Dana Blankenhorn

So Who Was Lieberman Then?

The political year is almost over so this is our last edition of The 1966 Game. (Next year we'll play The 1967 Game, and won't that be fun!)

The last game piece offered was backwards, and a poser. Who was Joe Lieberman then?

We know who Joe Lieberman is now. He's the most controversial figure within the Democratic Party -- assuming he's in it at all. Having been spat on by true believers from coast-to-coast, he seems poised to win election anyway.

Why? Because he represents part of the dying Anti-Thesis that Open Source Democrats wish to bury. He leans against the Bush-Reagan-Nixon Thesis of Conflict. He assumes its truth. He uses it as a sailor does the wind, to power his own boat and tack his own course. Without that Thesis he does not exist.

All of which proves to Democrats how dependent their party is on the old Thesis. This is always true. Even out of power, political parties rely on the myths and values which are believed by their followers in order to maintain power.

So who was Joe Lieberman then? Who was the Joe Lieberman of 1966?

The Next Thesis Is Here

As a political Thesis reaches its sell-by date, notice that it's invoked almost religiously.

The idea of "waving the bloody shirt" against Democrats reached almost totemic status, both in the 1890s and again as the Depression started to bite. In 1966 Democrats continued to run on the New Deal.

Why? Because the press believed it. Reporters don't understand transformation. Their work is entirely transactional. They are today-oriented people, who see neither the past nor the future. Since political myths and values live in both the past and future, they're Indians before Columbus -- blind, deaf and dumb.

So it is today. Bush is spending most of this week in the South, and his minions are recreating their old Southern Strategy, because they really have nothing to offer the voters. Their Thesis is completely out of ideas.

As it was 40 years ago with Republicans, establishment Democrats today are fearful. They are afraid to talk about where they really stand, and some are more ready to make civil war on other Democrats than put forward an agenda, because the nascent open source thesis most actually believe in is untried -- it's almost unspoken.

What thesis, you ask?

Ending the Liability Crisis

The Supreme Court's first big case this big term will be an attempt to mandate "tort reform," limiting punitive liability awards.

We don't need the Supreme Court for this. All we need is a very simple business rule.

New Rule: Punitive awards are not insurable.

Whether you're a corporation, or a professional, you have liability insurance. This insurance covers you against mistakes. It also covers you against punitive damage awards.

It shouldn't.

Once it doesn't simply tell juries it doesn't. Allow the defense, in its arguments, to describe the real assets and liabilities of the person being sued.

Then enforce the rule. It can be done through insurance exclusions. If you're a doctor, or a lawyer, and a jury wants to punish you by taking away your house, your car, even your dog, they should be able to do it. The same should be true of corporations.

Democratic Civil War Begins

The votes haven't even been counted and the Democratic Civil War has begun.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A generational crisis always results in a battle within the newly victorious party. This is usually a war between insurgents and establishment figures, or between the New Thesis and the Old Anti-Thesis.

• In 1966 Goldwater conservatives fought Main Street conservatives.
• In 1930 progressives fought populists within the Democratic coalition.
• In 1894 Populists fought urban Democrats.
• In 1858 Republican abolitionists fought with moderates.

Notice that, in all these cases, the short-term saw a figure from the moderate side moving the party toward the New Thesis. Nixon was nominated to beat Reaganism. FDR had to bridge the divide within his party between urban liberals and southern populists. Theodore Roosevelt co-opted the Progressives against the Populists. And Lincoln was nominated as a moderate alternative to outright abolitionists.

The same sort of thing is beginning right now, within the Democratic Party, between a Clintonian Establishment wing, which embraces moderation as a virtue and lobbyists as its allies, and the Netroots voters who want large-scale reforms.

Below are two articles that illustrate the current divide:

The Fear Show

When the final history is written, the 2000s will be known as the Decade of Fear.

Fear is what drives and motivates us. Unreasoning, often nameless fear. Fear has manipulated us ever since 9-11. It has controlled our lives. 

This is natural, in part, because Fear has been a basic element in the Nixon Thesis of Conflict ever since it first came to power, nearly 40 years ago. It has been built into our psyche so completely that we're not even aware of it. Many of us even deny it. Yet every time someone wants the knees to jerk there it is, a button waiting to be pressed.

The trouble with Fear is that it's like cocaine. It loses its potency over time. You need more-and-more stimulation to get the high. In terms of Fear, then, 9-11 was like Woodstock and Altamont and the Summer of Love all rolled into one great big Fear ball. Its horrors were real for New York, and for Washington, but in reality, for the vast majority of us, it was only Fear itself. It was a TV show.

In the end twe went into Iraq to keep up the Fear. A quick win in Afghanistan, the capture of Osama Bin Laden, would have been followed by a victory rally, by de-escalation, by the triumph over Fear. And since our leaders had nothing to offer other than Fear itself, they had to keep it rising, or we would find out.

That's really what the Project for a New American Century   was all about.  Fear. It was crafted in the 1990s, after our Fears had been eliminated by the Collapse of Communism, as a way to get Fear going again.

This Week's Clue: Be A Local Hero

The following essay went out to subscribers of A-Clue.com this morning. You can join the club by clicking here.

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This newsletter launched in 1997 as A Clue...to Internet Commerce, so in honor of that I want to present a quick four-step plan you can use to make yourself some serious cash. (I wasn't thinking of this film when I wrote the title, but the late Burt Lancaster remains one of my personal heroes.)

This plan fits the spirit of our times because there is a huge hunger in America for American-made products. The loss of jobs making things hurts psychologically, not just economically. The fact that when you go to any American tourist trap you wind up buying the same tired crap from China spells opportunity.

Take advantage of it and you can be a local hero.

If you have Step One done, you can even implement this for the Christmas shopping season which starts, online, this week.

 

Abundance vs. Scarcity

The economics of this decade can be summed up as a fight between abundance and scarcity. (Pictured is the first oil well, courtesy the Paleontological Research Institute.)

Digital goods are abundant, their economics that of abundance. The time and attention of buyers is limited, the products on offer unlimited. So if you can monetize small slivers of that, as Google, YouTube and MySpace do, through truly deep personalization (it's all about you and what you want to know, see and feel) you're going to make money.

In contrast there is oil economics, which the current Administration has been making paramount. Oil is based on an economics of scarcity. The providers have the whip hand, and by manipulating supply they can maximize their value. OPEC does it, refiners do it, integrated oils do it by owning their own dealers.

The producers of "copyright" goods -- movies, TV, music, books, software, etc. -- all depend on an economics of scarcity. You've got to see that movie now, you've got to turn on the TV to this channel at this time, you've got to get the #1 hit and be the first on your street to read the #1 book. You want to run the new Windows applications, so you need Windows now, and new hardware to run it. This makes the supplier of the good king, able to name their own price by manipulating supply -- just like an oil company. And it's good to be the king.

"Nudge, Nudge" Racism

In its final weeks this year's elections in the South mark a real confrontation with what I call "nudge, nudge" racism.

This is the kind of covert racism that southern Republicans have been practicing as part of the Nixon Thesis of Conflict. Nixon called it his "southern strategy."

It's never overt. It's always denied. Yet when pressed to the wall (as Jesse Helms was by Harvey Gantt in 1990) it comes out.

Here's how it works.

Copyright Wars Become Partisan

With the launch of the group Digital Freedom, the copyright wars have finally become partisan.

This is an important, albeit risky milestone. Until now both political parties had been united against Internet issues. Democrats heard Hollywood first, Republicans heard their bosses on Wall Street first. The interests of Internet users, or small Internet businesses, were not heard.

Look at the sponsors and you see this is a Democratic affair. The best clue to this is the participation of the New America Foundation. They want to the the Heritage Foundation of the next generation.

Can they succeed? That will be a two-part invention.

1. Stop groups like the PFF from making things worse.
2. Work through the political process to make something better.

The chances are improved by the fact that no one -- not even me -- wants to get rid of copyright. We're really looking to restore the balance which existed before the DMCA, and which the original sponsors of that act claimed they were going to maintain.

Restore fair use. Eliminate content's veto over all technology. Expand the commons. Focus on the Constitutional goal of the copyright act -- to create more.

Iraq Reflections

I'm a loyal American. I support and applaud our troops.

But it's criminal to waste men and material on a job they're not designed to handle. And it's criminal to let it continue without speaking out.

Occupation is not what we're about. It's a job no country is really capable of. The only folks who seem to handle it are autocrats engaged in genocide or (at minimum) mass murder. Even there, the occupiers are worn down and dehumanized by the process.

Our military can do two things well. We can go in with overwhelming force and liberate an objective. We can save people if they wish to be saved. But that's all our military can do.

We can't occupy other nations. No military can.