History at Carnegie Hall

One of the thrills of living in New York City is the daily opportunity to brush up against history. For example, tonight I will be hearing the soulful a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock at Carnegie Hall. The power of these vocalists makes for a memorable experience whatever the venue.

Today, however, WBGO dedicated an hour to celebrating the Voice of America's 1957 recording of the Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane. The VOA recording captures Monk and Trane playing together at Carnegie Hall, exactly fifty years ago today.

For non-jazz fans, the VOA reels are famous because they represent the only record of a historic collaboration, and because they sat unnoticed in the vaults of the Library of Congress until 2005. NPR tells the story of archivist Larry Applebaum's discovery (and allows you to listen to certain tracks); the New Yorker's Steve Futterman argues that the VOA date may represent both Monk and Trane at his peak. That two frighteningly original artists could team up and each bring out the best in the other - an inspired thought.

Tonight as I glance around the majestic hall, I'll try to imagine how it would have felt to hear "Monk's Mood" floating from the stage. I'll savor the singing a little more knowing that today marks the anniversary of a tour de force by earlier black musicians. And I'll marvel at the incompetence of the VOA in allowing such a brilliant record to collect dust in a library rather than performing its rightful duty of glorifying American culture throughout the globe. It's episodes like this that make you understand why the Cold War took 56 years to win. But that still can't spoil tonight's performance.

Progressive, nee Liberal

Greg Mankiw features a cartoon mocking liberals who have rebranded themselves 'progressives.' Though funny, the criticism is unfair. All should welcome the switch in terminology simply to undo the semantic perversion of making liberalism synonymous with "big government"," thus distorting the word 'liberal' from its original 18th-century meaning.

Hillary Clinton explains her preference for 'progressive' in a response to a question during the CNN/YouTube debate:

QUESTION:

Mrs. Clinton, how would you define the word "liberal?"

And would you use this word to describe yourself?

Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: You know, it is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual.

Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head and it's been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.

I prefer the word "progressive," which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century.

I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family.

So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that's the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics.

Clinton's explanation is entirely correct. From its historical meaning, someone such as Greg Mankiw (who in policy debates consistently supports more "freedom of choice" irrespective of inequality in outcomes) is more 'liberal' than Hillary Clinton.

So let those left-of-center speak with historical precision by identifying as progressives. Now, we just need to correct the folly (more pronounced in the U.S. than in Europe) of describing free trade, open capital flows, deregulation, etc. as "neoconservative" policies when - by removing barriers to individual enterprise - they are in fact "neoliberal."

If the precise use of language in politics seems irrelevant to you... William Safire's Political Dictionary offers 930 pages (!) of reasons to think otherwise.

America and the Age of Genocide

Samantha Power's 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide is a remarkable book. She goes through Armenians in Turkey, Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, Saddam and the Kurds, Rwanda (which in 1994, given a country of just 8 million people, experienced "the numerical equivalent of more than two World Trade Center attacks every single day for 100 days), and Bosnia - each time illustrating the harms of U.S. inaction, as well as profiling the few brave dissenters and many silent onlookers. Regrettably, we already need a second edition of the book to chronicle the twenty-first century's first genocide, Darfur. The worthy and effective protests of SaveDarfur and others notwithstanding, America's reaction to this latest massacre has largely followed the script Power writes for all of her twentieth-century cases (Frontline recently broadcast an excellent history of the Darfur genocide entitled "On Our Watch", in which Power appears).

Though too lazy to provide a proper review of this rich work, let me share two passages which encapsulate Power's depressing thesis. First, from the preface, in which Power describes her fascination with genocide emerging from her experiences reporting from Bosnia for the Washington Post (xxi):

Before I began exploring America's relationship with genocide, I used to refer to U.S. policy toward Bosnia as a "failure." I have changed my mind. It is daunting to acknowledge, but this country's consistent policy of nonintervention in the face of genocide offers sad tesitmony not to a broken American political system but to one that is ruthlessly effective. The system, as it now stands, is working. No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority, and no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on.

After surveying U.S. apathy toward five genocides (each case featuring some gallant proponents of intervention), Power diagnoses the following framework (508):

In each case, the U.S. policymakers in the executive branch (usually with the passive backing of most members of Congress) had two objectives. First, they wanted to avoid engagements in conflicts that posed little threat to American interests, narrowly defined. And second, they hoped to contain the political costs and avoid the moral stigma associated with allowing genocide. By and large, they achieved both aims. In order to contain the political fallout, U.S. officials overemphasized the ambiguity of the facts. They played up the likely futility, perversity, jeopardy of any proposed intervention. They steadfastly avoided use of the word "genocide," which they believed carried with it a legal and moral (and thus political) imperative to act. And they took solace in the normal operations of the foreign policy bureaucracy, which permitted an illusion of continual deliberation, complex activity, intense concern. One of the most important conclusions I have reached, therefore, is that the U.S. record is not one of failure. It is one of success. Troubling though it is to acknowledge, U.S. officials worked the system and the system worked.

There you have it. The sins of comission - introducing desicive measures that could go wrong -are less politically risky than those of omission - simply tolerating another genocide. Inaction in the face of slaughter is the result of American political leaders achieving, rather than missing, their aims.

This is a compelling argument. Since elected leaders take their cues from individual citizens, we too bear blame for giving leaders more incentive to dither and obfuscate than to commit to humanitarian action. The Frontline Darfur documentary shows that outspoken individual citizens can indeed pressure their governments into taking some punitive actions agaisnt genocidal regimes. We citizens just need to get better at not waiting until hundreds of thousands have already died before demanding that our government do something. In other words, Presidents and Senators will only risk political capital saving the lives of non-Americans when the political consequences of inaction outweigh those of (inevitably risky and uncertain) prevention.

Another worthy point Power makes is that policy responses to genocide need not be a binary choice between acquiesence and "unilaterally sending in the marines." As U.S. policy in Darfur belatedly illustrates, there are a bevy of measures short of military intervention which can help deter perpetrators and protect innocents. Simply using the bully pulpit to decry the crimes and threaten the criminals can be efficacious. After stressing that the U.S. must share the burden of preventing genocide with our allies and relevant international institutions, Power enumerates a list of responses she believes the U.S. should direct toward every instance of genocide (514, paraphrased here):

publicly identifying and threatening the perpetrators with prosecution, demanding the expulsion of represenatives of genocidal rimes from international institutions such as the United Nations, closing the perpetrators' embassies in the U.S., calling on allies of the regime to use their influence. When warranted, the U.S can establish economic sanctions, freeze foreign assets, deprive foreign killers of the means of destructions. With allies, settin up safe areas for refugees, protected with peacekeepers, airpower, or both. Given the affront genocide represents to America's most cherished values and to its interests, the United States must also be prepared to risk the lives of its soldiers in the service of stopping this monstrous crime.

The last proposal in this list - endangering American soldiers to protect non-American lives -is bound to generate the most controversy. Yet all the items which precede it will in most cases generate widespread support. Rather than charting a policy of genocide prevention by trying to decide first on the most politically contentious issue - as is almost always done - we should pressure leaders to exhaust the full spate of non-groundforce measures, and only when necessary begin to deliberate armed intervention. In other words, we should not allow U.S. leaders to justify inaction in the face of genocide by claiming that the U.S. public "won't accept another Somalia." Powers astutely notes that "If everyone in government is motivated to avoid 'another Somolia' or 'another Vietnam,' few think twice about playing a role in allowing 'another Rwanda'" (510).

The same distortions from hyper-vigilance against "quagmires" afflict the American public at large. Regrettably, as Ron Brownstein and Matt Yglesias have argued, our media rewards journalists for stoking controversy rather than consensus. Thus, discussion of U.S. response to genocide takes its cues from cable news headlines - "SHOULD THE U.S. COMMIT GROUND TROOPS TO DARFUR?" - while largely ignoring less costly policy measures which nonetheless can be useful in saving lives. Until mainstream discussion of genocide prevention corrects this obsession with controversial measures - irrespective of their necessity at the time - public debate will fail to generate effective pressure on public officials. We don't start discussions of health care costs by asking whether we should have a mandatory age of death - why do we start anti-genocide discussions by immediately debating the use of ground troops? This is why a group like SaveDarfur has been so useful for keeping the anti-genocide ball rolling; its campaigns frame the debate in terms of concrete measures - economic sanctions against Sudan, divestiture, enforcement of a no-fly zone, deployment of U.N. peacekeepers - that can reduce killing without having to involve U.S. forces. One hopes the coalitions that comprise SaveDarfur will be a models for future activists.

Power is now a foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign. Reading her book, as well as watching her on Charlie Rose, gives me only one thought - this woman must be part of the next Presidential administration. Perhaps as Ambassador to the United Nations with a potential promotion to Secretary of State, a la Madelaine Albright?

To grasp why Power would be a valuable addition, consider that too often U.S. policymakers have justified inaction to genocide with appeal to strategic considerations (what Power terms the "fear of jeopordizing" case against intervention). These have ranged from the disgusting - continuing to recognize Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge because Zbig Brezinksi and others wanted a counterweight to North Vietnam and China - to the merely misguided - such as in 2004-2005, when some State Department (and U.N.) officials warned that pressuring the Sudanese too hard on Darfur would scuttle Khartoum's acceptance of the recently negotiated settlement to Sudan's longstanding North-South civil war (a conflict unrelated to Darfur) - warnings that failed to appreciate how Khartoum was deliberately dragging its heels in regard to the peace agreement in order to buy time to finish the massacre in Darfur.

Power is intimately familair with these strategic justifications, and why they always fail to hold water. If America is ever to begin honoring its pledge of "Never Again,"giving her the President's ear wouldn't be a bad start.

Gisele's Monies

BBC reports that Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen has asked Proctor and Gamble to pay her in Euros (Gisele's spokeswoman denies the arrangement). Frantic as ever, on Nov. 7 CNBC’s Jim Cramer blamed news of Gisele’s request for fueling a market sell-off.

Lost in the jokes about supermodels becoming arbiters of international finance is this reality – Gisele’s request makes no sense. The reason is that eleven trillion dollar a day entity known as the foreign exchange market. On the forex one can instantly translate dollars into euros for miniscule transaction fees. Thus, if Gisele is genuinely worried that further declines in the dollar will erode her purchasing power, she could just take her lump-sum payment and immediately convert it into euros.

Alan Greenspan made this point a few months ago in his 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl. In one of many futile attempts to divine Greenspan’s views about the market, Stahl mentioned Greenspan’s multi-million dollar book advance and asked, if he had the choice, what currency Greenspan would prefer to be paid in. Greenspan made the above point that the possibility of currency conversion made the currency of payment inconsequential; the choice with real economic consequences, he noted, is in what currency-denomination one holds one’s long-term assets (e.g. U.S. stocks versus European stocks). Unsurprisingly, Greenspan recommended diversifying one’s assets among several currencies to hedge against depreciation risk.

By the way, I’m assuming that Gisele gets a lump-sum payment akin to a book advance. If her P&G contract is pro-rated over several years, then her request to be paid in euros at least has some logical grounding. As a practical matter, however, Gisele still risks shifting into euros at the wrong time. Over the past year the dollar has already lost more than 70 percent of its value against the euro (today it takes $1.46 to buy a euro; a year ago it took 84 cents). Over, say, the next year, can the dollar really fall much farther? Goldman’s Jim O’Neill doesn’t think so, and he is not a prognosticator to be taken lightly. Rather than dabbling in currency speculation, the safest way for Gisele to protect her income is simply to have P&G index her salary to America’s C.P.I. or some other measure of price inflation.

On more substantive currency matters, yesterday's NYT informs us that the dollar hasn’t fallen nearly as much against the Yen (or other Asian currencies) as it has against the Euro. I, for one, hadn’t realized this – and it’s a useful reminder that currency pairs do not all move in tandem.

Also, Paul Krugman has a fine blog post explaining why he is skeptical of prophecies that the dollar’s decline will seriously reignite U.S. inflation (he cites a combination of relatively low pass through from exchange rates to U.S. import prices, plus imports only totaling about 15 percent of U.S. GDP). Always refreshing to see Krugman make the case for stability rather than crisis.

Stahl Disappoints in Greenspan Interview

This is a bit dated, but for a frustrating spectacle of puff piece journalism, watch Leslie Stahl’s interview with Alan Greenspan (or read the transcript). Over the twenty or so minutes, Stahl devotes more time to Greenspan’s love of the bathtub than she does to his 2001 Congressional testimony that basically endorsed the 2001 Bush tax cuts as fiscally sound (on the specious grounds that Congress had to do something to prevent the government budget surplus from getting too large). She spends more time joking with Andrea Mitchell (Greenspan’s wife) about Greenspan’s adorable nerdiness – mostly in regarding his appetite for sundry obscure economic data (e.g. the price of Canadian versus U.S. timber) – than she does exploring Greenspan’s dubious and narrowly economic rationale for supporting the Iraq war. In his memoir, Greenspan recounts telling President Bush that he had to invade Iraq to prevent Saddam from taking over the Straits of Hormaz and disrupting world oil shipments.

On the Iraq point, Stahl could have challenged Greenspan’s rationale in several obvious ways:
a) What was the evidence that Saddam was actually planning to do commandeer the Straits of Hormaz
b) Even if there was such evidence, were there not means short of war to deter Saddam from acting?
c) Why do the potential harms from Greenspan’s nightmare scenario justify the sacrifice of thousands of American and Iraqi lives?
d) Hasn’t the invasion done its own damage to world oil supplies?

Greenspan’s twisted history aside, my aim here is primarily to show that Leslie Stahl is a lightweight. Whether speaking with liberal or conservative figures, she consistently drifts toward the trivial. It’s disheartening to have to rely on such an unserious journalist to interview our most important public figures But such figures manage to survive (thrive!) in American journalism. One factual mistake - a la Dan Rather - you're out. Steady production of boring, largely uninformative fluff - you're golden.