President Obama

My wife and were among the millions who watched the inauguration via live video stream on the Web. We never watch television and were unable to figure out how to get a broadcast signal on our new TV; but the set was hooked up to Stacey's laptop and we picked up a great stream from MSNBC. I was working from home that day, but admittedly didn't get much done for a couple hours during the height of the festivities. (Don't worry, I did work several hours into the evening to make up for the lost time.)

The enormity of the crowds was amazing, even as viewed on a TV screen. It was a great moment for my country, a chance to regain some of the reputation that we had in our best years--and possibly even to better live up to that reputation than we did then.

Since that historic day, the words have sounded like music every time I have heard them in the media: President Obama. It represents the passing of the torch to a new generation, my generation, a generation that, as a whole, has experienced a broader world than even the boomers that preceded us. Howe and Strauss call us the Thirteenth Generation and define birth years 1961 to 1981. As a whole, we're a generation that has experienced complexity to a degree that our forbears have not.

Mr. Obama represents our generation well. Far more Thirteeners have multi-ethnic backgrounds, blended families, and a history of living in multiple, diverse locations than any preceding generation. Most of the people I work with at a large technology company are Thirteeners, and they are a diverse bunch.

It's a generation that wants to move beyond partisan politics, yet has a definite progressive philosophy on human rights, warfare, the economy, and poverty. We favor civil unions for the LGBT community, and the Millennials (born after 1982) are starting to pull our generation in the direction of favoring gay marriage.

The Millennials and Thirteeners cheered the loudest when President Obama issued his first executive orders:

• Closing Guantanamo Bay and banning torture, with the explanation that our values and our safety cannot be put at cross purposes.
• Championing disclosure and open government and restricting the influence of lobbyists, with the warning that secrecy for secrecy's sake will not be tolerated.
• Drawing up plans to end the senseless, expensive, and oppressive war in Iraq, ending a boondoggle that extremely conservative estimates show 90,000 lives lost and almost $600 billion spent (not counting interest and ongoing costs of reprovisioning, medical care, and rebuilding--which will bring the cost to several trillion dollars).

I won't agree with everything Obama does, but his spiritual presence will be a welcome change from a decidedly unspiritual administration that has left office. Religious, yes, but not spiritual. That's another characteristic of my generation: we tend to count spirituality as more important than religion. Not too different from another reformer in another era, Jesus of Nazareth.

Tax Cuts or Spending Increases?

Given the economic situation that the Bush administration has left for president-elect Obama, everyone agrees that stimulus is needed. Congress has already passed the $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry, and we have gotten zero benefit from that so far because the administration has treated it as a corporate handout program rather than a stimulus program for the country. Thankfully, the last $350 billion or so from that program will be spent and monitored by the Obama administration, and I still have some hope that taxpayers will be made whole for that program through the equity and repayment mechanisms that congress inserted.

The next stimulus, as structured by the Obama administration, is divided between middle-class tax cuts and increased spending on infrastructure. I heavily lean toward the Keynesian model over the much-hyped economic theory of Milton Friedman, which still holds sway among conservatives and some moderates.

The Keynesian model was used in FDR's response to the Great Depression--which had been underway for three years when he took office. Keynes, however, would have advocated much more aggressive goverment action than Roosevelt tried, and he would not have slashed the programs so soon. (After four years of very good economic growth, Roosevelt slashed programs in 1937, triggering another recession.)

FDR's response to the Great Depression was largely successful, despite an enormous effort by conservatives to discredit it for the past 75 years. The conservative narrative--which has been largely adopted by the corporate media and has been taught as fact in public schools for 30 years--is that FDR's policies resulted in 13 years of stagnant growth and that it was World War II that pulled us out of the Depression. The fact is that GDP skyrocketed and unemployment steadily declined under Roosevelt--with a small blip in 1937 when he departed from the Keynesian model. Here is a chart of GDP:




Unemployment was a tougher nut to crack, arguably because FDR was less aggressive than he could have been during his first term at job-creation programs. In the wake of the 1937 downturn, he dramatically increased WPA funding, which finally began to break the unemployment cycle. I would argue that the institution of the minimum wage in 1938 was anothe factor in the reduction in unemployment. As seen in the following unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FDR's administration realized a 14-point reduction in the unemployment rate prior to the beginning of World War II:

• 1923-29: 3.3%


• 1930: 8.9%


• 1931: 15.9%


• 1932: 23.6%


• 1933: 24.9% (FDR's first year in office)


• 1934: 21.7%


• 1935: 20.1%


• 1936: 17.0%


• 1937: 14.3%


• 1938: 19.0%


• 1939: 17.2%


• 1940: 14.6%


• 1941: 9.9% (last year before U.S. entry in WW II)

I would make note, by the way, that the Johnson administration changed the way that the unemployment rate is measured, removing those who had given up looking for a job and those who were in part-time work when they needed full-time work. By that measure, the December 2008 unemployment rate is 13.5 percent (you can calculate this at the BLS website by selecting the U-6 category). So we're getting close to 1931 levels, as would be expected in year two of an extreme economic downturn. Fortunately, we have a sane administration entering office now, rather than two years from now.

Anyway, back to the stimulus. By any measure, tax cuts on the wealthy provide the least stimulus of any expenditure of a government dollar. Fortunately, Obama is not proposing any of these. Middle-class tax cuts result in less stimulus than infrastructure spending, because consumers use a large portion of their tax cuts for savings and/or debt reduction from consumption already done. That said, low- and middle-income consumers are in need for cash for the above purposes now, and this can bring good long-term strength if done with proper balance.

I would argue, with Pelosi and others in the Congress and against Obama's preliminary proposal, that the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy be repealed immediately, rather than being allowed to expire in 1-2 years. History has shown us that higher taxes on the wealthy results in sustained economic growth (for instance, in the late 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s), while tax cuts on the wealthy result in a boom-bust cycle that hurts the economy in the long term (1970s, 1980s and 2000s). This would provide revenue to partially offset the other tax cuts (reducing the impact on the national debt) and provide economic stimulus at the same time. For now, I'd raise the top tax rate to 39.6 percent--where it stood during the Clinton boom--and raise it further in a few years. The higher the taxes on the wealthy, the more likely they are to put revenue back into their businesses rather than taking it as profit. This increases the value of the businesses, reduces unemployment, and generally strengthens the economy.

The disadvantage that Obama has that FDR did not have is that the national debt before the economic bailouts is 70 percent of GDP--largely the result of profligate spending and tax-cutting by Republican administrations. So the caveat to the stimulus package is that someone needs to lend us the money. I expect the dollar to lose a lot of value over the next several years.

Happy New Year; Good Riddance to the Old

I have to agree with Bob Herbert:

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

The corporate media and the Democratic congress have steadfastly refused to broach the subject of impeachment, and it appears that the appetite even for hearings has waned. What we need is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the power to send people to prison; what we will get is a country wounded by lies and deceit, with no one brought to account and no negative example set for the next politician that thinks that fascism is the way to go. It's really unfortunate.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

And the cost:

He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. . . . The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.. . .

Mr. Bush traveled the country in the early days of his presidency, promoting his tax cut plans as hugely beneficial to small-business people and families of modest means. This was more deceit. The tax cuts would go overwhelmingly to the very rich.

The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe.

It's good that the public has finally seen through this facade, but it wuld be much better if our society could muster up the courage to force some contrition.

Virginity Pledges Don't Work Either

Another study shows that the best thing we can do for our kids is provide comprehensive sex education:

According to a study released earlier today, teenagers who have taken a "virginity pledge" are still just as likely to engage in premarital sex than those who have not pledged their abstinence. But worse than that, the study found that those same abstinence-swearing teenagers are far less likely to use a form of birth control - condoms, etc - when they do become sexually active.

As I have opined in the past, attempts to achieve a certain outcome through misinformation, censorship of information, or pressure from authority figures simply does not work. We need to be honest and open with our youth, give them the information they need about sexuality, and most importantly, teach them the values of respect for the earth and its creatures, for other human beings, and themselves. If they learn this ethic, things will be okay for them (even if the actual behavior differs from what was desired).

Pixar, Dreamworks, and the Spiritual Evolution of Humankind

My wife and I have been to a number of animated movies from Pixar and Dreamworks lately: WALL-E, Bolt, and The Tale of Despereaux. We really enjoy movies from these studios--partly because they're wholesome and fun, but mostly because they reflect some positive spiritual progress that we're beginning to see in humankind, especially among the younger generations.

The Tale of Despereaux is an especially striking example. Never in the past would such a non-conformist "child" have been praised so highly in a children's movie. Yes, there have been non-conformist children in children's cinema for a few decades, but they're typically presented in a slapstick comedy style, which blunts any sense that a young viewer might want to emulate them.

Desperaux is a mouse who defies his cultural convention of living in fear to bring salvation to a community. Even at the human level, this community had reverted to living in fear due to a tragic event, and the result had been no sunshine, no rain, and general despair in the kingdom. (I think the story's creators aere right on target, by the way, when they attributed changes in weather, the success of crops, etc., to the spiritual condition of the community.) The change agent turned out to be a mouse who was shunned by his community because he had courage.

Of course, an easy parallel can be drawn to the outgoing Bush administration. Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, the administration's only tool for achieving critical mass for its policies has been to stoke fear, and fear of terrorism has been its excuse for maintaining its fascist policies even after that critical mass evaporated. The McCain campaign made a long list of political mistakes in a year that was already bad for Republicans, but arguably its worst mistake was its "fear and smear" campaign tactics, which began early and intensified as the campaign got desperate.

A look at the election results shows that McCain won the "fear" vote by a landslide, but that the percentage of the electorate who voted out of fear declined tremendously. People began to realize that, as in Despereaux's community, living in fear has produced dreadful results--less freedom, less prosperity, a less fulfilling society--and a more dangerous world, despite claims to the contrary. People began to seek out hope over fear.

Our younger generation is leading the charge in this regard. Despereaux is an excellent rendition of what aura readers are calling "indigo children," and sociologists are using the term
"Millennial Generation" to describe the generational group that most of the indigos belong to. A large body of data--from the woo-woo community and the scientific community alike--indicates that the next few years will be very difficult and that this generation will make a significant contribution to leading us on a path to recovery. That path will be environmentally sustainable, more oriented to peace than to war, and geared toward local communities over globalization.

My wife has been reading a study on spiritual messages in cinema, and it's very revealing. I do believe that global consciousness is on the rise, and creative types are catching the wave and putting out some very good cinema. I'm glad to see that "children's movies" are included in this trend, and indeed are leading the charge in some ways. That's the generation that will most benefit from an "expanded spiritual toolbox."

And this is a whole 'nother post, but there are a number of very interesting parallels between WALL-E and City of Ember.

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays. In corporate America, that's the proper way to convey wishes for peace and joy at this time of the year. And it's appropriate in our global and pluralistic society. At work, I have a team member who has already celebrated her "holiday season" with observance of Ramadān and Eid ul-Fitr. I work daily with people who emphasize Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati, or Chinese New Year above Christmas.

For many others in Western countries, December 25 is, for cultural reasons, the default date for a secular observance of giving and family togetherness--and "Christmas" is the default name even though the individuals involved might not be practicing Christians. This is actually quite appropriate in a way, since Christmas began as a Christian alternative to a cultural festival occurring on the same date.

To me, spiritual diversity is a beautiful thing. Back in the Bible Belt, family members who tell me about a person I'm not acquainted with there will inevitably describe him/her as a "good Christian man" or "good Christian woman." For them, someone's identity as a member of a religious grouping or faction is the most important thing to know about that person.

For me, the spiritual and energetic qualities of a person have little to do with religious identity. Even though I am a Christian, I would not want my workplace to be exclusively Christian. I have known enough Christians who are incompetent, passive aggressive, needy, or judgmental that the odds are that my work life would be less pleasant if my colleagues were replaced by a subset of Christians. And I wouldn't want to work in an all-Muslim or all-Hindu or all-New Age workplace either--for the same reasons. Diversity is the best answer.

Maybe we can find a better way to express heartfelt, spiritual wishes to a fellow traveler than "happy holidays." My hope is that through a spiritual renaissance, spiritual people will honor one another without competition, without prejudice, without proselytism.

Rick Warren at the Inauguration

Progressives have raised a bit of ire about Obama's cabinet, but their real fury has been leveled at the person who will lead a 5-minute prayer at the inauguration. Chuck Currie, a spiritual progressive in Portland, was quoted nationally when he wrote a blog post about this, so I decided to respond with my point of view. Due to technical difficulties, I thought my first version of the post was lost in cyberspace, so I re-wrote it, and did a better job the second time. When I pressed "Submit" on the second post, the first one appeared on Chuck's blog. Oh, well. Below is the second version of what I wrote to Chuck:

Chuck,

First of all, I must be significantly more liberal than you if you think that Obama campaigned on a "progressive agenda." His healthcare plan is not single-payer but instead maintains large profits for insurance companies; he opposes gay marriage; he supports corporate personhood; he supports certain kinds of warfare and continued huge military spending; his tax increases on the wealthy are very small and now will likely be delayed; he supports so-called "clean coal"; he does not oppose capital punishment; etc. At best, his policy positions can be described as moderate.

Having said that, I was an enthusiastic Obama supporter because I believe that he has the rare personality and presence that will bring our nation together and move it in the direction of effective, compassionate, and yes, progressive government and society. His progressive Christian faith is a big part of who he is in this regard. I have never given money to a political cause before, but contributed significantly both to Obama AND to No on 8.

I have been very happy to watch Obama's cabinet come together--a "cabinet of adults," as one commentator put it. Bush rightly was criticized for surrounding himself with ideologues who were more interested in power and ideology than in competence and the good of the country. I do NOT want a liberal version of the same thing, as such would continue the same negative spiritual energy that has hurt our country so badly over the last eight years. Obama has signaled that he will be in charge, and his will not be a conservative administration even though there are some conservatives in the cabinet.

He's doing similar things with the religious ceremonies at the inauguration. He's reaching out to evangelicals AND spiritual progressives with his two selections. Warren has certain objectionable political views, but does not insist that others agree with them and, in fact, goes out of his way to give progressives an occasional voice in his church. I would not want him to "preach" at the inauguration, but having him deliver a prayer is a powerful way of saying to evangelicals, "I am not going to marginalize you and oppress you," as Bush did with spiritual progressives. It says nothing about the policies he will promote, but it says something about the spirit he will exude.

As an exile from an evangelical upbringing (I currently attend a liberal mainline church in Beaverton), I know that many evangelicals are weary of the Republican Party and the religious right's aging leadership. They will support a pro-choice, pro-gay politician if s/he connects with them on other values such as compassion for the
poor. If we're really to have a progressive future in this country, we need to unify the country around the core principles we agree on rather than continuing to polarize and marginalize. This is the real principle that Obama ran on.

It is vitally important that we make a clean break from the past eight years. Secular progressives tend to focus on policy positions, but spiritual progressives should recognize that the main problem during the past eight years has been the spiritual bankruptcy of the Bush administration. The ridiculous policies were just a symptom of this existential paralysis. If we are to really begin to heal and undo the damage, we are going to need to achieve critical mass at a spiritual level. Creating another members-only "club" and marginalizing everyone outside it is not the way to achieve this.

Shalom,
Mark Mullins