Individual Liberty—Progress—Humanity—Ethics—Rule of Law
"...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties—if that is what they mean by a "liberal," then I am proud to be a liberal."
We spent a couple of days in Durban which is the third largest city in South Africa. We arrived exhausted from Maputo, Mozambique after a 24-hour bus ride on Intercape (gotta love when they breakdown for hours in the middle of the journey and you have to jump on a replacement bus seven hours later).
Durban has a population of almost 3.5 million, and is a major domestic tourist destination, close to national parks and the historic sites of Zululand and the Drakensberg. Similar to our experience in J'burg, people kept warning us about the crime rate due to the economic crisis that resulted in very high rates of unemployment, reaching over 30% in many parts of the city.
Again we felt pretty safe, never felt threatened in any way or scared, despite staying at a hostel right in the city center, where we took advantage of all the terrific hi-speed wi-fi spots, nightlife, and affordable restuarants in walking distance.
We want to share with you the terrific site visits we had there...
We met with Richard Haigh, who probably doesn't look like your typical African pastoralist. Unlike many Africans who grew up tending cattle, sheep, goats, and other livestock, Richard started his farm at the age of 40 after quiting his 9-5 NGO job and buying 23 acres of land outside Durban, South Africa. Today, he runs Enaleni Farm, raising Zulu sheep, which are considered endangered, and Nguni cattle, a breed indigenous to South Africa, which is very resistant to pests, as well as a variety of fruits and vegetables. Richard is cultivating GMO-free soya, as well as traditional maize varieties-"all the maize," says Richard, "tells a story."
Like the sheep and cattle, many maize varieties are resistant to drought, climate change, and disease making them a smart choice for farmers all over Africa. This sort of mixed-crop livestock system is increasingly becoming rare in South Africa, according to Richard, because of commercial farms that rely on monoculture crops rather than diverse agricultural systems.
But perhaps the most important thing Richard is doing at Enaleni doesn't have to do with the different agricultural methods and practices he is using, but with the "stories" he's telling on the farm. By showing local people the tremendous benefits of indigenous breeds of cattle and sheep and sustainably grown crops can have for the environment and for improving livelihoods, he's putting both an ecological and economic value to something that has been neglected. "Local people don't value what they have," says Richard, because of extension agents who promote exotic breeds of livestock and expensive inputs.
And Richard is also helping document the diversity on his farm. He's been sending blood samples to the South African National Research Foundation in order to help them build a DNA hoofprint of what makes up a Zulu sheep. This sort of research is important for not only conserving the sheep, but also helping local people by increasing their knowledge about the breeds they've been raising for generations.
We also met with Dr. Raymond Auerbach, the founder of Rainman Landcare Foundation, who nearly bursts with enthusiasm when he talks about the growth of organic agriculture practices in South Africa over the years. The Rainman Landcare Foundation (located outside Durban) is training farmers living outside of Durban on how to grow food without the use of artificial pesticides, insecticides, or fertilizers, as well as permaculture methods that efficiently use water and build up soils. The Foundation recently had to discontinue the trainings at its headquarters, which is also the home Raymond shares with his wife, Christina, because of lack of funding. Now, the Foundation works with farmers at their own farms, teaching them how to build swales to prevent erosion and runoff, use mulch to help protect soils, and make and utilize organic compost. "Compost is very much the heart of the farm," says Auerbach, referring to how compost can eliminate the need for many expensive outside inputs, such as inorganic fertilizers.
Organic farmers in South Africa share some of the same problems as their colleagues in the United States, says Raymond. While Raymond and others fought for organic certification standards for farmers in the 1990s, the requirements are usually too expensive and cumbersome for many small, rural farmers. Certification can cost anywhere from 10,000-20,000 Rand (about $1,300- $2,600) and requires complicated paperwork, which can be difficult for semi-literate farmers. But by developing Participatory Guarantee Standards (PGS) for Organic Agriculture, which includes developing local standards and training local inspectors, while eliminating expensive certification fees for small growers, Raymond believes that poor, rural farmers can benefit from the growing demand in South Africa for organic food.
Other things we recommend while visiting Durban:
1. Have breakfast or lunch at Earthmother Organic (134 Davenport Road) where you can choose from delicious salads, sandwiches, and hot meals with very healthy organic ingredients. For vegans this might be your best option in the city, and we highly recommend anything off the menu of freshly squeezed juices. Raymond is a supplier to them as are many of the local farmers outside Durban.
2. Whether you like walking along the beach, surfing, swimming, or all of the above -- Durban's "Golden Mile" boats warm water all year round.
3. Go check out the Durban Botanical Gardens, a beautiful get-away, with free live concerts on Sunday afternoons, and a laid-back atmosphere (they let you bring in groceries to have your own picnic).
About a week ago I got one of several calls I will get this year from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). I detest that organization, but I understand the party-political need for recruitment of good candidates, especially those (like Gavin Newsome of San Francisco) who without help from seasoned coaches and a fast course in how to take it on the chin and survive, ... would (like Gavin Newsome) not survive. But, the DSCC and its counterpart (equally corrupt) in the House have become "incumbency rackets" rather than recruitment organizations or miniature bootcamps for aspiring pols. I told the nice lady that I disagree almost all the time with what DSCC does, and lo! she admitted to me that they have made quite a few mistakes recently. The name Joe Lieberman came up. I told her I would never again contribute to the DSCC ... crossing my fingers ... and hoping that someone of the 65 Democrats begins to understand what the real purpose is. It is not prolonging incumbency!
It is impossible not to write something about the loss of a U.S. Senate seat to a Republican in ... of all places ... Massachusetts. Everyone is writing something and most of it makes sense, except that all the reasons posed seem to contradict one another in the end. Coakley ran a lazy and "I've been chosen" campaign, and Brown—another pinhead from the teaparty branch—ran an aggressive, if sophomoronic, campaign. The White House assumed wrongly that Coakley could not lose. The DSCC continues its path of wandering in the desert. Etc. Etc. The truth is that the voters are fed up with Washington and particularly the failure of the Democrats to be Democrats ... and believe me Massachusetts understands what a Democrat is supposed to be and do.
Get busy, indeed! It is almost too late for Health Care, but at least what the Health Care debate has shown to us in vivid colors and nasty smells is that the Senate is again playing the game of treason. We have to have absolutely foolproof lobbying and campaign finance laws, and we may have to have them state by state first, since Congress has been obviously taken over. This means mobilization at the real grass roots where liberals and conservatives who have the same opinions of our legislative branches of government could work together to a common purpose and cause. We should try, at least. It is cheaper than emigrating to Canada or Australia after all.
For all the hoo-rah generated by the back-bencher Joe Wilson of South Kallikacky this past week one might think that there is a vast movement afoot, some kind of new (old) politics spreading around among Americans, unsuspecting and otherwise. In the aftermath of Wilson's "You lie(, ... boy)!" outburst during the speech of President Obama to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care Reform, you will have read how utterly wrong about his facts was Rep. Wilson, or, if you were reading closely, you might have read comments on pundits who said that overriding public health concerns will dictate that federal funds will be spent on illegal aliens, if they are posing a health risk to the rest of us, particularly in the food processing industry and in public schools. The real issue about Wilson was the inappropriate anger and consternation that overcame him, although a cursory review of his past suggests that Wilson's best mental efforts were never much to crow about. Wilson does represent a strain of American thinking that is highly concentrated in his home locale and gives rise to authentically bad behaviors from time to time.
David Bromwich, Professor of Literature at Yale University, wrote an essential essay in Huffington Post two days ago. He flat out nailed it. He teased apart the personality (and character) of Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, and presented an explanation for the fecklessness, the hyper-prudential, the bi-partisanship mongering that reeks out of the White House these days. I heartily recommend this Bromwich article to you without reservation. I hope you pay special attention to the part where Obama's ward-healing, community-organizing methodology and personality are explained. It goes a long way toward understanding the flaccidity of this historic administration.
I was going to entitle this essay "The Wrong Guy at the Right Time," but reconsidered. Bromwich quickly provides alternative titles and at one point says,
... Obama's two opposing traits, the caution and the presumption, have joined with results that are deeply unhappy. He arrogates. He does not indicate. And when the argument is well underway, he starts his major explanation as an afterthought.
Obama cherishes the ideal of a frictionless transformation of society. It is a wish for aesthetic harmony, which he mistakes for a political goal. Its attainment would be a beautiful thing. But no matter how much he appeals for comity, Obama is certain to give offense to some. Better to choose your times and targets than allow others to force that choice.
It has probably always been true, but in recent years the vocabulary of politics has come up wanting in so many ways that ordinary people roll their eyes, glaze over, and reach for the remote. Television is partly to blame because it is such a damned efficient homogenizer. In an attempt to shine soft lights on products sponsoring television's offerings the hard decisions are muted lest someone be offended ... and the result is pablum.
On the other hand since 1994 and the so-called Republican Revolution ... which eventuated in the Putsch of 2000 in the Supreme Court ... stridency seems to be the modus operandi, given wings by 9/11.
So, if you watch MSNBC, you might have noticed that a good portion of Countdown and The Rachel Maddow shows is spent watching and commenting with over-the-top snarkiness on the buffoonery and bellicosity of the latter day Republicans. This fuels the fire and keeps dad on the couch white-knuckling the remote, trapped in the conundrum of political vocabularies that have become essentially meaningless.
If you are a Democrat with quarterings in Liberalism and Progressivism, you are in pain these days as the Hope of the Planet screws up one opportunity after another in the Sisyphus-ian task of addressing the putative Center with meaningless words.
If you are a Republican, like David Brooks, you have a serious problem of identity. Today Brooks and Collins banter back and forth expressing in at least two gestalts the nature of the political problem we face. Our vocabulary is destitute, yet these two noted columnists make sense of it anyway. You will enjoy this, I guarantee it!
The little cartoon of the boiling frog is a constant reminder to readers that some things happen too slowly to be "newsworthy" or a stimulus to action, even though the action is necessary for survival. It is in such a pathetic situation we find ourselves right now.
Paul Krugman's column this morning tells you why hypothetical frogs sit in the pot until it is way too late. Paul's answer is that even Nobel Prize winning frogs see a situation so complex that even they do not know which way to "jump."
We know that our environment is resilient and may have recovery properties we do not yet know about. We cannot be sure that the opposite is in fact not the case—that the environment is less resilient than we currently understand and that as a matter of course a tipping point situation develops and the whole shebang hurtles off some cliff into oblivion.
Likewise, our economy is such a complex of rules, forces, individual and group actions, that virtually no one agrees completely about what will happen if X is done, but Y is not. Krugman (and I and MANY others) believe that we are currently at one of the tipping points that foreclose future options and that Obama's public policy of ignoring these points will be disastrous.
Just so that we here at ALP are on the same page, Obama and Rahm Emanuel (and perhaps a few others) have this idea that Democrats are in a once-in-a-lifetime position to take control of government for a very long time, but that to do so means that the currently existing political center must be incorporated into the Democratic constituency. The way to do that is to play politics that either attracts the hopes and dreams of "centrists" or at a minimum lulls them into a sense of political security.
Meanwhile, of course, political Liberals and Progressives ... like Paul Krugman and Jim Brett and many others ... find ourselves being herded off stage. Our voices are ignored and our worries about the frogs we see boiling away are dismissed as alarmist. Rahm's tactic and goal is very much like doubling down on a mediocre hand in poker. From the outset the chances of success are not good, perhaps illusory. Also from the outset the chances of boiling the frogs is doubled and, frankly, the amplification of those consequences is suicidal.
That's why we need to get rid of Rahm Emanuel and, if necessary, Barack Obama. Rahm believes this stuff and Barack believes Rahm.
The popularity in small circles of soon-to-be Ex-Governor of Alaska, Sarah "YouBetcha" Palin is not to be dismissed out of hand. There are people out there who see her brand of "populist" malarky as just exactly what corrupt Washington needs. A hot knife through the rancid butter of pundits, lobbyists, and easily corrupted Congressmen and women, not to mention bureaucrats. Palin ostensibly represents Joe Sixpack and good ol' common sense, something millions of people in the hinterland believe has been missing ... both sides of the aisle ... for years.
But, we have to be serious about politics every once in a while. We have to acknowledge courage and candor, ability and agility. We do not have to acknowledge puffery, prevarication, and possibly outright corruption in her or anyone.
Geoffrey Dunn in Huffington Post yesterday came up with the cute word for Sarah Palin's most recent quitting, something Dunn notices has become a habit with her in public office.
A brief note in preface ... This Thomas Paine has put out several videos that rubbed me the wrong way. The litany of complaints in this video, however, pulled the scab from the wound in my soul, the desperate feeling that our system has become so utterly corrupt that nothing worthwhile can come of it.
I was surprised when I Googled the term to find that there are so many kinds of actuaries. There are scores of subdisciplines in which actuaries are the notable characters, each making calculations on the risk in a given situation as against, say, cost or even more likely profit. Actuaries are profit prophets. They are bright, industrious, learned, reasonably well-rounded mathematicians with a general deficit in social graces attributable probably to the nature of their work and, as things like this go, probably due to a wisp of Aspergers, too. Actuaries are not risk managers, however, for they do not control the processes, structure, or dynamics of any situation they are asked to calculate and assess. This turns out to be an important point.
My title suggests a busy person at the oars. Engineering types will visualize bailing buckets attached to the grips on the oars, which fill on the back stroke and pour as the oar blades reach their forwardmost point. They pour mostly over the sides, but it is a sloppy system. The oarsman doesn't seem to notice or care. He is rowing, port and starboard, and therefore facing backward, despite his aversion to that.
Most metaphors exhaust themselves quickly, and this one is all but exhausted, yet ... yet there is something more than the mere mechanics of our situation. This is not just about the immediate tasks; there is much more going on and conditioning the President's activities.
All of us historians have been saying for years, actually decades going back to the last years of the Vietnam War, that the United States appears to be in a perilous decline. It is a more than a little difficult to gauge these sort of things, given that there are plenty of optimists around, even in economic crises like the one we are in. If you were to watch or read the news online or television you would have heard the optimists crowing about the decline in the rate of decline of the economy recently. Some even called it an end to the free fall. Some even got out there with advice to get back in there and buy stocks. They are obviously trying to make a buck.
So, the question of the day is, will Rachel Alexandra run in the Belmont or not?
Maybe the question is whether President Obama is getting any good advice ... or put with even more sinister implication ... maybe he is being manipulated by a cunning staff into making these really obnoxious and difficult to abandon decisions about a whole range of things? Or, as the folks around the electronic water coolers have it after a hundred day honeymoon, the sexiness has worn off, the bright light seems dim, the promise broken, the tragedy continues, and so who will we support in 2012 ... clearly not Obama?
Just recently William Greider wrote in The Nation an interesting piece about "Obama and the Big Dogs," the canines who typically inhabit the top floor two-corner offices on "Wall Street." I wouldn't have known about the article at all except CommonDreams aggregated it into their daily "must read" dozen under a grab-you title "Testicular Politics." The way "CommonDreams" presented it, you would have thought Greider was framing the trouble President Obama has bitten off as somehow linked to Barack's manhood. In fact, Greider does play the Alpha Dog routine for all it is worth in his brief essay, so the combined effect of the publisher and the aggregator is to frame the state of the Presidency today pretty much as a mano a mano combat situation, with just a tinge of pejorative sexual/racial overtones to lend contrast, just a suggestion of wimp, without having to take too much responsibility for the slur.
We have just passed through the valley of the shadow of the IRS and are still sitting on the horns of a moral dilemma. As individuals and families we have done our best to represent our incomes honestly and to represent our deductions optimally. They are not the same thing.
Representing income honestly means that we must first understand that others are reporting what they gave us for our work or in interest on our funds or in dividends on our investments. We could make mistakes in reporting, but the likelihood for most of us is that we will get caught, even waitresses with tip income, except in very small companies where the amount is not likely to amount to very much. Still, there is and has been a fair amount of cheating on reporting of income, and so the system has tightened down the thumb screws so our more inventive selves are employed more fruitfully on the deductions side.
With the Masters over and the pirates at bay for the moment, with the tea-baggers about to be undone by the inevitable psycho sending something else in a tea bag to his governor or representative, with the Republicans sucking up the bailout and complaining about the damage to their ideology, with all that Spring brings, we are now getting a closer more detailed look at what is happening in finance, the granularity of the crisis, if you will. Of course, we are not getting the names, dates, and places where our bailout monies are going, yet, but that will be a matter of the public record in good time.
Graham Bowley and Louise Story had an excellent article in the NYT describing the rats leaving their nests in the banks and brokerages. It seems that the exodus from the failed companies began early and is reaching epic proportions. It seems that the CEOs and Geithner were right that they might leave. It seems like they believe we do not know their names and where they have gone and that we cannot prosecute. Perhaps they took the evidence with them, or perhaps they are the only ones who truly understand it. We will get a better look than this in the fullness of time, I think. If Obama has shown us anything it is that he does not like being double-crossed or made a fool of. Anyway, what the article does not say is that with the so-called "stars" arranging themselves into new constellations, the reasons for keeping Tim Geithner around are fewer and less compelling. Larry Summers is dead meat, like the pheasant in "Shogun" curing in the sun.
The Washington Post Saturday ran a story on the meeting between President Obama and his staff with the crew from Wall Street and their associates. There were points of contact in this bit of journalism with the remarks Friday of political journalist William Greider on the Bill Moyers Journal program. But, there are also chasms of assumptions lying between the two. The curious thing is that it is difficult to know for certain whether Greider is in possession of the correct frame for this situation or whether the considerably less detailed and less candid Post, coming from the inevitable hubris of a Washington DC view of things is actually the better gauge.
John Batchelor at The Daily Beast recites the Republican chant about Rahm Emanuel being the guy to hate in the new White House. The article is a little spare of details, but you get the idea that Rahm is the guy they hate, and the allusions to why are "inside" rather than completely explicit.
The Republican position on the Stimulus package was explicit. They saw it as a compilation of Democratic pork. Their attempts to put their own pork into it were sort of successful, but they still could not vote for it. Why? I doubt the main reason was Rahm Emanuel, even though I do not doubt that the prick overplayed his hand. The Republicans would have voted as a block no matter what, and their assault against Emanuel is just about what you would expect when there's a target as vivid as Emanuel to shoot at.
Make no mistake, shots at Emanuel are shots at Obama's judgment in hiring him on. But they are also par for this course. Republicans represent the geniuses who gave themselves and their colleagues $18.2 billion worth of bonuses at the end the year they virtually destroyed. Republicans are nothing like a loyal opposition in their minority status. They are plutocrats through and through.
Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of law and justice.
I was surprised when I Googled the term to find that there are so many kinds of actuaries. There are scores of subdisciplines in which actuaries are the notable characters, each making calculations on the risk in a given situation as against, say, cost or even more likely profit. Actuaries are profit prophets. They are bright, industrious, learned, reasonably well-rounded mathematicians with a general deficit in social graces attributable probably to the nature of their work and, as things like this go, probably due to a wisp of Aspergers, too. Actuaries are not risk managers, however, for they do not control the processes, structure, or dynamics of any situation they are asked to calculate and assess. This turns out to be an important point.
My title suggests a busy person at the oars. Engineering types will visualize bailing buckets attached to the grips on the oars, which fill on the back stroke and pour as the oar blades reach their forwardmost point. They pour mostly over the sides, but it is a sloppy system. The oarsman doesn't seem to notice or care. He is rowing, port and starboard, and therefore facing backward, despite his aversion to that.
All of us historians have been saying for years, actually decades going back to the last years of the Vietnam War, that the United States appears to be in a perilous decline. It is a more than a little difficult to gauge these sort of things, given that there are plenty of optimists around, even in economic crises like the one we are in. If you were to watch or read the news online or television you would have heard the optimists crowing about the decline in the rate of decline of the economy recently. Some even called it an end to the free fall. Some even got out there with advice to get back in there and buy stocks. They are obviously trying to make a buck.
So, the question of the day is, will Rachel Alexandra run in the Belmont or not?
Just recently William Greider wrote in The Nation an interesting 
We have just passed through the valley of the shadow of the IRS and are still sitting on the horns of a moral dilemma. As individuals and families we have done our best to represent our incomes honestly and to represent our deductions optimally. They are not the same thing.
With the Masters over and the pirates at bay for the moment, with the tea-baggers about to be undone by the inevitable psycho sending something else in a tea bag to his governor or representative, with the Republicans sucking up the bailout and complaining about the damage to their ideology, with all that Spring brings, we are now getting a closer more detailed look at what is happening in finance, the granularity of the crisis, if you will. Of course, we are not getting the names, dates, and places where our bailout monies are going, yet, but that will be a matter of the public record in good time.
The Washington Post Saturday ran