"...race is really central..."
Which is why Reagan (Ray-gun) started his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where the three civil rights workers had been killed in the 1960's. The message to racists was unmistakable.

Race also permeates attitudes towards public spending. A large swathe of white Americans will gladly pay for health, accommodation and training for black Americans, just as long as those black Americans are wearing prison uniforms and sleep in prison cells.

asymmetrical intimidation

This, I think, is the key to saving the Constitution. Somebody needs to put the fear of God into the Beltway opinion-making class. For starters, it should be made clear to Maureen Dowd, for example, that if she tries to give Clinton or Obama the Gore-2000 treatment, even a little bit, it'll be a cold day in hell before she sees the interior of a Democratic White House. And make it stick.

This reminds me of what Robert Wright (I think) said of Newt Gingrich in 1994. Should we retire to our brie and chardonnay and discuss what a brilliant coup Newt has wrought? No! "That's the kind of nerdiness that got us into trouble in the first place. I say we beat the little butterball to a pulp."

The problem is making the threat credible, like a vow never to negotiate with hostage-takers. Liberals do have a long history of nerdiness. Once Clinton or Obama is in the White House, following through on the threat brings no additional reward, so it'll be tempting to relent.

Here's my fantasy solution. Suppose, after being crossed by MoDo, Obama puts more money than he can afford into escrow, with instructions, "If Maureen Dowd sets foot in my White House, give all this money to the American Nazi Party." Now, Obama can't afford to relent. Tom Schelling, handily available at the University of Maryland, could doubtless come up with something better.

Perhaps this is the wrong outlet for fan mail, but it really is a pleasure (in particular when viewed against the propaganda placed on the WSJ web page) to read your work--which infuses economic policy choices with a sense of moral clarity. And your critiques of the media have been spot-on. Would that those elected to think about these issues communicated so well.

Power abhors a vaccuum. It remains to be seen whether any of the other branches of government (or even the media) will seize that power back.

I completely agree, as I've been saying on comment boards on other sites, that the basic problem is the South. If you take away the states of the Old Confederacy, American party / electoral politics would look basically like Canada's or Western Europe's -- especially if you factor out the distorting effect that Southern conservatism has on the national political discussion generally.

The South itself recognized that it was essentially a different country, and it tried to go its own way. It wasn't allowed to. In short, I blame Lincoln.

But what's done is done. For the future, two things are important about movement conservatism: It's not serious about its own principles, and it's going to be proven wrong for the same reason that conservative ideas (including Southern conservatism's signature idea, Jim Crow) have always been proven wrong and eventually discarded. These are matters I discuss in more detail here:

http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com/

"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

By Helder Camara

First, supply-side quackery is only one of the gambits used to sell tax cuts.

The myths of Tax cuts are a big issue in the public discussion, but it is also part of the economic misdirection we face in our understanding of what is occurring.

Profits are what are left over after paying you wages and all your bills. We talk somewhat about the loss of wages by employees, there is controversy about tax cuts, but what have been over looked are the bills that the Republicans have shifted to us the individuals.

We, the individuals, have in the past and are continuing to subsidize the Warfare State for Large Businesses. The costs of goods we buy do not have all the expenses included. Military expenditures for oil, cleanup of the pollution of the hydrocarbons from oil, the water pollution from the toxic chemicals used to produce products and the list is endless.

The European Union, remember that other advanced country, has instituted a cradle to grave capture of the costs to recycle products when you purchase the product. Our environmental requirements for business that have waste byproducts would not be allowed to use our standards there.

We do not hear about the comparison of our environmental requirements in comparisons to theirs and it is not by accident that we kept in ignorance. Ignorance of other countries keeps the market place of best practices unconsidered. It allows the misdirection and thus inattention to the real choices that could make a difference in the quality of our life.

The cost causer should be the cost payer unless there is an agreed upon “Common Good” or Public Interest and Necessity agreed upon by us the citizens. That translates into the attempted practice of cradle to grave capture of costs in the price of the end product in the EU.

Today the US is transitioning to HDTV and millions of televisions are going to be in the waste stream. This changeover is being mandated by the Federal Government actions, but today I have not head of a plan to reimburse local governments for the recycling of the poisonous heavy metals and other toxic parts.

Politics in America is all about getting someone else to pay for your expenses to make an extraordinary profit.

The biggest problems are not the subsidies for the poorest, but the multitude of subsidies we provide to business.

-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

Corvid

Here we go again with this South=racism paradigm. One takes a huge, geographical section of the country, labels it racist and, voila, there's not one damned thing you need to know or understand about it beyond that.
.
If a neander-con applies some unflattering label to an ethnic group, liberals are all up in arms--as they, and the rest of us, should be. So how can someone like Paul Krugman whip right around and do exactly the same thing when it suits his purposes and prejudices?
.
Can pols use racism as a lever to win votes in the South? I wouldn't be surprised. But is this because the place is just plain racist and nothing else, or is it due to a variety of other reasons--one being that southerners are so often flogged with this ugly charge, another being that northern, free-trade economists like Mr. Krugman have nothing to offer the South (or the rest of working America) in terms of a brighter future?
.

I'll second that sentiment.  Paul Krugman is the reason I bit for a NYTimes Select subscription -- couldn't bear to miss getting my regular Krugman fix!

Especial thanks, Paul, for your continuing work separating fact from myth on the issue of health care, and helping to point the way to a sane and equitable health care policy for this country.

 Since most Americans are not willing to ask those questions, we are forced to point fingers at each other to explain why this is such a brutal country.

Racism boils down to capitalistic greed throughout American history. You may wish to watch the Gangs of NY to see how this same capitalistic greed drove discrimination against Jews, Irish, Catholics etc. The american negro has a unique place in history simply because they were enslaved and labelled property, chattel slavery, enabled the South to flourish. Bottomline, virtual all racism in this country can be traced to the need for cheap manual labor and continued racism reflects an unused surplus of a labor pool directly traced to the import of slaves.

Thus we now have the penal labor pool used by industry which is analogous to slave ownership in the south. Massive incarceration of blacks has resulted in them continuing to be used as a cheap source of labor for capitalistic greed.

In the Gangs of NY the elite describe how they are going to  divide the 'havenots' to ensure the continued rule of the elite capitalists and industrialists. As long as there is internecine fighting among the havenots, the 'havemores' grip on political and economic power is unbreakable as the focus is not on the real problem.

The Iraq war has put racism on the back burner, but from an historical point of view, that is the number one issue.

Not actually when you consider that the number of minorities who serve this country are disproprotionate to their overall population numbers. War is also a means to use the surplus labor pool, when people are unemployable, due to continuing discrimination or legal records, they join the military to gain a foothold economically at the risk of their lives.  This too was shown in the Gangs of NY where the Irish were signed up immediately as soldiers as soon as they  came off the boat.

Nowhere is this more blatantly seen then with the hypocrisy of the pro-life movement. They insist on not using government funds to allow the poor to have abortions under the specious contention of how precious life is and yet will vehemently oppose funding to feed, clothe and educate that 'precious life' until they are incarcerated and vote for the death penalty for that same 'precious life' once their 'life potential' is abused, neglected and distorted in the ghetto.

Pro-lifers are in love with the 'potential' of life not the reality of the living thus they also are willing to usurp the rights of the pregnant woman to decide how to use her own 'potential' life in favor of, one of the biggest misnomers I have ever heard, 'unborn' life.

for some reason he has been treated like a conquering hero by Democrats, most notably when he was handed a prime speaking slot at the 2004 Democratic National Convention

Obviously you did not listen to Al's speech or you would know why he was given that slot. Maybe, you are unaware of the deeply moralistic values that drove the civil rights movement and unaware of how religious AA's are? . The political leaders of the Democratic party could not afford to lose those votes. Do you recall how long the lines were in OH?  Do you recall that there was an anti-gay marriage initiative on the agenda? Go look up the content of Al's 2004 speech and you will know why he was given that prime slot.

See, that's hitting the nail on the head. I disagree that "it's all about race." I think it's all about distribution of wealth, and the power structures put in place by the wealthy to protect that distribution. It happens, to some degree, to mirror racial divides, because wealth has been unevenly distributed between the races and that distribution is reinforced through the aforementioned protective measures. But the racial issue is dwindling as more and more whites become excluded from the central distributions of wealth.

Why?

It happens, to some degree, to mirror racial divides, because wealth has been unevenly distributed between the races and that distribution is reinforced through the aforementioned protective measures

It is not happenstance. It is deliberate and the racism and discrimination is institutionalized with the intent to perpetuate and consolidate the power of the wealth and capitalistic industrials and oil and munitions barons.

But the racial issue is dwindling as more and more whites become excluded from the central distributions of wealth.

I totally disagree. As the pie shrinks racism becomes more virulent as there is less for the 'advantaged and white priviledge becomes more difficult.

I'm seeing this here in Chicago right now, at the hands of a Democratic state and city regime. Chicago public transit is in crisis, due for massive service cuts and fare increases because the Democratic-controlled legislature has failed to come up with funding. It has had no problem with subsidizing new highways and ongoing expansion of roads and airports. It is a local cliche that "there's no constituency for public transportation". Meaning that it's seen as primarily a concession to the dark and the poor.

"notably the claim that government the health insurance industry is wasting your money on vast armies of useless bureaucrats"

Fixed.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

I thought you would go for this...

"notably the claim that government is wasting your money on vast armies of useless bureaucrats"

First I am reading it now. However, I thought you would find it interesting, given your post, since Parent explains the transistion for the use of white servants to black slaves from the perspective of the interests of the White Planter Class.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Re: Quite simply, if you point out character flaws in a conservative, there will be an all-out effort, involving major media as well as blogs and talk radio, to discredit and ruin you, personally.

Rightwing talk radio and rightwing blogs: yes. But the mainstream media, no. President Bush is routinely depicted as a dunce in the media, and Vice President Cheney as creepy and sinister. And does anyone think that Congressman Foley and now Senator Craig have escaped a full airing of their peccadillos?