G20 Watch: Merkel Gets More Oversight.

From Der Speigel (h/t matttbastard):

On Wednesday, eyebrows were raised when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy went before the press to demand in no uncertain terms that the G-20 do more to strengthen regulation of global financial markets. On Thursday, the two leaders appeared to be getting everything they asked for...

Now, the G-20 has agreed to the creation of blacklists of tax havens in addition to measures to tighten rules pertaining to hedge funds and credit rating agencies. An oversight body will also be created...

In addition to the increased regulation, the G-20 leaders agreed to pump $1 trillion into the global economy, to be distributed through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank...

Prior to the summit, a split appeared to develop between the Anglo-American approach, which emphasized economic stimulus measures, and the continental European approach, which demanded tight financial regulation. US President Barack Obama, eager to avoid dissent at his first foray onto the world diplomatic stage, said on Wednesday that the differences had been "vastly overstated."

So why am I quoting all this? Because I find it interesting that the "conservative" leaders of France and Germany are the ones pushing for heavy-handed regulation, while the "liberal" leaders like New Labor's Gordon Brown and our own Barack Obama were not so much in favor.

It strikes me, in reference to all the Shock Doctrine talk lately, that once again I want to poke at the definition of conservative. People are surprised that conservative leaders are pro-regulation, but like I've said several times in Shock Doctrine posts, Friedmanite capitalism was not at all conservative. It was radical, shocking.

For Sarkozy to call for giving capitalism a conscience--well, it underlines the difference between French conservatism and American, but it also points out that state regulation and control over capital markets is not actually a shocking, strange idea, and that the rapid deregulation was actually the revolutionary idea.

The newer and scarier (?!) face of GOP

We all know that’s always possible.

Rachel Maddow made an important point last night about the familiar theme among the “new faces” that the GOP has chosen to project the last few months, one of them of course being Bobby Jindal.

Jindal, son of Indian immigrants, raised a Hindu, and a teenage convert to Catholicism, infamously – or famously, depending on your perspective – wrote about his experiences participating in an exorcism in 1994. In 2003, he declared in the Time Picayune,“I am 100 percent anti-abortion with no exceptions. I believe all life is precious.” This would mean that Jindal does not make an exception even if the woman were raped or if her life were at risk.

This would also mean that he actually makes Sarah Palin look reasonable, with her exceptional ability to consider exceptions for life-threatening situations.

Then there’s Michael Steele who has declared in no uncertain terms that he believes that embryonic stem cells are “life” and is absolutely opposed to embryonic stem cell research. He is staunchly pro-life including in cases of rape and incest.

Of course, we are all used to Republicans that espouse these views, but what makes this scarier is that like Maddow and Ana Marie Cox said last night, this new face is changing in terms of color of skin and gender, but the viewpoints are still the same.

For instance, Jindal opposes hate-crime legislation - a brown-skinned son of immigrants who grew up in Louisiana - wants to repeal laws that would mandate penalties on crimes inspired by hatred toward certain groups or races. These younger, fresher, "more diverse" faces are probably going to inspire younger Republicans from all backgrounds to follow suit, and think it's OK to have ideologies that make no pragmatic sense. That's why it's scarier.

The (OK, One of Many) Flaws in American Conservatism

Greg Anrig is right. Perhaps the biggest problem with American conservatism is the idea that the United States is right in everything. We know how to do everything better than everyone else and if you don't like, you are an anti-American commie. That sounds like such a stupid way to put it, but it is accurate. The responses I got from my recent post questioning the value of the American Revolution reflect this perfectly.

In the article's most important section, Anrig writes:

"You never hear the conservative movement's leaders talking about how the United States might learn from, say, France's successful approach to early childhood education, Germany's effective worker training policies, or Canada's politically neutral election administration system. Why not? What would the harm be? Well, those policies entail an active role for government, involving budgetary commitments, and the conservative movement in the United States will have none of that. The success of those initiatives in advancing their goals, endorsed by the voters, is immaterial. More government is inherently bad in the right's worldview.

Conservatives invoke experiments in other countries as models for the United States only when they are trying to sell one of their anti-government agenda items. So they have touted the experiences in Chile and the United Kingdom with privatizing public pensions, and in South Africa with health savings accounts. In those cases, though, the results of the right's initiatives have been unmitigated failures, notwithstanding the spin churned out by their well-financed marketing machine."

Precisely. Whatever might actually lead to more healthy, happy, peaceful, and contented Americans doesn't matter. What is important is ideology and greed wrapped in a moldy lettuce wrap of patriotism.

Country Music and Politics

J. Lester Feder's article on country music and conservatism in The American Prospect is quite interesting but I feel needs a bit more context. Feder is right that country music started with a more populist politics than conservative. He's also correct about the role of the 1960s in turning country music toward conservatism and the transformative role "Okie From Muskogee" had in tapping that market.

But I think Feder overstates how much of a transformation this was. Country music also had a close relationship with conservatism, if not the Republican Party. Southern populism (as opposed to the Populist Party) always had strong strains of social conservatism and evangelical religion. Moreover, with the brief exception of the early days of the Populists, it was always very racially conservative. So when Feder uses the example of early country musicians stumping for Tom Watson as a way to show that country music has not always been conservative, he forgets Watson's racial views. Watson and other southern populist politicians may have supported economic equality for the region's white people, but that does not exclude connections between the music and conservative ideas of the day. Country musicians may have supported FDR, but they also were staunchly segregationist. Country musician and politician Jimmie Davis wrote "You Are My Sunshine" and ran a populist campaign for Louisiana governor, but he was a virulent racist.

Feder also states that country music appealed to "middle America" because of its yearning for past values, which may or may not be true. Country music did expand its reach outside the South in these years. But much of that came from southerners taking their music with them when they left for California, the Pacific Northwest, or the factories of the North. That started far earlier than the 1960s as well. Among the country musicians to get their starts in the Pacific Northwest, hardly the genre's strongest bastion, were Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens, and Charley Pride. More than a simpler lifestyle, I argue that much of the genre's popularity outside its home region came from homesickness for the old southern home. Part of that is a desire for a simpler time, but it's more rooted in place and geography than Feder admits.

Finally, Feder writes that it was only in recent years that mainstream country music became a place where conservative talking points were repeated in the music. That's more or less true. But country music is a totally different animal than it was 30 years ago. It's not just a move toward the Republican Party within the Nashville establishment--it's also a move away from good music. This article is written with the Dixie Chicks in mind, particularly Emily Robinson saying, "You know it's a strange place to be sometimes without a genre." But it's hardly just politics that has led to this scenario for them. They always existed on the margins of acceptability in mainstream country music. They sold well and that got them airplay but it is not as they ever represented the mainstream of the Nashville establishment. Their music (which I am quite tepid about by the way) is not Brooks & Dunn and therefore you didn't see too much sadness by the music establishment when they were banished from the mainstream.

Anyway, Feder's article is pretty good and worth reading. But there's a lot more to this story than his brief article can explain.