Sending good wishes to people in the path of Hurricane Irma.
On to cartoons. GOP reacts to Trumpâs political course change:
Some storms are unpredictable:
One possible reason behind the six month delay in ending DACA:
Kimâs real strategy:
(Christo Komarnitski is from Bulgaria)
Chinaâs fees for the therapy sessions are yuuge:
Climate change requires concrete evidence:
The Daily Escape:
Stepwell, Rahasthan India – photo by Victoria Lautman. Stepwells were carved to make it possible to bring water up from deep wells. Only about 250 stepwells remain.
Big week. Trump cozies up to Schumer and Pelosi, earning the enmity of Ryan and McConnell. Hurricane Irma slices through the Caribbean, and is making landfall in Florida as Wrongo writes this. The Wrong family offers its best wishes to those who are still in the path of the storm.
But, there is another storm brewing over at Equifax, who was nailed by a breach that could have essentially exposed everyone with a credit record in the US:
Equifax, a provider of consumer credit reports, said it experienced a data breach affecting as many as 143 million US people after criminals exploited a vulnerability on its website. The US population is about 324 million people, so that’s about 44% of its population.
Criminals exploited a US website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files…
Probably yours, 143 million credit records were exposed. Equifax is offering free credit monitoring to anyone affected, but that’s a cheap make-good for compromising the credit information of almost everyone in the US with an Equifax credit file. That includes anybody who ever had a credit card, or completed a loan application in the past 25 years.
Needless to say, consider your identity compromised, and take steps before Equifax strikes again. If you’re wondering whether heads will roll at Equifax, don’t fret. It looks like they knew what was coming, and acted in their own self-interest:
Three Equifax Inc. senior executives sold shares worth almost $1.8 million in the days after the company discovered a security breach that may have compromised information on about 143 million U.S. consumers.
Equifax says that it discovered the intrusion on July 29.
Regulatory filings show that three days later, Chief Financial Officer John Gamble sold shares worth $946,374 and Joseph Loughran, president of US information solutions, exercised options to dispose of stock worth $584,099. Rodolfo Ploder, president of workforce solutions, sold $250,458 of stock on Aug. 2. None of these transactions were listed as part of 10b5-1 pre-scheduled trading plans, so they most likely were spur-of-the-moment.
In other words, these titans of capitalism knew for over a month, but didn’t tell anyone, and then sold shares before revealing the breach. BTW, Equifaxâs stock crashed on the news. We used to call that insider trading, but we no longer expect corporate America to pay for its mistakes.
In a society that respected its laws, these guys would be already in jail. Not only have they hidden the attacks, giving people less time to react, but they have also sold their shares using privileged information.
The corporate rats always jump ship before the boat sinks.
In honor of Hurricane Irma, and to help those who have boarded up, filled the tank and moved out, we have two pieces of music today. For the fans of popular music, here is âRidinâ The Storm Outâ, from the 1973 album of the same name, by REO Speedwagon:
Takeaway Lyric:
The wind outside is frightening
But it’s kinder than the lightning
Life in the city itâs a hard life to live
But it gives back what you give
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
And for those who wish to be contemplative while experiencing the devastation, or awaiting news of it, grab a hot steaming cup of Georgioâs Colombia Pink Bourbon Los Cedrol coffee. Now, put on your headphones, and listen to Rossiniâs âLa Tempesta – VI Sonata a quattro in D majorâ for two violins, violoncello and double bass. Rossini wrote this in 1804, when he was 12 years old. Go ahead, eat your heart out, youâre unlikely to be that good, ever. This version is performed by Orchestra Atalanta Fugiens, conducted by Vanni Moretto:
Â
The Daily Escape:
Lake Waramaug, Litchfield County CT. It is the second largest natural lake in the state.
Our problems with North Korea (NK), and the impossible negotiating position we have with them, brings to mind Israelâs relationship with Palestine. Both NK and Palestine:
And both countries appear unwilling to negotiate with their sworn enemies towards a peaceful solution. We officially ended the Korean War in 1953. The parties to the Armistice tried to negotiate a withdrawal of foreign forces from the peninsula and settle the question of who would rule a reunited Korea. Talks took place in 1954, but broke down over how to hold fair elections for a unified government.
The Armistice specified that no new weapons would be introduced on the peninsula, but in 1957, the US informed NK that it would no longer abide by that part of the Armistice agreement. In January 1958, the US deployed nuclear missiles capable of reaching Moscow and Beijing, in South Korea.
We kept them there until 1991, and tried to reintroduce them in 2013, but South Korea refused. NK conducted its first underground nuclear test in 2006.
NK has very close relationships with many Arab countries. From the Diplomat:
North Korea…actively supported Arab countries in their military operations against Israel. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War…North Korean pilots staffed Egyptian MIG-21s…During the 1980s, North Korea shifted [to] arms…sales to Israelâs enemies in the Middle East. The DPRK exported missiles to Iran, Syria, and Libya and assisted both Syria and Iran in their attempts to develop nuclear weapon capabilities.
NK’s relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began in 1966. NK today recognizes the sovereignty of Palestine over all territory held by Israel, except the Golan Heights, which NK considers Syrian Territory. The Diplomat says that NK helped Hezbollah build underground tunnels in Lebanon.
Quartz reports that NK helped Syria build a nuclear facility (that Israel destroyed in an air raid in 2007). In 2014, Syria asked NK to help monitor its presidential elections. In 2016, NK sent two units to fight in the Assad regimeâs civil war.
Al-monitor reports that NK also cooperates closely with Iran. Israel believes that Iranian scientists were present at most of NK’s nuclear tests. Iran’s Shahab missiles were developed with the assistance of NK, and are based on the NK Nodong missile.
Where do we go from here? After 63 years, we have failed to successfully negotiate with NK. Even Steve Bannon gets it:
Thereâs no military solution [to North Koreaâs nuclear threats], forget it…Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul donât die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I donât know what youâre talking about, thereâs no military solution here, they got us.
KALâs cartoon captures the problem:
We are stuck in the moment, and we canât get out of it, just like Israel and Palestine.
Our history with NK tells them that we are not trustworthy. Barack Obama replaced direct engagement with pressure tactics, called âstrategic patience.â He also rejected negotiation with NK without a prior commitment to denuclearization.
And here we are. We wonât talk to them unless they give up the bomb. They already have the bomb, so they wonât be giving it up. We canât move against them without huge damage to Japan and South Korea. Would we sacrifice either country to save the US homeland from a NK nuclear-tipped missile?
What should we do now? Will we accept the fact that NK is a nuclear power? Will we continue to rely on sanctions?
Would we commit to a no-first-strike policy that might reduce tensions with NK?
Would we agree to stop the provocative war games?
What will the Trump administration do to avoid nuclear war?
Nobody knows. Here is U2, live in Boston in 2001 with their Grammy-winning âStuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” from their 2000 album, âAll That You Can’t Leave Behindâ:
As you sing along, remember the song was written to persuade someone that suicide wasnât the answer.
Takeaway lyric:
You’ve got to get yourself together
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And now you can’t get out of it
Don’t say that later will be betterâŠ
Now you’re stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it
The Daily Escape:
Rovinji, Croatia – photo by brotherside. Rovinji is a tourist resort and fishing port, situated on the Adriatic Sea. It is bilingual, with both Italian and Croatian spoken here.
Gallup reports that:
Just over a third of Americans (37%) in 2017 say news organizations generally get the facts straight, unchanged from the last time Gallup asked this question in 2003. But…major partisan shifts in beliefs on this topic have emerged over the past 14 years. Republicans’ trust in the media’s accuracy has fallen considerably, while Democrats’ opinions on the matter have swung in the opposite direction.
49% of college graduates say the news media generally get the facts right, compared with 36% of Americans who attended college, but didnât graduate. 28% of those with no more than a high school education agree that the media get it right.
But education makes little difference in Republicans’ beliefs about the news mediaâs credibility. Among Republicans with at least a college degree, only 18% say the media gets the facts straight, similar to the 12% of Republicans without a college degree who say the same.
Republicanâs trust in the American news media has fallen steadily from 2003 to today. The numbers are striking: Republicansâ trust plunged from 35% in 2003 to 14%, while Democratsâ trust in Americaâs news media increased from 42% in 2003, to 62% today.
Gallup first polled on media trust in 1998. Back then, more than half of both Republicans (52%) and Democrats (53%) believed news organizations generally got the facts straight. Here is a Gallup graph:
Both groups’ belief in the accuracy of the media fell dramatically in 2000, possibly due to bad election-night projections of the 2000 presidential election. Some networks first declared Al Gore, and later, George W. Bush the winner, before ending the night with no official winner. When surveyed a month later In December 2000, just 23% of Republicans said news organizations generally get the facts straight, a 29-percentage-point decline in the two years after the 1998 survey.
The next big Republican shift downward began in 2003. What happened in 2003? The reporting about WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq on GW Bushâs watch. The media either lied, or suppressed the findings by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) that there were no WMD in Iraq. That lie helped move us into an unjustified war that had catastrophic results for both the Middle East and for America.
The paradox is that the Republicansâ distrust grew after that, while Democratsâ views improved. Perhaps the Republicans were angry that the press eventually reported the truth. Perhaps Democrats forgave the press after they finally reported the truth, turning their anger to George W. Bush for lying us into war.
And our Monday discussion of Sen. Lindsay Grahamâs false meme that âObama failed to unite usâ can be linked to this as well. The Republicans lack of trust in the news media has led to their willingness to dismiss facts as âfake newsâ, enabling things like Grahamâs lie.
That willingness empowers distortion of the truth as a âgo-toâ strategy in the GOPâs politics of persuasion.
Given the Gallup findings, Trumpâs frequent attacks on the media may have been as much his taking advantage of GOP attitudes, as his creating a poor Republican view of the press by his use of the “fake news” meme.
On the Democratic side, their increased confidence in newspapers may be a counter-reaction to Trump’s criticisms. Gallup found in June that the percentage of Democrats who have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers nearly doubled from 2016, rising from 28% to 46%.
The overall finding that a solid majority of the country believes major news organizations routinely produce false information may have disastrous consequences for our democracy. It is at least related to Americans’ diminished trust in US institutions, and our rising cynicism about the American political system, and our elected officials.
Democracy is impossible unless both our politicians and the press are honest.
Todayâs music highlights another GOP lie, Jefferson Beauregard Sessionâs whopper that immigrants take jobs away from Americans. during his speech terminating DACA.
Here is âImmigrants (We Get the Job Done)â originally from the musical, âHamiltonâ. This isnât the version you hear in the musical. This version is from the âHamilton Mixtecâ, performed by K’naan, featuring Residente, Riz MC & Snow Tha Product:
Takeaway Lyric:
Itâs really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants,
“Immigrant” has somehow become a bad word.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Lighthouse in Husavik, Iceland – photo by Milonade. Husavik is the center of whale watching in Iceland.
Lindsay Graham has never been a favorite of Wrongoâs. Often, he gets the same treatment here as does John McCain, and for similar reasons. But the 62-year old who replaced Strom Thurmond in the Senate in 2003 hit a new low in an interview on BBC World Service radio show, Hard Talk. Graham was with McCain attending an economic conference in Lake Como, Italy, when he sat down with the BBCâs Steven Sacker for an interview. (transcription and emphasis by Wrongo)
At 4:08 into the interview, Sacker asks Graham:
Isnât that the point that he (Trump) right now looks like a president who is polarizing the US in a way that we have not seen before?
Graham:
I would say that the country has been polarized for quite a while, just like your country. Brexit is a result of disenchantment with globalization. There would be no Donald Trump if President Obama had brought us together.
There, right there. Its Obama’s fault that Trump won the Republican nomination for president, because Obama didnât bring us together. Graham implies that Republicans are uniters, but the Kenyan socialist just wouldnât help them out with that.
Wait â the Republican Party didnât want Trump, but Obama nominated him?
To say Obama created Trump is a poor projection. The GOP created Trump. Trumpâs political success is the logical result of decades of efforts by the GOP to discredit government, and more recently, by their acceptance of virulent, and in some cases, racially tinged opposition to Obama.
The GOP wanted Obama to fail. Timeâs Michael Grunwald reported on the Republican plot to obstruct Obama even before he even took office. He uncovered secret meetings led by then-House GOP whip Eric Cantor, and then-Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell in 2009 where they laid out their âno-honeymoonâ strategy of all-out resistance to the President-elect.
Remember that was a time of national economic emergency.
The Republican’s active resistance also tried to demonize Obama as a âkingâ, or a kind of Hitler. They fought against most of his policies. They shut down the government. Policy differences are understandable, and expected. What was unexpected and unacceptable was the unified GOP effort to make Obama fail as president.
The big Republican move to elect an anti-immigrant nationalist was fueled by the Tea Party surge in 2010, which was also in opposition to Obama. And it isnât just the Tea Party. Republicans have long-struggled with various anti-establishment, ultra-conservative insurgencies seeking to upend the party.
Trump wasnât the first to tap into the anger of disaffected white voters. Pat Buchanan challenged Bush in the 1992 primaries and again in 1996, when he led a populist revolt he described as âpeasants with pitchforks.â Buchanan ran on a platform similar to that of Trump: anti-free trade, tough on immigration and focused on the plight of the white working-class.
So, Republicans own Trump now and forever, despite what Sen. Graham wants people to think. Graham’s contention about Obama is irrelevant to today’s situation, where Trump has failed to even try to unite America on any issue. And specifically, he failed to call out the evil posed by fringe Nazi groups, or show us how a president should deal with a national disaster.
When will the lying stop?
Since this is the first column since Saturday, here is a pro-labor song from the Rolling Stones, âSalt of the Earthâ, written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, the closing track on the 1968 albumâ âBeggars Banquetâ:
Sample lyrics:
Raise your glass to the hard working people
Lets drink to the uncounted heads
Lets think of the wavering millions
who need leaders but get gamblers instead
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter: They brought us Donald Trump.
(Wrongo is ceasing labor for Labor Day weekend. Blogging will resume on Tuesday, 9/5. Enjoy the fruits of your labor!)
The Daily Escape:
Harbin Opera House, Harbin, China â 2015 photo by Hufton Crow. Harbin is Chinaâs eighth-most populous city. It is located in the extreme northeast of China.
Feeling anxious? Seeing too much of the devastation in Houston?
Amazing what it takes to push the Trumpet off the front pages for a couple of days. The clean-up and rebuild will take years, the scale of the losses are beyond imagining.
To top that, Lilâ Kim fired a missile across Japan, and onto the front pages. Appropriately, it wasnât important enough to move Harvey out of our consciousness, but it showed we need to pay more attention to North Korea (NK). You probably think of NK as a backward place, but according to the Economist, its 25 million citizens are surprisingly well-wired:
Perhaps half of all urban households now own a Chinese-made âNotelâ, a portable media player. Over 3m have mobile-phone subscriptions, with NK-branded smartphones like the Pyongyang and the Arirang. South Korean NGOs that smuggle foreign films and TV shows into the North on USBs receive text messages from their contacts there with requests for specific titles (South Korean soaps and Hollywood dramas are popular).
The NK government abetted the communications revolution. In 2008, it developed a 3G network. Today, there are more sanctioned NK mobile phones than illegal Chinese ones. Many use them to conduct business on the black market, by checking prices elsewhere in the country. Notels can be bought for around $50 on the black market, sold in state-run shops.
Since Kim Jong Un came to power, signal jammers for mobile phones have been set up along the border with China. These are powerful enough to ruin cell service for Chinese living on the other side. North Koreans are banned from calling abroad.
Most North Koreans do not have access to the internet, and the few who are allowed to go online are limited to a state-run intranet with 28 mediated websites. The Economist says that NK censorship tools have allowed the regime to automate surveillance. For example, they have the ability to make unsanctioned media files on phones and Notels unreadable. TraceViewer is installed by default on NK phones. It takes random screenshots of usersâ devices, so big brother is always watching.
Kim Jong-Unâs calculation is that technology allows it to gain more control than it loses. It dictates what kinds of handsets North Koreans use; it can shut off the mobile network whenever necessary. The appeal to the regime is that it knows it canât keep all information out, so it is better to monitor it.
Makes Kim seem like a rational actor. Letâs hope so.
And letâs try to forget about this past week for a few hours, as we start the Labor Day weekend. The thought of Labor Day always reminds Wrongo of the lyric from the Jackson Browne tune, âThe Loadoutâ:
Theyâre the first to come and the last to leave,
Workin’ for that minimum wage
âThe Loadoutâ was recorded live in Maryland at a show in August, 1977. Browne had been working on the idea with his band, but they didn’t have an arrangement they liked. When Browne did three encores, they were out of material, but still wanted to play. Russ Kunkel (the drummer) suggested they play the new song and see what happened. The resulting performance was good enough to make the album, âRunning on Emptyâ.
It was the first time the band played the song, and they created a medley with it, segueing into âStay (Just a Little Bit Longer)â, with Rosemary Butler on vocals along with David Lindley doing the falsetto.
Find a cup of Joyride Coffeeâs Cold-brew (sadly, only available in kegs at a barista near you) and listen to âThe Loadoutâ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UC4SLsPQic
Those who read the Wrongologist on the execrable Feedburner can view the video here.
The Daily Escape:
Ranwu Lake Campsite, Tibet â photo by Arch-exist Photography. Ranwu Lake is a tourist attraction in SE Tibet, and is called the “Tibetan Switzerland”.
Life in the age of corporatism resembles life in the food chain. In a potentially disastrous outcome from the Harvey flooding, a chemical plant in Crosby, Texas belonging to French industrial giant Arkema, has had several explosions of peroxide and other volatile chemicals. From the NYT:
The company had already ordered all workers to leave the damaged plant, and Harris County ordered the evacuation of residents within a 1.5-mile radius.
These chemicals have to be refrigerated and stored in safe Storemasta containers to avoid further damage. When the plant’s warehouses lost power, they transferred the product to diesel-powered refrigerated containers. But later, the backup generators were swamped by flood waters, so cooling was lost, and the explosions began. On Tuesday, the company released a statement:
Refrigeration on some of our back-up product storage containers has been compromised due to extremely high water, which is unprecedented in the Crosby area. We are monitoring the temperature of each refrigeration container remotely….while we do not believe there is any imminent danger, the potential for a chemical reaction leading to a fire and/or explosion within the site confines is real.
The rains are over, but the chemical fires linger. Richard Rowe, the CEO of Arkema’s American operations said:
The company has no way of preventing chemicals from catching fire or exploding at its heavily flooded plant…the company has no way to prevent…this worst case outcome.
The CEO says, “No way to prevent explosion“. Back in the olden days, that would be known as a “major design flaw”. Most engineers would have recommended placing the generator sets above at least the 100-year high water mark, just to prevent this kind of fun event. They would also put the diesel tanks above that water line.
Maybe next time. The Houston Chronicle had this amazing map of chemical plants in the Houston area:
In case it is hard to read the map legend, the yellow markers are for petrochemical plants that have a “medium” potential for harm based on their location within the 100-year flood plain. The red markers have a “high” risk for harm. Houston’s ship channel and the surrounding area along the Gulf coast represent about 40% of U.S. petrochemical manufacturing. At least 25 Houston-area plants have either shut down, or experienced production issues due to Hurricane Harvey’s flooding.
Any guesses that the concentration of plants in the Houston flood zone will cause our corporate overlords to think about relocation of a few of these sites? Or, how they best secure them from the next 500-year flood, which looks like it will happen in say, the next five years? From Forbes:
Harvey was a wake-up call, reminding us that it is time to take a more serious look to ensure the safety of the petrochemical industry and the public at large, just as the nuclear power industry has done in reaction to the Fukushima disaster.
But Arkema has worked hard to change EPA rules in their favor. David Sirota reports that the new rules, which were set to go into effect this year, were halted by the Trump administration after a lobbying campaign by Crosby plant owner Arkema and its affiliated trade association, the American Chemistry Council:
Those rules – which would have taken effect on March 14 – were blocked by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The move was a big win for the chemical industry that has spent more than $100 million supporting federal lawmakers since 2008.
Apparently, sacrifices must be made in the name of making America great.
The closures are not just disrupting markets; they’re also causing the release of toxic pollutants that pose a threat to human health. The NYT reports that damaged refineries and oil facilities have already released more than two million pounds of hazardous substances into the air. Facilities within hazardous industries should implement safety measures such as a high speed safety door to ensure hazardous materials are contained.
The sheer number of facilities around Houston that have to come back online at the same time creates another huge emissions problem. From City Lab:
The real problem is that the plants are allowed to operate so close to residential areas in the first place. Houston’s lack of zoning regulations have been front-and-center in discussions about why Harvey has been so terrible for the city, and that’s no different in the discussion about air pollution.
Not to worry, Houston, your petrochemical corporations will be fine. They have insurance. They will get to write off any damage against their profits. They will get tax incentives to rebuild, or if they choose to move, tax credits from the town down the road.
The people? Most will have no insurance to rebuild their homes or to purchase new furniture.
And the pollution impact? A cost of doing business for the petrochemical industry.
Unfortunately, for the people, pollution’s about their health. And there will be no help forthcoming for the most vulnerable Houstonians.
Have a slice of Texas-themed music: Here is Robert Earl Keen, doing “Corpus Christi Bay” from his 1993 album “A Bigger Piece of Sky”:
The Daily Escape:
Near Rocky Creek Bridge, Big Sur CA â 2017 photo by Charlene Renslow
We didnât attempt to shoot down the Hwasong-12 North Korean (NK) missile on Tuesday. The official reason was that it was clear that the missile wouldnât hit American soil. Based on the US reasoning, there are at least two things to consider:
Now, Wrongo has some “expertise” in the missile defense biz. He managed a nuclear missile unit in Germany during the Vietnam era. One mission of the unit was anti-tactical ballistic missile defense. That meant we were supposed to shoot down enemy missiles.
So, when Wrongo hears the US’s reasoning, it makes sense. Why give a potential enemy a free look at your weapons? Why take an aggressive action when we are not threatened? Both are reasonable positions. Shooting down an enemy missile aimed at US territory is logical, but shooting down a missile test aimed at the sea would be considered an act of war by NK. We could adopt a policy to intercept certain types of missiles or those on certain kinds of trajectory. But, we havenât made that policy choice at this point.
The second possibility is frightening. Since the 1950âs, we have made a huge investment in anti-missile weapons. Today, we have 33 Aegis warships that are designed to hit a mid- or intermediate-range missile like the Hwasong-12. Sixteen of those warships are currently in the Pacific. But, right now we only have eight Japan-based Aegis ships, and two of the eight are out of commission due to the collisions of the Fitzgerald, and the John S. McCain.
But it gets worse. From the NYT: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)
The allies could do little more than track the [NK] missile Tuesday as it arched over Hokkaido and splashed into the northern Pacific. Analysts said Japan could have tried to shoot it down if its Aegis destroyers, which are armed with SM3 Block I interceptor missiles, happened to be in waters between North Korea and Japan. But because the SM3 is slower than the Hwasong-12, they would have had to make the attempt before the missile passed over the ships.
In order to hit the NK missiles, Aegis destroyers would have to be dangerously close to the NK coast to get a chance to strike an ICBM in the “boost” phase, before it gained altitude. If our ships were that close to NK, they would be vulnerable to North Korean submarines.
And the SM-3 anti-missile interceptors on the Aegis ships have a testing record that includes many failures. Between January 2002 and August 2017, the DOD attempted 37 intercepts of a mid-range missile and hit the target 29 times with an SM-3. On Wednesday, we conducted a successful intercept test using a newer generation SM-6 missile against a medium-range ballistic missile target:
The USS John Paul Jones detected and tracked a target missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar…
This is the second time an SM-6 missile has intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile target.
Our problem is that, while the Obama administration pushed for a ship-based defense against mid-range NK missiles aimed at Japan or Guam, we now know that we have a better chance of hitting missiles that canât fly so high. From Defense One:
The highest probability of success is to hit the enemy missile closer to the ground, during the so-called boost phase. Thatâs what Americaâs Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is aiming for in the future.
Decoding all this: If we attempt a shoot-down, and it fails, all of those Aegis ships are worthless, and Russia, China and NK will know it.
We also have the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system deployed in South Korea. There have been 15 intercepts in 15 tests for the THAAD system, according to the MDA. Now, there is talk of deploying them in Japan. THAADs are currently also deployed in Guam and Hawaii.
Finally, there is the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System (GMD). GMD, like THAAD, is a hit-to-kill system. Unlike THAAD which intercepts missiles during their terminal phase, GMD is aimed at destroying them in midcourse. It is the only system the US has that could be capable of destroying an ICBM launched at the US by NK. There are 40 GMD interceptors deployed in Alaska at Fort Greely, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The GMD has a troubled history, with many failed, or incomplete tests.
The militaryâs next anti-missile solution wonât even begin testing until 2023.
Until then, every time an NK missile heads toward Japan, Guam, or anywhere else, the president will have to decide whether attempting to shoot it down is worth the costs of probably missing it.
And without a missile defense, our next best alternative is massive nuclear retaliation on the NK homeland.
Thatâs a ticket for the destruction of South Korea and Japan.
And a likely war with China.
The Daily Escape:
This is the last in a series from the NJ Grounds for Sculpture â 2017 photo by Wrongo
Today, we continue with G. Mark Towheyâs idea that our political parties no longer work well enough to be relevant to a large segment of middle class voters. He says that the parties must appeal to the voters he calls pragmatists:
The opening episode of the fourth season of Aaron Sorkinâs Emmy-winning TV series The West Wing... [places]…what typical Americans want from government…into perspective for…Toby Zeigler and Josh Lyman, both senior White House staffers in the show. Theyâre…in a hotel bar and strike up a conversation with a middle-aged âtypical Americanâ whoâs spent the day touring the University of Notre Dame with his college-aged daughter.
The man and his wife together earn $80,000 a year and, he laments, âI never imagined Iâd have trouble making ends meet. I spend half the day thinking about what happens if I slip and fall on my front porch. It should be hard. I like that itâs hard. Putting your daughter through college…thatâs a manâs job, a manâs accomplishment. Putting your kids through college, taking care of your family… [But] it should be easier, just a little easier, because in that difference is…everything.â
That guy doesnât want welfare reform, or tax reform. He wants government to focus some of its resources and brainpower on making his everyday life âjust a little easier.â The typicals donât want perfection, just small, concrete steps that improve their lives.
They are the pragmatists.
We shouldnât confuse âpragmatistsâ with centrists who are in the space between the Left and the Right. They are not necessarily moderates. Pragmatism isnât a moderate ideology, but a different prioritization of issues. From Towhey: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Itâs a focus on the concrete, rather than the abstract. It targets immediate, specific problems rather than deep, systemic causes. It prefers clearly defined and implementable solutions rather than aspirational visions…what if, instead of referring to a place on a Venn diagram, the pragmatic-idealistic divide actually functions like a different political axis?
In other words, donât appeal to them with policies, speak about solutions. Towhey thinks we should imagine the traditional Left/Right political spectrum on a horizontal line, the âx-axis,â running naturally, from left to right. Now imagine a vertical line that intersects the x-axis at its center. Thatâs the ây-axis.â At the top of this vertical line, weâll put people who place a high value on ideals and ideologies that affect society in the abstract. The top end of the y-axis is the âidealistâ end. At the opposite end of the y-axis are people who place a high value on practical solutions and actions that help them personally. This is the âpragmaticâ end. Here is a representation of Towheyâs matrix:
Prepared by Wrongo from Towhey’s article. Position of politicians by Wrongo
Towhey thinks that the y-axis (Pragmatists to Idealists) shows how most Americans see the world: how a policy affects the world, versus how it impacts me; people whoâve succeeded in the current system, versus people who are struggling in it. Those at the pragmatic end struggle to make it under the status quo. Theyâre people who want small, but real improvements, a few practical solutions.
Pragmatists are too busy to worry about the future. Whether theyâre on the left or right on the x-axis, they share a focus on more immediate needs. And today, voters donât move along the x-axis as easily as they may have in the past.
If Democrats are to compete in this âpragmaticâ voter segment, they need to recognize that the typicals comprise many American citizens, enough to have elected a president in 2016.
The lesson for Democrats is to support leaders who will perform the basics of government exceptionally well. Mayors are great examples of this.
On the national level, health insurance is a great example. Pragmatists want action on health insurance, not on health insurance ideology. If Trump canât form a coalition with an ideologue GOP Congress, pragmatists would be happy if he worked with pragmatic Democrats, so long as the new health insurance law makes their lives easier. It doesnât have to be perfect, as it has to be for idealists on the right or the left.
This is the message of pragmatism: less ideology, more action. Small steps, not grand gestures. Results, not principles. And pragmatists are up for grabs. They can, and will vote for Democrats.
Theyâll follow a politician who unites them behind a few plans that people think will deliver tangible results. That is how Bernie out-polled Hillary, who had 39 positions on her campaign website.
But, if Democrats canât make this shift in thinking and leadership, new candidates and new alliances may form, and pragmatists will vote for them.
It could lead to the end of the Democratic Party as a national political power.
The Daily Escape:
Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park, British Columbia â 2017 photo by Shelley VanKempen
Yesterday, we discussed how building consensus among voters was the best way to beat the disruptive, and in many ways, destructive efforts by Donald Trump to change our democracy.
When Democrats bring up Clintonâs winning of the popular vote in 2016, they overlook the reality that Democratic congressional candidates lost in 23 districts that Clinton won, including seven in California. Imagine, those voters didnât want Trump, but liked what their local GOP candidate for Congress stood for enough to split their vote.
Trump won the white vote by 58% to 37%, while 51% of American women also voted for him.
To beat Trump, or whoever might be next, Democrats need to move from following a few failed strategies. First, they have been trying only to win the White House, not the Congress. Being a presidential-only party is a powerful thing, until you lose the White House. Second, they need to move away from identity politics. People know the size of the pie is relatively fixed, and the effort to fix the problems of one group can easily be a zero-sum game for others.
An interesting analysis in American Affairs by G. Mark Towhey says that our traditional view of voters as positioned along a spectrum of left to right is no longer germane. He argues for a new grouping of âpragmatistsâ, who are everyday middle class people:
This bloc of typical citizensâoverstressed, under-informed, concerned more with pragmatic quality of life issues than idealistic social goalsâhas become a powerful political movement…Conventional political leaders seem to completely misunderstand them…
They are not among those of us who read (or write) long-form blogs or articles. We arenât typical Americans:
We have time to read…we can pause our breadwinning labor and child-rearing duties long enough to consider hypotheticals and to ruminate…on an idea or two. We may not recognize this as a luxury in our modern world, but we should.
Typical Americans donât read lengthy articles. They: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
Get up far too early in the morning, after too little sleep, [and] work too hard for too long in a job that pays too little, before heading home, feeding the kids, cleaning the house, and collapsing into bed far too late. He or she has precious little time to consume news…maybe a two-minute newscast on the radio if they drive to work or a few minutes of local TV news…It is through this lens that typical Americans view the world beyond their personal experience and that of friends and family. Itâs through this lens that they assess their government and judge their politicians.
Towhey says that these people elected Donald Trump.
We all know that there is a gap between the lifestyles, perspectives, and priorities of the most successful Americans and the âtypical Americans.â The people who make the decisions that matter in America are, by definition, our political and business leaders â people who have been successful under the current system. They believe that the system works, because it has worked well for them.
The smart people that lead our politics believe the typicals donât really know whatâs best for them. The typicals want to end immigration, hoping it will increase wages, but we smarties know better. From Towhey:
A politician who promises to deliver the demands of an ignorant electorate is a âpopulist,â and that is a very bad thing. A politician who equivocates during the election, then does nothing to impede immigration, on the other hand, is a wise man skilled in the art of political campaigning and governance.
Typical Americans have always elected the smart people who call themselves Republicans or Democrats. After each election, the typicals wait for their lives to improve, but nothing changes. Most typical Americans donât simply divide the world into Left and Right. Instead, they instinctively divide the world into things that affect them and things that donât, things that help them, and things that wonât.
In 2016, the typicals decided that it was time to elect someone from outside the system. Maybe it wonât work out, but electing smart status quo types hadnât worked out so well for typical Americans, so what did they have to lose?
(Tomorrow we will talk about the emerging political power group of middle class voters that Democrats need to satisfy if they want to remain relevant, the group that Towhey calls âpragmatistsâ.)