GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





Executive Committee Meeting

Precinct Chairs and other interested Dems
April 16, 2008 -- 6:30 p.m.
Margarita Rocks (both Libraries were booked and we don’t fit in the office)

* Canvass the election vote—all 193 votes.
* Appoint new precinct chairs





Why Americans Never Vote for What They Really Want

By Gabor Steingart in Washington

American voters are a contradictory bunch: They say they want social welfare, but don't want to pay for it. They claim they are left-leaning, but vote for center-right candidates. Only candidates who can appeal to both sides stand a chance.

It's still three weeks until the next Democratic primary in the US presidential election season, in Pennsylvania. Political observers can pass the time until then in two ways.

One option is to listen to the candidates and their advisors malign each other. When it comes to name-calling, the worst labels that have been tossed around to date have been "monster" (an epithet that was applied to Hillary Clinton) and "Judas" (the word that was used to describe Bill Richardson, who was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations by Bill Clinton but who endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination). As spring temperatures rise, the level of civility is apparently falling.

The second option is to listen to the people, to the way they express their views through the lens of opinion polls. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of US citizens of both genders and of all races, age groups and income classes have been polled to gauge their mood and political preferences.

The results say that America is divided, but not just into North and South, black and white, poor and rich. The two Americas appearing on the pollsters' radar screens coexist in the political brain of every voter. The findings are clear: the desires of American citizens contradict their fundamental convictions.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are troubled by the social injustices in their country. They dream of a nation in which bridges do not collapse and with a school system in which drug dealers are not the main authority figures. No one doubts that, politically at least, they want to see these shortcomings corrected.

Piggy Bank Eyes

And yet these very same voters are not allowing politicians to fulfill their wishes.

When it comes to putting these ideas into practice, Americans quickly drop their idealistic gazes. Their eyes begin to narrow until they resemble the slits in a piggy bank.

The unanimous response among Americans, when it comes to tax policy, can be summed up in four words: Not a cent more! Although a majority of Americans generally reject President George W. Bush's fiscal policies, they only do so when the question is phrased very broadly. His tax cut policies, in particular, are widely welcomed.

Should these tax cuts, which have meant additional billions for some taxpayers, especially the wealthy, be made permanent? 'Yes!' say a clear majority of poll respondents. Should they be followed by additional cuts? 'Absolutely!' say voters. Is it best for the US economy if these tax cuts include everyone, or just those with moderate to low incomes? 'Tax cuts for everyone!' say a respectable 30 percent of respondents.

Voters come up with the same schizophrenic responses when asked about the Iraq war. The majority believes that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but that the United States is a safer place today than it was then. The majority of citizens favors withdrawal, but is convinced, or at least considers it likely, that the United States will still win the war first.

Multiple Personality Disorder

The US electorate apparently suffers from the condition psychologists and psychiatrists call multiple personality disorder. According to the textbook definition, "patients create many different personalities, which alternate in taking control over their behavior."

This type of citizen presents a difficult challenge for the political parties. First he wants everything, and then he wants precisely the opposite. It cannot be ruled out that he will spend an entire election campaign feeling a deep affinity for the idealist and former community organizer Barack Obama, only to turn around and pick Republican candidate and Vietnam veteran John McCain on election day. Sometimes people simply vote differently from how they feel.

If the Democrats are the party of desires, the Republicans seek to paint themselves as the party of principles. A speaker at a large conservative event recently said that when he buys his son a Coca-Cola, he doesn't want to examine the list of ingredients first. A Coke is a Coke, the speaker said, and that is something Americans must be able to depend upon.

Anyone who votes Republican, he continued, must be able to rely on the tax burden becoming smaller. "For Republicans like us," he said, "a tax increase is like a rat's head in a Coke."

John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has already drawn his conclusions and now supports a policy of tax cuts that he once opposed. Although he says he has compassion for the victims of the real estate crisis, he reminds homeowners at the same time of their responsibilities. Of America's 80 million homeowners, says McCain, 50 million would take second jobs, forego their vacations and manage their spending more effectively so that they could make their mortgage payments on time. His message resonates, albeit not among the afflicted.

No Chance for the Hard-Core

But the truth is that McCain is talking about 4 million mortgages that were defaulted on over the course of the real estate crisis. Conversely, 76 million of America's 80 million homeowners are in a relatively solid financial position.

Forty-seven million Americans have no health insurance. On the flipside, 250 million are insured -- albeit poorly, in many cases.

What a sharp contrast with the European way of thinking. When the government announces new benefits for citizens, the typical European thinks: "I'm getting something new." But the average American thinks: "It's going to cost me something."

Seventeen percent of Americans consider themselves to belong to the 1 percent of American society deemed rich.

One would think that voters would eventually have to make a decision, at least by election day. But even that isn't quite true. Although Americans will elect only one candidate, they will want it to be the one who embodies both personalities. Ideally, the winning candidate will combine idealism and fundamental conviction, which is why the warm-hearted idealist's prospects are as slim as those of the hard-core, right-wing ideologue.

Contented Extremists

This explains why campaign advisors always make sure that their respective presidential candidates are ready to use soft words and reach out to the other side. In his election campaign, George W. Bush painted himself as a "compassionate conservative," while his predecessor in the White House, Bill Clinton, claimed that he was a "new Democrat."

This is not to say that all US voters have multiple personality disorder. According to a recently published study on the mood of the nation by Arthur Brooks, desires and basic convictions are completely in sync at the left and right extremes of the political spectrum. But nowhere else in the political orbit, according to the study, are voters so at peace with themselves.

Those on the left have expensive wishes and no qualms about calling for a strong government. Meanwhile, those on the right want more personal freedom and desire nothing more deeply than a government that fades into the background.

Both fringe groups live in harmony with themselves, because there are no contradictions between the means and the end. They are not plagued by self-doubt.

Extremists, it appears, are happier.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan





Grains Gone Wild

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The New York Times
Published: April 7, 2008

These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.

I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.

There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers — and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.

How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck — and bad policy.

Let’s start with the things that aren’t anyone’s fault.

First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese — that is, the growing number of people in emerging economies who are, for the first time, rich enough to start eating like Westerners. Since it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains.

Second, there’s the price of oil. Modern farming is highly energy- intensive: a lot of B.T.U.’s go into producing fertilizer, running tractors and, not least, transporting farm products to consumers. With oil persistently above $100 per barrel, energy costs have become a major factor driving up agricultural costs.

High oil prices, by the way, also have a lot to do with the growth of China and other emerging economies. Directly and indirectly, these rising economic powers are competing with the rest of us for scarce resources, including oil and farmland, driving up prices for raw materials of all sorts.

Third, there has been a run of bad weather in key growing areas. In particular, Australia, normally the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, has been suffering from an epic drought.

O.K., I said that these factors behind the food crisis aren’t anyone’s fault, but that’s not quite true. The rise of China and other emerging economies is the main force driving oil prices, but the invasion of Iraq — which proponents promised would lead to cheap oil — has also reduced oil supplies below what they would have been otherwise.

And bad weather, especially the Australian drought, is probably related to climate change. So politicians and governments that have stood in the way of action on greenhouse gases bear some responsibility for food shortages.

Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels.

The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a “scam.”

This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly “good” biofuel policies, like Brazil’s use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation.

And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue.

One more thing: one reason the food crisis has gotten so severe, so fast, is that major players in the grain market grew complacent.

Governments and private grain dealers used to hold large inventories in normal times, just in case a bad harvest created a sudden shortage. Over the years, however, these precautionary inventories were allowed to shrink, mainly because everyone came to believe that countries suffering crop failures could always import the food they needed.

This left the world food balance highly vulnerable to a crisis affecting many countries at once — in much the same way that the marketing of complex financial securities, which was supposed to diversify away risk, left world financial markets highly vulnerable to a systemwide shock.

What should be done? The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress: the U.N.’s World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more funds.

We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake.

But it’s not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past.





University community family member in need of assistance...

A graduate student member of the University community and his family (wife and three children) from Niger (in sub-Saharan Africa) are currently facing a great financial crisis. The student was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February (for failure to maintain proper medical insurance for his wife and family), two days before his dissertation defense. He spent three weeks in Federal Detention, and after release has since successfully defended and submitted his PhD Dissertation. The family plans to return to their home country of Niger after a federal court hearing on July 3. The student and wife have depleted available funds and are unable to work because of immigration requirements, and hence have no means of support. The University and local community are assisting through individual donations. The major current needs are for funds to pay rent, utilities, local transportation, related living expenses, and plane transportation for return to their home country in late July or very early August. In addition to personal contributions, a garage sale is planned for Saturday April 19 to raise additional funds. All contributions are welcome. For more information contact Richard or Sara Loeppert at 693-8383 or svloeppert@yahoo.com. If you would like to help with the garage sale or in any other way please let me know.

love & peace,

Sara & Richard Loeppert





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America