8 Ways to Sunday

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network is promoting today as the 12th annual Day of Silence. The idea is that you help promote awareness of gay rights by not talking about anything all day… including gay rights.

Considering the centuries that homosexuals have been forced into silence by society, this strikes me as the most ironically ineffectual protest idea ever. They have sincerely good intentions, but I can’t imagine how something like this can produce any good results.

According to ReligiousTolerance.org, for example, a fundamentalist Christian group took advantage of a recent Day of Silence to stage their own “Truth Without Interruption Day.” By remaining silent, supporters of gay rights were unable to make any counterpoints against their opponents. That, of course, was the whole idea behind TWID.

Oscar Wilde — the famed wit imprisoned for homosexuality in 1895 — probably said it best:

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

Congratulations, GLSEN, on your fatal overdose of sincerity.

As reported by BBC News:

I learned about this video from a post on Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow raises an excellent question: why is the British news media covering this, but not the US media?

If I hear Lou Dobbs say “I don’t have a dog in this hunt” one more time, I swear I’m going to throw my shoe at the television.

Dobbs is overplaying his “Mr. Independent” shtick to the point of self-parody. I may find Chris Matthews insufferable, but at least his egomaniacal hooting is somewhat counteracted by the wit of Keith Olbermann. Even Wolf Blitzer’s mighty beard isn’t enough to nullify Lou Dobbs’s self-righteous preening.

Last night on CNN Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s former press secretary, had this to say:

There’s no doubt that Republicans hope to — we pray every night — to run against Hillary Clinton.

Nothing would energize and unify Republicans like having Clinton has the Democratic nominee. All the scandals of Bill Clinton’s administration and Hillary’s previous failed attempt at health care reform will present a huge target for the Republican party’s weapons of mass distraction. Hillary Clinton has many devoted supporters, but she also has the highest negative poll ratings of any candidate in this race on either side. That means she has the farthest to fall in the general election this November.

Democrats should think about this, and about whether they really want another four years of the same disastrous policies, when they’re deciding who to support in the next round of primaries and caucuses.

War being good for an economic boost is a persistent myth that’s repeated ad nauseam by war hawks, usually citing the end of the Great Depression with World War II as their “proof.”

Most of the genuine economic revitalization in the U.S. was post-war momentum from the increased production and employment during the war. That’s when the consumer economy really picked up again. During the war itself, it was massive government spending and regulation that applied defibrillator paddles to the manufacturing sector of the economy.

When America entered the conflict, the federal government basically grabbed auto companies and other major manufacturing industries by the throat and said “You WILL make war supplies.” Car factories were converted to produce tanks and military trucks, shipyards started turning out vessels to replace all those lost at Pearl Harbor, and civilian unemployment quickly dropped (overall unemployment positively plummeted because millions of men were drafted into the armed forces). The government was the top customer of the manufacturing sector, but people were getting paid and therefore had money to spend.

The ramp-up in production was a huge success, and within a couple of years the U.S. was out-producing all Axis forces combined. It definitely helped that we were isolated on a separate continent from Germany, which was merrily blitzkrieging the shit out of our European allies’ factories.

The unique conditions of World War II — a Great Depression, followed by huge government efforts to boost production — don’t seem likely to repeat themselves any time soon. Meanwhile, people who know more about economics than me have written at length about why “wars are good for the economy” is a myth:

• Joseph Stiglitz writes about it for The Guardian, in the context of the Iraq War. He points out that the uncertainty and volatility of war is harmful to economies that aren’t being artificially propped up like America’s was during WWII.
• About.com’s economics section has a fairly lengthy article that describes this myth as an example the broken window fallacy.
• Congressional representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul gave a libertarian perspective on the myth in a speech to the House in 2003.
• David R. Henderson wrote an informative article about the myth for Antiwar.com. Unfortunately, he falls victim to Godwin’s Law about 2/3 of the way through.