17
Aug
John Edwards, (his own) lenders, Lakoff, bumper stickers, & blind trust(s)
Friday’s Wall Street Journal [sorry, can't link] reported on 34 foreclosures in New Orleans, foreclosures by subprime lending companies which, it turns out, were invested in by the hedge fund (Fortress), which in turn John Edwards has been invested in — and which has hired him as advisor — all fully disclosed, never hidden, but nevertheless subject to suspicion and attack by the likes of Ann Coulter [please tell me I don't need to link that].
In the immediate wake of this news, John Edwards made what is surely among the most timely [campaign-historically-speaking] of Presidential-nominee responses to personally-impacting revelations: he announced he would get rid of those assets. On the face of it, he’s thereby not only cutting his investment ties but, it would seem, “biting the hand that feeds him” [half a million in consulting fees from Fortress] so to speak, and for good cause. Be cynical if you like, but so it seems to me. Putting his considerable $$ where his mouth is. And, it would seem, suggesting that he can take a principled, moral stand against company practices even when he has a financial stake in them. He would seem to be doing in practice what Hillary recently (and rather jawdroppingly, disingenuously) stated in theory was her inability to be bought (in that case, in re lobbyists).
[Edwards' response, as a bit of an aside, leads to a question about all these guys (notably Romney, as I recall) who put their money in blind trusts even upon entering campaign -- which on the surface might seem laudable -- but doesn't such "blindness" serve also to spare them such moral decision-making dilemmas as Edwards faced here upon learning today that his own investment money was going toward lenders who were foreclosing on New Orleanians? Has this whole notion of 'blind trust' gone unexamined for its actual ramifications? And how many blind trustees have no clue anyway of what their funds might be invested in? Isn't one of the key upshots that they can claim innocence of any linkage and attempt to distance themselves from whatever scandal may arise? But in fact, isn't this a case where full disclosure itself would be the ideal? whereby candidates are tested on their mettle as Edwards was yesterday? Who else on this campaign trail, for example, is invested in these same subprime lenders but takes no stand and claims 'innocence' of any awareness of investment in same? Have we as voter-consumers really thought through the ramifications of this 'blind trust' business??]
But, back to Edwards, as a candidate. Cat’s out of the bag: So far, imho, with this being another case in point, he’s showing the most principle and intelligence and sincerity and passion and lesson-learning of all the (most viable) candidates on the menu, so for some time now, he’s been “my candidate.” Having watched closely his 2004 running experience, I also think he took invaluable lessons from that which — not just lipservice as some candidates do (e.g., Kerry said the one thing he’d learned from his one prior electoral defeat, back in the 70’s I believe, was never to let the other guys define you. Ahem.) but instead Edwards is showing he really learned lessons as reflected in his current campaign manner and responsiveness to criticism — and to apparently as VP having had his own ‘Two Americas’ pitch stifled in ‘04 once he joined the ticket, when instead it should have been embraced by Kerry. So, full disclosure: I am now vulnerable to cognitive dissonance of my own and bias in my filtering of how Edwards is responding to things.
I think it’s possible to see his decisive action here as illustrating a practice-what-you-preach, a transparency (e.g., full disclosure), and a moreality [reality-based morality -- see interview below] that goes beyond the rhetorical stance which was recently ascribed to Obama. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to see a commentary as well as interview with linguist (and now political consultant) George Lakoff (which I already linked as being tangentially relevant to the “…Purple Butts” post below). In Lakoff’s interview there, here is the opening section leading to his Edwards-relevant commentary:
Renner (truthout interviewer): Professor Lakoff, in your opinion, what is a progressive?
Lakoff: A progressive is somebody who feels – in his heart of hearts – empathy for other people, who thinks that we should act — and does act — responsibly on that empathy, and who feels that the government should do the same, that government is about caring about people, being responsible, and being strong enough to act on that responsibility.
Renner: What would you call the current incarnation of the Republican Party? Some argue with the label “conservative.” What would you call them?
Lakoff: Well, the word “conservative” suggests they’re conserving something. They’re actually quite radical. They’re kind of radical authoritarians, in a certain way. That is, they believe that there are certain kinds of authority that are right and that they should be followed and that it takes discipline to follow them and it’s a very punitive world view, that if you don’t have the discipline you should be punished.
Renner: What Presidential nominees are doing a good job speaking to the values of progressivism?
Lakoff: I think the person best able to do it is Barack Obama. And I think John Edwards is doing a terrific job. And then there are other candidates like Kucinich who are very good at that.
The first thing to understand is the notion of a pragmatic progressive. And there are two forms of pragmatism. There’s political pragmatism and there’s real-world pragmatism.
Now, if you take a look at somebody like Hillary Clinton, she’s extremely pragmatic. So, for example, if we say, “What about your health plan?” — she’s not given one — she says, “Look the issue on health plans is we have lots of them out there, what can we get through Congress?” She sees it as a pragmatic issue from the beginning, which is a very important thing to understand. She’s not saying what the ideal plan would be. She’s assuming that there’s going to be a compromise from the start.
Obama is also pragmatic. And he takes a very interesting view of all of this and of progressive thought. He says this is what this country has always been about. It’s been about caring about people, about being responsible, and so on. And then he makes an interesting distinction between morality and ideology. He says morality is about reality, and ideology isn’t. And therefore [he] wants to pin ideology on the right wing, and say that progressives are moral because they take reality into account. And you have to do that.
But that also says that you have to be real-world pragmatists. So this is a very very important thing that he’s done. And then he says we’re going to get rid of the left and the right and the progressive- and liberals and conservatives – or, you know, Democrats and Republicans. And the way he can do that – and I think legitimately do it — is by pointing out that the progressive moral world view is the American world view, from the beginning, from the Declaration of Independence.
Now, there are certain cases where Edwards does things right. So, he correctly points out the war on terror is a metaphor that doesn’t apply. But then he gets it wrong by saying it’s a quote “bumper sticker,” because bumper stickers are trivial, and the war-on-terror metaphor wasn’t trivial. It was a means to power. He says that once or twice but that’s not what he repeats. It [the war on terror metaphor]’s an illegitimate means to acquire power.
[For more of Lakoff -- who got his name in linguistics initially for his novel research on everyday use of metaphors -- and issues of power behind them -- way back in the early 80's and has been a kind of "everyman's linguist" (also more of a sociolinguist -- as compared, say, to Chomsky), see the rest of the interview. I only transcribed the beginning portion; he goes on to call for impeachment and more ... AND read his article on that same link. AND also see him in print at greater (book) length here and here and here and here.]
But, for all my great appreciation of Lakoff — and surely also reflecting my above-disclosed bias — I would take issue with his ’sticking point’ here re Edwards. And it’s one that surprises me a bit with Lakoff [my guess is he's got his own bias and that he's supporting Obama] because he’s such a student of everyday metaphor and meaning, but I think he underestimates the “power” of bumper stickers by writing them off as ‘trivial’ and making that a point against Edwards. Yes, bumper stickers are glib and telegrammatic and the phrase, as Edwards used it, has now indeed – as he meant it, I believe — come to stand for ill-thought-through oversimplistic advocacies for the most part. But people put their entire philosophies of life into (albeit canned) one- or two-line synopses on bumper stickers, advocating their religions, their children’s kindergarten gold stars, their politics, their passions… I do not think that pointing out how the war-on-terror metaphor has been used by Bush Inc. as a bumper sticker misses the mark in the way Lakoff suggests. I think that ‘bumper sticker’ itself is a metaphor which points precisely to what is wrong with an administration that wants to pablum-feed its ’subjects’ by coining knee-jerk bumper-sticker-like simplifications by which to tap (not all that subliminally) into, in this case, fear and patriotism and panic and ‘rally round the President’ mentality.
Introductory ¶s revised Saturday morning, 8/18, after original posting afternoon of 8/17. Also tried to untangle a typo and a tiny bit of the convolution of my last sentence. Ahem. And also added some cohesion between opening news item and the Lakoff interview section.
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So Edwards is a semi-honest millionaire. So what? Next year you’ll vote for Hillary anyway – no matter the semiotics. Hell, if you voted for Kerry, you’ll vote for a retarded gerbil.
Why not start from a place of certainty? You’ll vote for Hillary, there will be 4 more years of war, and in 2012 maybe Edwards will run against Jeb Bush and maybe you’ll get a chance to vote for him in the primary again.
August 18th, 2007 at 11:54 amAlan, your first sentence is arguably correct. It’s all downhill from there. Semiotics? If you can deduce everything else you said from what Zinya wrote, your use of “semiotics” rests on an insubstantial grasp of elementary logic, a discipline that’s fundamental to the comprehension of semiotics. Logic might help you argue the points made rather than just snark away.
As it stands, you’re not debating, you display simple and utter ignorance of the voting motivations of tens of millions of your peers, and your prescience is inarguably deficient.
August 18th, 2007 at 2:09 pmIt might be interesting, in the case of those employing blind trusts, to see how the mission of the trust is communicated to the trustee. For example, if the only instruction is to realize gains (which would be typical), actual investments of the trusts that are socially damaging are still, in my view, the responsibility of the beneficiary.
Favorite bumper sticker (on my brother’s car): a group of native American “braves” holding rifles. Caption: “original department of homeland security.”
August 19th, 2007 at 6:54 amJack,
Do you mean blind trustees typically know which companies they are invested in? You’re kidding. If I understand you correctly, that defies any or most reason for having blind trusts — or rather for voters and citizens to be remotely impressed by them.
Do I translate you correctly as meaning that if they don’t give further instructions (e.g., don’t invest in slavery, in global warming, in exploitation, etc.), then by default they are ‘responsible’?
But then, how can anyone hold them responsible when, say, a scandal emerges, and neither the trustee nor the public knows that he/she is invested there?
When a candidate/public officeholder first puts his trust into ‘blindness’, the holdings for the moment typically remain unchanged, right? So isn’t it kind of disingenuous (by somebody — including by the press for using “blind trust” all these years as if it somehow inoculates and shows honorableness) to think the trustee doesn’t having plenty of reason to know for considerable time into the future what companies he’s likely invested in.
(This aside, of course, from the fact that most of these connected and wealthy candidates/officeholders have more than $$ invested with these companies — Same companies are likely footing their campaign bills, joining them at socialite functions, etc. AND how can the public know if there’s conflict of interest or ‘mutual handwashing’ going on by comparing campaign contributions with candidate investments if the investments are ‘blind’? Doesn’t the public have a right to know if a candidate is being backed chiefly by companies he’s invested in? The focus of conflict of interest has been so much on contributions with subsequent legislation, but this third ‘wheel’ of the candidate’s investments is supposed to be factored in too — reason for annual assets disclosure requirements, isn’t it? — and yet if the money’s in blind trust … I think I should know all this already, but I’m feeling suddenly suspicious, or something.)
There’s something I’m missing here, I think.
Your brother’s got a great bumper sticker. One of the all-time classics, I’d say. I’ve never seen that one.
August 19th, 2007 at 9:16 amI agree, Jack. Blind or not, the beneficiary is responsible for the sources of his income simply by way of the instructions he gives a trustee. A blind trust is not supposed to be about deniability. A blind trust can be, as Romney said in 1994 while campaigning against Ted Kennedy, “an age-old ruse.” Oh, the irony!
In fact, I can’t really see the point of a blind trust for politicians. The potential for conflict of interest exists whether the beneficiary knows it or not. Professions of innocence fall flat if you’re making money off Chinese oil exploration in Darfur. I believe blind trusts have been banned in British politics.
August 19th, 2007 at 9:28 amZinya,
August 19th, 2007 at 10:50 amThe trustee knows because he/she is doing the investing. The beneficiary is the one who set up the trust in the first place. The beneficiary (technically, when setting up the trust, he is known as the “settlor”) can set out parameters and limits for the investments. If one doesn’t want the money to be in sub-prime mortgages or defense suppliers, for example, one can simply restrict the trustee from those areas of investment.
I do think such trusts serve a purpose in that a candidate can avoid conflicts of interest by using them and that, I think, is a legitimate device.
Jack,
I’ve had my second coffee and i’m still not getting it (although i did mean ‘beneficiary’ when I said ‘trustee’ earlier) and feel the question I’m asking still is unanswered so I must not be articulating it well: I understand the default responsibility (in theory) for not having ruled out sub-prime mortgages, etc. But how is anyone to know if he’s ruled out those things, first of all (I don’t recall the public ever getting that kind of information about a candidate’s blind trust), and then how is the candidate even called into account when sub-prime mortgage lenders go into red-button territory because no one can be aware of where his investments are, ostensibly even including the candidate. Just because a candidate hasn’t ruled out sub-prime mortgage lenders doesn’t mean he’s invested in them.
How is it that a candidate avoids conflicts of interest this way, in actuality, given what I raised about having good cause to “suspect” where his investments are, regardless of blindness?
I always just blithely heard those words “put his money in blind trust” and, like I suspect most folks, unthinkingly accepted that it was indeed to avoid conflict of interest but suddenly I see that as — to use the Romney irony quoted by Montfort — a ‘ruse’. This Edwards situation highlights all those candidates not taking such stances and surely others are invested in the same or other policy-conflict positions and isn’t the blind-trust excuse (as i’m now tempted to see it) really a copout cover? I mean “blind trust” sounds so above-board/honest — and the media are even often stalking candidates/officeholders if they don’t blind-trust their holdings as if that were the only honorable thing to do. But isn’t this a case where the far better thing would be full disclosure?
Obtuse in LA.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:17 pmZinya,
You’re not obtuse. The topic is arcane. Noone can demand the details of a candidate’s blind trust, it is true, but a candidate can be intimidated, badgered, bullied, and embarassed into releasing the information or the information can be leaked. If it turns out that, unbenownst to the candidate, the trust has holdings in some politically incorrect activity, the candidate will suffer for not having prevented that.
If they don’t set up the trust, they have to personally monitor each transaction which will absorb time they would rather spend differently.
Then too, if the blind trust utilizes mutual funds instead of direct investments such as Edwards’ investment in the hedge fund that had an interest in the subprime lender, that is an additional buffer of “I didn’t know”. Edwards had to get out quickly because it was hard to argue that he shouldn’t have known even if he didn’t.
Capiche?
Jack
August 19th, 2007 at 3:16 pmHas this ever happened? that a candidate ’suffered’ because of specifically ‘blind trust’ holdings? I don’t recall such ‘news’ ever. I guess I just don’t see how anyone ever comes to know about such things once they’ve gone ‘blind’ … I don’t recall the media ever badgering someone in politics to release blind-trust info. Am I just forgetting? Seems like it would take a pretty blatant suspicion on the part of the media — like, say, Tom DeLay claiming he doesn’t have any investments in cockroach companies [:-)] — that would get the media badgering him to reveal a blind trust [and good luck with that]…
capito. sort of.
z
August 19th, 2007 at 3:37 pmI googled “revealing details of blind trusts” and came up with an 8/13 AP story about Mitt Romney’s trusts and their administration: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070813/romney-wealth.html?.v=2.
It’s an interesting example. I recall seeing some similar stories on Illinois state office holders in the past but don’t have the details.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:30 amhm, the link you gave didn’t work (said it had expired) but I’m guessing that this AP report — also on yahoo on the 13th — is either the same or similar?:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070813/ap_on_el_pr/romney_wealth
and, you’re right, it’s interesting and, to me, raises more questions, which I seem to be full of: Who’s kidding whom in calling these things “blind trusts’? With the kind of disclosure that Romney had to make about it — and had the leverage to postpone until he could get through his first straw poll — it’s obviously not blind anymore to him or to anyone else, yet that’s still what they’re calling it. And yet the one in their children’s name — with $100 million of obviously Romney’s own money in there — isn’t subject to disclosure? What kind of “loophole” is that?
I also came across this, which I’d hadn’t seen mention of before but is ‘old news’ already (well, i’d read of Obama’s ’swipes’ at Hillary re India but not that it resulted from a blind-trust selloff–btw, I wonder how much that contributed to the stock market woes :-)]
August 20th, 2007 at 12:01 pmI think there were some analogous issues for Kerry and his wife that may have involved blind trusts. There is nothing about the blind trust process that prevents the beneficiary from instructing the trustee to disclose the assets to a governmental agency or to the press. The beneficiary is not supposed to be able to access the information for his own use or investment instructions that are specific as to holdings as opposed to classes of holdings.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:45 pm