Just Muttering has weighed in again, via email as I do not use the Comments feature favored by some bloggers. I get enough spammail as it is, and simply do not have time to monitor blog comments. However, I love to post readers emails — even if they disagree with my opinions — so please do write in. So without further ado:
…I was relieved that someone else wrote about Pinter and Wallace so I wasn’t the only grouser. And I wanted to say two things about all this. One is that I totally agree with you about the importance and need for disagreement and speaking-out. My disagreement is with the tone that those who dislike the current political moment are taking (with an exception of your calm voice!). It seems to me that intellectuals, of all people, could refrain from overlaying their disagreement with disgust and disdain. And yet they are the most vituperative and angry. Apparently Bush struck a very unpleasant cord (chord?) for them and it’s been downhill ever since.
The second thing is about the economy. You say that the “booming” “may be true for the upper middle class and beyond, but all those who have lost their jobs to cheap labor in India and elsewhere, or been laid off due to mega-mergers, are not feelig [sic] so flush”. I’m not sure how you’re defining middle class, but all the markers I’ve read about say that the improvement is across the board/classes. Outsourcing actually hasn’t replaced anyone, even though it seems as if it would have. Dell, among others, says they didn’t lay one employee off in that change. As for mergers, there were far more megamergers twenty years ago for one thing and the current ones are almost devoid of layoffs, which is an interesting change. Truly, economic indicators are that we’re doing well. Not at the levels of the 80s, but well, and perhaps more reasonably than then. Unemployment is lower, housing purchases are higher, etc….
Incidentally, do you honestly think there can be total transparency in government? To the extent that the keepers of a state are in loco parentis (and although I hate to use that phrase), there are some things they cannot let us all know about because we are not all trustworthy. To my mind, that’s why there are the other two parts of our government – the three pieces can “talk” to each other even when it’s unwise to talk to us. Should FDR have announced his battle plans and conferred with all of us before doing anything? Do we maybe disagree with Truman for dropping the bomb; of course; but do you really think he should have consulted the American public?
When it comes to the differences of opinion between Just Muttering and I, I suspect that in most cases it is more a matter of degree than disagree. I’m not a political or economic analyst, and my opinions are more about the general state of affairs, which makes it easy for arguments to be made on small specific points. For instance, JM cites Dell saying their outsourcing didn’t cost anyone their job. That may or may not be true at Dell, I wouldn’t know, but I have to ask: what happens to all the American workers when a company closes a plant stateside and opens one staffed by cheap overseas labor?
JM says unemployment is lower – maybe, but a lot of people are now self-employed. That can be a good thing, but they’re catching hell trying to get decent individual health insurance policies and they will struggle to build any savings for retirement, and social security is no longer a promise down the road. My greatst complain about the current administration is that theyare not taking care of The People. All their attention goes to the care and feeding of thye big corporations and the trickle down never worked. And they just cut even more of the funds for federal programs — $22 billion cut from student loans, $6 billion for Medicare, $5 billion for Medicaid…Of course there are aspects that sound good, such as “charge high-income beneficiaries more for their insurance for doctors visits,” but they will also “reduce payments to managed care providers.” But I wonder what is their definition of high-income and how many more doctors will refuse to take HMO patients? I know there are no easy answers, but there are a lot of people who need a lot of help and their futures are looking pretty bleak.
As for transparency in government, no, I do not honestly think that there can be, or even should be, total transparency. BUT — call me cynical, some might even say paranoid — I think people at the highest levels of our government are lying to us, and by “us” I mean the not only you and me, but also the congress and the senate and other government agencies. I fear that the system of checks and balances is no longer in operation and a small but powerful handful of individuals are trying to manipulate public opinion through the use of fear.