Depression

Two early morning bits of news which I found rather depressing.

First, we have the case of the former university football coach, one Tommy Tuberville, presently the senior senator for Alabama, who has been blocking hundreds of routine appointments in the US military. A supporter of Trump who sometimes appears to be on the fringes of a very ugly movement called White Nationalism and who is very anti-abortion. Now things are so arranged in the US that lots of postings and promotions in the military have to be individually approved by the Senate, a nonsense that is usually mitigated by batching them up and just pushing the batches through on the nod. But it is also so arranged that any individual Senator is able to block certain procedural short-cuts, in this case effectively blocking hundreds of routine appointments, some of them very senior. To the point where one might think that military capability and readiness was being damaged. This is being done to put pressure on the military over its support for those on its books who otherwise might have difficulty getting an abortion. Merits of the case aside, it puts him in a similar position to climate protesters who close down busy motorways and railway stations to make their point. Similar in intention, but stronger in practise in that a lone climate protester is unlikely to make a very big wave.

Read all about it at references 1 and 2.

Second, we have a piece in the Financial Times, reference 3, which blames many of the troubles of the western world on the unrealistic expectations of voters. Voters who will vote down a politician or a party which attempts to put them right. Which attempts to point out that if you want to have working public services you have to raise the money to pay for them. Or that if you want to have working public services - in particular health and social care services - you have to have a supply of people ready and able to work in them. With President Macron in the lead for attempting to do something about the costs of the generous pensions arrangements made for the French.

We are also reminded of the example of Theresa May who attempted to do something about the funding of social care, for having the temerity to suggest that people with access to money - that is so say home owners - should contribute. An example complicated by the fact that lots of such home owners are now contributing: voters might continue to resist putting together a sensible national scheme to provide and pay for care for the elderly - but my understanding is that those with money are, these days, expected to pay for their own care. Nevertheless, Ganesh has a point: far too many people expect to get services without paying for them, perhaps by getting someone else to pay for them, an expectation which most politicians take care not to disturb. How bad do things have to get before we wise up? 

Do we have to lurch into the clutches of right wing demagogues offering magic bullets? Or left wing ideologues offering the all-powerful state? Or some hybrid thereof?

PS: I have been unable to trace the source of the image included above. It appears to have been around since 2019 and in the Guardian was attributed to Megan Jelinger/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images. With Megan Jelinger of Dayton, Ohio to be found at reference 5 and the Andalou Agency being the Turkish news operation introduced at reference 4.

References

Reference 1: Tuberville Drops Blockade of Most Military Promotions: Under pressure from senators in both parties, the Alabama Republican allowed more than 400 promotions to move forward, saying he would continue to block only the most senior positions - Catie Edmondson, New York Times - 2023.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Tuberville.

Reference 3: Voters don’t want to hear the fiscal truth: For trying to do something about public debt, Emmanuel Macron is the politician of the year - Janan Ganesh, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 4: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/p/history.

Reference 5: https://www.meganjelinger.com/.