Obsidian Wings

New Year's resolutions and other stuff

by liberal japonicus

Man, I thought that year was never going to leave! Locking the door so it doesn't come back in. 'oh, I forgot my phone'. Yeah, right...

In Japan, the dream you have on the first night of the new year, if it has Mt. Fuji, a hawk and an eggplant, means you are going to have good luck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsuyume

Anyway, to try and open this year on a nice calm note, you are welcome to post your New Year's resolutions, thoughts and let us know if you happen to dream of Mt. Fuji, a hawk and an eggplant.

attention must be paid

by russell

A couple of things I've stumbled across recently online.

Kevin Drum on the (D)'s problems with working class voters.

Betty Rivard, social worker in WV, on the (D)'s problems with working class voters.

[ed.link corrected (I think), thx Charles WT lj]

IMO the critical challenge for (D)'s over the next four years is going to be regaining credibility with working class people.  Not "white working class" people, working class people of any color - it's an issue that cuts across race.  At the national level, at least, they are losing ground, in a constituency that they should really own.

See also Rivard's catalog of ground lost over the last few decades:

(WV Democratic party chairwoman) Biafore states that we now take for granted a 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave and pensions. While this may be true for the dwindling number of union workers and those of us in the professional class, our electorate includes large numbers of young people and people without college degrees who suffer from irregular hours, do not earn a living wage, and lack health insurance, paid leave and pensions. These voters have no reason to thank us as Democrats or unions for what they do not have.

Hard to argue that last point.

Trump's out, Biden's in, and the (D)'s have the House for at least the next 2 years and probably 4 or (hopefully) more.  The Senate is a toss-up, probably (R) but by a slim margin if so.  They have a window of opportunity in front of them to place a focus on what has been historically one of their core constituencies.

There are always a lot of issues in play in a country as large and varied as the US, but the economy is always front and center.  It's always the economy, stupid.

Brexit

by wj

I see that the U.K. and the E.U. have finally reached a deal on Brexit.* From this side of the pond, it looks like Brexit ends up being all about image and minimally about substance. Consider.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says: “We’ve taken back control of our laws and our destiny. We’ve taken back control of every jot and tittle of our regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered.” And yet, it’s a free trade deal, and the U.K. had to give commitments to assure a “level playing field” with the E.U.

What does that mean? It means that the U.K. cannot undercut the E.U.'s strict environmental and labor laws, nor grant outsize state subsidies to British businesses. That is, the U.K. cannot do things that would give British sectors unfair advantages over European competitors. It just won’t have any say in what those environmental and labor laws are. So no surprise that some of the arch-Brexiteers in Johnson’s own party are signaling that they may oppose the deal. After all, what the true believers are actually getting here is, for them, the worst of both worlds.

Also, thousands of British businesses that have never had to fill out a customs form will now have to do so every time they sell something over the border. Bet they’ll be really thankful for that. Not to mention the additional barriers faced by the services sector (some 80% of the U.K. economy).

Also unhappy: the Unionists in Northern Ireland, who Johnson basically threw under the bus when it comes to the border with Ireland in order to get a deal.

Perhaps most unhappy, the xenophobes, who wanted all them foreigners out. Anyone from the E.U. who has been in the U.K. for a least one day out of the past 5 years can apply for “settled status” and stay for up to 5 more years. And anyone who has been in the U.K. more than 5 years can apply for “settled status” and remain permanently. “Settled status” also means they can bring their families in as well.

But hey, at least the Brexiteers can say they have gained something. Even if all the “benefits” are image. While all of the costs are real.

* Despite overwhelming evidence, this isn’t a blog just about politics in the US.

Holiday Open Thread

by wj

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it.

A belated Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating that.

And a Happy New Year to all. (I'd say 2020 would be an easy act to follow, but I'm afraid that might be tempting fate.)

Over-Generalizing

by wj

There have been a number of analyses of the 2020 election which comment on the fact that pre-election analyses tended to treat Latino voters as a group. When, in fact, there are a large number of groups there, with quite different world-views, experiences, etc. You've got descendants of Cubans who fled Fidel Castro. You've got economic and political refugees from Central America. You've got folks whose families have been here a couple of centuries, since California was a Spanish colony. The quite valid point being: if you don’t pay attention to things below the broadest generalizations, you are going to miss something significant.

The same might be said for current views (including here) of the Republican Party. No question, a lot of the GOP, especially national level politicians, have behaved appallingly. And this isn’t a sudden new turn for many of them. But that misses some details. Consider:

• Yes, 17 GOP Attorneys General signed on to the Texas’ AG’s lunatic suit. (Rejected unanimously by a Supreme Court which is 6-3 conservative, including 3 Trump appointees. Which tells you something.) But another 9 refused to have any part of it.
  
• Numerous state and local GOP election officials insisted on doing their job according to the law. Even though it meant that their preferred candidate lost. Even when their actions resulted in threats against their lives and their families.
  
• And then there’s something here in California. Note that, as I’ve said before, the California GOP is actually on the leading edge of the race to insanity in the party. But there are still some sane Republicans even here. Republican Kevin Faulconer, the mayor or San Diego**, is contemplating a run for governor.
  

And he might well have a chance. Why? How? Well, first off he is your basic traditional moderate Republican. (An increasingly rare type, but not quite extinct.) That is, pro-choice, pro gun control, pushed for more housing services for the homeless, released San Diego's first Climate Action Plan to address global warming, supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, etc. Which is how he got elected mayor of a blue city.

Second, California runs an open primary. Which means, to make it to the general election, all you have to do is finish in the top two – no matter what party you are in. (Mostly because, otherwise, the Democratic primary was essentially determining who got elected in most statewide races.) Typically, there will be several rwnj Republicans running, which would split that vote. So all he would need to do is be the lone sane one to have a shot at a plurality.

Of course, the critical question is, will another Democrat run against Governor Newsome? Because frankly, Newsome has done a poor job of dealing with covid-19. Better than most Republican governors (a seriously low bar), but well below the average for governors who at least took the problem seriously.

I mean, how dumb do you have to be to make a production of urging people of the state to avoid big gatherings in order to slow the spread. And then turn around that weekend and attend a party of 50+ people in the close confines of a fancy restaurant?

Plus, just to gild the lily a bit, the state Employment Development Department had been mistakenly paying out unemployment benefits to convicted murderers, and other state prisoners and local jail inmates. It’s being characterized as “the biggest fraud in California history.”

What it comes down to is, Newsome has demonstrated serious incompetence. So unless there is another Democrat running, Mayor Faulconer would be an acceptable option for lots of Californians. After all, given that both the Assembly and state Senate have veto-proof Democratic majorities, it’s not like he would be doing anything radical if in office. Well, except for possibly getting the attention of the state GOP that someone who isn’t a froth-at-the-mouth conservative can still win here.

I submit that, however much you may disagree philosophically with these folks, they are still people you could work with. Because they are actually interested in governance, and in doing what’s right for the people they represent. Someone like that, you can make a deal with and get things done. And not waste time arguing about whether the other guy is an existential threat to the future of the nation.

Open thread –- ‘cause we’re way over due for one.

** That makes San Diego the largest city in the US with a Republican mayor.

They will keep parts, but which parts?

by liberal japonicus
A rather strange juxtaposition that will hopefully get your minds off the orange pustule. Below the fold cause there is a video down there.

The Devil is in the Details

by wj

We’re starting to see what some of the implementation challenges will be when we start to roll out the covid-19 vaccines. Some are pretty obvious. Others far less so, but no less important.

First up: priorities – who gets the vaccine first? ICU doctors and nurses, obviously. But do other doctors and nurses in a hospital go before, for example, ICU orderlies? And even after you get thru medical personnel, ambulance staff, and police and firemen, you still are going to be making priority decisions all the way thru the population. Do retail workers, who interact with lots of different people, come before office workers? Count on facing lots of people who will be unhappy at the state making decisions which, at least implicitly, say that they are less important than some other people.

Second, infrastructure. Two of the three vaccines require refrigeration. California is already working on getting enough refrigeration capacity together. Poorer states may not be able to acquire it. But that’s not all. You also have to have people to administer the vaccines. Considering how long the lines currently are to get tested, this may not be trivial. Especially in poor, rural counties where there may not be any medical infrastructure at all. (There’s a tendency to deal with these things at the county, rather than state, level. Which is fine if there is a country level. But in some places you can have a county with several thousand people, and just one doctor, and one ambulance driver. Period.)

And in addition, there is the detail that two of the three vaccines require a second vaccination. You have to track who is due for a second shot. And have some way to notify/remind them to come in. Email? Text messages? And for those who don't have that technology? Phone calls? Regular mail? And do you do personal follow-ups if they still don’t show? With what personnel?

AND you have to track who got which vaccine, so you don’t end up giving the second Pfizer vaccination to someone whose first vaccination was the Moderna vaccine, or vis versa. Plus, you need to track everybody who has been vaccinated, just so you can work out who still needs to be. Which means you need to figure out who "everybody" is. This may make the Census look like a walk in the park. And you need the software to do the tracking. (California has a state-wide Immunization Registry which we can use as a basis. Do other states? And how do you deal with people who move across state lines while all this is going on?)

Third, resistance. We’ve talked about the anti-vaxxers. Are they, or at least their children, going to be forced to be vaccinated? (Could be lots of fun, and lengthy, court cases on that. Not least because some of them may figure out that, with the current Supreme Court, claiming a religious justification might help their cause.)

But there is also a lot of resistance in minority communities, even though they are apparently hit harder than others by the virus. The Tuskegee Study casts a long shadow. A major sales effort may be required to overcome that history.

In short, even once we have a competent administration, which actually cares about getting the job done, it's going to be a mess.

Crystal ball time

by liberal japonicus

This article about the challenges that Biden will face in rebuilding in intelligence community makes me realize that the 4 years of sore orange loser baby has set up a conflict, which is rebuilding all this is going to probably be a battleground. If Biden draws too heavily on the infrastructure which was in place as Obama left the White House, which was often too complacent about problems around the world, many of the problematic aspects of US foreign policy would remain in place. But putting in people who are unfamiliar with the scope and size of that infrastructure brings its own problems. With the reports that Netannyahu meeting with MbS, beyond Bibi asking for recommendations on which bone saws to use, hints at the size of the problems coming down the road. Feel free to toss out ideas and make predictions here.

100 years on

by liberal japonicus

This popped up, be sure to check out the youtube video in the article

Bloody Sunday massacre at Croke Park still resonates in Irish sport 100 years later

On Racism and other isms.

by liberal japonicus

This is prompted by wj's query about what kind of racism I've seen in Japan. A caveat, I was finishing this up and I went back thru the comments and found I had skipped over a section, in particular, Donald and Russell's comments to the comment that started this out. I thought about going back and revising this, but it was too hard. So please don't take any of what I say as a direct response to what was written. I will address one point, Russell said that he wasn't 'hating on black people'. When I discuss this, I'm not accusing anyone of hating on anyone else. If racism were simply hatred, it would be a lot easier to deal with. But it isn't, it is a systematic way of looking at things that ends up causing problems. Anyway, onward.

I've said any number of times here, I think everyone is racist, including me, and overcoming that requires constantly checking what you are thinking and saying and doing. Or doing, saying and thinking. Because thinking about one's thinking is most important for the individual, but stopping the doing and then the saying, in that order, is most important for society. So if anyone takes umbrage at what I point out, know that I'm saying I'm subject to the same flaws. Recasting what I say as 'so you're telling ME I'm racist' is wrong. I'm saying that WE are all racist.

If you disagree with that, fine, but nothing I have seen in my 60 years on earth nor has anything anyone said here convinced me otherwise. I think because it is baked into our society and our lives in so many ways, and because it can be reinforced by any sort of communal differences, it's not going to disappear.

The argument of class v. race is an interesting one, but class is so protean that you aren't going to be able to trap the differences. That's because upper class enjoys pretending it's lower class, pulled myself up from my bootstraps, it was all me. Those designer distressed blue jeans don't sell themselves.

I've been reading through Adolphe Reed, who is a class not race theorist. Here's a paragraph

So, we saw Rennie Davis traipsing around behind a pudgy, improbable guru and Abbie Hoffman exposing himself in the pages of People and Viva to reassure us that his underground tour—inspired by flight from a prison term for selling cocaine—had shown him balance in the "heartland of America" and a new awakening on the horizon. Jerry Rubin, lauding the "inner revolution," was equally sanguine about the lessons of his meandering journey within, announcing that he could now revel in his ever-youthful, evanescent Self—which thereupon became a stockbroker/consultant. Bob Dylan resurfaced as a fundamentalist Christian gospel singer; Mike Klonsky lingers as a de facto agent of whatever faction rules in China; and the FBI—four years before the Nyack, New York, Brinks robbery—proclaimed the Weather Underground to be no longer even worthy of prosecution. Obituaries of Marcuse, Sartre, and Paul Goodman were written also as obituaries of opposition. At the same time, on the other side of Du Bois's veil, Eldridge Cleaver—ever the media creature—returned to America as a latter-day Cold Warrior, holy roller, advocate of wife-beating (a mellowing of his earlier defense of rape?), and designer of pornographic pants. Huey Newton's name came to evoke suspicions of drug-dealing, murder, and extortion, and Bobby Seale was showcased as a nightclub comedian and cookbook author. H. Rap Brown returned to public view as a Muslim small businessman, consuming his time in prayer to Allah, Martin Luther King became a holiday and a postage stamp, a meal ticket for his widow and hobby for Stevie Wonder. In each case the message rings clear; opposition is the property of the image of "the Sixties," and it is, therefore, like bell-bottom pants, dashikis, and long hair, no longer appropriate.

While I think there are some interesting points, he seems to be animated by a spirit of no one is doing things right but him. Reed famously dismissed Obama with an example here

Yet the past 4 years of racism and resurgence leaves him convinced that he was absolutely right, and Obama was wrong. Sure, Obama should have pushed harder, he didn't always pick the right fights, but to fail to acknowledge that he wasn't hemmed in by this undercurrent that is now pretty clear for most to see, is to be blind to one's own blind spots. Reed's a racist insofar as he doesn't think race matters. And while that makes racism as protean as classism, classism is supported by the way everyone values themselves and then envisions that everyone else thinks like they do. Race, on the other hand, can dictate how people value (or fail to value) themselves, but I don't think it requires massive societal changes to get people to see value in what they bring (cf my post about the covid vaccine creators)

And a side note about sexism, it's also a problem, but since society has had a lot longer to deal with that, there has been a lot more time to find ways for women to develop alternative strategies. None of this is to suggest that racism is somehow worse than classism or sexism (or vice versa), but for me, it does suggest to me that racism is what society has to deal with first, with the caveat that mileage will definitely vary. Colbert's line (that I'm sure he didn't think of, he just amplified it) of 'I don't see color' doesn't really work as a punchline for classism or sexism. I guess a common fear among conservatives is that young people will start saying 'I don't see gender' (oh noes!) but this is where intersectionality is important, even though some don't want it explained to them.

But returning to the original prompt, there's a phenomenon here in Japan where white people here suddenly become aware of the 'micro aggressions' and begin to take umbrage at, well, everything. It's a real conundrum because the saying moves to doing quite easily, but the accusations are often 'This upset me' rather than 'this is something that will translate into actual problems so it would be nice if I could get you to stop it'. This intersects with the Japanese love of harmony and any disturbance of that is viewed as problematic. This can leave pretty atrocious ideas in place as long as they do not disturb the surface harmony. This can sometimes be like one of those Thanksgiving family dinners from hell, where everyone is compelled to keep away from the topics that are going to result in broken crockery.

As I have said before, I'm not sure if I'm taking the best approach, I leverage my father's side of the family and some often draw overly broad conclusions. 'Ahh, that's why your Japanese is so good' when they find out I have Japanese antecedents. Err, no, though I do realize that knowing what I was eating when I was a kid and wanting to communicate in the language of my grandparents has given me a leg up. But there are kids now who know a lot more than I did FOB just from a diet of manga and anime and often know a lot of things about Japan that I don't. For people with whom I want to continue to engage with, I try to suggest that what they are basing their notions on isn't quite right, but I definitely pick and choose who I open that can of worms with. I know more than a few people who get mad when the taxi driver speaks to them in Japanese. Or speaks to them in English. Or speaks to them. Or doesn't say anything. And I don't want to be one of them.

This sense of aggrievement can be taken too far, and privileging the injured, while the right thing to do, can often encourage people whose injury is slight to overstate. That it is often white people who are doing that troubles me, and often times, I see this vicious cycle where a person becomes angry and behave in ways that they feel justified but has Japanese pull back from them and a feedback loop occurs that eventually results in the person actually having a lot of cause for complaint, especially when they are running up against Japanese administration, which will never admit it is wrong.

These administrative issues can really be bad news because once the powers that be decide how they want deal with an issue, there is often very little that can be done. But they happen in a restrained fashion and are set up so that if you get angry and lose your temper, you've lost.

The kind of horrific events, like a George Floyd or an Ahmaud Arbery don't happen here for the most part、 which has Japanese feel that there isn't a problem. And you often get a phrase kubetsu ha sabetsu ja nai, which means making differences is not discrimination.

All this results in a situation where I don't have lots of horrific stories about racism. What I see is this tilt that makes sure the house wins. In fact, a casino is really a really good metaphor: The casino doesn't hate its customers, but it certainly isn't trying to make them rich. A 1% edge to the house that accrues over time.

These sorts of posts are difficult not because I lack things to write about, they are difficult because it is so hard to finish them. I realize that some readers here could assume that I am obsessed with race and they wouldn't be wrong. I tend not to claim I am bi-racial because I don't know what that means. But for me, thinking about racism is a way for me to figure out who I am. In fact, it seems like for me to get to that point, all roads run thru a consideration of it. If you are interested in considering it with me, join in. I'm not sure if it's a better discussion that talking about the state of the Democratic party, but it is a different one.