Dear Future America

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Tuesday September 23, 2014 · 6:16 PM PDT

2014/09/23 · 18:16

Hello, America of 2024! This is Brian Hurt, writing you from the far distant past of late 2014. Last night, President Obama just started bombing Iraq. Again. The failure of this bombing to dismantle ISIS has not happened yet. Not has the failure of the intervention of the arabic soldiers. The "limited" commitment of American soldiers hasn't happened yet, nor has it's failure, nor the resulting surges, comitting ever larger numbers of US troops to the area, nor their failures. The unending stream of flag draped coffins has not (yet) started to return to the US, nor the even larger number of damaged and disabled veterans.

I write this to you, because in the far distant future of 2024, my era of 2014 is as distant and poorly remembered to you as the year 2004 is distant and poorly remembered to me. Distance in time erases memory, and the justifications of one age are lost to the mists after a passage of so many years. This letter is my attempt to answer the question you are probably asking yourself- what were we thinking?

bhurt

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Thursday April 11, 2013 · 11:18 AM PDT

2013/04/11 · 11:18

Consider an alternate earth, where liberals responded to Obama's buget proposal by saying things like "“The vast majority of the Democratic base believes that Social Security is a non-negotiable plank,” and “If the President abandons Social Security, liberals will either sit the elections out completely, or move to create a third party. Either option puts Democrats on the path to a permanent minority.” Or “We respectfully warn Democratic Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support,” or “If you bail out on this issue, I will leave the party and I will take as many people as I possibly can.” Not just Some Guy With A Blog (tm), but would be Presidential candidates and movers and shakers in the party.

Nice, but not going to happen, right? Except that it is happening, just with a different party.

You don't get what you don't demand

bhurt

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Tuesday August 23, 2011 · 9:28 AM PDT

2011/08/23 · 09:28

As a general rule, in politics, you don't get what you don't demand. Simply because you demand it doesn't mean you get it- but of the things you don't demand, you get very few. When I state it plainly like that, your response is probably "no duh!" This is the most common complaint about Obama's negotiating strategy- his unwillingness to draw a line, and make demands, puts him in a weak bargaining position.

But what I was thinking while reading "Democrats doing the right thing" on Hullaballo was that this applies to us liberals as well. Do we give up and preemptively surrender as well?

bhurt

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Monday July 25, 2011 · 10:34 AM PDT

2011/07/25 · 10:34

There's an old saying that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll jump right out again. But if you put a frog into a pot of lukewarm water, and heat it up slowly enough, the frog will never notice how hot the water is getting and never jump out, until it's frog soup.

Now, I don't think that literally works, but my diary title was intended to drop you directly into the hot water, so you'd notice it. "Oh, hell no!" was probably your response. But here's the thing I didn't say: it's not literally Michelle Bachmann running as a Democrat, just someone else with the same ideology and same policies. And the Republican running against him/her is worse, way worse. Would you vote for Michelle Bachmann then?

bhurt

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Tuesday October 19, 2010 · 4:41 PM PDT

2010/10/19 · 16:41

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
<DIV ALIGN="RIGHT">Friedrich Nietzsche</DIV>

The problem with the Conway ad is not so much the ad itself, but that it fits into a growing trend I see, especially here on this site- that we the netroots of the Democratic party are adopting the worst aspects of the Republican party.

bhurt

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Tuesday February 23, 2010 · 8:52 PM PST

2010/02/23 · 20:52

There is a difference, people, between seats and votes. The right understands this. The left does not. This is why 41 is greater than 59. When the time comes to actually pass legislation, it's not about the number of seats your party has- how many people have the right letter behind their name, but rather how many elected officials stand up and say "yea", even if they have a different letter after their name.

Stating it plainly and simply, like this, everyone goes "duh! Of course! Obvious!" But this fact isn't accepted by many people on the left (including a large contingent of people on this blog), and this is why the Democrats are perpetually weak and spineless- and why it is that 41 is greater than 59.

So I'm going to spell out the logic. And many people, including probably you, Reader, won't like the implications. But until we come to grips with this simple fact, and more importantly the implications of this fact, we are doomed to failure.

bhurt

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Monday August 03, 2009 · 6:56 AM PDT

2009/08/03 · 06:56

I've just read Krugman's recent op-ed on high frequency trading, and, as much as it pains me to say it (I am a fairly big Krugman fan), Krugman is wrong.

Updated at the end.

bhurt

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Tuesday June 16, 2009 · 4:31 PM PDT

2009/06/16 · 16:31

I'm reading Michael Hastings' blog post on media support of the war. The points he makes should be no surprise to readers here on dkos: that it was a wise career move to support the war, and that there were no consequences for getting the war wrong. I do want to argue one point, however: I think there was a consequence for getting the war wrong. But it's not falling on the specific commentators or reporters who got the war wrong, instead it is falling on the industry as a whole: people just stopped reading newspapers.

bhurt

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Sunday February 08, 2009 · 11:49 AM PST

2009/02/08 · 11:49

The graphic in ManFromMiddletown's excellent and recommend diary terrifies me. It's a symptom of a deep and fundamental problem in this economy. Now, I'm no economist, but I can count above ten with my shoes on, and I have some idea of how economies work. And the lagging of worker's compensation behind the growth in productivity isn't just about the workers getting their fair share. It's about the economy avoiding a debilitating deflationary spiral and economic collapse- not unlike the one we're now facing. Follow me below the fold for my reasoning.

bhurt

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Wednesday November 19, 2008 · 3:19 PM PST

2008/11/19 · 15:19

So, we have a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic congress and senate, and a Republican party in eclipse. Time to celebrate? Well, not just yet. See, I've been here before. Twice before, as a matter of fact- once when Nixon resigned and Ford lost, and once when Bush I lost to Clinton. Both times the Republican party has managed to slither it's way back into power, both times in an astonishingly short period of time. Having the Republican President resign in utter disgrace meant it took six years for the Republicans to slither back into power, losing an election is even easier to overcome.

I thought I'd share my observations with the dKos community on how the Republicans managed their inevitable comeback, so we can prepare ourselves for what is to come. The Republican game plan is simple, and can be summed up in three words: Obstruct, Attack, and Rebrand.

bhurt

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Tuesday September 30, 2008 · 6:26 PM PDT

2008/09/30 · 18:26

This started life as a comment on The Alternative "No Bailout" DeFazio Plan, but as it grew longer and longer, I realized that it was more of a diary than a comment.

There has been a lot of press recently blaming short selling for the declines in markets- and a number of people not as familiar with the markets have even started questioning why we allow short selling at all. The problem is that the role of short-selling in the markets is not well understood. I now work for a company that does a lot of short selling (not as a trader- I'm not as informed about this as many people I know), and I'd like to set the record straight. Most short selling is, in fact, good for the market as a whole (not just the short-seller). And, more importantly, short sellers can not "destroy" a healthy company.

bhurt

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Tuesday August 05, 2008 · 4:01 PM PDT

2008/08/05 · 16:01

So I have a question that was posed to me recently, that I want to pose to DKos as well: are savings-glut induced bubbles the inevitable result of the success of supply side economics?

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Dear Future America

A tale of two parties

You don't get what you don't demand

Would you vote for Michelle Bachmann if she ran as a Democrat?

Becoming the monster we fight

This is why 41 is greater than 59

Krugman is Wrong (Updated)

Newspapers, Readership, and the War

Why I fear for this Economy

Obstruct, Attack, Rebrand: how the Republicans will regain power

In Defense of Short Selling

Are Bubbles the result of Supply Side Economics?