Today's Term

Systemic Causation.

Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies.

There is a difference between systemic and direct causation. Punching someone in the nose is direct causation. Throwing a rock through a window is direct causation. Picking up a glass of water and taking a drink is direct causation. Slicing bread is direct causation. Stealing your wallet is direct causation. Any application of force to something or someone that always produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation.

When causation is direct, the word cause is unproblematic.

Systemic causation, because it is less obvious, is more important to understand.

Go read the piece from George Lakoff right now.

See What Happens

Today's Krugman - inspired by a James Fallows piece*:

But I’d go even further: the Democrats now look like the natural party of government. Bush had already established a reputation for being unable to get anything right in the actual business of governing; all that was supposedly left was political prowess, and now that’s gone too. And even the news media have, I think, begun to notice that we aren’t the “center-right” country of fantasy, we’re a diverse nation, ethnically and otherwise, in which a lot of liberal ideas have become perfectly mainstream.

Now go read Fallows.

*Barack Obama's election four years ago was, by definition, more historic than his reelection last night.

But his second win last night was more impressive than his first, and probably more important.

It seems more than a little weird that suddenly, it's not the Democrats who could fuck up a 2-car parade.

For Veterans' Day

A quote by PFC Robert Leckie (USMC, Guadalcanal, 1942: [in a letter to Vera Keller - the future Mrs Leckie]

Dear Vera, it seems a lifetime since we met outside Saint Mary's. This great undertaking for God and country has landed us in a tropical paradise, somewhere in what Jack London refers to as "those terrible Solomons." It is a garden of Eden. The jungle holds both beauty and terror in its depths, most terrible of which is man. We have met the enemy and have learned nothing more about him. I have, however, learned some things about myself. There are things men can do to one another that are sobering to the soul. It is one thing to reconcile these things with God, but another to square it with yourself.

There's nothing worse than war.  And nothing with less believable justification.

I refuse to glorify the war or the warrior by waxing poetic about either.  We simply have to find ways to settle our differences that don't include bashing each over the head with sticks and rocks.

More Sore Butts

You get your ass kicked like what happened last Tuesday and it's gonna hurt for a while.  And it's good to know there're plenty of jerks just like me to rub it in for ya too.

Romney won the Old White Guy vote by close to 20 points on average, and close to 30 points in some places.  That's a really big deal, and it wins every national election by a huge margin - if it's 1982 and if it's the only demographic you have to appeal to.  But it isn't, and it isn't.

Here're some highlites (via Rolling Stone) on how it breaks down here in the real world of 2012:

• Latinos voted for Obama 70+% to Romney's (about) 30%
• Blacks (who showed up in numbers just as strong as in 2008) voted for Obama 95% to Romney's 5%
• Gen Y (18-30 years old) voted for Obama 60% to Romney's 37%
• Gen X (31-44 years old) voted for Obama 54% to Romney's 47% (approx)
• Single Women voted for Obama 67% to Romney's 31%

It's The Policy, Stupid

Or more accurately, it's the stupid policy.

Repubs and the Conservative Entertainment Complex are very busy analyzing the Romney Fail, and everybody's talking about everything except the simple fact that the GOP Platform and the GOP Voter Strategy were repulsive to a majority of the voters.

But first, guess what - Obama is the first POTUS to get a majority of the vote in 2 elections since St Ronnie the Reagan did it in 1984.  28 years.

(Just wanted to throw that in because it's kinda important once we get it through our think skulls that there's really only about 10 or 20% of the voting public who actually come under the heading "The Base" in any party)

So anyway, one of my favorite rationalizations for Romneybot's Malfunction is that Obama played Identity Politics to pump up his base and get them to turn out for him.  I think "turning out The Base" is a tired old saw in politics that people just need to let go of.  "The Base" is always there - they show up come hell or high water.  It's everybody else ya gotta worry about.  Which is why the "Identity Politics" crack is so hollow.  First off, it's just another example of (what's become) a trademark Republican tactic of taking your worst shortcoming and projecting it onto your opponent.  But it seems emblematic in that practically every GOP campaign in the last 30 years has been all about Voter Identity, and has worked hard to narrow the party's appeal to the point where they might as well hang a sign on the door - "No Dogs, Jews or Coloreds allowed".

It suddenly occurs to me that Romney felt totally blindsided because he truly felt he'd run the campaign according to the formula you apply when you're selling Goods and Services; he did everything you're supposed to do, but I think the results prove it's a big mistake to base your pitch on Snob-Appeal and Exclusivity, and believe it works in politics the same as it works in Retail Selling.  Cuz it don't.

So, Repubs - if you guys wanna go on losing, all you have to do is keep lying to yourselves (and to each other) about how Party Purity is the best way to expand Party Appeal.

And BTW: Adults stand up and accept responsibility while children point fingers and assign blame.

Yikes

David Frum was kind of ousted and shunned by the "conservatives" a while back - because it seems he re-activated his gag reflex, and still just can't go along with all the junk being peddled by the "Conservative Entertainment Complex".

Give a listen (via Crooks & Liars):

It's Aristocracy vs Democracy

Any Questions?

Yay, Montana

From Crooks & Liars:

Initiative number 166 stated that “corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings,” and thus is a blow to the Citizen’s United ruling that helped make this presidential election the most expensive one ever.

Today's Pix