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I’ve already posted about one of these, earlier, and neither is really yet at the point of being anything like what you could call a real “mission accomplished,” and etc., etc., so-on so-forth.

But I think the combination of these two positive policy developments, on the same day, is enough to really demand a brief note. Not often do we get even one item of good news like these, however compromised, let alone both:

• Obama Administration Rejects Keystone Pipeline Proposal
• Sopa: US backers end support for anti-piracy bill

That’s not too bad. Both of these proposals epitomize the “migod can we just not do this completely stupid unhelpful horrible abomination” ideas that are all-too common in American politics. Yeah, sure, the list of reasons for restraining the urge to celebrate is long and familiar: Neither measure is really necessarily “dead” yet; industry-backed monstrosities like these are never really truly “dead” anyway. Even if stopped, for now, they’ll sneak back. Neither measure’s defeat really amounts to any kind of actual progress. Nor do these limited little “non-defeats” come close to being “enough” relative to the big-picture of the challenges we’re facing. Nothing ever seems like it is or will be enough.

All true, but, aside from the fact that if this is about as good as we ever actually do we might as well take the opportunity to celebrate when we can because otherwise we’ll eventually just die without ever having let ourselves enjoy the feeling of winning… (more…)

I’ve had this loose sense for some years, now, that America (perhaps more than nearly any other society) is becoming a victim of its own success. In more ways than one in fact, probably, but in this case I refer to the long decades of enjoying the fruits of market capitalism. I’ve arrived at this notion that the free-enterprise system has proven both so effective and so relatively easy a means of making so many things better that we’ve now gone generations without really confronting any major problem through any other way.

The last exceptions were probably the civil rights movement and the feminist revolution, and both of those were pretty much complete by the time I was born. And I’m 33.

Outside of those upheavals, the solutions to which I think required effort outside of capitalist free-enterprise but not particularly any direct conflict with it, the vast majority of America has been able to take for granted a pretty comfortable living through a combination of shopping, and a sort of “maintenance” approach to collective society. Basically, vote, at least once in a while, and beyond that just trust that the resultant government may act out amateur drama but will keep the streets paved, the water drinkable, etc., and not screw anything up too disastrously.

Which is understandably a very tempting situation to settle into, I believe, not least from my perspective; I find politics interesting but I don’t want to march or knock on doors or get pepper-sprayed or engage directly with people who disagree with me or, for that matter, people who share my views either, really. I like vote-by-mail! By contrast it’s difficult and unpleasant, hashing out situations where we can’t all simply have our own individual preference without our decision significantly affecting anyone else. Shopping is much more fun.

(more…)

Several years ago I came across a cynical enumeration of the “Six Phases of a Project” somewhere online; I saved it though I didn’t keep the original url. Oh well. I was thinking about these today:

Six Phases of a Project

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. A Search for the Guilty
5. The Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honor for the Non-participants

I think it’s easy to see this same arc in a lot of human screw-ups, beyond just the workplace project context which I think they were originally meant to describe.

For example, isn’t this similar in a lot of ways to the international financial crisis and its fallout? First, enthusiasm for the bubble economy: this is awesome, we’re all getting rich, don’t listen to those Chicken Littles, real estate can only keep going up in value forever, just get in now! Then, disillusionment: oh, crap, it was a bubble after all. Followed by panic: oh god, no one can possibly repay all of these debts and apparently letting Lehman Brothers collapse didn’t shock everyone back into line and our entire financial system could really fucking disintegrate here.

Stage four, “a search for the guilty,” might not seem to apply given that most of the guilty got away scot free. But stage four has to be considered in context of the whole list, which clearly does not include “punishment of the guilty.” (more…)