trust which he himself, as he assures us, would so gloriously and devotedly maintain.  

So, too, the soldier. It is never love of glory that inspires him to his profession. It is never love of battle, love of war, love of all the resounding titles and the proud emoluments of the heroic conqueror. Oh, no. It is devotion to duty that makes him a soldier. There is no personal motive in it. He is inspired simply by the selfless ardor of his patriotic abnegation. He regrets that he has but one life to give for his country. 

So it goes through every walk of life. The lawyer assures us that he is the defender of the weak, the guardian of the oppressed, the champion of the rights of defrauded widows and beleagured orphans, the upholder of justice, the unrelenting enemy, at no matter what cost to himself, of all forms of chicanery, fraud, theft, violence, and crime. Even the businessman will not admit to selfish motive in his money-getting. On the contrary, he is the developer of the nation's resources. He is the benevolent employer of thousands of working men who would be on the dole without the organizing genius of his great intelligence. He is the defender of the Amercan ideal of rugged individualism, the shining exemplar to youth of what a poor country boy may achieve in this nation through a devotion to the national virtures of thrift, industry, obedience to duty, and business integrity. He is, he assures us, the backbone of the country, the man who makes the wheels go round, the leading citizen, Public Friend No.1.

All these people lie, of course. They know they lie, and everyone who hears them also knows they lie. The lie, however, has become a part of the convention of American life. People listen to it patiently, and if they smile at it, the smile is weary, touched with resignation and the indifferent dismissals of fatigue. 

Finally, at the end of the book, Wolfe describes the Enemy of America as the one who says:

"See, I am one of you--I am one of your children, your son, your brother, and your friend. Behold how sleek and fat I have become--and all because I am just one of you, and your friend. Behold how rich and powerful I am--and all because I am one of you--shaped in your way of life, of thinking, of accomplishment. What I am, I am because I am one of you, your humble brother, and your friend. Behold, the man I am, the man I have become, the thing I have accomplished--and reflect. Will you destroy this thing? I assure you that it is the most precious thing you have. It is yourselves, the projection of each of you, the triumph of your individual lives, the thing that is rooted in your blood, and native to your stock, and inherent in the traditions of America. It is the thing that all of you may hope to be, for am I not just one of you? Am I not just your brother and your son? Am I not the living image of what each of you may hope to be, would wish to be, would desire for his own son? Would you destroy this incarnation of your own heroic self? If you do then, you destroy yourselves--you kill the thing that is most gloriously American, and in so killing, kill yourselves."

He lies! And now we know he lies! He is not gloriously, or in any other way, ourselves. He is not our friend, our son, our brother. And he is not American! For although he has a thousand familiar and convenient faces, his own true face is old as Hell. 

Look about you and see what he has done. 

I'll conclude with a passage that rang a eary on in the book that rang a bell of self-awareness:

"Oh, Hank's all right when you get to know him. You know how a guy is when he gets all burned up about somethin'--he gets too serious about it--he thinks everybody else in the world ought to be like he is. But he's O.K. He's not a bad guy when you get him talkin' about somethin' else."

OK, I'm Hank, but good luck getting me to talk about somethin' else.

Bad Journalist Feels Sympathy for Bad Doctors

This CNN Money article about doctors going broke has been making the rounds online. Even from the little snippet on Facebook, the story seemed dubious. After reading the whole thing, I'm reassured that my bullshit detector is still well calibrated. I'm not sure which is more disturbing--the shoddy journalism or the shady doctors.

The article starts out with this:

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

At this point, a competent journalist would include some sort of data to back up those rather extraordinary claims. A competent editor would demand such evidence before publishing the story. Exactly how many doctors are going broke? How are you measuring this nationwide spread? Unfortunately, Parija Kavilanz is not a competent journalist, and CNN Money is lacking competent editors, so I'll have to step in.

Based on the evidence presented, the number of doctors in America who are going broke is 3. The claim that this "quiet reality" is spreading nationwide is because those 3 are comprised of 1 doctor in Pennsylvania + 1 doctor in Minnesota + 1 doctor in Nevada. The claim that this quiet reality "is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists" is because those 3 are comprised of 1 family physician + 1 cardiologist + 1 oncologist. No wonder their reality is so quiet.

The article is clearly aimed at generating sympathy for doctors whose Medicare reimbursement rates have fallen, yet CNN Money does a piss-poor job of this by their selection of doctors. Far from making me sympathetic, the thought of these so-called professionals going broke makes me rejoice.

One of the three doctors is an oncologist. His problem:

He owes drug companies $1.6 million, which he wasn't reimbursed for.

What? That seems strange. Why would the oncologist owe money to the drug companies?

Until the mid-2000's, drugs sales were big profit generators for oncologists. In oncology, doctors were allowed to profit from drug sales. So doctors would buy expensive cancer drugs at bulk prices from drugmakers and then sell them at much higher prices to their patients. In 2005, Medicare revised the reimbursement guidelines for cancer drugs, which effectively made reimbursements for many expensive cancer drugs fall to less than the actual cost of the drugs.

Oh. Who knew that oncologists were allowed to profit from the drugs they prescribed to cancer patients? No conflict of interest there. For example, surely a doctor wouldn't prescribe a Pfizer drug over a Merck drug just because he had a warehouse full of bulk-rate Pfizer drugs. After all, medicine is a noble and honorable profession.

Now, after years of gouging his cancer patients...his CANCER patients!...he's complaining because he got stuck with a warehouse full of drugs whose street value dropped.

"I grew up in that system. I was spending $1.5 million a month on buying treatment drugs."

Notice the sense of entitlement. He grew up in a corrupt system, so it's just unfair to change it now -- as if the unethical conflict of interest was forced upon him, rather than greedily embraced.

The family practice doctor from rural Nevada is nearly as bad. His solution to his financial problem, in his own words, is to intentionally compromise the level of service provided to his patients.

"I will see more patients, but I won't check all of their complaints at one time," he explained. "If I do, insurance will bundle my reimbursement into one payment." Patients will have to make repeat visits -- an arrangement that he acknowledges is "inconvenient." "This system pits doctor against patient," he said. "But it's the only way to beat the system and get paid."

He admits it's "inconvenient" for the patient, but beating the system and getting paid--that's what it's about.

These two are perfect examples of why our health care system needs massive reform. If doctors like these are going bankrupt, we just might be making progress. If we ever see drug company profits merely approaching single digits, we'll really be getting somewhere.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

Mainstream country music kills me. Searching for a radio station in Northern California, I came across Cost of Livin' by Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn fame (and no, this time that's not David Brooks). After the obligatory glorification of serving in Iraq/Afghanistan, the song celebrates the plight of the unemployed man applying for a job:

I work weekends

if I have to

nights and holidays

give you forty

and then some

whatever it takes

This mindset is beyond my understanding. It seems there is a large portion of Americans that have the puritanical view that suffering is good for them. They don't want a living wage, a reasonable work week, regulations to protect them, or a social safety net. They want to suffer to prove they're better than those who would welcome, ask for, or demand something more. Corporate America must love these people, and the millionaires like Ronnie Dunn who simultaneously promote and profit from that sentiment.

Party Like it's 1999

Last week, David Brooks wrote a column saying poor and unemployed Americans should suck it up and suffer in silence like dignified Americans did during the depression. I restrained myself from responding. I thought it might be better for my mental health to let it pass. However, that approach doesn't seem to be working for me, so here's the latest stupid thing from David Brooks.

Yesterday, he was on NPR, commenting on the Occupy Wall Street movement, Brooks said that the Tea Party represents 10-15% of Americans, whereas the OWS movement only represents 2-3% of Americans. How did David Brooks arrive at 2-3%? Was this estimate based on the latest scientific poll results? Of course not. This is David Brooks. He said the OWS movement represents 2-3% of Americans because Ralph Nader got 2-3% of the national vote. While that is hilarious, I am not joking, and neither was David Brooks.

First, it's assinine to suggest that 2-3% of votes was an accurate measure of support for Nader's anti-corporate views. Plenty of voters sympathetic to Nader's anti-corporate message voted for Gore rather than wasting their vote on Nader.

Second, that was 11 freaking years ago! Any OWS protester younger than 29 wasn't even eligible to vote in 2000.

Third, a few things have happened since then that might shift public opinion a bit. The Supreme Court intervened to rule in favor of George W. Bush, the candidate Brooks supported. We went to war in Afghanistan, which Brooks supported. We went to war in Iraq, which Brooks supported. We got deficit-financed tax cuts for the rich, which Brooks supported. We got a financial melt-down caused by lax banking rules, which Brooks supported. The banks were bailed out with taxpayer money, which Brooks supported. Meanwhile the banks/bankers have recovered nicely, unemployment is at it's highest level since the depression, real wages for the middle class have declined, and income inequality is in banana republic territory.

Other than that, it's all good. Americans just need to pipe down. According to Brooks, suffering is good for you, but only if you're poor.

More Brooks BS

Krugman reads David Brooks, but directs his ire toward the Tax Foundation

I read David Brooks citing the Tax Foundation this morning, and I thought he must have misread them. They couldn’t possibly have compared one year’s take from higher taxes on the rich with the total stock of debt, could they? They can’t possibly be that stupid, or think that their readers are that stupid, can they?

...

This deliberate fraud — because that’s what it has to be — is an example of the reasons knowledgeable people don’t trust the Tax Foundation.

This deliberate fraud — because that’s what it has to be — is also an example of why I don’t trust David Brooks. Maybe Krugman focuses on the Tax Foundation instead of his fellow New York Times columnist out of professional courtesy -- maybe contractual obligation -- but I won't let Brooks off the hook. I doubt Brooks "misread" the study. Brooks cherry picks data and cites studies from right-wing think tanks, all while pretending to be the reasonable centrist. It's who he is, it's what he does, and it's his job.