Thoughts on 2022 World Cup snub

Maybe it was a good thing that the 2022 World Cup didn't go to the U.S. Given that an already poisonous political climate could become nuclear, maybe it made sense to not give a major international event to a country that could be forced to withdraw from due to an ideological civil war. This really applies to the 2018-22 Olympic Games if America wins bidding for any of those events. It's been said that sports can bring a country together, but the reverse could also be true--arguing about political issues also have the potential to further tear a nation apart. A possible hint of the latter scenario took place last year as conservatives openly cheered Chicago's elimination on the first ballot of the 2016 Summer Olympics bidding.

Thanksgiving Science: Tryptophacts and Tryptophantasies

Thanksgiving Science: Tryptophacts and Tryptophantasies

All that talk about the tryptophan is just plain false

A midterm postmortem

The first question that should be brought up is: will Obama lose the presidency and the Senate or will Republicans lose the House? As I said last week, the next two years won't be a repeat of the Clinton-Gingrich showdown because if there is another government shutdown, the public will not stand for any more gridlock. So, either Obama or Boehner will get a nasty surprise in 2012 from Americans who are expecting the economy to be fixed.

Where Obama Went Wrong
I personally think that the president should have focused on fixing the economy instead of pushing for health care reform. 2009 was a very bad year and people wanted the recession to end. The health care law, while long overdue, was ripe of things that catered to the insurance industry. Obama should have continued focusing on adding jobs--the stimulus was a start, but it should have continued. 

He should have articulated why repealing the Bush tax cuts was the right thing to do instead of letting the folks at Fox News and Fox Business engage in total intellectual dishonesty by claiming that reverting the tax rates back to Clinton-era levels would be "the biggest tax increase in history." Instead, 47 House Democrats ended up arguing in favor of keeping the tax cuts.

The Tea Party Influence
So, we will have a bunch of lawmakers who want to return to the '90s by uttering the "cut, cut, cut" mantra. Hmm, here's what we could get in the next six years if they also win the Senate and the White House in '12: 

• lots of programs cut because they don't fit the Tea Party philosophy
• government aversion to infrastructure spending leading to another I-35W bridge collapse
• $5/gallon gas paralyzing America due to no real solution (after all, no one wants to raise the gas tax, and I don't know if any other alternatives like a vehicle per mile tax would be brought up any time soon) and/or a war with Iran, which would also add to the deficit (something Tea Partiers say is a priority in reducing)

What's Next For Obama
The president should not attempt to triangulate like Clinton because if he does, he will have a challenger from his left flank, and if that happens, the Democratic Party will be divided for a generation. After all, if the prez moves to the middle and fights off a challenger in the primary, white liberals may go Green or stay at home during the election. If Obama is toppled in the primary or elects not to run for reelection, blacks would all of a sudden stay at home two years from now and may become strategic nonvoters, only voting Democratic if their conditions are met.

Instead, Obama should  shift the onus to the Republicans since they think their plans are better. He can only do much in the way of compromise before he must invoke his agenda.

Rotating two-party system

This is based on what I posted on the Fourth Turning Forums last fall. I am taking this public because the rotating model may be the only way that the next political realignment will involve a party outside of the current two in a position of power. 

Second, it looks like the mainstreaming of the spoiler effect where the major parties can now use minor parties that are the least compatible with their viewpoints to damage their major opponents--Rick Santorum's failed attempt to recruit a Green candidate to take votes away from Bob Casey, Jr. when he ran for reelection for his Senate seat four years ago and Oregon's attorney general leaving an Ann Coulter lookalike on the ballot running on the Constitution ticket in the same year. The incumbent governor didn't need the help in the end since his margin of victory over his GOP opponent was more than what the kook got (8.1 points vs 3.6).  

Third, there is no way that we are ever going to experience any kind of change to the current first past the post system because the public for the most part would rather watch horrible reality TV shows and be beholden to whatever ideology they hold dear. Ergo, complaints about the lesser of two evils will continue without any real attempt to do anything to fixed the flawed voting system that offers us two objectionable choices.

A Different Way
As it looks right now, public confidence in both parties is at an all-time low. However, we need to have a legitimate alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. The current batch of alternatives doesn't shake up. The Greens and the Constitution parties are extreme extensions of the major parties and cancel each other out. The Libertarians, while known for causing Republicans headaches, can also be a spoiler against Democrats. Another thing is that the last 20-25 years were very favorable for Libertarians and the national party spent most of that time espousing their most unrealistic ideas of their platform like abolishing all taxes. The next 20-25 years will not be favorable to the LP so different ideas are needed.

A new populist party is what's needed for the upcoming era. Bailouts and other favors for big corporations have angered much of the public for the last two years. Both parties are beholden to corporations and special interest groups interested in upholding the status quo in D.C. If the Tea Party ever got rid of its corporatist elements and joined left-leaning populists and other like-minded independents, the Dems and the GOP could be in for a rude awakening. 

Looking Ahead
As it looks right now, the Republicans are poised to take over the House. The conventional wisdom is that with one chamber against President Obama's agenda, gridlock will be the order of the day. That may be so, but unlike 1995-96, I don't think that Obama will deal with a GOP majority in either house in the event that he's reelected because this time is different in the sense that the public wants quick action on the ailing economy. If there is another government shutdown and/or the economy does not pick quickly, the voters will be left with only two choices in 2012--either reelect Obama and restore Democrats to the House, or replace Obama and give Republicans the Senate. The main point being is that the public is less tolerant of gridlock and will want a party to turn things around. That's what's at stake next Tuesday.

For all of that said, the winner in 2012 may end up with a Pyrrhic victory because if things get worse by 2014, a populist uprising will be inevitable. If things get really bad again, I expect for people to transfer their rage into recruiting candidates or run for office themselves as true populists. The main reason will be the lack of progress from the two parties. This independent coalition will surprise every pundit by sweeping into power. In 2016, the New Populists will be all but assured of the presidency.

In 4-5 years, the opposition party will remain as the #2 party for a while, but the president's party will be relegated to status as a glorified regional party because the split will be so nasty that it'll take decades to fix. 


A Couple of Scenarios 
1) Obama reelection. In 2014, the Democrats lose House seats to the Greens in some very strong liberal bastions--think university towns. The cause is continuing unease with the president's approach to corporations. As a result, the disenchanted left will deal with a faction that wants to rein in corporate excess. The Democrats will then be limited to the coasts for three decades as the Progressive Caucus and the DLC struggle for the party during its time out of power. 

2) Palin or Romney wins in 2012 with a Republican takeover of the Senate. As it did in 2005, the new president and Congress overreach in the two years by insisting on an anti-government agenda that proves to be out of touch with what's needed to fix the country. An example of this would be another disaster on the scale of the I-35W bridge collapse in the face of the White House and Congress refusing to fund infrastructure because they feel that government has no role. The 2014 end result is the GOP losing House seats to Libertarians and/or the Constitution Party and confined to the South and the Rockies for a couple of decades. The party will have a bitter battle among the small government types, Wall Street Republicans, and religious conservatives with one or two of these groups leaving. What's left of the Tea Party (the Astroturfers) will go away.

Future Cycles

3a) New Populists vs Republicans 2015-2040s or
3b) New Populists vs Democrats 2015-2030s

4a) Same as 3a
4b) New Populists vs Republicans 2030s 

5) 2040s-2060s alignment same as today

6) Libertarians (by this time the party will have expelled its extremist and anarchist elements and will be marketable to the public) vs the 2012 winner 2060s-2090s

7) New Populists vs Libertarians 2090s-2110s 

Rewarding failure

If anyone truly believes that America doesn't reward failure, then he or she mustn't have paid attention to the last two years. After all, TARP was all about that because the big banks got at least $700 billion of our money. Of course, when Congress asked them about how that money was spent, the banks and the Fed told them that it was none of their business. Another example came last week when the NCAA strongly considered placing 5-7 teams in bowl games since they are worried that they would not have a lot of 6-6 teams to fill slots for extremely insignificant postseason games. So, the NCAA wants to add sub .500 teams into bowl games but not even consider a plus-one for the BCS national championship.

Burger Survey

Consumer Reports just came out with a survey on the best and worst hamburger chains in the country, and as it turned out, the big chains were at the bottom. Five Guys and In-N-Out tied for the top spot while McDonald's was dead last out of 18 chains. Burger King, Jack in the Box, and Krsytal were tied for 15th. This survey tells me that the way to combat Mickey D's, the King and Wendy's is to eat at chains that are local or regional, not boycotting the majors because they put who knows what in their food. I'd rather have a fresh made hamburger that came from a single cow and a real milkshake than be stuck with a burger made from hundreds of cows sprayed with petroleum products and a milkshake with 56 different ingredients, some of which are carcinogens.

Reopening old wounds

Last week, President Obama and Fantasia both managed to reopen old wounds that their opponents can take advantage of.

Within the last week or so, the president managed to get himself involved with a very sensitive topic when he said that Muslims "have the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero." This was after he had avoided weighing in for a few weeks. Even though today's rapid news cycle forced him to take a position, he should not have said that, especially given how the wounds from 9/11 are still fresh in many New Yorkers' minds less than a decade on. Now, the president has reopened all of the talk of him supposedly being a Muslim. Those consistently refuted rumors that he had to deal with during the 2008 campaign now have resurfaced as one out of every five Americans falsely claim that the president is Muslim. With some people in this country sincerely believing that the United States is at war with the Islamic religion, Obama's statements were not helpful to say the least.

As for Fantasia, I remember a 2005 opinion column in which editor Tom Blount said "Let's hope High Point 'gets over' Fantasia's negative remarks and, for her sake, let's pray that something she does or says doesn't come back to haunt her 30 years from now." Unfortunately, Fantasia's Joe Namath moment has come a lot sooner than anyone could have ever predicted. In a matter of days, it was revealed that she's being sued by  her lover's wife  

after an allegation that the Season 3 "American Idol" winner was in a sex tape with the woman's husband and, also, her overdose on the 10th that Charlotte officials are now calling a suicide attempt.

Given these revelations, Fantasia just gave her enemies fresh ammunition because these people wanted the "Welcome to High Point" signs honoring her taken down because they either hated her status as a single mother, comments that she made about her former hometown in her autobiography, or both. The only good thing about last week's events in Charlotte is that the Tea Party did not field any candidates in this year's High Point elections because if it did, then, there would be a renewed push to have the signs taken down since it's safe to say that virtually all of Fantasia's bashers lean to the right. I just hope that her upcoming album doesn't take a hit because of the bad press.

Financial Reform

If the recent fuss over financial reform taught the public anything, it's that it is really hard to redo something once it has been undone.

If Congress had not been so gung-ho to get rid of Glass-Stegall 11 years ago, we would not be tumbling towards a depression. But like everyone else, they must have believed that the stock market would continue to go up. There are legitimate gripes that the recently passed financial reform law doesn't put an end to "too big to fail" and provides loopholes to some of the megabanks that got us into this mess. Some of the very people who got G-S repealed are still in Washington--as lobbyists--so reinforcing the Depression-era rules would have been a big hurdle to overcome.

Brett Favre latest

Even if he means it this time, Brett Favre did himself no favors because he's done this retirement stuff for the last seven years to the point that the public is numb to it. As a result, he is in danger of suffering from The Boy Who Cried Wolf Syndrome if we are sitting here in October talking about a 2-4 Vikings team faltering with Tavarias Jackson and Sage Rosenfels.

The BET Awards

As I went through some tweets on Twitter two nights ago, one caught my eye right away. It said "Apparently Chris Brown is completely redeemed while Guru is completely forgotten," which was something that at first surprised me, but eventually became unsurprising because BET sold its soul to the current garbage known as commercial music years ago. The network stopped playing any intelligent rap in the late '90s when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 began having an effect on who got played--when gangsta rap gave way to materialism, there was no space on the channel for intelligent rap. What's even worse is that most of the people watching the awards show probably didn't even know who Gang Starr was, showing that an entire generation has no idea how good rap used to be.

Another tweet said that we should forgive Brown because God had already done so, which made me wonder if this other tweeter had the same mindset about Janet Jackson six years ago. It's pretty obvious that many people exhibited the same attitude towards Justin Timberlake for his role in the Super Bowl halftime show but not Jackson.

The Era of Superconferences

Nebraska is on its way to the Big Ten. This will supposedly pave the way for four superconferences--the ACC, Big Ten, SEC, and the Pac-12/14/16. Such shifts would kill the Big East and the Big XII conferences. Any teams left out of the seismic shift would be in big trouble, and it could lead to these superconferences breaking away from the NCAA. I have to wonder if such a move would result in an actual playoff for football because the traditional bowl tie-ins would become irrelevant. What about Division I-A football? The conferences left behind would be very few, and the NCAA would likely have to move some of the stronger I-AA conferences up to I-A. Basketball may also suffer from having these superconferences.