Month: October 2005

An unfortunate lesson that many people learn too late in their careers is that “who you know” is sometimes — or often — more important than “what you know.” This lesson comes painfully, and often at just the wrong time, for people who aren’t schmoozers by nature and who were raised to believe that if you work hard, remain loyal and play by the rules, you’ll get ahead. We live in a society that pretends to be largely a meritocracy. About the only concession we make to the reality of schmoozing is what we tell college students: Network, network, network. Most ambitious students do this dutifully; but I’m not sure they understand why they must, or that they have to keep doing it, not just to initially get a job, but to survive on-the-job politics.

In the workplace, this isn’t a reality we can easily escape. But it’s also possible to get too cynical about it based on your experience in one environment. It is possible to be in a workplace where the veneer of meritocracy has completely broken down, and has been replaced by a great deal of excessive chumminess or even nepotism (sometimes in the name of very high goals). In such situations, there’s not much you can do if you’re on the thin end of the political stick except seek employment elsewhere, or “wait for the thud” from upstairs.

What can eat away at the stability of companies can also be seen eating away at governments. We are not so naive not to sense that our democracy, like meritocracy in the workplace, is more of an ideal than a bedrock principle. Replace “meritocracy” with “democracy,” and then step back and take a look at what’s happening to the Bush Administration (and what we know has been happening in Albany). The opposite, the enemy of democracy is not communism, socialism, terrorism or any particular religious worldview. The opposite of democracy is cronyism.

everyone is wondering why the wingnuts are objecting to miers….its so very clear to me what their problems is…they suspect, but cant say for sure, that she is a closet lesbian and susceptible to the souter effect….david souter was an unmarried man (harriet has never been married and has no known children), was nominated by a republican president so they thought they could count on him for right wing judicial activism, and has totally disappointed them with his thoughtful mostly left wing votes….the right wingers objecting to miers look at her and her advocacy of gay rights as they pertain to adoptions, plus her endorsement by texas lgbt orgs, and they get that queasy feeling in their jesus bellies that leaves them wondering if they are gonna get duped again.

dont believe the cover that they object because she isnt qualified….they dont mind their public servants dumber than a box of rocks….they elected a dumbass president….they love clarence pubichaironmycokecan darkasnight dumberthanjoecuntsdog thomas….i mean that man is a mental midget (no offense to midgets) but he very dependably votes their way without even having to think too hard about the issues….they overlooked his race (way daker than the black people they usually grudgingly support), his marriage to a white woman (lynching material only 40 years prior), his religion (catholic but better than a jew), his sexual harrassment reputation(if only anita hill was white), his lack of intellectual skills (his staff can do all the work)…and they confirmed him while calling all his detractors rascist…. they have a long list of supposedly more qualified conservative candidates this time around and ill bet not one of them would ever put money in a pac that would donate to that other suspected closet lesbian hillary or support exodus (gay prison persons org)….nope….the non qualified meme is a red herring…its the fear of not being able to control a possible carpet munching female that has them uneasy.

The terms offered by Delphi Corporation to its workers make it starkly clear what the average American worker can expect in the future.The blue collar worker who used to enjoy $25-30 per hour wages with full benefits is going to be a thing of the past soon, to be replaced by $9-10 an hour worker with no benefits whatsoever.Training in specialized skills such as numerically controlled machining may temporarily stem the tide of low wages but even in those cases the fast rising countries of Asia have such a massive number of people coming into the workforce with the same skills and willingness to work for $2-5 a day wage rates, I do not expect our labor to become competitive soon.

What is at work here is that the countries of Asia have absorbed the lessons of the US well and invested in the education and training of their workers instead of squandering their resources on war making equipment.
In the white collar segment, of course, India has become a leader in software, medicine and biotechnology, while China is fast becoming a leader in manufacturing and pulling the entire economy of Asia along with it.

At a time like this, we need wise and competent leaders able to transition us into the new state of affairs by educating people on the realities ahead for most workers.The old fixations on ideology will not work.Illusions of power and might makes  right have to be given up.Only then can we start challenging countries like Japan and Germany which have learned these lessons the hard way and are now the models for many Asian countries.

Since Philadelphia is the democratic blogging capital of the world, we have the most interesting Drinking Liberally meet-ups. For those of you that don’t know, Drinking Liberally is a national organization that convenes every Tuesday in over three dozen cities. Their purpose? Getting liberals together to have a few brewskis and to discuss politics.

Last night I had a long conversation with Duncan Black about voting reform, and talked with Chris Bowers about Act Blue, Lois Murphy, and the fact that google lists Booman Tribune number one when you type in muff shots. No kidding.

But I also had a long conversation with an activist from Brooklyn, who is trying to organize and promote a growing contingent of Democratic veterans of the Iraq War and former members of our intelligence services. He started out with the Draft Zinni movement, and has just kept going.

We talked for a long time over a couple of beers. And we had quite a lengthy conversation over the subject of abortion. I don’t know whether I was able to persuade him to my position or not, but the conversation was a microcosm of the discussion that has been going on on this site, and throughout the blogosphere.

He opined that the average swing voter does not want to talk about abortion and is totally turned off by the issue. He suggested that the best advice for a candidate, when questioned about abortion, was to change the subject to Iraq and national security. Something like: “This is not the most pressing issue right now, what is important is that we have over 100,000 troops bogged down in Iraq…”.

I countered that only 20% of Americans support overturning Roe and that any issue where we enjoy 80% support should be an advantage, not a disadvantage. I gave Clinton’s 1996 Mediscare campaign as an example where we enjoyed a similar 80% advantage, and where highlighting, even demagoguing, such an issue worked to our advantage.

My argument was basically as follows: the Supreme Court is on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade even though only 20% of the American public supports such a move. This is only possible because the Democratic Party has failed to raise awareness of the stakes involved in Presidential elections. The most underrepresented group of Democrats (those with the lowest turnout) are single women of childbearing age. And we haven’t made it clear why they should turn out to vote, and to vote for us.

As a counterpoint, I looked at the issue of gay marriage. Opposition to gay marriage is one of the few issues where the GOP actually holds a real advantage with the public. Even though swing voters do not particularly enjoy, or want to discuss, gay marriage, the Republicans are unapologetically against it. They even went so far as to put the issue on numerous state ballots, and the issue boosted their turnout.

So, I suggested, it is better for us to raise the volume of our pro-choice stance than it is to soft-pedal it. Soft-pedalling our support for Roe does not inspire anyone, and it still makes swing voters uncomfortable. Soft-pedalling our support for choice has led us to a point where the federal protection of choice may be lost. It has been a failing strategy, and it is high time that we learned the lesson and began making it crystal clear to the populace where we stand.

He understood my argument but still believed that the issue was a loser. Wherever you stand on the issues and on strategy, it is always fun to drink liberally.