Text of the Inaugural

My favorite line: “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”  I love the sentiment, and l love the scientific language.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our healthcare is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise healthcare’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations

A Naked Emperor Means a Naked Empire

Things in our economy, and our society, are going to get worse before they get better.  Why?  Because we haven’t heard all of the bad news yet.  But it is coming…

We all know the story of the “Emperor’s New Clothes.”  The story is a symbolic representation of the power of social pressure to suppress dissent leading to the public acceptance of absurd ideas.  The cycle is broken only when someone who does not know enough to understand the pressure (the child) expresses dissent.  The story serves its purpose as a cautionary tale — beware of the implied opinion of the crowd.  But as an illustration of the problem — what it looks like, and, more importantly, how it is ultimately resolved — the story barely scratches the surface.  In particular, the story leaves out three critical aspects of any real world “Emperor’s New Clothes” scenario.  And since this is what we are going through, now, I thought it would be valuable to describe them in detail.

1. It isn’t just the clothes

The story centers on the clothes because this is a clear symbol that points the mind in the necessary directions.  While it is doubtful that any actual emperor, or any leader, ever actually went naked while believing he wore magical thread, we all understand the implication.  Sometimes people come to believe in falsities that are so absurd that it is humiliating — in fact completely destructive to their reputation and the reputation of the institution they serve — to admit they are anything but true.  This creates tremendous pressure on other people to act as though they are true, too.  And so the falsity is not only perpetuated but promulgated.  The emperor not only walks around the palace, naked, he organizes a parade to show off his (non-existent) “new” clothes.

The story involves the clothes because they are this ultimate, plainly identifiable absurdity.  What it fails to mention, however, is that the “new clothes” were not purchased arbitrarily, and they were not purchased in isolation.  Their celebration and adulation were not the result of a “magical” sales pitch nor merely a stupid emperor. The purchase of the clothes was merely the final, most absurd (and ultimately untenable) decision built on a series of increasingly foolish decisions that built absurdity into an institution.

Beliefs are not held in isolation.  You cannot believe that a naked emperor is wearing invisible clothes without, at minimum, adjusting some of your other beliefs about the physical properties of clothing and the universe.  For example, where and how are the new clothes washed and stored?  How do servants avoid disputes over who has them or how they should be handled?  What if someone is accused of stealing them?  It is not impossible to convince an entire staff to act as though, or perhaps to believe, that non-existent garments are in fact beautiful and magical, but it requires assembling a set of beliefs and procedures that evade challenges to this belief.  That is, a set of beliefs and procedures that evade challenges from empirical reality.  In other words, for an emperor to “buy” such new clothes, he had to live in a palace that could “handle” sustained absurdity of belief across a variety of domains.

2. The clothes are the effect, not the cause

Since I think most people would agree that the “new” clothes are a symbol of corruption at the highest level, the preceding assertion is not likely to be controversial.  We can all agree that the “new” clothes were part of a systematic corruption in thought.  But this immediately raises the question: where does this systematic corruption come from?

This is an extremely complex question that cannot be answered fully, but I would like to distinguish the merits of two basic answers.

Answer 1: New clothes as cause.  The clothes appealed to the emperor, and, motivated by his greed, vanity, pride (what have you), he re-made the system of thought and procedure to support his belief that they were magical.  In simple terms, the emperor bought the clothes, and then he pressured everyone to conform their activities to support his decision.  The system was corrupted because of the emperor’s new clothes.

Answer 2: New clothes as effect.  A system of thought and procedure existed which could support any number of false beliefs.  The Emperor happened to be taken with these “new” clothes (because of his greed, vanity and pride) and so he bought them and then dropped them into the system.  In simple terms, the system was corrupt and so facilitated the emperor’s new clothes.  The emperor’s new clothes were purchased because the system was corrupt.

The difference between these two is profound.  In particular, I will argue that Answer 2 is both far more likely to be the truth and far more foreboding if it is the truth.  Thus, we should be prepared to assume it is, in fact, Answer 2.

Answer 2, the new clothes are the effect, is far more likely because setting up coherent systems of thought and procedure to maintain a false belief is an extremely complex task.   If the new clothes are the cause, there is the enormous challenge of implementing a system that keeps the idea of their magic alive.  How do you know who is going to challenge whom, who is already skeptical, who is trusting, and who is pressing for advantage?  Two servants with an intense rivalry and a lack of scruples will almost certainly blow the case, each framing the other for theft or deceit.  The critical problem is that while the risk of challenging the emperor’s judgment, and by implication the “reality” of the clothes and their properties, is implicitly forbidden, the logical consequences of his judgment include contradictions.  It is not possible to draw a single, consistent set of conclusions from contradictory premises.  (For example, if 2+1=3 and 2+3=6, then 6-3=2 and 3-1=2, so  6-3=3-1, so 6=6-1).  Thus, “just following orders,” which require some logical deduction from order to action, leads to conflicts.  These conflicts then threaten to expose the falsity (a servant could logically and defensibly claim that he had 6 “magic socks” whereas another would logically and defensibly claim that he had only 5).  The emperor can order that conflicts be resolved, for example, by decreeing that 5=6, but he cannot anticipate their location in advance.  Thus, in order to be resolved, they must first pop up.  It is the “popping up” that undermines the system of false belief.  These expressions of dissent, even if temporary, serve the function fulfilled by the child at the parade — they call the accepted belief into question.

But while anticipating where the contradictions might pop up is extraordinarily difficult to do, taking advantage of contradictions that are already tolerated is relatively easy.  The emperor cannot anticipate that he will have to declare that 5=6, but if it has already been declared, or, more likely, accepted as true, then this is one source of potential conflict that has been eliminated.  In fact, this accepted contradiction can actually be used to erase a host of potential conflicts.  That is, there is now a set of controversies that should “pop up” but won’t.  For example, when the servants disagree over whether they possess 5 or 6 magic socks, they are held as insubordinate, seeing as they are clearly disobeying the known rule that 5=6.  This means they are at risk of punishment if they even mention their dispute.  Therefore, they keep it quiet, and the controversy does not “pop up.”

This logic extends beyond simple math problems.  The acceptance of contradiction and nonsense in any case increases the ease with which contradiction and nonsense can be accepted in other cases.  That is, nonsense breeds nonsense.  At first, large-scale, “obvious” nonsense is not tolerated, but over time the scope of nonsensical justification increases.  Thus, the emperor does not need to design anything in order to buy his magic new clothes.  He “waits” to buy the new clothes until the system has already evolved to a point where magic clothes will be accepted as real.  He simply matches the absurdity of his decisions to the tolerance for absurdity already present in the system.  The emperor does not begin by buying magical, invisible clothes.  He enters a system with some nonsense and increases it with his greed and vanity.  He buys the magical “new” clothes at the culmination, at a point where even the most obviously nonsensical can be justified as rational within the (now absurd) system of understanding.

Some might argue that the idea that an emperor would purchase magic, invisible clothes and parade around as though they were beautiful is extremely unlikely, anyway, and so it does not make sense to say that the former explanation is less appropriate than the latter.  But while this particular abuse of power is unlikely, the fact that some such abuse will result from a corrupt system where contradiction and nonsense are tolerated is inevitable.  The emperor happened to purchase new clothes, but he could have chosen any number of absurdities.  He could have invaded another country on false pretenses to gain access to their resources, then failed to obtain said resources.  He could have praised incompetent bureaucrats for doing a “heckuva” job when they were doing a terrible job.  He could have promoted borrowing money to purchase assets that provided no growth in real value.

3. After the parade: the implications of nakedness

The fable is a powerful, succinct, cautionary tale.  As such, it stops when the false belief is recognized.  But for the citizens of that empire, the recognition is just the beginning of their pain.  If the clothes are the cause, then the removal of the clothes, the rebuke of the emperor, and the punishment of the tailors is all that is required.  But if the clothes are the effect, as I have described above, the problem is much larger.  The clothes are, after all, only one particular expression of some portion of the false, nonsensical and contradictory beliefs that are embedded in the system.

We are beginning to see this in the news from the economy.  Corporations, particularly banks, are trying to explain their failures in terms of a reliance on magic clothes.  “We’re sorry,” they are saying, “we’ve lost a lot of money because of the magic clothes [mortgages].”  No, the magic clothes are not the cause.  They are the effect.  They’ve lost a lot of money because they were making nonsensical decisions for years and then relying, in part, on the “magic clothes” to make their nonsense appear to be sense.  If 5 = 6, then $50 million in profits can be reported as $60 million, an so on.  The fact that the clothes are now accepted to be non-existent, rather than magical, merely invites them to start admitting all of their nonsense.  It is a time, in other words, when any nonsensical decision that has been made in the last 10-12 years can be explained by a belief in magic clothes.  And since everybody agreed the magic clothes were real, the rest of the nonsense is excusable.

This brings us to two important consequences.  First, there is going to be bad news for a long time.  The emperor is naked, we now acknowledge, and now we are going to be told that he also has a drinking problem, that his ministers are insane, that there is no storage of grain.  Banks and financial services companies will write down enormous losses on bad debt, companies will re-state earnings to reflect appropriate accounting, and workers will be laid off.  We will be told that this is because of bad mortgages, because of the non-existence of the magic clothes, but this is false.  Companies lost money because they believed in nonsense.  They will not begin to make real profits again until they learn good sense.

The second consequence is that, despite our intense desire for retribution, there is really only one thing we can do.  Start thinking good sense, and waiting patiently for it to replace the nonsense.  In the meantime, expect things to get worse.  How do we distinguish good sense from nonsense?  That’s a topic for another post, but here’s a start: contradictions are bad, and conventional wisdom is not necessarily good.  If “common sense” recommends something but it appears to have a contradiction, the common sense is probably wrong.

Many nations and empires have gone through this.  Too often, they have ended up relying on the most costly and devastating means of undoing the nonsense — massive mobilizations of violence.  The innocent and guilty alike are killed and tortured until every promulgator of nonsense has either died or been ostracized as a monster, with only the sensible retaining their credibility.  But there is another way.  Sensible people can begin cutting down the nonsense in their own backyards.  The nonsense started growing there, and the new sense has to start growing there, too.

Ahhhhh!

I am screaming mad at the McCain campaign for the recent string of outrageous lies it is peddling in commercials and statements.

There was, of course, the distortion of Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comments.  Then, the unbelieveably slimy commercial suggesting that Obama promoted sex education for kindergartners.  There’s Palin’s repeated distortions about the bridge to nowhere.  Now there is a scuzzy new commerical that lies about Obama and McCain’s records on immigration.  And, today we got to listen to McCain and Palin both talking on as if they were the reformers to come in and bring long-needed regulation to an financial sector gone bad, when they actually are long time self declared anti-regulation crusaders.

I am appalled that this consistent barage of lies and distortions is working.  How can it be countered when so many voters avoid balanced and informative news?  That all the major news outlets are calling McCain on these distortions doesn’t matter because so few people pay attention to the full story.  Seriously, I am screaming.  Please America!  Please, please, please!  Please, dont let McCain slip into the White House on a campagin of distortions.

Just Speeches?

If something is truly your strength, you ought to know it and you ought to insist on it.  

For Barack Obama to win this election, he’s going to have to do it by emphasizing his strengths, not minimizing his weaknesses.  Unlike many Democratic candidates in recent memory, he actually has enormous strengths.  But recently he’s been slipping into the old, defensive pattern of the losing party.

Running on strength starts with recognizing that Obama is the only leader in the country to demonstrate any indication he understands what is wrong with this country, what is right with this country, and what we can do to make the wrong into right.  When did he do this?  How?  He did it in those speeches.

If something is truly your strength, you ought to know it and you ought to insist on it.  

I give the Republican Party credit, this year it has tried its usual strategy of villifying whatever people found appealing about the Democratic candidate, commonly referred to as “swift-boating.”  (John Kerry wasn’t a Vietnam hero, even though he was.  Al Gore was a liar for saying he “invented the internet,” even though what he said was that the Clinton-Gore emphasis on research, science and technology helped to bring about the internet (which it did)).  And it has worked.  ”Swift-boating” has become “speech mocking.”  ”Look at Obama, he’s so popular!”  ”Look at Obama, he has fans screaming for him like a celebrity.”  ”His fans are so irrational, it’s like a cult.  They’re crazy!”

This strategy has worked so far.  But it has worked because of the way Obama’s campaign has responded, not because there is any merit to it.  The logic of the Republican party strategy is based on a simple logic that has neither sinister nor deceiving.  A lot of people aren’t sure what to believe.  It’s a confusing world and there are very few reliable sources of information.  And in this world, one way to check if something is true is to say it’s not true and see if anybody disagrees.  

Now, where it gets sleazy is that we suspect most Republican party operators know that it is true, and then release statements saying its not, i..e they lie, but this concern with lying is part of the distraction which makes the tactic work.  The ethics of the Republican party aren’t on trial, the truth about the candidate is.  That’s a fact.

If something is truly your strength, you ought to know it and you ought to insist on it.

Back to Obama.  When they make fun of him for making “just speeches” he needs to use this as the opening it is: an opening to remind us just how inept the leadership of both parties was and still is.  He needs to double-down.  He needs to say:

Just a speech, huh?  I feel like the one-eyed man with a bunch of blind men are calling me a cyclops. Just a speech?   Let’s see.  In 2002 I made a speech against the war in Iraq.  You’ve all heard it.  I saw the danger for what it was.  I didn’t think I was special, it was pretty plain to see.  I thought everyone could see it except maybe the media.   Surely, I thought, the wise and prudent leadership in Washington, Democrats and Moderate Republicans, share this view.  So I gave a speech to show my support.  And where were they?  Silent.  John McCain was silent on the dangers of the war and silent on the foolishness of going in undermanned, underfunded and with no strategy.  And when he spoke, he parroted the party line.  What was clear to the people was blind to John McCain and those in Washington, so I spoke.

Just a speech?  In 2004 I went to the Democratic convention, a place that was brimming with fire and anger at George W. Bush.  And I said the only way we’d get progress in this country was to recognize the wisdom of our Founding Fathers — that we had to overcome division by recognizing that this country was founded on the belief that men and women can get along and don’t need some king or dictator to force them to.  Was I the only one in the hall, or in the party, or in the country, who felt that way?  No.  But what was clear to the people was blind to the Democratic party, so I spoke.

Just a speech? In 2008… [Iowa speech?]

Just a speech? Last month [Acceptance Speech]

There is plenty of room in Barack Obama’s America for Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. Plenty of room for fiery, inspired Sarah Palin supporters, plenty of room for confused, concerned John McCain supporters and plenty of room for proud, loyal Hillary Clinton supporters.  In Obama’s America, we want vigorous conservative opposition, skeptical, undecided independents and no nonsense party faithful.  But none of those things can lead a country.  In Barack’s America, they thrive and contribute. In their America, Barack Obama should still be president.

Strategy for Obama: I’d make a speech along the lines of what I wrote above.  Then I’d start running adds showing what McCain, Bush, and Palin were doing and saying in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008.  Show one of each of them talking on a particular issue, then show one of Obama.  The wisdom of the truth will be clear.

Herbert Simon on energy

I came across this while reading Herbert Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial today.  The book (the 3rd edition) was written in 1996.

embedded in the energy-environment problem that confronts us today [1996], we can see three almost independent aspects.  The first is our immediate dependence on petroleum, which we must reduce to protect ourselves from political blackmail and to achieve a balance of international payments.  The second is the prospect of exhaustion of oil and gas supplies, a problem that must be solved within about a generation, mostly by the use of coal and nuclear energy.  The third is the joint problem of the exhaustion of fossil fuels and the impact of their combustion on the climate.  The time scale of this third problem is a century or so.  

Herbert Simon won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 (full bio from Wikipedia here).  He died in 2001, but before 9/11.  But he was not a macro-economist nor an expert in energy, and this book is largely about cognition, artificial intelligence and problem solving.  

In other words, he doesn’t use this example to make a point about energy, he uses it as an illustration of some other point.  And he can do this because this understanding of our energy problem is obvious and well known.  Obvious and well known, in 1996!! Yet here we are, 12 years later, including 7 years after a devastating attack that proved his aspect #1 convincingly, and this is the first major political election where energy is one of the top issues.  I blame everyone who has been in Washington since 1996 (if not earlier) for this.  

The problem was obvious then. You wasted 12 years doing nothing.  Go home.

What to Watch for Tonight? The Gesture

Something I’ve been thinking about. For years we’ve seen politicians copy the “Bill Clinton fist waggle.” It’s that thing he does where it looks like he’s weighing his own fist. It’s an odd mixture of firmness (it is a fist) and gentleness (the shake is very unvigorous). Several such fist shakes were on display over the last couple of days (though Bill himself seems to have moved on, he didn’t use the fist once last night).

Obama uses a different gesture. It’s the “point-point-fly.” He look starts by making a couple of jabs with his finger, as though he were pointing at a person or, perhaps, a word in a document. Then he accelerates his finger forward, like he’s “broken through” a barrier and his finger is now in the clear. I’ve notice it because I’ve notice myself copying it in conversation with people.

I think these gestures are fundamentally representative of the thoughts of the speaker. Use Obama’s gesture and you will feel it. It says “I know exactly where the problem is.” I don’t quite know what Clinton’s means, I find it awkward to use and a bit icky to watch. It’s kind of fake-mushy. Clinton didn’t use them last night and I thought he was great — better than whenhe was president. I’m looking forward to getting those finger jabs tonight. And I’m looking forward to a generation of leaders copying them!

The Scariest Change (to some)

The media’s obsession with Hillary’s supporters and Obama’s alleged inability to “connect” has started me thinking. When a behavior or phenomenon is so consistent, and so enduring, it is almost impossible not to ask “why?” More specifically, it is almost impossible not to question its face value. Very few real phenomena are as consistent as this storyline, and so the more consistent it is, the more you have to think.

The following occurs to me as an explanation: there are really two elections going on here. That is, the eventual, tabulated votes of the American people can decide two questions. The first question is: who will be President of the United States? The other question is: is inane media bloviation relevant?

Imagine the following scenario. Barack Obama does not follow the advice of the bloviators. He does not try to appease the psychological wounds, inflicted by the world, not him, on estranged Hillary supporters. He does not try to appear like a “regular guy.” He seeks to forge a connection with voters, not by showing that he can be on the level they feel most comfortable with but by showing they can feel comfortable on the level he is on. He continues to appeal to our better natures rather than our worst. “Sure,” he says, “I drink beer. But I’m not the sloppy guy who starts yelling at everyone and looking to get in a fight. I drink beer the way John Adams drank it, not John Daly. “

Let’s say he were to try this and he were to win. Who really loses? Certainly not the American people. They get a President they know and trust just the same. But what of the media? What of CNN and MSNBC and CNBC and of the free agent pool of bloviators? They would be in trouble. If gutteral opinions, uninformed speculation, and absurdly overdone graphics don’t represent what people “really want,” if they are not the “real pulse” of the country, then what are they for? They provide no public service, no one is made better for listening to them. They tolerate and promote the degradation of discourse and behavior — running ads with Paris Hilton in a bikini over and over, spreading rumors, insisting that questions be answered to fit their theories rather than listening to the responses. They produce garbage and degrade themselves and their viewers. But for years they have clung to the justification that degradation of themselves and their viewers is necessary because those who are not thusly degraded are “out of touch.” To refuse to be degraded is to “fail to connect.”

An Obama victory under such circumstances is death to the bloviators. Only Fox News would survive. Fox makes no pretensions about the fact that its loyalty is to its audience and its desires. It fills a need. There are millions of John Daly’s and they want, and should get, their news, too. But there is no need for (expensive) imitations. After such a victory, there would be no more need to pretend that the majority of Americans are John Daly, because they are not.

I think the media knows this. I think they know that an Obama campaign that refuses to appease their storylines is dangerous. And they have gravitated to a very clever strategy. “We will validate you if you validate us.” They hype the Hillary issue and the race/connection issue as much as they can neither because it is empirically valid nor because they are biased against him. They hype it because it gives them a way to participate in his success (or failure), that is, because it makes them relevant. If they can get him to change his campaign, and then he wins, they can explain his victory as resulting from this change. They can, and will, say “he won because he appeased our national need for degradation. Thus, this degradation is essential and politically relevant. Therefore, we are justified in continuing to provide it.”

Let me be clear here as I expect what I am saying will be misunderstood. I am not, in any way, saying that people who prefer Hillary Clinton or John McCain to Barack Obama are degraded or less intelligent or anything like that. Degradation comes not from one’s opinions but from one’s reasons and whether they are appropriate to the choice one is making. There are good reasons for Hillary supporters to refrain from supporting Obama until they see more of him: because they are concerned about his lack of experience, because they may prefer McCain’s policy views, because they just don’t yet feel ready to decide. These are good reasons because they are consistent with the purpose of the choice, which is to get the best leader for the country we can. Then there are bad reasons to refrain from supporting Obama: Because they need “closure,” because they are angry/hurt that Hillary lost, because they don’t like black people. These reasons have nothing to do with what is best for the country. These reasons turn a grand responsibility into a personal indulgence. They trade virtue for pleasure. In a word, they are degrading.

Another example is his “connection” to the “working class.” Good reasons for a working class voter to be skeptical of Obama: I don’t understand his proposals or how they would work, I don’t think he understands the situation I am in and so I don’t think he’ll be able to help me. Bad reasons: he doesn’t seem like he’d be fun to drink with, he chooses to eat different foods than I do (e.g. arugula). A good reason is one which, even if the candidate answered every other concern you have, would still be cause for you to reject him and to feel that you have honored your duty as a citizen in doing so. That is, if a voter says “I do understand his policies and how they work and I do feel that he understands my situation and how to improve it, but I am not voting for him because he drinks wine instead of beer,” should that voter be proud of their decision? There are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama, there is no need to degrade oneself by relying on the bad ones.

Just as I am not saying that all those who reject Obama have bad reasons, I am also not saying that I know what reasons reluctant (to support Obama) Hillary supporters or undecided working class voters are choosing. They might all be relying on good reasons, and my guess is that most of them are. My point is, these are not the reasons that are being reported in the media. What is being reported are junk reasons, irrespective of whether anyone actually holds them. That is, the media is taking intelligent, well justified voter opinions and converting them into indulgent, childish ones. Thus, the considered and valuable contributions of these voters are being degraded by the media.

For years the bloviators have made their living by promulgating this degradation. And, sadly, I think they’ve found a way to continue the life of their craft through this next election. Obama has, I think, done enough for them to validate their role. Certainly enough for them to claim he did so though leaving them enough space to say he didn’t do enough if he should lose. On the bright side, though, Obama is a leader. There are many more anti-bloviators on the way.

Reasons for Obama

In reading/listening to opinions and comments over the last couple of days, I realize we Obama supporters have been neglecting an important responsibility.  The extended primary vs. Hillary became such an absurd affair we’ve gotten away from our bread and butter.  We’ve stopped sharing our reasons.  Here are mine:

Time to Lead

This is Frank Rich’s column from Sunday.  It explains precisely what America needs and what the Obama must deliver.  If Obama delivers it, there is no doubt in my mind that he will win.  If he doesn’t, it’s a toss-up.  

Rich articulates the point clearly and with useful details, I’ll just summarize here.  The United States of America is at a crossroads.  The world has been changing around us for some time.  We haven’t adjusted.  We act like nothing is wrong, like things will be ok just because we are “America.”  And so we have abandoned the very thing that makes this country great — clear minded, decisive action.  We have elected instead to live with comforting, self-congratulatory fantasy.  And so we have put off what we should have been done yesterday to tomorrow.  Result: Weakness, debt, confusion, anger.   

Tomorrow has become today.  The time to act is now.  And yet the time for arbitrary, foolish, shoot-from-the-hip action is never.  Thus, this election is not just about recognizing that we are off course, it is about identifying why, using that understanding to think hard and unflinchingly about what needs to be done, and then mustering the hope and courage to do it. 

That is it.  Yes, we need to “bring people together” in this process and this process necessarily entails “change” from the past, but those are consequents, not causes of our action.  We need a leader to say “this is what we need, as a nation, and this is what I’m asking of you, as a citizen.  Let’s step forward together and do it.”

Barack Obama can do this.  John McCain cannot.  If Obama does this, the concerns about madrassas and the bitter feelings over Hillary will feel small.  We Obama supporters won’t be pleading with people to see our point of view, we will be insisting they join with us.   

I firmly believe that Obama is going to deliver a clear vision of the path we must take.  And if he does, he will win.

Pacing

The Obama malaise seems to continue.  I think there is cause for concern, but I am not yet worried because this cause is addressable and I have not yet seen any indication that Obama is not going to address it.  My theory, borrowed from my father-in-law, is that Obama and his team understand the emotional arcs of political campaigns.  

In September of last year I expressed concern over Obama’s weak statements and lack of crispness in the campaign.  My father-in-law said he thought Obama was pacing himself and that he’d make a move when it mattered.  That’s exactly what he did.  In November ‘07 I read this article in the New Yorker and was convinced he would take the nomination.  He had found the argument against Hillary (divisive, game-playing politics wins elections and then makes for weak, ineffectual leadership with no wind behind it), and I could not conceive of what her response would be.

I think Obama is doing the same here.  Letting McCain make his case without letting him lock-in voters.  Then, when the heavy campaigning starts post-convention, Obama will expose the weaknesses in the case made by McCain and bring back enough votes to win.  That’s the positive scenario, here’s where I come down on the concerns people are expressing:

Race — Race is a red herring issue.  The racists aren’t changing their vote and Obama is not changing his race.  There is a percentage of voters who will vote against Obama “just because” he is black and a percentage of voters who will vote for Obama “just because” he is black.  Neither of these are the majority, and, by definition, none of them are persuadable unless Obama changes his race, which he can’t do.  Thus, to believe that Obama can move in the polls, either up or down, and that these moves matter, is to presume that there are a sufficient number of voters who can be persuaded on some basis other than race to decide the election.  In simple terms, if Obama needs X% votes (divvyed appropriately by state) to win, the percentage of people who absolutely will not vote for a black man is less than 100-X.  However, the number of people who have “reservations” about voting for a black man is almost certainly well over 100-X.  So the goal is to persuade people who are semi-racist but not decidedly so.  Thus, people who say things like “I would never vote for a black man” are either exaggerating or irrelevant.

“He’s unknown” — This is the more dangerous argument because it allows race to have maximum impact on people who are not deciding purely on the basis of race.  This argument, seen in it’s many forms (“he hasn’t been around,” “he isn’t specific in his statements,” “I’m not sure who he is”) works in two ways.  First, it channels any racist feelings people have into a legitimate concern.  There are people who are not racist who genuinely have a concern with Obama’s inexperience and newness.  But now those with more racially tinged feelings, feelings of anxiety because he is “different,” not the kind of guy you see on coins and dollar bills, can be couched as fear of the new rather than fear of the other.  So people with some, but not decisive, racist leanings may vote against Obama.  Race is motivating them in part but not entirely.  

The other tricky thing is that this argument, cleverly, encourages Obama and his supporters to answer the wrong questions.  Saying “he is unknown/too new” implies that what people want are facts about him.  They want him to be “specific” in his policy proposals, give 10 word answers etc.  This argument then serves to create exasperation among Obama supporters who see, clearly, that 1) he has given many specific policy proposals already and 2) 10 word answers blunt the very purpose of an Obama presidency, which is to start thinking again as a country.  The Republican strategists have very cleverly framed this issue: if the black guy wants people to see him as “one of the gang,” he has to show he is a simpleton.

This is a brilliantly devised false choice — if he’s “different” people will vote against him, but if he’s the “same” (as other politicians), there’s really no reason to vote for him.  Therefore, he can’t win. The choice is a false one, however, because it is built on the premise that people are too stupid to be interested in an intelligent, thoughtful leader.  That is, this choice assumes that people will always reject what is different because they prefer sameness to competence, and that this preference for conformity is irrational.  

This is what the Republican Party wants us to think.  They want us to think that people are morons and that their political preferences follow from their irrationality.  This way, Democrats will downplay their competence, and will do so increasingly the more evidence of irrationality they see.

Downplaying competence is exactly the opposite of what Obama should be doing.  This becomes obvious if we consider an alternative to the theory that people reject smart political candidates because they are conformist morons.  People reject smart political candidates because these candidates don’t show them they are smart.  They dumb themselves down, leaving voters to wonder how smart they really are.  This is because voters are smart, too, and rejecting candidate who pretend to be dumb is, of course, exactly what smart voters would do.  The only way to show you are really, truly smarter is to demonstrate it.  And if you are that smart, why would you pretend to be otherwise?  Thus, it is not reasonable to think that anyone but the demonstrably smarter candidate is, in fact, smarter.

Thus, the key to defending Obama is to emphasize his intelligence, specifically, that his intelligence is the same as voters but different from politicians.  In what way is this so?  Obama cares about solving problems and wants to use his mind to do so, just like the voters do, but the other politicians do not.  Of course, not everyone would agree with this statement.  But what, exactly, are the arguments against it?  That Obama does not care about solving problems?  Well, clearly that’s a criticism his campaign should be able to answer — that’s all any candidate can ask for.  That Obama does not want to use his mind?  This is not plausible given the attacks already levied against him.  That the American people do not want their problems solved?  Who is going to argue that?  That other politicians use their minds to solve problems?  Look at the evidence of the last 8 years.

 The only argument left is for people to say “Americans don’t want to use their minds.”  This statement may be true, in fact, though I don’t think it is, but it is hardly a defense for any individual not to vote for Obama.  The question for an individual is “what do you want,” not “what do Americans want.”  Anyone who believes Obama will not win because “people are stupid” must, necessarily, be voting for Obama unless they themselves are also stupid.  

But people are not stupid.  There is a good argument against Obama, and that is simply that he has not yet demonstrated his thoughtfulness will translate to results.  But since we know that other politicians are not thoughtful and don’t get results, the connection is not hard to make.  It’s campaigning 101.   Just show, with conviction, specificity and clarity, why you will be a better president.  Explain policies clearly — not in 10 word sound bytes but in unambiguous, logical language.