CNN's Non-News Polling Unchanged in Twenty Years

Alongside the news that newspaper circulation has dropped 10% we learned today that CNN, the originator of the Cable 24-news model has sunk by 50% year on year. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this, and as someone who has done CNN no favors in the ratings department for many years, I'm not especially qualified to name them all. Nonetheless, thanks to my new job I'm now watching more CNN in years, and I can identify one problem, the persistence of the non-news poll that ostensibly provides an insight into how Americans understand the world, but in fact offers no insight, and worse obscures information that might actually increase Americans' understanding of the world.

Back when CNN was the only 24 News network in town, these polls were one of the least appealing aspects of the format, and having moved on myself long ago, I had forgotten just how damaging they are to the concept of news until I was reminded early last Tuesday morning when CNN announced that some 80% or so Americans believed Iran was seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. I don't doubt the veracity of the data, I'm sure an overwhelming number of Americans do believe Iran is actively working to obtain nuclear weapons and to be honest, I would probably have to count myself one of them. Nonetheless, it is not like the vast majority of Americans are experts either on nuclear proliferation or Iran, and hence what we think tells us little about the intentions of Iran's leadership. Worse, given that there has been next to no reporting on Iran's nuclear program that has not relied in some way on U.S. government sources that have made the case that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, all this poll tells us is that most Americans seem to believe what the government is telling them, at least on that issue, leaving the question of what Iranians hope to achieve by having nuclear weapons completely obscured. So while the assumption that Iranians chief concern is Israel is treated as axiomatic, the fact that Iran has a direct border with Pakistan, the only completely declared nuclear power in the middle East where as it would happen there is a strong current of anti-Shia violence. That fact, so easily ignored in all the handwringing about Iran's nuclear plans, would be far more useful information to the tens of thousands of CNN viewers, because it would have actually provided insight that many Americans have not gotten, and reporting like that would begin to renew and strengthen respect for CNN's coverage for more than a poll that can only be understood as a product and reflection of Washington's echo chamber.

The bizarre meaning of "choice" in American political rhetoric

Americans love the idea of choice.  It seems to embody the freedom that we value.  We elect, or choose our presidents, and when we go to the store we see the variety of toothpaste or dish detergents as a emblematic of our deeper political freedoms.  Politicians discovered this long ago, and it is hard to find a domestic issue that some do not attempt to frame in terms of choice on once side and government dictates, or lack of choice, on the other.  Often as not those who succeed in framing a political position in terms of choice wins the day, especially when that position fits well with the right-wing agenda.  But even when the left has successfully focused on choice, it has been relatively successful.  Had it not been, the abortion debate unending as it may be would long ago have been won by anti-abortion activists because so many people, including this reader can't get away from the awkwardness of what abortion means, the ending of a life.

Why the right is more successful in shaping debates in terms where they are the supporters of choice is something of a mystery, though I think one reason is that with the exception of the abortion debate, politicians on the left seem not to think of it as theirs, while the right treats it as their birthright  In so doing they have allowed, if not implicitly abetted a narrow consumerist understanding of choice that seems to focus more on enabling corporations than to enable Americans as individuals to make choices as they see fit.  This is perhaps best exemplified by the way cable companies have succeeded in winning approval for a most limited system of cable options, in which the vast majority of Americans end up paying for with a multitude of cable channels they rarely watch just so they can have access to the handful they do.   But it is in the healthcare debate that the concern about choice is talked about has its deepest and most perverse affects.

. During the campaign for health care reform in the 1990s the battle cry among opponents was the need to be able to choose one's physician, and on that point they have won for the most part, except for those of us who cannot necessarily access the doctor we would like because of our health insurance plan.  Yet, if being able to choose one's physician makes sense, and fits in well with the American understanding of freedom to choose.  After all we all want to have a doctor we feel is competent and seems to understand us and is preferably reasonably easy to access, and when we need a specialist that we can if needs be in the hands of the best qualified to deal with our problems.  Yet, as the healthcare debate has unfolded this year, we have not heard much about choosing our doctors, the issue of choice has been focused on the choice of health insurance provider, and whether the planned reforms will somehow curtail the existing choice, or leave the existing choice limited to private health insurers, which according to reform advocates will prevent the real reform by keeping the huge bureaucracies that determine eligibility intact.

There are a number of problems with this.  First, legitimate as anger at health insurers is, they are hardly the only ones at fault for our current mess. Indeed for a very different perspective from the one that has been at the center of the mainstream media narrative, I heartily urge people to listen to the two "This American Life" programs about America's healthcare system, sector is, especially chapter 3 of the second, where healthcare economist Uwe Reinhardt makes the case that the crux of our current crisis is the weakness of insurance company's vis-a-vis hospitals, not insurance company's near monopoly hold in many markets. Beyond the hospitals, the doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and even us and our demand for top care whenever and however much it costs. But at the heart of all this is fact that health care simply does not fit the normal assumptions of a economics, and focusing on choice, beyond the personal decisions we make to see a doctor we trust when we need to, will not solve the problem. 

Unfortunately, the last thirty years have made it very difficult to talk about that, thanks to the Milton Friedman and triumph of the Chicago school because they got licking inflation right and because the choice they proclaimed the solution seemed diametrically opposed to the failure of communism.   The notion that markets do not solve everything is so far out of the mainstream for most people, who are not already far to the left. Meanwhile, under the spell of Friedman's mentor F. A. Hayek the right has become so allergic to the notion that state involvement even when the importance of markets is a mantra that they are unable to process the contrary to Hayek's predictions the Western European social welfare state has not descended into Communism, and has remained thriving innovative economies.

Karzai Opens the Way for Early Withdraw of Western Forces

This week's news that the vote in Afghanistan was close and that Karzai or at least some of his supporters were involved in ballot rigging set the chattering classes a buzz, with most concerned that Karzai might lose.  When people talking about Afghanistan weren't talking about that they were noting that Obama appeared to be ready to okay an expected increase for more troops from the responsible generals, even as George Will was joining those on the left in suggesting that it was time to start pulling the troops out.  Right now there appears little reason to believe Obama will buck the request for more troops. If Obama did the Republicans who are currently beginning to talk dovishly will change their tune and start talking about Obama not giving the generals what they asked for.  But if Obama was looking for an excuse to show that he's not entirely beholden to the generals, Karzai, or his allies, have provided him a legitimate justification, and if the runoff election is as tainted as this election appears to be, then perhaps the best step Obama could take no matter what the costs is start withdrawing the troops, although keeping, if not extending other forms of aid.  For while winning the war in Afghanistan maybe impossible, we should not make the mistake that happened after the Soviets withdrew and decide because the troops are out that there is no further reason for engagement. 

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Prospects for Containing Hiler

Given recent comments by Russian President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin’s comments yesterday marking the observation of the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II were a welcome step back from what was becoming an uniquely Russian view of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.  In the coming days and months we will find out, if Putin’s words today mark the first step in a more honest Russian reassessment of Stalin’s role in making World War II possible, or if the differences were simply part of a Russian good cop-bad cop routine.  

Uncomfortable as it was for many other participants, and problematic as the comparisons between the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact with other questionable acts committed by other states in the run up to the war, I am glad Putin brought them up.  For one of the most important facts about the path leading to World War II is that Hitler posed a peculiar challenge to European diplomacy, one that as Richard Overy has just shown old school diplomats used to the idea of balance of power had no experience with, so mistakes were bound to be made.  Thus the real lesson of the path of World War II is the need for diplomats to be aware that the existing diplomatic order is not always the aim of all parties, and more controversially when a party shows an unhealthy readiness to go to war frustrating efforts to go to war with anyone should take precedence over any one state’s short term interest in peace.  

Even if we accept that Stalin sincerely believed that the only way to buy time was to reach an non-aggression pact with Hitler, we should note that unlike other negotiations with Hitler, which were aimed at preventing war, the deal the Stalin had Molotov make implicitly opened the way for Hitler to go to war.  In short, Stalin finally gave Hitler what he wanted the chance to use outright military force, and what is worse used the result of that war to annex Polish territory.  (While this is close to what the Poles did in regard to Tešen Cieszyń from Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement, it was not quite the same and is a diversion.  True the Polish government opportunistically, and in hindsight foolishly, played into the hands of Nazi diplomacy by ratifying the notion that the borders created by Versailles and associated treaties were illegitimate and subject to change by force or the threat of force.)  The key is that Stalin’s cooperation with Hitler, both prior to the Pact, and with the pact made the war possible, and all the brutality that followed, and this gets to the great thought experiment every future diplomat should engage in, what happens if Hitler is not given the opportunity to go to war.  While we can be sure that Hitler would have continued to seek to provoke the Polish government and work to keep his main potential allies from formulating a coherent strategy, had Stalin lent support to Poland in 1939 by joining France and Poland in declaring their readiness to go to war if Poland were invaded both  those aims would have been made much more difficult.  Furthermore, we might add it would have been a setback to Hitler, who up to that point could point to all his previous diplomatic ploys had gone his way, something that would have bolstered the hands of influential figures who had their doubts about Hitler. And just so we are perfectly clear on the significance of this, each day Hitler desire to go to war is a day that the circumstances that made the Holocaust possible would have been delayed.

How Not to Deal with the Birthers

For the past two days this clip of David Shuster interviewing Orly Taitz, the leading figure in the campaign to convince Americans that Obama is ineligible to be president, has been available on a number of web sites including the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo.  It is a train wreck and the web-sites advertise it as such, but while many may delight in seeing their contempt for Orly Taitz confirmed, this is exactly the wrong way to deal with the so-called birthers.  For while polls show that the number of people who believe Obama was not born in the U.S is too big to ignore, confrontational interviews will not resolve the issue it all.  Rather they will confirm the birthers'  belief that they are being shut out of the debate, while giving them enough of a platform to make sure the controversy won't go away.

Sadly, I fear that American 24 hour news programing does not provide the kind of atmosphere that will work, but here are some thoughts.  First, let's start listening to the birthers in a way that gives them the sense that they are being heard.   If and when you watch this clip watch how Orly Taitz gives a plausible explanation for why without any assumptions about Obama's future life path his mother might have not felt it advantageous to want Obama's birth to be recorded as happening in Hawaii.  Yet, rather than follow up on that, David Shuster immediately poses a question intended to highlight the ex-post facto reasoning that is central to this, and most other conspiracy theories.    As such Dr. Taitz was entirely correct in saying she was not being allowed to make her argument.   Far better would be to have quietly asked about the claims that the current form of the birther conspiracy takes that assume that Obama's mother took a trip to Kenya which lasted so long that she had to remain there to give birth.  From there the interviewer can patiently ask about the evidence that Obama's mother took this alleged trip based on journalistic research about ideas about traveling pregnant circa 1960, etc..  Slow and steady wins the race, and any news show that was ready to sacrifice their 7 minute block programing could give this story its proper due without necessarily lending support to the birther conspiracy.

A Matter Very Close to Home: Bottle returns in NYC

Before coming out to New York City, I spent much of the 1990s living in Michigan, land of the ten cent bottle and can deposit.  Being a frugal sort I've never been one to let spare money slip through my hands, especially when it adds up as quickly as it does in Michigan, and I brought that habit with me when I moved back east, even if the payout was half what it was in Michigan.  

Even in Michigan I generally preferred to let a few six packs accumulate so that I got a couple of dollars back, but it soon became apparent that this was the only way for it to make sense in my neighborhood here in NY.  Our main local store only accepts bottles during the week, and like everybody else in NYC has limited space, which bottles fill up quickly.  What is more when the bottle station is open there is a line of can and bottle people who have scoured the neighborhood and filled up one or sometimes two carts with bottles and cans. A bit further afield there is a somewhat larger supermarket with a battery of machines that accept plastic bottles, cans, and glass bottles.     Here too there is often a line and when the machine fills up it can take quite a while for the supermarket employee  to empty it.  Nonetheless, for these near ten years in New York I have put up with a growing pile of beer bottles until my wife could take no more and then going through the ritual of taking the bottles to the machines and hoping the line wasn't too bad.  

My one concession over the years is that I stopped storing large beer bottles that I occasionally bought and dropped them off in our apartments recycling bins as a gift to the local bottle scavengers, but as of Friday, I give up.  The scavengers will start getting all my bottles, because my experience Friday demonstrated that returning bottles here just isn't profitable unless you even when surviving on a very restricted income.  On Friday, it took me over two hours and visits to both the above mentioned supermarkets to get rid of about thirty bottles, and still left me with about 12 bottles the machines would not accept and the other store had refused because they had no room.  The net result $3.50 -- the extra fifty cents coming from a guy who lived one block away from the supermarket, who had given up on getting rid of the bottles himself long ago.  So do the math, $1.50 an hour plus fifty cents in tips and a heck of a lot of waiting and frustration.  It's just not worth it, and I'll just have to accept that my weekly six pack of beer is thirty cents more expensive than I've been reckoning comfortable knowing that I'm actually employing a local bottle scavenger with that surcharge.

The Hope that Survives in Ukraine

I'm getting to this late, thanks to a plateful of activities, but in the July 11 edition of the Financial Times Chrystia Friedland had a most interesting article about the migration of veteran Russian reporters of the Glastnost/ Perestroika, and then Yeltsin years, to Ukraine, where they are enjoying and contributing to the open atmosphere in Ukraine.  Coming at a time when there is a great deal of cynicism both within and outside Ukraine regarding the three main political factions' ability to govern in the interests of the country this story, which has been largely overlooked in the west, is a welcome tonic.  

 For all its muddling through over its near 18 years of independence, and there is much to be dissatisfied about, the most intriguing aspect of how history has unfolded is that Ukrainian has remained more pluralistic than any other non-Baltic former Soviet Republic.  What is more, the Putin dominated efforts to draw Ukrainians back into the fold have generally had the opposite affect, as witnessed by Moscow's harsh reaction to the 300th anniversary of the Mazepa Uprising, which in eighteenth century Europe was a cause that carried comparable significance to the Tibet today.

Not long after Ukraine became independent I was speaking with an old college friend, who by then was making himself known as an important scholar of Pre=Petrine Russia. He was in disbelief about the prospects for Ukrainian independence, likening it to our U.S. state of Georgia suddenly breaking away.  (Texas would actually have been a better analogy)  A  few years later,  he was still shaking his head at what had happened.  Perhaps even now he still does from time to time.  To be fair to him, the autonomy of the early modern autonomous Cossack state, or Hetmanate, lasted over a hundred years, even if Russian interference after Mazepa's rebellion grew steadily, so in the long run there is ample time for Russia to reassert dominance, if not outright political control of Ukraine.  Still each passing year the number of Ukrainians who have known no other state grows, and with them the likelihood that Ukrainians will willingly return to Moscow dims.

That said, while some Ukrainians may place primacy on the maintenance of independence over the survival of a democratic order in Ukraine, the real hope for Ukraine lies not in its independence, but in its development as a state with more than one locus of power in which different factions negotiate rather than seek total domination.  This is what makes Friedland's story so interesting.  It was not that long ago when people saw Putin as the force that would finally enforce something akin to the state of law, and now important journalists who worked in and believed in the values of a free press etc. have had to leave, and Ukraine is offering an alternative.  This is something Putin certainly doesn't like.  The existence of a democratizing East Slavic state on Russia's southwestern frontier undermines his own implicit view that Russians do not value Democracy -- though it was interesting to note that at least one of the journalists Friedland talked to still commutes to Kiev from Moscow, and did not suggest that his activities in Ukraine have caused him problems.  But if there is hope in Ukraine, it must remain for Ukraine first.  Apart from offering a potential sanctuary for those dissatisfied with political life in Russia, it can do little to affect real change in Russia.  Indeed, the very freedoms that Ukraine's newest journalists find exhilarating, appall many Russians.  Until Russians en masse decide to rethink how they look at politics, and the economic power becomes more diffuse the hope that Ukraine inspires applies to Ukraine alone. 

 's effortscitizens are as a whole more comfortable with independence than they are with a revival of the Soviet Unionnot to mention the huge inequities between rich and poor, the most intriguing aspect of Ukraine has been how the divide between East and West has ended up having a stabilizing affect