1) France, Germany and the UK have issued a joint letter in support of new international standards for bonus compensation. I’m interested to hear what the US has to say. Clearly, the bonus system as it stand is, to say the least, screwed up. However the problem is not with the idea of a bonus, but with what bonuses are rewarded for. Bankers (as do all professionals) deserve compensation for work well done. Now we just need to change the definition of “work well done.”
2) Great Kennedy piece by Adam Clymer in the NY Times (I know I’m a week late on this, but, look, I was in LA). As someone who has always had a soft spot for Bobby Kennedy, the best moment for me was this little anecdote.
In 1965, his third year in office, he was senior to his older brother Robert, then a newly elected senator from New York, on the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. One day they sat through a hearing, waiting for senior senators to finish their questions. Like a schoolboy bored in class, Robert passed Ted a note: “Is this the way I become a good senator — sitting here and waiting my turn?” Ted scribbled, “Yes.” Then Robert asked, “How many hours do I have to sit here to be a good senator?” Ted replied, “As long as necessary, Robbie.”
3) If you missed it a few weeks back, check out Rick Perlstein’s piece on right wing rage and the August town hall insanities. I agree with his main point, that this rage is not new, the media and politicians unwillingness to treat the rage as what is, extremism, is.
I like to think of the current debate over health care in terms of the Civil Rights acts of the late 50’s and early 60’s. Shamed by Martin Luthor King and the Civil Rights Movement, in 1957 Congress passed the first Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. The act created a Commission on Civil Rights in order to enforce the equal protection clause of the 15th amendment and prevent African American disenfranchisement. The act also was largely infective and toothless in that it required local (read White) juries to actually convict anyone. Because of it’s shortcomings it was criticized sharply by liberals on the left. But it was also these shortcomings that allowed it to pass through a Senate controlled by Southern White Senators and become law. The bill succeeded in one key area that it’s critics on both the left and right failed to grasp: it changed the terms of the debate. The 75+ years log jam on Civil Rights legislation was broken and in the following years we had the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and most importantly the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Essentially the 1957 Act established a modern federal position on equal protection, and once that position was established it forced the federal government to deal with all the corollaries that position presented.
As Health Care reform opponents dust off many of the same lines of attack used against President Clinton’s Health Care bill, it becomes more and more clear to me that what we need right now is something, anything to get through Congress in order to establish the federal position on health care: that the government believes that every person should be covered by health insurance. Once that position is established the terms of the debate are changed, and it will force the federal government to deal with all the corollaries (the infrastructure, the cost controlling measures, etc) that position presents.
I like to think of the current debate over health care in terms of the Civil Rights acts of the late 50’s and early 60’s. Shamed by Martin Luthor King and the Civil Rights Movement, in 1957 Congress passed the first Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. The act created a Commission on Civil Rights in order to enforce the equal protection clause of the 15th amendment and prevent African American disenfranchisement. The act also was largely infective and toothless in that it required local (read White) juries to actually convict anyone. Because of it’s shortcomings it was criticized sharply by liberals on the left. But it was also these shortcomings that allowed it to pass through a Senate controlled by Southern White Senators and become law. The bill succeeded in one key area that it’s critics on both the left and right failed to grasp: it changed the terms of the debate. The 75+ years log jam on Civil Rights legislation was broken and in the following years we had the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and most importantly the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Essentially the 1957 Act established a modern federal position on equal protection, and once that position was established it forced the federal government to deal with all the corollaries that position presented.
As Health Care reform opponents dust off many of the same lines of attack used against President Clinton’s Health Care bill, it becomes more and more clear to me that what we need right now is something, anything to get through Congress in order to establish the federal position on health care: that the government believes that every person should be covered by health insurance. Once that position is established the terms of the debate are changed, and it will force the federal government to deal with all the corollaries (the infrastructure, the cost controlling measures, etc) that position presents.
Leave it to Bill Maher to use Michael Jackson as a metaphor for the United States. In the New Rules segment of the July 17th episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, he posits (yes, posits) that the same problems that ailed (and killed) MJ, currently ail the USA. Yeah, it’s got the usual BS and some of the jokes fall a little flat, but it’s definitely worth a watch because I think it weirdly makes you want to do something other than rubberneck the car crash of the USA (if you believe that that is the way the country is going - I’m not sure personally). The commentary starts at the two minute mark.
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