Man on the Moon

I grew up on Walter Cronkite and the race to the moon. Actually, I can remember John Glenn, project Mercury, Gemini and the tragic deaths of Gus Grissom and the Apollo One crew.
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Yes, I can see the fiscal sense of President Obama cutting funds for our return to the Moon. But, I do think there is a better way than privatizing the space program. When the United States went to the Moon, we didn't try and claim it as U.S. territory. It's time to internationalize the exploration of space. No, I don't want to partner with China or any other dictatorship. After all, there are plenty of democracies that have shown an interest in having a space program. Just NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese could easily mount a joint effort to put a scientific base on the Moon and then push on to Mars. I don't care if the first manned mission to Mars has a crew made up of people from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paris, France, Mumbai, India, and Cape Town, South Africa. And if the first person to stand on the surface of Mars makes remarks in Japanese, well, I don't care.

My Prediction

New Orleans Saints 24, Indianapolis Colts 17. You read it here first.

Why I Hate Independents

Yes, I know. I've heard it all. Martha Coakley didn't put in the effort. Martha Coakley assumed that she was the Senator elect and ran a Rose garden campaign. Martha Coakley was arrogant, condescending and aloof....And it's all true. But, it's time to explore another reason Coakley lost.
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There are a growing number of people who define themselves, politically, as independents. They don't think of themselves as Democrats who want the option of voting for a Republican every once in awhile. They don't think of themselves as Republicans who are concerned that their party has gone too far to the right. They are people with no political philosophy whatsoever.
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I'm not trying to make the point that all independents are political wild cards. I'm not even trying to make the point that the majority of independents are living in some political bell jar. What I am saying is that a sizable minority of independents are nothing more than reactive. They may respond positively to a personality, from time to time, but by and large they are a driven by a cynical nihilism that they mistake for some sort of intellectual profundity. They're the type that voted for Ralph Nadar because, in their minds, there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Does any one still think that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq and given free reign to corporate America? I fear that these fools will do nothing more than destabilize the American government as they vote against everything, because they have no idea of what they want in life.
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Just remember, Scott Brown will have to stand for reelection in a couple of years. Elizabeth Warren for U.S. Senate, and if she shows a talent for governance, Warren for President in 2016.

Haiti

Those who can afford to donate to Haitian relief, and not everyone can, should. Now that I've written the obvious, it's time to move on.
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Haiti has a problem far greater than earthquake damage. It's time for the world to accept that it's sound, strong, well managed government that makes a successful nation. Every time that a well meaning, foreign government gives more money to Haiti with out demanding fundamental, structural, reform; well they may not be making things any worse, it's hard to imagine that that is possible, but they're certainly not making things better. When Bill Clinton ran the military dictators who had just overthrown Jean Bertrand Aristide off of the island, he had this great opportunity to demand reform in exchange for a Haitian Marshal plan. He didn't. Now it's Barack Obama, the EU, and any other big player with an interest in helping Haiti, that has the main chance. After the rubble is cleared, after the dead are buried, and after food and clean water is provided for the survivors, it's time to offer Haiti the chance for a top to bottom rebuild in exchange for fundamental government reform.
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One of the things Haiti does not need is more of the World Bank's help. This whole notion of the Reaganization of the world, mass privatization, making the world safe for trans-national corporations has to stop. Every nation should have publically owned infrastructure and services. Every nation should be allowed to protect it's ability to produce food for it's own population.

Bye Bye Chris Dodd

I've been preparing a post on the split between economic and social liberalism. Usually when I write these commentaries, I have an idea of what I want to write, but that's all I have. I start with the basic idea, dash things off and see where they go. I review what I've written to make sure I haven't typed out something incredibly stupid, of course, but in the end what comes, comes.
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Anyway, the whole economic/social liberal split has always fascinated me, and while the real big and well thought out post sits on the burner, I thought I'd preview things a bit with some thoughts on Chris Dodd. In a nutshell, American liberalism has always come in two flavors. Economic with it's emphasis on unions, wages, hours, health care, etc., and social with it's emphasis on identity politics. It's been my observation that economic liberals have a tendency to support social liberal causes, but that social liberals are often economic moderates or even economic conservatives.
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For the first time since the 1960's, we're shifting away from social liberalism and back to economic liberalism. Many of today's liberal leaders have made their reputation on their social liberal stands. But are they economic liberals as well? Chris Dodd has always, right from the beginning of his career, been on the side of the financial institutions of the United States. He may be a reliable vote for things like civil rights legislation, and bravo for that, but he is also a reliable supporter of the banking and brokerage industry. I, for one, am not sorry to see him go. I just hope that his replacement is a liberal who cares about usury laws and will support strong regulation of the banking and financial sectors of our economy.
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Ed Schultz for Senate in North Dakota.

The Edge of the Cliff, Santa Monica Mountains National Park

I always love it when major media follows my lead on something I've written. In the original version of The New Common Sense, (See my very first post for an explanation.) I wrote an attack on U2 rocker, The Edge, and his foray into real estate development. On a ridge line over Malibu, with sweeping views of the ocean, The Edge, wants to build five McMansions, albeit, according to The Edge, eco-friendly McMansions.
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The Ouch! As reported in today's edition of the Los Angeles Times, (Remember when the L.A. Times was still a major newspaper?) columnist Steve Lopez points out that if The Edge was really that concerned about the environment, he'd stay in his already acceptable Malibu home and leave the mountain tops alone. Lopez couldn't agree with me more.
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If Lopez had actually read my original post, (And I'm not egotistical enough to think that he has.) he'd join me in my call for a Santa Monica Mountains National Park. Yes, it's time to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains in a new national park. There are many reasons to go for the much stronger level of protection than the current mish-mash of state and local parks; Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy holdings; and The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. To start with, and it's the single most important reason of all, the Santa Monica Mountains are a unique eco-system, found in few other places in the world, and the preservation of such an important habitat is exactly what National Parks are for. It also makes a lot of sense for us to stop allowing people to build in areas that are prone to both wild fires and landslides. Come on people! I don't have anything against the rich, but we can't afford to keep subsidizing their crazy desire to live in dangerous places. How many years must we pay an extra hundred million or so defending high end, stand alone homes, perched high on secluded ridges, as fires rage all around them. And while we're talking class war, what's so wrong with urban adjacent national parks that can be visited by people with bus passes?
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This isn't a crazy vision for the future of the Santa Monica Mountains. Draw a map and decide what should be preserved. Of course, Malibu stays, and so does the somewhat more downscale Fernwood area of Topanga Canyon. But other than that, as properties come on the market, the Interior Department should have first dibs to match the selling price of any property transaction. It may take twenty years, and judicious use of eminent domain laws, as well as take overs of local and state parks, to complete a Santa Monica Mountains National Park, but it's a better path to take than more, senseless, development.
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And while I'm on the subject, Tejon Ranch National Park, an idea whose time has come.
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Want a good laugh? The Edge has named his five McMansions. "Clouds Rest" "Panorama" "Shell House" "Blue Clouds" and "Leaves in the Wind." There's nothing more pretentious than a rich, middle aged man who calls himself The Edge. Come on man, follow John Mellencamp's lead and use your real name.

Huck

Pay attention. I'm about to do something I rarely do. I'm going to defend a Republican.
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Poor Mike Huckabee is taking it on the chin for his grant of clemency, while governor of Arkansas, to Maurice Clemmons, who killed four police officers in Washington state. Don't get me wrong, if this sends Huck's political career to the elephant's graveyard, I'll be quite happy. But, it is my opinion that we send too many people to prison; we send them to prison at too young an age; we keep them behind bars far too long. Huck was right to try and give offenders a second chance.
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While it appears that Huckabee was making clemency decisions based more on references to Jesus, than appeals to reason, it should be noted that the impulse to not throw people away, like so much garbage, is a right one. I just went out to the desert for a few days of hiking and while headed home, I made a couple of stops at convenience stores and fast food joints. I saw so many young people, some working the counters, and some customers, and I noticed how ill educated they seemed. As I noted in my last post, we once had one of the finest education systems in the world, but, then we made the decision to cut taxes and defund education, destroying the foundation of our society.
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It's been so many years since Ronald Reagan chose tax cuts over everything else, that these poor kids don't even realize that tax cuts for the wealthy few, has taken any future that they might have had, from them. We've now gone through several generations of young people that are fit for little more than menial jobs, drug abuse, and crime.
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Huckabee's mistake was not an impulse to grant clemency, but rather membership in a political party that has created the under lying problem. In supporting conservative economic policies that have wiped out several generations of the young, he and his Repug cohorts, have guaranteed that crime will rise, and that granting clemency will be an issue.