Demographics and Demagogues

                       Demographics and Demagogues

When you hear people talking about the notion that America is not a democracy, as if they had never read the first page of any American civics book, they are not talking about rights or social justice. They are talking about this:

By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70 percent of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30 percent of America will be represented by 70 senators.

The pamphleteers at the New York Times say: When Democrats compete for the Senate, they are forced to appeal to an electorate that is far more conservative than the country as a whole. Similarly, gerrymandering and geography means that Democrats need to win a substantial majority in the House popular vote to take the gavel. And a recent study by Michael Geruso, Dean Spears and Ishaana Talesara calculates that the Republican Party’s Electoral College advantage means “Republicans should be expected to win 65 percent of presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.”

When these people talk about remaking the country they are talking about restructuring the country away from the basic compromise the majority made with the minority that allowed for the creation of it, i.e. the country's very essence. While the slaveowners were a part of this compromise, that does not invalidate the argument; the main concern was the protection of the minority from the demagoguery of the majority.

This may not be for everybody. But that's what we are.

Condor

A number of years ago, when the country was considerably younger in spirit, there was a movie called "Three Days of the Condor." It is about an academic guy (Robert Redford) who works as a reader for the CIA looking for interesting themes and ideas that might appear in books and journals. He discovers the possibility that a CIA unit has separated itself and gone rogue with its own agenda and policy. Redford, with the help of an unconvincing Faye Dunaway, struggle to identify and expose the CIA unit as that unit hunts them.

After some clever investigations, the bad guys are revealed but the CIA has concerns that its integrity will be undermined if Redford exposes them. So there is the threat that the CIA will protect itself by killing him.
Redford triumphantly brings his information to The New York Times, clearly a beacon of honest, righteous American thinking. Checkmate.

Can you imagine with all the NYT has done over the recent years that an American audience would not laugh themselves silly if presented with that resolution now?

Natural Gas and Hot Air

The March 8, 2012 issue of NYT Book Review has a review by Bill McKibben on fracking and western Pennsylvania gas drilling. It is remarkably disappointing as it is filled with the usual canards about the influence of Cheney and Halliburton, Imhofe and the global warming cat-fights and now Gasland and its misrepresentations. The problem is that these innuendos and lies are never unmasked, never corrected but blindly stumble on, somehow ingrained in reporting if not the national mind. It is perhaps more significant that there is an upsurge in movies and shows about zombies.

The problem starts with the sources. He relies upon Gasland and the NYT Drilling Down Series that the NYT Public Editor twice rebuked as misleading and inaccurate. He repeats the Drilling Down claim that Pennsylvania's waters were contaminated with radionuclides, this in spite of the studies by the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection and almost a score of private bottlers that showed there was no, zero, radionuclide contamination in Pa. streams and drinking water. The Pittsburgh Water and Sewage Authority monthly publishes the same thing.

Then there is the Dunkard Creek fish kill of 2009. According to McKibben, from Gasland, this is attributed to gas drilling discharges despite the conclusion by the EPA, Pa. Fish and Boat Commission and the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection that the fish kill was caused by a coal mine discharge which resulted in algae growth that killed the fish. There was even a consent agreement with the coal company, to the tune of $70 million, to build a plant to treat the discharges upstream to prevent future such events.

It is only a matter of time before people start wondering if such inaccuracy is accidental.

Arthur Levitt and the New York Times Seduce Eachother

Here is a link to a NYT mini interview with Arthur Levitt. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25wwln-Q4-t.html?_r=1
This thing must have been done at night because I think both of these people represent well the respective positions of their ignorant armies. Levitt is an arrogant functionary, a guy living of the gravy of the land in business and politics, who has no real confidence in the structure or the workings of the programs he is essentially responsible for. He stays at it, bravely, because the peons and the little people like us need leadership and, laughably, have faith in what he is doing even though he does not. He tolerates interviews like this because he knows the interviewer will come across badly because he is so fine.
The interviewer comes across badly because she is a devout believer in the progress of government and its perfectibility. She believes that the S.E.C. can actually catch somebody who lies to them because they are efficient, caring professionals rather than rapacious freeloaders feeding off the productivity of others. Her prime source of her investigative journalism is Michael Moore who stages confrontations with professional actors and is then taken literally by everyone who wants to believe the event true and dismissed by everyone who doesn't want to believe it. The coup de gras is her Carlyle Group insinuation. The Carlyle Group is an investment organization who owns Dunkin' Donuts. If there is a story there--especially showing collusion or conflict of interest other than a lot of guys who go to the same restaurants--investigate it, publish it, win the Pulitzer Prize and glow with satisfaction when they take the criminals away. But my bet is there is no such investigation coming.
These two probably bonded well because they indeed have a common bond. Smugness. The guy in the business suit, the girl in the gypsy dress--both bathed in self righteousness and knowing they are doing as much as they can within the limits of this all-too-human world.