Why We Cannot Have The Future We Want Until We Deal With The Past We Have

Dear President (Elect) Obama,

I am writing to you regarding the importance of investigating, exposing, and likely prosecuting former officials of the Bush administration at all levels. You have stated that you want to look forward to the future and create a new, open, and accountable government rather than dwelling on the darkness of the past. My point is that in order to create that bright hopeful future and make it last, we have to act decisively now to prevent the past from repeating itself in the future, which it is wont to do if we refuse to learn its lessons.

Nearly forty years ago, President Richard Nixon was brought down by the Watergate scandal. The picture that emerged from this and subsequent investigations was of an administration that believed and acted as if it was above the law. Nixon authorized illegal wars (Cambodia, Laos), and authorized massive domestic spying operations (COINTELPRO for example). Yet while he was removed from power, he and most of his cohort never faced legal consequences for their actions. About twenty years ago, high officials in the administration of Ronald Reagan, including George H. W. Bush, covertly subverted the expressed will of Congress by supporting murderous terror squads in Central America and supplying weapons to an enemy of the United States (Iran). And for these treasonous acts, a few wrists were slapped, and the remainder of the perpetrators were allowed to scuttle away to the shadows only to return in 2001 with fewer scruples and inhibitions than before. Nixon is gone, Bush 41 is playing golf, and Bush 43 is desperately trying to polish the turd that is his legacy, but the pattern of the past is clear: sunlight will scatter the cockroaches momentarily, but unless they are stamped out and utterly eradicated, they will come back when darkness falls again. Each Republican administration since Nixon's has been an amplified echo of the previous one. Not only do the roaches come back, they come back smarter, stronger, and more insidious than before.

The lesson that the conservative movement learned from Watergate was that the President really was above the law, and the bigger the crimes, the more traumatic any legal action would be, and the less likely for it to occur. Sadly, they were good students. If we do not teach them a different lesson now, they will be back sooner or later. Our democracy barely survived eight years of George W. Bush, it will not survive the next echo.

In order to accomplish the investigations, indictments, and prosecutions of Bush administration officials, it must be made clear to the American public, and indeed the world, that this is not about politics, but about crime. This is a serious law enforcement matter and should be treated as such. Additionally, using the law-enforcement meme should help you with your "look to the future" message as well: law enforcement is necessarily about the past, as one cannot prosecute crimes until they have been committed. Now that we know they have been committed (both Bush and Cheney have admitted on television that they approved "harsh interrogation techniques" that all civilized societies, including this one (formerly), consider torture), justice demands that they are prosecuted. Please direct your attorney-general to set up an independent counsel with broad, enforceable subpoena power to investigate and and prosecute the terrible crimes of the Bush administration. I and many Americans that feel as I do will thank you, the Constitution (if it could talk) would thank you, and many generations of Americans not yet born will have the opportunity that you and I have had to be born into a society where all are equal under the law.

Crossposted to Change.gov

Ad Astra Per Aspera

While the Bush administration fiddles, many economists and those familiar with the events of the 1930's recommend that massive federal spending is necessary to restart the economy. Clearly we are not going to be able to tax-cut our way out of this: If I'm unemployed, I really don't care that the rate that I'm paying on my lack of income has decreased. Furthermore, tax cuts are largely a transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, and while they may buy more with their larger pool of disposable income, there are only so many of them – not enough to support the entire economy.

from Contrary Investor

But as the Fed and the administration really stepped on the gas in early '03 in terms of flooding the system with liquidity and bending over backwards to accommodate, Nordstrom stock price took off like a rocket relative to Wal-Mart. Clearly, we do not mean to be wealth discriminatory or elitist in any sense of the word, but we are looking at two retailers whose clientele are derived from two very differing wealth demographics. What this chart tells is us is that the lower wealth and income strata in the US have not benefited from historic Fed and Administration accommodation efforts as has the upper income strata. And quite naturally, the lower wealth strata own less "capital" (stocks, houses, bonds) than does the upper wealth demographic. So, in essence, the Fed is "stimulating" the capital owners that are Nordie's customers, but they aren't doing a whole lot for the weak or non-capital owners that are Wal-Mart's clientele. Hence the dichotomy of revenue growth results.

In order to be effective, the stimulus must spend in areas of the economy that will provide jobs and incomes to the vast majority of citizens that have been poorly served by the bubble economy. It would be even better if in addition to jobs, the spending left us with something tangible other than debt. There has been much talk of infrastructure projects, retooling the auto industry, “green-collar jobs and even direct transfers to states (which plan and execute many of the large infrastructure projects in this country). These are good ideas, and I am in favor of them, but let me add one of my own.

The root cause of the current crisis is that the jet-fueled geniuses on Wall Street decided some decades ago that organic growth of manufacturing companies, yielding on average several percent growth annually was not enough for them. With one notable exception, our manufacturing sector has been merged, acquired, downsized, loaded with debt, sold (often several more times), and then finally parted out and sold overseas. Each transaction generated huge fees for the aforementioned geniuses. After several decades of this, some of them may have actually believed that they could make money simply by moving it around faster and faster. Sadly for the rest of us, it turns out that the whole “making money” endeavor really does work better when something of value is produced as a result of one's exertions. This leads us to our notable exception; What cutting-edge technology do we produce in large volumes? Weapons. Yes, the military-industrial complex exists and demands yearly tribute. The estimated 2008 budget of the US DOD contains line items of $101B in procurement, $75B in R&D, and $141B in Emergency funding for the Global War on Terra. Discussion of the politics and geostrategic implications of this budget is well beyond the scope of this humble post, but in light of the two decades of high military spending since the fall of the USSR, I think we must ask the question: Is this spending making us safer, or could it be more wisely spent in some other way?

For the sake of discussion, let's assume that we reduce our military strength to a level that is more than sufficient to deter an attack on US soil, and make that their primary mission. This new, smaller, repurposed military would cost less, but what of the weaponeers? We faced this same problem in the early 90's when we were concerned that unscrupulous and unemployed Soviet scientists and engineers would sell their services to the highest bidder. The “green jobs” proposals for carbon-free power generation and high-capacity energy storage to free us from our dependence on oil and coal will certaily absorb some of these workers. These jobs may also produce products and technologies of value that can provide lasting support for our economy. I worry that for some, a better battery may not be sexy enough, or more worrying, that HR departments may not hire laid-off defense workers because their education and skills do not fit some narrow vision of what the job requires. My proposed solution is that we enlarge and fully fund our space program on which we budgeted a mere $17B this year.

A large unclassified space program would have short-term benefits, but the real payoff would come decades down the road. In the short term this would be a way for us to maintain our national skill base in aerospace technology while at the same time shrinking the military-industrial complex, and keeping large numbers of people with potentially dangerous knowledge gainfully employed. In the medium-term of five to twenty years, we could expect to see new technology making its way into the marketplace. The unclassified nature of the program is vital to achieve these gains. Science and engineering work best when knowledge is shared; one person's null result is another's illumination, and when knowledge is classified and compartmentalized, the light bulb stays dark. We would also be treated to the spectacle of the space missions themselves as well as the knowledge they generate. This is very much an intangible benefit, but no less real. There is a reason why even today, space events are still front-page news – they're exciting, dramatic, sometimes even awe-inspring. It's OK to feel proud about a successful space mission, it shows humanity at our best in a way that a military mission does not, no matter how brave or daring the soldiers. The long-term benefits are incalculable, they could even make the difference between survival and extinction. Even if we become near-perfect stewards of our planetary environment, which we will have to do to continue supporting the Earth's present population, it is statistically certain that the planet will be subject to numerous astronomical catastrophes over the remaining five billion years of the Sun's life. We will be hit by asteroids and comets. A massive object could make a close approach to the solar system, destabilizing the Earth's orbit. The earth could be flooded with radiation from a nearby supernova or distant gamma-ray burst. And at the end, the Earth will be baked and possibly vaporized by the expanding Sun. A robust presence in interplanetary space would give us the means and opportunity to both detect and deflect approaching planetoids. While we're out there, we can retrieve valuable minerals from asteroids in a manner that does not despoil the environment here on the planetary surface. The larger catastrophes would require interstellar capability to escape, and while that is certainly next century's project, we can start building the precursors of that technology now.

In short, we can take a fraction of our military budget, and invest it in people and firms and technology that will strengthen our economy, inspire us with justifiable pride, and possibly insure the survival of the human race. I call that a bargain.