Now, A Different View

What Do We Do Now?

March 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment

It dawned on me today that liberals, in general, and Democrats, in particular, simply don’t know how to act when they win. Oh, the politicians try to act like they are in charge, but, really, would it have taken a conservative administration 13 months and this level of angst to just get a vote on their chief agenda item? Then, when it came to the vote, would they have hidden behind perfectly legal but little understood deem-and-pass to try to hide their votes?

Don’t misunderstand me, the conservatives are perfectly familiar with hiding an unpopular vote. But on their cornerstone legislative agenda? After the President has campaigned for weeks on an “up and down” vote? Really?

No, not really. The Democrats worked so long and hard to be prepared for a Republican mistake (the glorious lack of WMDs finally did it) that would allow them to take over, they now seem unable to actually act like they won.

Those who have spent their lifetime competing, in sports for example, understand that when you win you get to take the high road, not quibble, and treat the other team with great respect. Instead the Democrats can’t get out from in front of the camera, trying to answer every right wing complaint with an insult or jab. They stoop to fight when they should be trying to govern.

Most of all, the liberal pundits (translate op-ed and bloggers) just can’t grasp that, when criticized, it is silly to say that the Republicans have done or would do the same. The downside of winning is you get judged, and, perhaps, that makes the Democrats better at being the minority party. Pragmatism is much less comfortable being judged than principle.

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Failure to Lead: An Explanation

March 11, 2010 · 1 Comment

Andrew Sullivan  at The Atlantic here posted this quote under a picture of the President. It took my breath away reading it. Not so much for the reason he may have wanted though, because if there is an eloquent description of why every attempt at bipartisanship and, more important, effective government, has failed in the Obama administration, this is it.

Or, for A Different View, the reason Obama’s Lincoln strategy won’t work is because he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, ever think of the world this way.

“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a “drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with men.

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one.

 On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and tho’ your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and tho’ you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.

Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interest,” – Abraham Lincoln, address to the Washington Temperance Society in 1842.

The President should take this to heart and mind.

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Another Opportunity to Govern (updated)

January 24, 2010 · 2 Comments

In September, President Obama took an opportunity to become the President of all the people and left it on the table. My hopes and assessment here found him wanting. He now has two new things going for him:

First, a message from Massachusetts that we expect him to deliver on that promise and

Second, the President gets to give a State of the Union every year.

Almost five months after his famous healthcare (they lie, you lie) speech he gets to stand in front of the American people and explain, once again, how he is going to move his number one campaign promise forward, changing how we govern in Washington.

The hysteria of the last week marked by accusations of all kind of things: weakness by Democrats, Republican nihilism, the Democrats using the election of Scott Brown as an excuse to get out of an unpopular vote, etc. misses the whole point, again. Or, from the link:

He won by a nice majority because almost all of the moderates/independents in this country believed he would bring civility to governance.

The disappointment on the left is that he does occasionally try to do that, so far. In the middle, well, they are starting to believe it less and less.

His policies did not win him the election. Healthcare with a public option didn’t win it. Iraq was almost a non issue by election day. He won it on the faith people had in his desire to change politics as usual. That is the issue in this debate worth fighting for.

President Obama needs to lead the discussion by passing a full olive branch across the aisle. If he invokes the same partisan mantra that “every bad thing happened before he was President and it will take time to fix it”, followed by the accusation that “the Republicans are being obstructionist by wanting to just slow things down so nothing will get done”, then he fails again.

When the President decides that he wants to be the leader of the whole country, he can clear this up and, once again, the answer could be days away.

Update:
I think the President completed his quals to replace Billy Mays after he completes his Presidency. He had a tax cut or new law or spending objective or debt forgiveness program aimed at everyone in the country, and if we get a jobs bill from the Senate today we’ll throw in a free cap snaffler, but wait there’s more!!!!!!!!  

In an odd place in an awkward speech, he threw in enhanced enforcement of pay discrimination toward the end because, without it, he didn’t have enough promises targeted to women specifically.   Earlier he was channeling Howard Dean for a minute as he pointed and listed “I have a (pick your tax cut) for you”.  Those tax cuts, of course, being old tired policy of the last ten years until he revives them with new meaning.  The only thing he didn’t have was the sense to quit being less than honest about all the deficits and, particularly, the debt he blamed 100% on the last administration.  Not only was it irrelevant, at this point, to what solutions he has for it, it borders on (maybe crosses into)  a lie. 

All that adds up to one more chance lost to move forward on the promise of doing things differently in Washington.  He just showed he was getting better at the Washington shuffle. 

Massive Fail by my standards.

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The Democrats worst nightmare, Themselves

January 15, 2010 · 1 Comment

In begging for votes for Martha Coakley Andrew Sullivan here makes his most hypocritical statement of the year:

“She’s a dreadful candidate, but this race is now a critical battle in the war to rescue the possibility of effective governance”

I wonder if this is what we have been told is the change in the way things are done in Washington?

At the end of a long first year in office, the false brandishing of the hand across the aisle, the smug conviction that any healthcare reform will be sellable to “those” people, “Those People” are sending a message. This government is ultimately by the people and no administration should forget it.

Scott Brown may not win, the message has been delivered and Andrew has shown he is as willing as McCain to accept a dreadful candidate if it helps his side win. Funny how that works both ways.

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Peace on Earth – a Social Media Request

December 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

For as long as my children have been old enough to ask me what I want for Christmas, the answer has always been the same:

Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.

When they were very young this confounded them, in their teens they laughed and in their twenties they realized it was truly all I really wanted.  Yesterday one of my children asked me again and I thought:

Maybe I should ask for Peace on Earth for one day, just so we could see what its like.  We could get the headline that says “No one died in anger today”.   No bomb was dropped from a drone, no bullet fired to protect anyones way of life, no one died a needless death in the name of religion, no one died to defend an imaginary line in the desert.  We all stayed home with our families and felt…secure.

Just one day.

Since my children can’t do this they would like me to ask if you could just forward this request to all of your followers, friends, buddies and anyone else you can get it to.  Maybe we can agree that December 25th is that one day. 

Peace on Earth, a trial run, for just one day.  Can Social Media do it?  Please ask, my kids would appreciate it.

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Learning is Not Aways Fun

October 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

After months of lurking, and occasionally engaging, I have come to the conclusion that the political blogosphere is a uniquely deaf place.  This is not meant to be a significant revelation.  It is a note to myself.  Learning to participate in the discussions is painful and requires a really thick skin.  I am regularly insulted for things I have written, I am more regularly insulted for things I have not written and don’t believe. 

An ideological persona seems to be required.  If you don’t have one, one will be assigned.  The most cogent argument will get one of two responses, mockery of intent or  denial of logic, each based on your assigned persona.  Often even people who try to agree with you destroy the logic of the simplest explanation.  Everything is bigger, more important and requires more nuance than any 25 comments could cover.  Otherwise much less would be required to be said, and that is the most painful lesson. 

Most people in the blogosphere just want to have something, anything, to say.   Even people who agree vigorously need to just point out the missed nuance.

So now I spend what little time I have reading only a few blogs (not counting technology blogs). In that case I have all of the personas memorized, I can skip most of them and continue my search for that one reasonable person with whom I can have a real exchange of ideas.   I would really get excited if one day someone said, “I am not sure what we should do in Afghanistan but I think these few ideas are important to me, what do you think?”

I am sure, somewhere, there are people who don’t have everything figured out.  I am sure there are people who don’t hate the other side for being blue or red or Southern or Yankee or xenophobes or rich or downtrodden…well, you get the idea. 

 I am sure they exist.

I guess I haven’t learned that much after all.

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An Opportunity to Govern: The Obama Healthcare speech (Updated)

September 9, 2009 · 1 Comment

President Obama has a huge uphill task tonight, but with every challenge comes opportunity.  While the far right has  controlled the Republican agenda on healthcare, the left controls most of the major House positions on the bill and, between them, they constantly get in the way of the President and the moderates actually achieving a bipartisan governing coalition.

The point that gets forgotten in all of this is that President Obama did not win the election because the Feinstein’s of the world wanted him to win, or even the progressives.

He won by a nice majority because almost all of the moderates in this country believed he would bring civility to governance.

The disappointment on the left is that he does occasionally try to do that, so far. In the middle, well, they are starting to believe it less and less.

His policies did not win him the election. Healthcare with a public option didn’t win it. Iraq was almost a non issue by election day. He won it on the faith people had in his desire to change politics as usual. That is the issue in this debate worth fighting for. A “win” on controversial legislation by forcing through the left wing agenda eats away at the support in the center for Obama and in turn the Democrats.

The Democrats should worry less about whether he can retain the far left and recognize the President needs to retain the civil center in order to govern effectively. The Republicans have already demonstrated,  and continue to demonstrate, why this is important. 

I expect that President Obama will walk a tightrope tonight to ensure he maximizes support from the middle, lets hope he is successful.  Update tomorrow.

 

UPDATE:

Liars Poker – I have two grandsons who are nine years old. Their favorite defense in times of punishment is to say “he did it”. Last night, in the midst of an historic speech, our government devolved on both sides to liar, liar. And, unfortunately, that becomes the story.

The President, on the largest stage in the world, couldn’t restrain himself from the momentous “They are Lies”. No explanation, no simple truth to follow, just, they lie. Joe Wilson, inappropriately, responded “you lie”. Now that is the story. What a waste.

When my grandsons start the “he lies” argument, they both get punished. As they have gotten older they have learned it isn’t a good defense, so now they do it less. They often take their medicine or just calmly explain why it couldn’t have been them.

Almost all of the good that could have come from last night, I fear, will be lost in the minds of people who now have to decide: who lies? Or do they both lie?

I have lots of other thoughts about a great speech gone awry, the paying for it part was less than credible, the last part was truly Presidential, bringing up the inherited deficit was unnecessary and just not relevant, the first part was clear and concise, etc.

I watched four MSM news shows this morning and got four three minute reports on, Liars Poker. Too Bad.

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The Last Crucifixion of Internet Civility

August 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

After a month absence, I felt the need to write a blog entry.  I have been working, writing papers and commenting on others blogs, mostly politics oddly enough.  I needed to write this because it has become perfectly clear to me that there is a large and very destructive force that has grown on the internet.  It is called blogging in general, but, it is the subset of blogs that pretend to be open minded political discussion forums that are truly frightening.

The “Change” that President Obama talked about in the campaign was to decry the highly partisan lack of civility in Washington.  I now believe this is a foolish and false hope.  After years of mentally blaming Washington for the growing lack of civility, I am trying to avoid words like rude and ignorant, I find that they are simply the reflection of the vocal majority of partisans across the web.

How could any politician be civil, and honest for that matter, about what he thinks about any bill, platform plank or idea when the new age reporters will pillory any deviation from the acceptable line?  Pillory is a nice way to put it. 

Most frightening to me is that it doesn’t matter what the topic is, the self righteous are all over it.  There are excellent fact and opinion blog entries, with a measured mix of those two things.  The subsequent conversation goes immediately to partisan lines and then ultimately to two views:

1) Republicans (conservatives) lie and don’t care about anyone and want to keep everything for the rich

2) Democrats (liberals) are not so secret socialists who want to give everything to everybody except the rich

I really don’t care what the topic is, this will be the last word.

Unfortunately this has become the new tv talk show.  Fox is bad, MSNBC is awful, talk radio is worse and now we have dashed my hopess for the last bastion of reasonable discourse. 

So, my point?  I have been criticized because what I write here is opinion, mine, so it is not relevant.  I then participate over time in blog after blog where, in the absence of any qualms, partisans spend hours arranging facts to suit their opinion, dismissing other facts (usually using the source as the excuse) and creating a teeming circle of self indulgent groupies agreeing on each topic with gusto.

I am sure i will continue to search for the reasonable and honest forum of open minded people, I just have much less faith that they exist.

I would list the blogs but just find one, anyone, and view the future of America.  Discordant people more willing to call someone a name than listen to a well crafted opinion based on a common set of facts.  But mostly you need to remember, so you don’t get caught off guard on your internet etiquette:

1) Republicans (conservatives) lie (always) and don’t care about anyone and want to keep everything for the rich

2) Democrats (liberals) are not so secret socialists who want to give everything to everybody except the rich who should pay for everything

Oh yeah, if you disagree with the above, then you are lying or have a motive beyond your words.  So be careful, you don’t want to step out of line and have a real discussion.

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Frantically False Innovation

June 24, 2009 · 8 Comments

In my quietest moments, rare in my job, I ponder the state of innovation in our world.  I follow hundreds of the leading innovators and analysts to understand what is being created in the technology space these days.  I have only one conclusion, not much, but its all being hyped frantically.

The premium example is Google, a company I have great respect for from a business standpoint.  Google has mastered the art of being a fast follower, and in many cases just a ripoff artist of other technologies.  Sound familiar?  Yes, they are executing from the Microsoft, and particularly Bill Gates, playbook flawlessly.  You have Office? We have office.  You have a better search?  We can say we do that.  You have an iPhone?  We have a phone.  You have a cloud? We have a cloud.

I don’t mean to pick on Google, they are just an easy example.  But really look, I mean really look, at what passes for innovation today and it looks like open source trying to unseat a whole bunch of existing products by trying to provide free stuff that is almost as good.  Just trying I might add.  Is that what we consider innovation today? 

Social media is texting on a computer and family and friend websites (Facebook is really feature poor, Twitter is less still from a technology standpoint, MySpace is dying, YouTube can’t make money). Enterprise 2.0 offers promise for business implementation of old  concepts in a new way, at least its business innovation.  This is the future I am sure, real new use cases for existing technology but lets admit it.

Next generation search is a mathematical exercise that is cool, I’ll give some points to the companies focused on true semantic search, but this is not a technology innovation.

Where is new technology? Not on the internet.  Maybe in new battery designs for cars, better strip mining equipment of tar sands, perhaps hydrogen fuel conversion, maybe modular small scale electricity generators in millions of streams (green panic intended), but not in computer systems.  We have started recycling ideas to sell, VMWare is something we had on mainframes 25 years ago, virtual machines were the basis for the initial ASP craze that we now call cloud computing or SAAS or any of a number of things.

I am just saying. 

 I don’t even know why I felt the need to say it, maybe it is the constant drone of Open Source guys talking about how innovation is in distribution and free software. Free, I promise, doesn’t pay for innovation.  Maybe its Apple reselling the same stuff to the same people and calling it new, the Blackberry is a much more useful form and function business phone than the iPhone could aspire to, and the Mac is just people paying more because they want to be in the club, the same reason snowboarders drink Mountain Dew, no Red Bull, aww whatever is “this week”.   Netbooks are new? Not really. Now we’re going to have Google ninjas? Whatever.

Does anyone else worry that we may have too much expectation and not enough innovation to jump start the economy?  All of our hopes are built on being able to market the next recycled idea, maybe people will keep buying, but we better figure out how to do all this without spending billions copying existing technology that really doesn’t add value.  Maybe then the VC’s would have a little money for a really new idea.

Anyone got one?

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Two Lessons from the Iran Elections

June 17, 2009 · 3 Comments

For my last blog entry, a personal decision on how much any blog really makes a difference, I wanted to take a more serious note than the last few entries.  There are two key things about the Iranian elections that I believe we are looking at the wrong way. Some will disagree, that would be good if we could discuss it here or anywhere.

The first thing we look at the wrong way is the election itself.  In the institutions in Iran there was a predetermined winner of the election and, if someone else had won, the policies of the government would not have changed.  This was NOT an election about differing political  agendas or a debate on freedom.  The mullahs in Iran rule the country and have ever since they deposed the Shah.  They will continue to run the country and there is little dissent or question of that in the short or long term.   The demonstrations after the election were not any different in Iranian terms than the challenge of Al Gore to the election in 2000.  Thats just the way they challenge close elections, and it isn’t clear that it was even close, it was just disappointing so people protested in the streets.   The police response to that may have been excessive, although  there was much property damage and violence in the original protests so a brutal police response was ensured.  So. in the end, we once again have watched an international event unfold that was predictable and culturally rather insignificant through our lens to recreate the revolution.   It is actually more compelling that we never reacted this way when the Iraqis actually tried to overthrow the government after the first Gulf war, were beaten, shot. imprisoned and gassed,by the thousands,  to no outrage at all.  Which leads to the second thing we look at the wrong way.

Twitter does NOT report the news.  Facebook reports gossip.  It is social media and the telephone game applies.  Every story changes and gets worse or better based on who retweets it.  It is not an accurate portrayal of foreign events.  The Iranian government shut down social media because it is not factual or because some of the facts were embarassing, no matter, it is still not “reporting”.  Pictures of injured “insurgents” were substituted for stories on how they came to be injured.  Did they storm they police station?  Did they threaten the Ministryof Science? Did they hurl rocks? Did they antagonize the guards?  Were the police just overzealous because they could be? 

Some of the back and forth was retarded, single twitterers talking like they were part of a huge insurgency, it was protests and the demonstrations arranged by the other side became just as big over three days.  This was not a revolution, thousands weren’t killed and imprisoned, it wasn’t a pogrom, many of the key protest leaders were arrested and released, the opposition leader was never imprisoned or detained, yet, we had a green day to support the cause.

Do I support the Iranian government, no.  Do I think what went on the last few days made any difference in that. No.  But it did prove, like in our election, that if enough people play telephone that the facts become inconsequential, and we are fast approaching a society that is completly mindless, driven by the story of the day as repeated with three clicks on the Twitter app, fact or fiction.  This seems a dangerous wakeup call for all of those who consider what happened in Iran, and I promise I have seen this in print, the same as the techniques used by the Obama election team. 

140 character attention spans are not good, and backyard fence gossip is fun, but not news reporting.

Just a different view.

So, while I look forward to an intelligent and intense discussion on this topic, it will be my last in the social/political arena.  As one of my favorite writers said (intentionally paraphrased): Goodbye, and thanks for all the fishes…….

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