Came back to earth last week going 1-4 bringing my record to 14-9-2, while the good Doctor went 4-1 bringing his record to 14-11.
Dr. Bob is actually offering up some of his best bets on HuffPost but to see the rest of his best bets go to www.drbobsports.com.
On to this week's picks. From Dr. Bob...
MICHIGAN STATE (-7) 33 Illinois 19
Both of these teams are coming off upset wins, as Michigan State beat rival Michigan 34-17 and Illinois won at Penn State 33-13. While you'd expect both teams that be in equal letdown modes, but that is not actually the case. It's the Illini that apply to a very negative 9-52 ATS road underdog letdown situation and Michigan State is also the clearly superior team. Illinois' freshman quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase has been inconsistent with 2 good games (Southern Illinois and last week against Penn State) and 3 bad games and he's been below average overall, averaging 5.7 yards per pass play against teams that would allow 6.0 yppp to an average quarterback. Michigan State defends the pass well (5.6 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would average 6.2 yppp against an average team), so I expect Scheelhaase to struggle this week. Illinois does have a good rushing attack, averaging 5.3 yards per rushing play against teams that would allow 4.7 yprp to an average team, but Michigan State is slightly better than that defending the run (4.1 yprp allowed to teams that would average 4.8 yprp). My math model projects just 4.8 yppl for the Illini in this game without taking into account the letdown situation.
California (+2 ½) 30 USC 24
California's 31-52 loss at Nevada on national TV has the Bears underrated, as that game is not representative of how good Jeff Tedford's team is. Cal played that game without their 1st Team All-Pac 10 LB Mike Mohamed and the Bears' attack style of defense isn't suited to defend an option team like Nevada that can also throw the ball effectively. The combination of Mohamed being out and being forced to play a read and react style of defense resulted in the Wolf Pack averaging 8.2 yppl in that game (Nevada would average 7.2 yppl at home against an average defensive team). However, the Bears have been dominating defensively otherwise, holding Colorado, Arizona and UCLA to a combined average of just 232 yards at 3.4 yppl and 8.0 points per game. Most impressive was limiting Arizona's potent attack to just 4.9 yppl and 10 points, as the Wildcats would average 7.3 yppl at home against an average team. Overall, the Bears' defense ranks among the best in the nation even with that bad Nevada game included, as they've yielded just 4.5 yppl to teams that would combine to average 6.0 yppl against an average stop unit. USC will be another stiff challenge, as USC has averaged 7.3 yppl against teams that would allow 5.7 yppl to an average team. USC's offense rates at just 0.1 yppl better than Cal's defense, but Cal may be better than their overall stats given the one outlier against Nevada when their best player didn't play. Cal was able to shut down Arizona and I rate the Wildcats' offense as better than that of USC, so I think the Bears are certainly capable of limiting the Trojans today.
Iowa State (+23 ½) 26 OKLAHOMA 38
Oklahoma may be undefeated and ranked 6th in the nation but the Sooners simply aren't a dominant team this season. Oklahoma has only played one really impressive game, their 47-17 win over Florida State, and they've escaped with close wins against Utah State (31-24), Air Force (27-24), Cincinnati (31-29) and against an overrated Texas team (28-20) in a game in which they were out-played 4.3 yards per play to 5.9 yppl and won because of a +2 turnover margin. For the season the Sooners are averaging just 5.1 yards per play against teams that would allow 5.1 yppl to an average team and their defense is actually worse than average in allowing 5.9 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.5 yppl against an average team. Despite worse than average yppl stats, the Sooners are actually a better than average team because they average 83 plays per game while allowing 70 plays and they have good special teams, but they are certainly not a top-10 team and I wouldn't even rank them in my top-20. Iowa State just lost 27-68 at home to a very good Utah team, but the Cyclones beat up on Texas Tech 52-38 the week before that and they are certainly not bad enough to merit a line above 21 points. In fact, Iowa State's decent offensive attack (5.2 yppl against teams that would allow 5.3 yppl to an average team) should move the ball pretty well against Oklahoma's sub-par defense and the Cyclones haven't been too bad on defense this season, allowing 6.1 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.8 yppl against an average defensive team. That's actually just 0.3 yppl worse than Oklahoma's mediocre offensive rating. Iowa State will likely be without RB Alexander Robinson this week, but Robinson's 5.1 ypr on 88 carries looks like it can be adequately replaced by Shontrelle Johnson and Jeff Woody, who combine to average 5.9 ypr on their 55 runs this season (5.3 ypr if I take out their yards against Utah's second string defense last week, which of course I do). My math model projects Oklahoma with 15 more plays than Iowa State and a 548 yards at 6.3 yppl to 391 yards at 5.5 yppl advantage, but that's not enough to justify such a high line even after accounting for Oklahoma's advantage in projected turnovers and a slight edge in special teams. In fact, my math favors Oklahoma by just 17 ½ points in this game and Iowa State's blowout loss last week sets the Cyclones up in a very good 24-0 ATS subset of a 75-16 ATS bounce-back situation that plays on big road dogs after getting embarrassed in their previous game.
Oklahoma State (+3) 38 TEXAS TECH 31
Texas Tech beat me last week in their 45-38 win over Baylor, but that win did nothing to change my mind about the Red Raiders being an average team (they were out-gained 6.7 yards per play to 6.9 yppl by Baylor). For the season Texas Tech has averaged 443 yards at 5.7 yppl (against teams that would allow 5.5 yppl to an average team) while allowing 410 yards at 5.5 yppl (to teams that would average just 5.2 yppl against an average defense). The Red Raiders are actually worse than average from the line of scrimmage after compensating for their easier than normal schedule and Tech is also below average in special teams. From a scoring perspective, Texas Tech has out-scored their opponents by 5.2 points per game (36.8 to 31.6) and they've played a schedule that is 3.4 points easier than average. That would make the Red Raiders 1.8 points better than average looking strictly at points.
TROY STATE (-19) 42 UL Lafayette 14
Troy is the class of the Sun Belt again this season and the Trojans should continue to dominate weaker league foes at home. Troy is 10-2 ATS as a conference home favorite of 11 points or more since 2004, including 3-0 ATS last season and the Trojans should have their way with a horrible UL Lafayette squad after beating up on an overrated Middle Tennessee team last week 42-13. That win sets up the Trojans in a very good 71-22 ATS home favorite momentum situation and my math model likes Troy as well. Troy State's offense is averaging 489 yards at 6.1 yards per play and 36 points per game (against teams that would allow 5.8 yppl to an average team) and the Trojans are likely to gain even more yardage than normal against a soft Ragin' Cajuns' defense that has given up 6.0 yppl and 39 points per game to teams that would combine to average just 5.3 yppl. Lafayette is also hurting on that side of the ball with 3 defensive starters out with injury after FS Rolle, DE Richardson and LB Fleming were all hurt last week against Oklahoma State. I didn't even adjust for those injuries and my math model still projects 507 yards at 6.8 yppl and 42 points for the Trojans in this game.
And on to my picks...
St. Louis +8 versus San Diego
SD has been a solid team this year even though their record does not seem to agree. This is simply too many points for a St. Louis team that can play well at home.
KC +4 versus Houston
KC actually showed me more in their loss last week than they did in their previous three wins. Houston offensive line played like a turnstyle at New York and KC will get pressure on Schaub. KC will be able to score against a weak Houston defense making the points to juicy to pass up.
NO -4 @ TB
If this game had been played in week 1, the line would have been 6 or 7. Is TB legit? Is NO terrible? I think this is an overreaction to what's happened in the last few weeks. I think NO gets their act together and wins this game comfortably.
Washington +3 over Indy
Washington is a solid team and getting three points at home shows no respect for what they have accomplished so far. Indy D has holes against the run and Washington will do their best to make Indy one dimensional.
SF -6.5 versus Oakland
Everyone is waiting for this Niner's team to finally show their true skills and hopefully this is the week. The Niners have a good defense and if Alex Smith can avoid the turnovers this is a game they should win by more than a TD.
Friday, October 15, 2010
How to Earn $900,000 an Hour While Unemployment Soars
Let's be honest. Wouldn't you like to rake in a cool $900,000 for one hour's work? No? Still have hippie ideals, perhaps? You could work for just 10 minutes and walk off with $150,000. Push yourself to work one entire day and we're talking $7.2 million. Hang in there for a month, and you'll pull in more than the richest athletes make in 10 years -- $256.5 million. And in one year? Well, you'll be earning what the top ten hedge fund honchos each averaged in 2009 -- $1.87 billion. Wouldn't you like to know their secrets? Here are a few:
Step 1: Check your conscience at the door.
You must be able to live with the knowledge that while you were making $900,000 an hour, more than 29 million other Americans had no job at all or were forced into part-time work. Also you'd have to live with the uncomfortable fact that your sector -- high finance -- crashed the economy, leaving eight million Americans jobless in a matter of months.
You're obviously good at math so you'll be able to calculate that it will now take 22.5 million new jobs to bring the economy back to full-employment (an unemployment rate of 5 percent or less). That's the equivalent of creating 630 new corporations the size of Apple Corp. (35,000 employees each). Sadly, you're also a realist, so you know that unemployment is likely to remain at record post-WWII highs for years to come.
Feeling guilty? Don't. Remind everyone again and again that hedge funds like yours didn't get bailed out. You're not too big to fail. You just figured out how to be better at investing than anyone else. You're what capitalism is supposed to reward. You earned your $900,000 an hour fair and square! Suppress all your doubts and just keep telling yourself -- and everyone else -- that you have nothing to do with rising poverty or the fact that nearly 50 million people can't afford health care. You're the solution, not the problem. Conscience be damned!
Step 2: Remember: None of this is your fault!
Yes, a few tiresome critics will keep pointing the finger at you, saying that the financial sector crashed the economy. Ignore them and put the blame where it belongs - somewhere else. When in doubt, seek guidance from the pros on Wall Street. They know exactly who to blame:
Assert with the utmost confidence that it's Wall Street billionaires who make our system the envy of the world, so help me god.
Step 3: Proclaim that you are the solution:
It's not enough to dodge the blame. You've got to convince academics and journalists to anoint you as the savior. You see, it's you and your fellow high finance moguls who will save us from ever having to endure a crisis like this again. Fortunately for you, they've already bought the story. For example, in More Money than God, Sebastian Mallaby writes:
Step 4: Tell people, "Sure, go ahead and raise taxes on the super-rich!" (wink, wink): Because of Wall Street billionaires our income distribution is the most extreme since 1929. By some estimates it's even worse, with the top 1 percent hoarding nearly 50 percent of our nation's wealth. And yet, a recent academic survey suggests that most Americans have no idea things are so skewed. The vast majority actually said they would prefer a wealth distribution more like Sweden's. Heaven forbid!
So -- why on earth would someone like Warren Buffett be offering to pay more taxes? Well, for one thing, there are worse things than higher income tax rates. What you want to avoid at all cost is any reform that might reduce financial industry profits -- like controls on derivatives and financial transaction fees.
As for raising taxes: Just because you say you're willing to pay them doesn't mean you'll actually ever have to. Everyone knows that the moment anyone actually tries to tax the super-rich, a Greek chorus of greed will chant: "Investor confidence will crash! Small businesses will suffer! Jobs will crumble! The recovery will stall!"
So, once you get to be a billionaire, join the cavalcade of gurus who insist they should at least pay the same tax rates as their secretaries. And if those weak-kneed politicians simply refuse to raise your taxes, well, what's a billionaire to do?
Step 5: Count on America's admiration:
Americans may say they want wealth to be distributed much more evenly. But they also have a perpetual love affair with the super-rich. Any effort to rein in billionaires grates against one of our most fundamental values: the right to make as much money as we can, however we can, whenever we can. The very existence of Wall Street billionaires opens up the possibility that we ourselves will become super rich someday.
Fortunately for Wall Street billionaires, Americans tend to view even modest proposals to redistribute wealth as cataclysmic. (Remember Joe the Plumber?) When I propose that maybe we would be better off without Wall Street billionaires, even non-plumbers tell me: "Oh, no. We don't want to live in a socialist society where incomes are flat. Everyone would lose their motivation. And we'd be stuck with only one flavor of ice cream at our dilapidated collectivist food co-op!" In our political culture, there seem to be no mental resting points between North Korean communism and an economy that lets Wall Street billionaires run wild.
However, every once in a while we get pissed off. In 1913 we passed a constitutional amendment to legalize income taxes on plutocrats. From the 1930s to the 1970s we enacted tax rates on the super-rich that hovered between 70 and 90 percent. And long before that Andrew Jackson vetoed the National Bank because, as he said, "the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes." The rigged Bank laws, he argued, "make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. ()
We're still complaining. We get upset at government because it seems to favor the super-rich. Yet in the end we protect our Wall Street billionaires by attacking regulations and taxes on the wealthy.
Step 6: Thank the lord for sex, drugs and rock'n roll: Reagan and company may have hated the 1960s youth rebellion, but they sure glommed on to a key feature of it: People wanted to be liberated from society's constraints and from a government that was betraying our nation's ideals. Through either insight or dumb luck, the Reagan revolution successfully melded the idea of accumulating wealth with the idea of gaining freedom from everyone and everything -- the ultimate form of "doing your own thing." (My surfer friend called it "takeoff velocity.")
Few of us who came out of the 1960s trusted government. After all, it had waged an unjust and un-winnable war in Vietnam. Public figures seemed to lie to us on a regular basis -- from Mai Lai to Watergate. You want that kind of government running the economy too?
"Do your own thing" economics also caught on. Free love and free markets may have had a lot in common. Milton Friedman (who also opposed criminalization of drugs) led the way among American economists, arguing that government interference always distorts free markets. Only when markets are left entirely alone can they operate efficiently and create prosperity for all. Friedman's free market philosophy won over the academic and policy establishment. They saw the rise of Wall Street billionaires as a sign of our nation's economic health and prosperity. It wasn't just that their vast wealth might trickle down to the rest of us. It was that the accumulation of such wealth in the first place signaled a strong underlying economy.
According to the free market economists, under our system you can't possibly earn $900,000 an hour unless you produce $900,000 worth of something. So financial industry billionaires must, by definition, have the knowledge, skills, and experience to create that enormous value. Because nobody would cough up that sum of money unless they got equivalent value in return.
Therein may lie the biggest secret of all: Wall Street moguls are confident that Americans will always believe that that the big boys are really worth their money.
But for how long? Will our millions of unemployed workers eventually get fed up? Will the middle class finally get angry at the plutocrats who stole their dreams? Or will our anger continue to focus on government regulations, social spending and taxes instead of on our financial plutocrats? Eventually we'll have to choose or the choice will be made for us: Do we want a $900,000 an hour Valhalla for the few? Or a prosperous America for the rest of us?
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009. He is currently working on a new book, How to Earn $900,000 an Hour: The Rise of Wall Street Billionaires and the New Class War, (hopefully to be published in 2011).
Step 1: Check your conscience at the door.
You must be able to live with the knowledge that while you were making $900,000 an hour, more than 29 million other Americans had no job at all or were forced into part-time work. Also you'd have to live with the uncomfortable fact that your sector -- high finance -- crashed the economy, leaving eight million Americans jobless in a matter of months.
You're obviously good at math so you'll be able to calculate that it will now take 22.5 million new jobs to bring the economy back to full-employment (an unemployment rate of 5 percent or less). That's the equivalent of creating 630 new corporations the size of Apple Corp. (35,000 employees each). Sadly, you're also a realist, so you know that unemployment is likely to remain at record post-WWII highs for years to come.
Feeling guilty? Don't. Remind everyone again and again that hedge funds like yours didn't get bailed out. You're not too big to fail. You just figured out how to be better at investing than anyone else. You're what capitalism is supposed to reward. You earned your $900,000 an hour fair and square! Suppress all your doubts and just keep telling yourself -- and everyone else -- that you have nothing to do with rising poverty or the fact that nearly 50 million people can't afford health care. You're the solution, not the problem. Conscience be damned!
Step 2: Remember: None of this is your fault!
Yes, a few tiresome critics will keep pointing the finger at you, saying that the financial sector crashed the economy. Ignore them and put the blame where it belongs - somewhere else. When in doubt, seek guidance from the pros on Wall Street. They know exactly who to blame:
- The few bad apples who gave out mortgages like candy
- The greedy Americans who bought homes they couldn't afford (they should have ignored the bankers who told them they could!)
- The politicians who pushed for risky loans for "low-income" buyers (subtext: favoritism for minorities.)
- The Fed, which kept interest rates too low for too long, inflating the bubble
- And, most importantly, American consumers who "lived beyond their means," running up too much debt. (Those people, not you, really need to tighten their belts!)
Assert with the utmost confidence that it's Wall Street billionaires who make our system the envy of the world, so help me god.
Step 3: Proclaim that you are the solution:
It's not enough to dodge the blame. You've got to convince academics and journalists to anoint you as the savior. You see, it's you and your fellow high finance moguls who will save us from ever having to endure a crisis like this again. Fortunately for you, they've already bought the story. For example, in More Money than God, Sebastian Mallaby writes:
How can governments promote small-enough-to fail institutions that manage risk well? This is the key question about the future of finance; and one part of the answer is hiding in plain sight. Governments must encourage hedge funds....The chief policy prescription can be boiled down to two words: Don't regulate." (p 380-81)Imagine that! Top hedge fund managers who earn $900,000 an hour are the answer to too-big-to-fail bailouts, and you don't even need government regulations to keep them honest! People who suggest that Wall Street billionaires are essentially card counters in a Las Vegas casino? They're just envious. People who question whether the entire casino has any redeeming social or economic value at all? They're just stupid. (For my envious and stupid account, see The Looting of America.)
Step 4: Tell people, "Sure, go ahead and raise taxes on the super-rich!" (wink, wink): Because of Wall Street billionaires our income distribution is the most extreme since 1929. By some estimates it's even worse, with the top 1 percent hoarding nearly 50 percent of our nation's wealth. And yet, a recent academic survey suggests that most Americans have no idea things are so skewed. The vast majority actually said they would prefer a wealth distribution more like Sweden's. Heaven forbid!
So -- why on earth would someone like Warren Buffett be offering to pay more taxes? Well, for one thing, there are worse things than higher income tax rates. What you want to avoid at all cost is any reform that might reduce financial industry profits -- like controls on derivatives and financial transaction fees.
As for raising taxes: Just because you say you're willing to pay them doesn't mean you'll actually ever have to. Everyone knows that the moment anyone actually tries to tax the super-rich, a Greek chorus of greed will chant: "Investor confidence will crash! Small businesses will suffer! Jobs will crumble! The recovery will stall!"
So, once you get to be a billionaire, join the cavalcade of gurus who insist they should at least pay the same tax rates as their secretaries. And if those weak-kneed politicians simply refuse to raise your taxes, well, what's a billionaire to do?
Step 5: Count on America's admiration:
Americans may say they want wealth to be distributed much more evenly. But they also have a perpetual love affair with the super-rich. Any effort to rein in billionaires grates against one of our most fundamental values: the right to make as much money as we can, however we can, whenever we can. The very existence of Wall Street billionaires opens up the possibility that we ourselves will become super rich someday.
Fortunately for Wall Street billionaires, Americans tend to view even modest proposals to redistribute wealth as cataclysmic. (Remember Joe the Plumber?) When I propose that maybe we would be better off without Wall Street billionaires, even non-plumbers tell me: "Oh, no. We don't want to live in a socialist society where incomes are flat. Everyone would lose their motivation. And we'd be stuck with only one flavor of ice cream at our dilapidated collectivist food co-op!" In our political culture, there seem to be no mental resting points between North Korean communism and an economy that lets Wall Street billionaires run wild.
However, every once in a while we get pissed off. In 1913 we passed a constitutional amendment to legalize income taxes on plutocrats. From the 1930s to the 1970s we enacted tax rates on the super-rich that hovered between 70 and 90 percent. And long before that Andrew Jackson vetoed the National Bank because, as he said, "the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes." The rigged Bank laws, he argued, "make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. ()
We're still complaining. We get upset at government because it seems to favor the super-rich. Yet in the end we protect our Wall Street billionaires by attacking regulations and taxes on the wealthy.
Step 6: Thank the lord for sex, drugs and rock'n roll: Reagan and company may have hated the 1960s youth rebellion, but they sure glommed on to a key feature of it: People wanted to be liberated from society's constraints and from a government that was betraying our nation's ideals. Through either insight or dumb luck, the Reagan revolution successfully melded the idea of accumulating wealth with the idea of gaining freedom from everyone and everything -- the ultimate form of "doing your own thing." (My surfer friend called it "takeoff velocity.")
Few of us who came out of the 1960s trusted government. After all, it had waged an unjust and un-winnable war in Vietnam. Public figures seemed to lie to us on a regular basis -- from Mai Lai to Watergate. You want that kind of government running the economy too?
"Do your own thing" economics also caught on. Free love and free markets may have had a lot in common. Milton Friedman (who also opposed criminalization of drugs) led the way among American economists, arguing that government interference always distorts free markets. Only when markets are left entirely alone can they operate efficiently and create prosperity for all. Friedman's free market philosophy won over the academic and policy establishment. They saw the rise of Wall Street billionaires as a sign of our nation's economic health and prosperity. It wasn't just that their vast wealth might trickle down to the rest of us. It was that the accumulation of such wealth in the first place signaled a strong underlying economy.
According to the free market economists, under our system you can't possibly earn $900,000 an hour unless you produce $900,000 worth of something. So financial industry billionaires must, by definition, have the knowledge, skills, and experience to create that enormous value. Because nobody would cough up that sum of money unless they got equivalent value in return.
Therein may lie the biggest secret of all: Wall Street moguls are confident that Americans will always believe that that the big boys are really worth their money.
But for how long? Will our millions of unemployed workers eventually get fed up? Will the middle class finally get angry at the plutocrats who stole their dreams? Or will our anger continue to focus on government regulations, social spending and taxes instead of on our financial plutocrats? Eventually we'll have to choose or the choice will be made for us: Do we want a $900,000 an hour Valhalla for the few? Or a prosperous America for the rest of us?
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009. He is currently working on a new book, How to Earn $900,000 an Hour: The Rise of Wall Street Billionaires and the New Class War, (hopefully to be published in 2011).
Crashing the Tea Party Joyride
The Tea Party has done us all a favor. It has pointed out how absent we've been in building a common narrative about modern American citizenship. Their candidates are fascinating -- like watching campaign season through beer goggles. But every time I hear one of them speak in public, I realize what an advantage the rest of us have -- real stories, real characters, real democracy.
The Tea Party is taking a joyride through the world of American ideals. Along the way, it has grabbed the best revolutionary symbols, the cinematic frustration of the masses, and an irreproachable sounding plan (Fiscal responsibility! Constitutionally limited government! Free markets! Yay!)
But it's all emotions and fantasy. Despite the symbolic appeal, Tea Partiers don't really speak to tradition. They speak to nostalgia. These signals resurrected from the past are not representative. They are kitsch.
Their problem is that they actually prefer Bill O'Reilly to the Bill of Rights. Judging from the demographics, the Tea Party is the last act of the cynical Boomers, hence, a vision of government that doesn't go beyond shouting and a soundtrack. Their story has no characters or plot. It ends with the Winnebago driving off the cliff. How romantic and awesome! And then what?
Its time to take what they have started -- a participatory impetus for change -- re-brand it, and run away with it.
The argument is basic, and drawn in stark relief. Is there an US in the USA? Do we have a common purpose? Will we be able to evolve our collective identity to meet the needs of the modern era?
They have the "what" but we have the "how". Last week, I attended the Reinventing Governance conference in Colorado. Everyone there had an example of citizens taking the initiative, solving problems at the local level.
The Tea Party is the crowning achievement of the conservative rise in American politics. Who needs evidence when you have good optics? The right is not required to meet the challenge that the rest of us face -- that of governing ourselves. They are in eternal opposition, even when in office.
Conservatives have achieved this public relations coup because, on the right, the intellectuals and the propagandists are the same people (Gingrich, Rove). In contrast, those who defend the public sector -- public intellectuals -- have gone missing for years. We do have more civic firepower. Its just that our academics and operatives disdain each other. One group is polishing their footnotes and the other group is dialing for dollars. They rarely meet each other.
Moreover, conservatives prioritize communication as much as subject matter -- the right's mother ship Heritage Foundation spends nearly half its money on marketing. Meanwhile, those who believe in the common good work under a myth of omniscience. We believe that because an idea is right it will be obvious and because it is obvious it will be implemented.
These connections are fallacies. They don't exist. To be influential, ideas need a long-term infrastructure behind them. For example, "Islamophobia" is not an accident, it is an outcome. "Ground Zero Mosque" "Jihad Jane" etc. Conservative operatives have in place a network of relationships and one-liners that can surge to meet the needs of the day's headlines. If it is politically useful for them to marginalize Muslim Americans, they do it.
I worked on Capitol Hill in a progressive office during Republican reign. It was like fighting a well trained army with a pickup team. My side was always in the library and in the streets, but never in the room. This is not the same for conservatives today.
The Obama administration certainly could have communicated more consistently and forcefully over the past two years. But our president lacks the philosophical audience to back him up. Where are the people who can explain governing? Who empathize with institutions? Lots of us do, but we are not intentional about it.
Hope and Change still remain to be translated into a story about the rest of us. The path forward is staring us right in the face. Our greatest strength is our immense ability to connect with others, including those in power. Over the next decade, we will create new norms of democratic participation in which -- by definition -- corporations cannot preempt citizens. DC will be the last stop in this movement for change. You act on behalf of the common good dozens of times a day and don't even think about it.
I would argue that we have not even begun to assess our own power. Speaking as a former Hill staffer, the relationships forged on behalf of ideals are viewed differently than the purchased relationships beholden to private commercial lobbies. As Craig Newmark says, "Trust is the new black". We have that in our corner.
Government is changing rapidly. There are dozens of new transparency requirements and rules for openness. But information without interpreters is just more noise. To be politically useful, it requires a civic filter. Every Member of Congress went to High School. You long-time friends, make an appointment with the local office and ask. What are some basic public interest issues that you vote on? What do you need information about? How can we support you? You will be amazed at how many topics have no constituent input.
This kind of individual initiative -- citizens putting a stake in the ground on behalf of the collective -- is powerful. Telling your leaders what you're doing in your community will provide the characters and plot for our narrative.
The American people long for a novel, not a sitcom. We want a good story about who we are and where we're going in the world. Most of all, we want the happy ending, the one where nobody gets left out. Whoever tells this story best will win.
The Tea Party wants a knife fight and we've been showing up with chop sticks. This has to change.
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