For the last several months, we have witnessed the sorry spectacle of former Vice President Dick Cheney speaking to anyone who will listen to his defense of his conduct in the Bush Administration’s war on terrorists. Inexplicably, he continues to enjoy airtime whenever he speaks, even though his message never changes except to progressively backpedal and hedge his story of “the facts.” The once near-invisible vice president is now so ubiquitously in the public eye that I fully expect him to show up at my granddaughter’s kindergarten graduation if only he is promised a microphone.
His actions are unprecedented for a former vice president. Except perhaps for Aaron Burr’s post-government notoriety and Al Gore’s Nobel prize-winning actions after serving as vice president, other vice presidents not ascending to the presidency have quietly left Washington and gone home, fading thereafter into historical oblivion. Many of them have agreed with John Adams who described the vice presidency as “The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” or John Nance Garner who described the job as “not worth a bucket of warm piss” (later changed to “warm spit” by the news media!).
Not so Dick Cheney. This was perhaps the most powerful vice president in our history. In George Bush’s corporate model presidency, Dick Cheney was the all-powerful Chief Operating Officer managing the implementation of the CEO/President’s policies and directions. By all accounts, he managed at a very deep and detailed level, tolerating no dissent, accepting no roadblocks to his intentions and decisions. Underlings that dared to disagree were sent packing. And until perhaps his last year in office, when Condi Rice’s and Robert Gates’ more temperate views found some acceptance, his reign was absolute. The American public was a nuisance to be disdained, whose opinions were publicly acknowledged to be inconsequential and irrelevant.
But now the secret government is coming into the full light. And what went on, predominately under the all-shielding name of “national security,” is proving to be quite ugly. If not outright illegal, then certainly an affront to Constitutional implications, the values we celebrate each July 4th, and the national self-image we claim for ourselves and hope that others see in us. So now the previously unthinkable is happening: the all-powerful, never-questioned VP/COO is being questioned. About his decisions, his rationale, his intent, and most importantly, his methods. And Mr. Cheney does not know how to handle his new, now assailable status.
The centerpiece of the questions is about our government’s use of torture to extract terrorist intelligence information. That our actions constituted torture is essentially beyond debate, understood by most all Americans and clarified by international law and treaty. Only Dick Cheney, his close associates, the perpetrators themselves, and Fox News really think otherwise. What has been subsequently revealed is that the claimed “legal justification” for these actions was bad lawyering at its worst, and even these bad legal opinions were issued after the torture had already commenced. And that most torture exercises were not done by trained, experienced interrogators, but by for-hire contractors without interrogation qualifications, even though valuable information was already being gained from traditional, accepted interrogation techniques. Yet we used the oft-cited technique of waterboarding 183 times on one prisoner; if it was such an effective technique, why was it needed 183 times to make its point – the frequency itself becoming yet another form of torture? Or as Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota put it, “It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning ... I’ll put it to you this way: you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.”
Dick Cheney argues two points: that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” (i.e. torture) yielded actionable information and thereby saved American lives; and Obama’s elimination of these techniques has made our country less safe to a future attack (a despicable statement for a former vice president to make about a sitting president). In essence, the goal to save American lives and prevent another 9-11 justifies anything Dick Cheney did. Yet what kind of country, what kind of America has been saved if this is how we do business? I have no doubt that had we slowly sliced off one finger at a time until a prisoner’s hands were gone entirely that he would say almost anything we wanted. But is this what we want to be known for? Where is the line that we dare not cross? Have we become the very Saddam Hussein we claimed to despise, operating our own version of an Iraqi terror prison? At what point does our hatred, combined with an “anything goes” sense of absolute righteousness, lead us to becoming that very thing that we claim to hate? “We have met the enemy, and it [is indeed] ---- us.”
In this dangerous world, it is my full expectation that America will be attacked again by extremists, whether foreign or local (remember Oklahoma City). The twin towers were originally bombed in 1993 under Clinton’s watch; 9-11 happened 8 years later under Bush. Our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has contained the terrorists there for now, hampering their planning and execution of that next attack. But it will tragically come, even if by a delayed timetable, and in spite of everything our military, police, and intelligence communities can reasonably prevent. I have no doubt that when that inevitability occurs, Dick Cheney will be the first to stand on his soapbox and yell “I was right.” And that scenario is the most distasteful thing of all about Dick Cheney’s present conduct.
The former vice president has claimed that his methods worked. But he has never proven that they were required in lieu of our traditional interrogation methods that have kept us on a proper moral compass over the years. He is now being called to account. From his previous power-driven role, it is an accounting that he is unprepared to endure, therefore he resorts to the old rhetorical tricks of skipping over the substantive issues and instead just questions the questioners, slanders the critics, and impugns the integrity of his prosecutors.
There are lessons in this for all of us. We all must confront our demons. And when our demons lead us to arrogance, to believe we are beyond questioning, and that the noble end allows us to justify whatever conduct we choose, then a large dose of humility is the required antidote to be taken. Dick Cheney lost his job on January 21, 2009; apparently he did not get his memo of termination. He needs to go home, write his inevitable book, and fade from our view. He had his eight years; he has been replaced; it is other people’s turn at bat without his attempted reconstruction of the past. Like it or not, his legacy is not on the speaker’s platform. It is now out of his control, passed on to the public record and to the work of the historians.
He had his time, and his time is now over. True class – in sports, in politics, in life – is knowing when it is time to put the bat down and move on. It is now that time for him to move on, to go quietly into the night, and to leave the world to the next leaders.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
From Irrelevance to Absurdity
I have written before lamenting the loss of the Republican Party I knew in my youth from my father. A political party with important historical names --- Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and examples in my lifetime that included Eisenhower, Dirksen, Goldwater, Baker, Lodge, Rockefeller and Reagan. A party broad enough to contain the “silk stocking” Republicans of the northeast alongside the conservative individualists of the southwest. A potent force in U.S. political history. Yet not one of those historical individuals would recognize the collective irresponsibility of that which now passes for today’s Republican Party. Witness the following examples of political pandering:
1) Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who continually confounds rationality by:
- saying that Obama is seeking to set up “reeducation camps” to brainwash our children;
- introducing a bill to prohibit one world-wide currency, notwithstanding the U.S. dollar’s de facto role as just that for 60 years;
- inexplicitly announcing that “carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the world, so it does not cause global warming and so we don’t have to worry about it.” (I guess unlike black widow spiders, which also occur “naturally” in nature but which I will still choose to avoid!)
2) Norm Coleman, senator from Minnesota, who all electoral commissions have determined lost his reelection bid, but who refuses to take the classy statesman path and accept his defeat 6 months after the election, making the Gore/Bush debacle in Florida look like a textbook perfection.
3) Representative Spencer Bachus from Alabama, who announced that he personally knows of “17 socialists in Congress,” borrowing from Senator Joe McCarthy’s frighteningly injurious accusations of the 1950s, and who similarly thus far refuses to name any one of the 17. He further ignores that being a “socialist” is neither a U.S. political party nor an illegal status outlawed anywhere.
4) Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who announced that Texas may secede from the United States, raising eyebrows from those who were never fully convinced that Texas had ever truly joined the U.S. in the first place. A governor who chooses to ignore the history lesson of the War Between the States 140 years ago that denied the right of secession. (Texas was a loser in that war, by the way).
5) Continuing attempts by individual or several senators to block various Obama cabinet appointments, with flimsy or even no reason given, only to subsequently have them overwhelmingly approved in the end. What was achieved? As examples, Richard Burr of NC singularly opposed Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War veteran universally praised by veteran groups, as Assistant Secretary of the VA; John Cornyn of Texas opposed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arlen Specter opposed Eric Holder as Attorney General. And most recently, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is holding up the nomination of Craig Fugate as head of FEMA because he doesn’t like FEMA’s answers to how it will proceed with high-risk flood zones that will affect rebuilding in Louisiana. How exactly does depriving an agency of its leadership help provide new leadership and answers?
6) Then there is Dick Cheney, the scariest-person-now-no-longer-in-government-who just-won’t-go-away, whose negative comments about everything that has happened since the January 20th inauguration, and whose ends-justify-the-means defense of Bush administration torture exceeds my capacity for thoughtful response.
7) And lastly, there is the Fox News (aka the Republican Party Communications Directorate) inspired Tea Bag Protest, in which a bunch of folks got together to protest a) taxes and b) income redistribution. Except that the total number of protestors nationwide was probably less that those filling Grant Park one night awhile back in Chicago to hear Obama’s victory speech. A great many of those protestors are likely already included in Obama’s tax cuts for 90% of the population. Virtually every one of them will no doubt be gladly accepting their social security retirement payments when the time comes, which is the biggest income redistribution program in the country. Oh, and in 1773 the original tea protest in Boston was against taxation without representation; our current taxes were passed with representation, even if one does not like their representative’s response.
Once again, at a time when serious dialog, creative ideas, and political courage are needed, the current group of political lightweights in today’s Republican Party is found lacking. The most recent poll I saw shows only 21% of voters declaring themselves as Republicans. These are not “minority party” numbers, these are 3rd-party numbers. George Corley Wallace in ’68 numbers, Ross Perot in ’92 numbers, just a step ahead of Ralph Nader Green Party numbers. It is a party at a loss for message, direction and spokespersons. And if it were not for the aforementioned Fox News and the party’s self-anointed spokesperson Rush Limbaugh, they would be getting just about the same 3rd-party level of press attention.
Tax cuts and medical insurance tax credits are meaningless to the unemployed. Sending military forces against the bad guys is a hollow threat when you already have two wars going on, a war-weary public, and only estranged allies. A balanced budget is a death knell to an economy reeling from a lack of consumer spending. Talk of free enterprise capitalism wins no fans when people are reeling from the excesses of irresponsible deregulation. Republicans have to come up with a new message instead of the old news, and that message cannot be one that panders to the hysterical conspiracies of a decreasing number of citizens. It is not a time for trying to extract revenge for losing the 2008 election using political and rhetorical tricks. It is a time for governing and leading.
1) Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who continually confounds rationality by:
- saying that Obama is seeking to set up “reeducation camps” to brainwash our children;
- introducing a bill to prohibit one world-wide currency, notwithstanding the U.S. dollar’s de facto role as just that for 60 years;
- inexplicitly announcing that “carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the world, so it does not cause global warming and so we don’t have to worry about it.” (I guess unlike black widow spiders, which also occur “naturally” in nature but which I will still choose to avoid!)
2) Norm Coleman, senator from Minnesota, who all electoral commissions have determined lost his reelection bid, but who refuses to take the classy statesman path and accept his defeat 6 months after the election, making the Gore/Bush debacle in Florida look like a textbook perfection.
3) Representative Spencer Bachus from Alabama, who announced that he personally knows of “17 socialists in Congress,” borrowing from Senator Joe McCarthy’s frighteningly injurious accusations of the 1950s, and who similarly thus far refuses to name any one of the 17. He further ignores that being a “socialist” is neither a U.S. political party nor an illegal status outlawed anywhere.
4) Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who announced that Texas may secede from the United States, raising eyebrows from those who were never fully convinced that Texas had ever truly joined the U.S. in the first place. A governor who chooses to ignore the history lesson of the War Between the States 140 years ago that denied the right of secession. (Texas was a loser in that war, by the way).
5) Continuing attempts by individual or several senators to block various Obama cabinet appointments, with flimsy or even no reason given, only to subsequently have them overwhelmingly approved in the end. What was achieved? As examples, Richard Burr of NC singularly opposed Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War veteran universally praised by veteran groups, as Assistant Secretary of the VA; John Cornyn of Texas opposed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arlen Specter opposed Eric Holder as Attorney General. And most recently, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is holding up the nomination of Craig Fugate as head of FEMA because he doesn’t like FEMA’s answers to how it will proceed with high-risk flood zones that will affect rebuilding in Louisiana. How exactly does depriving an agency of its leadership help provide new leadership and answers?
6) Then there is Dick Cheney, the scariest-person-now-no-longer-in-government-who just-won’t-go-away, whose negative comments about everything that has happened since the January 20th inauguration, and whose ends-justify-the-means defense of Bush administration torture exceeds my capacity for thoughtful response.
7) And lastly, there is the Fox News (aka the Republican Party Communications Directorate) inspired Tea Bag Protest, in which a bunch of folks got together to protest a) taxes and b) income redistribution. Except that the total number of protestors nationwide was probably less that those filling Grant Park one night awhile back in Chicago to hear Obama’s victory speech. A great many of those protestors are likely already included in Obama’s tax cuts for 90% of the population. Virtually every one of them will no doubt be gladly accepting their social security retirement payments when the time comes, which is the biggest income redistribution program in the country. Oh, and in 1773 the original tea protest in Boston was against taxation without representation; our current taxes were passed with representation, even if one does not like their representative’s response.
Once again, at a time when serious dialog, creative ideas, and political courage are needed, the current group of political lightweights in today’s Republican Party is found lacking. The most recent poll I saw shows only 21% of voters declaring themselves as Republicans. These are not “minority party” numbers, these are 3rd-party numbers. George Corley Wallace in ’68 numbers, Ross Perot in ’92 numbers, just a step ahead of Ralph Nader Green Party numbers. It is a party at a loss for message, direction and spokespersons. And if it were not for the aforementioned Fox News and the party’s self-anointed spokesperson Rush Limbaugh, they would be getting just about the same 3rd-party level of press attention.
Tax cuts and medical insurance tax credits are meaningless to the unemployed. Sending military forces against the bad guys is a hollow threat when you already have two wars going on, a war-weary public, and only estranged allies. A balanced budget is a death knell to an economy reeling from a lack of consumer spending. Talk of free enterprise capitalism wins no fans when people are reeling from the excesses of irresponsible deregulation. Republicans have to come up with a new message instead of the old news, and that message cannot be one that panders to the hysterical conspiracies of a decreasing number of citizens. It is not a time for trying to extract revenge for losing the 2008 election using political and rhetorical tricks. It is a time for governing and leading.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Evolution and Creationism
(The following was published in the March 22nd edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.)
Evolution versus Intelligent Design continues to be another either/or issue. But the problem is that people are arguing about two different things. Science focuses on how we got to where we are as human beings. The Spiritual focuses on why we are here at all. Science focuses on the mechanics of how we look like we do and how our motor parts enable us to function. The Spiritual focuses on why human beings were created in the first place, assuming that some “One” intended for it to happen in a purposeful way for an intended outcome (e.g. everlasting life in heaven). Science is consumed with that which is visible, thereby “provable and knowable”; the Spiritual assumes a greater force that invisible to the eye, thereby “improvable yet knowable.”
I do not know how one can sit on a beach and watch the waves continually roll in from as far out as one can see, or sit on a mountain and watch a brilliantly colorful sunset, without knowing that this is all well beyond man’s capabilities. I do not know how a scientist, peering through the highest powered lens at cellular images, cannot but be continually amazed at the intricate design conceived in order to make our incredibly sophisticated life form work.
Creationism is about the Design of earthly existence. Evolution is about the Mechanics for how the Design is fulfilled. New buildings are constructed using everything we have learned about physical laws, materials composition and the art of color and angles. Modern day computers can solve problems, create images and transmit information over thousands of miles in a near-instant using logic, mathematics, and electrical principles. An automobile can move us in style, safety and comfort based upon principles of combustion, inertia and mechanics. Behind each of these was an architect, a computer programmer, or an engineer with a Visionary Design and Great Idea who knew what needed to come together to make it happen.
The birth of a human being is a spectacular convergence of component parts and intangible thoughts. To look at mind, thought and body and their interactions at the detail level of their complexity is as spectacular as that overwhelming view from the mountaintop. But the human being also first needed a Design, followed by the Mechanics necessary to carry out that design.
It is very clear that part of the Mechanic is for human beings to evolve into their form. Gradual, step-by-step growth to becoming fully formed is the rule in all life forms. A human being does not emanate from the womb as a whole and completed adult. An infant began at a cellular level in a union of sperm and egg. That simple cell evolved over time in shape, color, substance and volume to ultimately become the baby we see. We then evolve over the course of our lifetime, gradually changing, almost imperceptibly, from birth to adulthood to old age, one moment and one day at a time. Given what we see in our own individual lives, is it not safe to assume that the whole of humanity would have evolved in some manner over the full history of our ancestors? Evolution serving as the tool by which Intelligent Design is made to happen?
How do we reconcile the poetry of creation stories with the science? Easy. For example, I could describe on multiple levels the fried chicken dinner my Mother used to make. I could describe how she took pieces of chicken and fried them within a detailed recipe of flour coating; boiled potatoes, mashed them with added milk, covered them with gravy; opened a can of peas and heated them on the stove. Or I could describe the entire “farm-to-plate” production chain that brings the chicken’s egg to its ultimate place on my plate. Finally, I could detail how the molecular structure of a chicken changes in hot oil in a skillet. Each version of my dinner’s creation story is correct and compatible, yet told from different vantage points.
We may argue over who truly knows the Great Designer that created the human plan. We may argue over how much science remains to be discovered before really knowing how our human thing works. We can never fully know that which we call God. Science will always have one more level to discover. In the end, both God and Science are needed to create all that we see. And both remain unknowable mysteries in our human lifetime.
Evolution versus Intelligent Design continues to be another either/or issue. But the problem is that people are arguing about two different things. Science focuses on how we got to where we are as human beings. The Spiritual focuses on why we are here at all. Science focuses on the mechanics of how we look like we do and how our motor parts enable us to function. The Spiritual focuses on why human beings were created in the first place, assuming that some “One” intended for it to happen in a purposeful way for an intended outcome (e.g. everlasting life in heaven). Science is consumed with that which is visible, thereby “provable and knowable”; the Spiritual assumes a greater force that invisible to the eye, thereby “improvable yet knowable.”
I do not know how one can sit on a beach and watch the waves continually roll in from as far out as one can see, or sit on a mountain and watch a brilliantly colorful sunset, without knowing that this is all well beyond man’s capabilities. I do not know how a scientist, peering through the highest powered lens at cellular images, cannot but be continually amazed at the intricate design conceived in order to make our incredibly sophisticated life form work.
Creationism is about the Design of earthly existence. Evolution is about the Mechanics for how the Design is fulfilled. New buildings are constructed using everything we have learned about physical laws, materials composition and the art of color and angles. Modern day computers can solve problems, create images and transmit information over thousands of miles in a near-instant using logic, mathematics, and electrical principles. An automobile can move us in style, safety and comfort based upon principles of combustion, inertia and mechanics. Behind each of these was an architect, a computer programmer, or an engineer with a Visionary Design and Great Idea who knew what needed to come together to make it happen.
The birth of a human being is a spectacular convergence of component parts and intangible thoughts. To look at mind, thought and body and their interactions at the detail level of their complexity is as spectacular as that overwhelming view from the mountaintop. But the human being also first needed a Design, followed by the Mechanics necessary to carry out that design.
It is very clear that part of the Mechanic is for human beings to evolve into their form. Gradual, step-by-step growth to becoming fully formed is the rule in all life forms. A human being does not emanate from the womb as a whole and completed adult. An infant began at a cellular level in a union of sperm and egg. That simple cell evolved over time in shape, color, substance and volume to ultimately become the baby we see. We then evolve over the course of our lifetime, gradually changing, almost imperceptibly, from birth to adulthood to old age, one moment and one day at a time. Given what we see in our own individual lives, is it not safe to assume that the whole of humanity would have evolved in some manner over the full history of our ancestors? Evolution serving as the tool by which Intelligent Design is made to happen?
How do we reconcile the poetry of creation stories with the science? Easy. For example, I could describe on multiple levels the fried chicken dinner my Mother used to make. I could describe how she took pieces of chicken and fried them within a detailed recipe of flour coating; boiled potatoes, mashed them with added milk, covered them with gravy; opened a can of peas and heated them on the stove. Or I could describe the entire “farm-to-plate” production chain that brings the chicken’s egg to its ultimate place on my plate. Finally, I could detail how the molecular structure of a chicken changes in hot oil in a skillet. Each version of my dinner’s creation story is correct and compatible, yet told from different vantage points.
We may argue over who truly knows the Great Designer that created the human plan. We may argue over how much science remains to be discovered before really knowing how our human thing works. We can never fully know that which we call God. Science will always have one more level to discover. In the end, both God and Science are needed to create all that we see. And both remain unknowable mysteries in our human lifetime.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Welfare and Socialism for Whom?
Soon, the debate over the future delivery of healthcare to Americans will move into full swing. It will be a long and contentious discussion. Hopefully access to good health care as part of American citizenship will be an accepted baseline in the coming discussion. There will be many good differing opinions about the role of governments in a future healthcare structure. Unfortunately, we can also count on hearing some screams about government-provided healthcare being “socialized medicine,” or how such would create new “welfare entitlements.” I suggest that whenever we hear these words, we are listening to nothing of value in this most critical discussion. When one has no real understanding of the very real human needs or has no intellectual understanding of the difficulties and complexities yet opportunities involved in this arena, then we will see this jump to empty codewords. Codewords intended to scare working people into believing that they will lose control over their own lives (socialism). Or that lesser-deserving people will get what they have not paid for and thereby do not deserve (welfare). Except virtually everyone has now become prisoner to a healthcare system that is out of control, and is not getting access to the healthcare that they need in a financially responsible manner.
If the argument is that government provided services are socialism, and underwriting services for those who cannot afford them is welfare, then what are we to do with all of the socialism and welfare that is already in place that we all enjoy and take for granted? The Constitution charged the federal government to provide for the common defense, so it maintains a military to protect us. The US government has provided a postal service since Ben Franklin started it. They do a remarkable job taking my scrawled handwriting on a paper envelope and delivering it 2-3 days later to someone’s mailbox nailed to their house out in the countryside thousands of miles away. All for 42 cents. The FAA keeps track of thousands of airlines and millions of passengers in the air everyday. In spite of how badly run the corporate US airlines have become, we have a minimal occurrence of accidents and deaths from that congested travel. The federal government already extensively and successfully provides direct healthcare to millions of military personnel and their families, to veterans, and to Congressmen/women – care not available to most of us. It provides health insurance to millions of senior citizens. It provides additional health care and/or insurance to other millions of disabled people and children. So let us please stop talking about government-sponsored health care as if it is some brand-new invention the devil.
It is a long list of services the US government provides every day. Sometimes bungled by obscure bureaucrats buried in the bowels of the organizational charts, out of touch with the diverse realities of small-town America. But what have been your experiences of late trying to navigate customer services in free-enterprise corporate America? Hello, India! Both government and private enterprise have their successes and failures.
If “welfare entitlement” is supposedly about something for nothing, then what about all of the corporate and personal welfare we all take advantage of every day. Our tax code is filled with special treatment for selected businesses and classes of individuals, which is why Warren Buffet and his peers pay less percentage income tax than his secretary. The Department of Agriculture pays subsidies, “not to grow” programs, and price supports for farmers, most of which goes to big agri-business growers and passive investors (David Letterman a farmer?), not the family farmer of our mythic dreams. Who among us is willing to give up our mortgage interest deduction, originally written for the home construction industry to stimulate home ownership. A deduction none of the millions of renters enjoys. And, of course, our employer-provided health insurance which is free and non-taxable, even though it is worth thousands of dollars in additional compensation. Explain that supposed fairness to the millions of Americans unemployed or employed-without-benefits.
And, of course, there are all the civilian jobs created by the Pentagon for procurements and defense bases across the country that even the military says are not needed. Or the biggest of all socialistic actions by our government – the first governmental commitment in the world, honored to this day, that all citizen children will receive a basic education regardless of their family’s ability to pay, underwritten by all adult citizens who thereby give back to others the gift they received, even while private enterprise schools also successfully coexist side-by-side for those parents who wish to pay over and above.
The list goes on endlessly. One person’s socialism is another person’s entitlement. So if some critic wants to stand up and yell “socialism” or “welfare,” then the only logical response should be, “So what government entitlements you now get are you willing to give up?” There can emerge many different ways to tame this healthcare beast. Let us allow for both private industry and government roles where each is best positioned. Let individual initiative do what it does so marvelously, while common social fabric needs are being concurrently met. But speak to me of substance, of ideas that lead to outcomes, without labels. Let us all drink from a cup of humility, commit to intellectual honesty, and level the playing field equally for everyone before we stand on the dishonest stage of the rhetorical demagoguery of codewords.
If the argument is that government provided services are socialism, and underwriting services for those who cannot afford them is welfare, then what are we to do with all of the socialism and welfare that is already in place that we all enjoy and take for granted? The Constitution charged the federal government to provide for the common defense, so it maintains a military to protect us. The US government has provided a postal service since Ben Franklin started it. They do a remarkable job taking my scrawled handwriting on a paper envelope and delivering it 2-3 days later to someone’s mailbox nailed to their house out in the countryside thousands of miles away. All for 42 cents. The FAA keeps track of thousands of airlines and millions of passengers in the air everyday. In spite of how badly run the corporate US airlines have become, we have a minimal occurrence of accidents and deaths from that congested travel. The federal government already extensively and successfully provides direct healthcare to millions of military personnel and their families, to veterans, and to Congressmen/women – care not available to most of us. It provides health insurance to millions of senior citizens. It provides additional health care and/or insurance to other millions of disabled people and children. So let us please stop talking about government-sponsored health care as if it is some brand-new invention the devil.
It is a long list of services the US government provides every day. Sometimes bungled by obscure bureaucrats buried in the bowels of the organizational charts, out of touch with the diverse realities of small-town America. But what have been your experiences of late trying to navigate customer services in free-enterprise corporate America? Hello, India! Both government and private enterprise have their successes and failures.
If “welfare entitlement” is supposedly about something for nothing, then what about all of the corporate and personal welfare we all take advantage of every day. Our tax code is filled with special treatment for selected businesses and classes of individuals, which is why Warren Buffet and his peers pay less percentage income tax than his secretary. The Department of Agriculture pays subsidies, “not to grow” programs, and price supports for farmers, most of which goes to big agri-business growers and passive investors (David Letterman a farmer?), not the family farmer of our mythic dreams. Who among us is willing to give up our mortgage interest deduction, originally written for the home construction industry to stimulate home ownership. A deduction none of the millions of renters enjoys. And, of course, our employer-provided health insurance which is free and non-taxable, even though it is worth thousands of dollars in additional compensation. Explain that supposed fairness to the millions of Americans unemployed or employed-without-benefits.
And, of course, there are all the civilian jobs created by the Pentagon for procurements and defense bases across the country that even the military says are not needed. Or the biggest of all socialistic actions by our government – the first governmental commitment in the world, honored to this day, that all citizen children will receive a basic education regardless of their family’s ability to pay, underwritten by all adult citizens who thereby give back to others the gift they received, even while private enterprise schools also successfully coexist side-by-side for those parents who wish to pay over and above.
The list goes on endlessly. One person’s socialism is another person’s entitlement. So if some critic wants to stand up and yell “socialism” or “welfare,” then the only logical response should be, “So what government entitlements you now get are you willing to give up?” There can emerge many different ways to tame this healthcare beast. Let us allow for both private industry and government roles where each is best positioned. Let individual initiative do what it does so marvelously, while common social fabric needs are being concurrently met. But speak to me of substance, of ideas that lead to outcomes, without labels. Let us all drink from a cup of humility, commit to intellectual honesty, and level the playing field equally for everyone before we stand on the dishonest stage of the rhetorical demagoguery of codewords.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Regional Diversity
Over the past four months I had the good fortune to spend this year’s winter in Southern California instead of my home in Western North Carolina. Given all of the extended nightmarish weather experienced across the country this winter, going without snow for the first time in 40 years was a welcomed change. To get to Southern California from North Carolina, there are only two options: on I-40 across middle Tennessee / Arkansas / Oklahoma and northern Texas / New Mexico / Arizona, or the deep south route on I-10 through southern Mississippi / Alabama / Louisiana / Texas / New Mexico / Arizona. Either route over the 2500 miles will display a vast array of images, vegetation, distances of view, and varying weather conditions, often dramatic and sometimes bordering on the extreme. From such a visual contrast mile by mile, one is reminded of the extraordinary differences in this country’s landscape, yet its unifying beauty.
I have often said that to truly understand a people, you have to go to their place: stand on their land; feel the wind, the cold and the heat of the place; walk the flatness or the rises; eat the native food God made available on that land. Then, as you listen to them talk about their history – of migration, of wars, or desperate struggles for survival, of periods of alternating power & prosperity and then weakness & desperation – their stories, values, opinions, politics and cultural way of life begins to come alive within a context. Without that critical understanding and appreciation of their context, you hear their story only through your own lens, thereby not really understanding it at all.
Unlike most except the biggest of countries, the U.S. does not have one topography that molds a common context for us, such as Japan’s experience for example. Surviving the land means something far different to the New Englander than to the New Mexican. Shelter requires something very different for the Floridian than for the North Dakotan. The commute to work is a different regimen to the office worker in Huntington Beach, California than to the farmer in Van Wert, Ohio. The dusty heat of El Paso, Texas summers calls for a different rhythm and tolerance than the deep snows of winters in Buffalo, New York around the Great Lakes region. And the 90% humidity of Fort Smith, Arkansas creates a different form of heat than the extreme 15% dryness of Tucson, Arizona, regardless of the thermometer reading.
Basic values of patriotism, faith and religious observances, compassion towards others, charity to those in need, and respect for law and democratic process can be shared universally. Yet how those values are expressed and fulfilled cannot, and should not, be the same, given our incredible diversity of situations. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at the ongoing efforts of some people to try to enforce an ill-fitting homogeneity at a detailed level across this land. Be it a faceless bureaucrat dictating educational standards and teaching methodologies; a building code based upon big-city realities pushed out to rural communities; a religious denominational belief and practice attempted to be made a secular standard; architected homes completely mis-fitted in style to the land they sit on and the historical culture they embody; or the mandated allocation of governmental budgets applied to specific local action programs – all of these reflect a supposed knowing of “what is best locally” without any real understanding of what local really means.
Tip O’Neil’s famous observation was that “all politics is local.” Over the past years we have dangerously tried to turn that on its head. The idea was not to tell the locals what to do, but to listen to the locals and then give them a wide swath and meaningful support to pursue their individual directions. Allow people to respond as best appropriate to local conditions and priorities. We should remember that our view is our own, but other views are not necessarily a disagreement with us. They may rather reflect a life that is often outside of our own field of vision, and thereby outside of our real understanding.
I have often said that to truly understand a people, you have to go to their place: stand on their land; feel the wind, the cold and the heat of the place; walk the flatness or the rises; eat the native food God made available on that land. Then, as you listen to them talk about their history – of migration, of wars, or desperate struggles for survival, of periods of alternating power & prosperity and then weakness & desperation – their stories, values, opinions, politics and cultural way of life begins to come alive within a context. Without that critical understanding and appreciation of their context, you hear their story only through your own lens, thereby not really understanding it at all.
Unlike most except the biggest of countries, the U.S. does not have one topography that molds a common context for us, such as Japan’s experience for example. Surviving the land means something far different to the New Englander than to the New Mexican. Shelter requires something very different for the Floridian than for the North Dakotan. The commute to work is a different regimen to the office worker in Huntington Beach, California than to the farmer in Van Wert, Ohio. The dusty heat of El Paso, Texas summers calls for a different rhythm and tolerance than the deep snows of winters in Buffalo, New York around the Great Lakes region. And the 90% humidity of Fort Smith, Arkansas creates a different form of heat than the extreme 15% dryness of Tucson, Arizona, regardless of the thermometer reading.
Basic values of patriotism, faith and religious observances, compassion towards others, charity to those in need, and respect for law and democratic process can be shared universally. Yet how those values are expressed and fulfilled cannot, and should not, be the same, given our incredible diversity of situations. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at the ongoing efforts of some people to try to enforce an ill-fitting homogeneity at a detailed level across this land. Be it a faceless bureaucrat dictating educational standards and teaching methodologies; a building code based upon big-city realities pushed out to rural communities; a religious denominational belief and practice attempted to be made a secular standard; architected homes completely mis-fitted in style to the land they sit on and the historical culture they embody; or the mandated allocation of governmental budgets applied to specific local action programs – all of these reflect a supposed knowing of “what is best locally” without any real understanding of what local really means.
Tip O’Neil’s famous observation was that “all politics is local.” Over the past years we have dangerously tried to turn that on its head. The idea was not to tell the locals what to do, but to listen to the locals and then give them a wide swath and meaningful support to pursue their individual directions. Allow people to respond as best appropriate to local conditions and priorities. We should remember that our view is our own, but other views are not necessarily a disagreement with us. They may rather reflect a life that is often outside of our own field of vision, and thereby outside of our real understanding.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Quiet, Please!
In the past two months, folks in Washington, D.C. have moved from the defining (and decrying) stage of problem recognition into the proposal stage. Multiple solutions to our economic woes are flying around everywhere, alongside all the variations of criticisms leveled against every proposal being offered up. Economic doom dominates all of the daily commentary. Many prior hot buttons and social issues that were supposedly critical to our national survival have virtually disappeared from discussion – illegal immigration, Iraq, Afghanistan, abortion, evolution/creationism, etc. Even supposedly new national priorities for energy and clean air are struggling for attention, while health and education seem to be holding their own. Given all of the daily slicing up, promoting, defending and finger-pointing going on, I am surprised that anyone has much time left over to actually THINK conscientiously about any of these problems.
Many politicians are lining up to claim that “too much is on the plate, we need to focus on one thing.” These folks are dead wrong. Frankly, if 535 Congressmen/women can’t split up, divide and conquer, and step to the national plate when they are needed, then we are facing a much bigger problem of competency and attention. Very few crises come neatly packaged for convenient handling.
I believe that Obama is right that a) economy and energy and health and education and environment are long overdue items precisely because we have refused to deal with them previously and now they are all ganging up on us; and b) each problem is part of the solution to the other. They are in fact interdependent among each other, and solving one is part of solving the others. “Solving” one problem at a time will take us baby steps when we desperately need to take the giant step that is now available to us. And have you noticed that the ones screaming that we should be focusing only on the economy right now are either a) the politicians who overlooked the economy for the past several years, or b) the economists or corporate career folks – they make it sound good and easy, but they are just like everyone else, pushing their own parochial agenda and perspective.
Of course, my favorite object of scorn – the cable news media – are in a feeding frenzy over all of this. Hour after hour, it is one doomsday scenario after another, poll after poll about how fearful Americans are, conspiracies uncovered one after another, 24-hour tracking of the latest embezzler of note. It is like watching those crazy weather folks in hyper-mode when the hurricanes are coming. It is also numbing to our brains, and the value-added of all this (dis-)information diminishes by the day.
Are there good people hurting these days, many of them reasonably innocent bystanders and/or casualties to the irresponsible actions of others? Yes. But we would be better-served not just to run feature stories about their hurts, but to focus on other people and organizations who are trying to help these neighbors find transition relief.
I suggest that we all turn down our TVs, skip over a few internet “timely news updates,” and ignore for awhile some of the hyper bloggers out there (except for this blog, of course!). The truth is, 90% of the American workforce is still working, even if working harder for less money in a less preferable job. Most family bills are being paid. Freebie living on borrowed money is slowing down, if not ending. Gasoline is still holding at @$2. Restaurants are still serving food, even if they are full only 5 nights instead of 7. Tomorrow the sun will rise again, as it has always managed to do. In a few weeks, one of those big magnificent full moons will dominate the night sky. Tomorrow (March 20), spring arrives yet again, ending our long winter and beginning yet again another year’s seasons. Planting, growing, harvesting and resting is a year's process, it is not done in a day. Life will refresh and renew itself in its annual ritual as it has for eons.
So let us quiet down a bit. Get back in balance. Act wisely for ourselves, and compassionately towards others. Use our adversity to move us to a better place we should go, not hunker down in a place in which we should not stay. Let our innate good and strong character come through yet again. And if we do, this too will pass. Turn off the noise, and listen to the music that is still playing our song.
Many politicians are lining up to claim that “too much is on the plate, we need to focus on one thing.” These folks are dead wrong. Frankly, if 535 Congressmen/women can’t split up, divide and conquer, and step to the national plate when they are needed, then we are facing a much bigger problem of competency and attention. Very few crises come neatly packaged for convenient handling.
I believe that Obama is right that a) economy and energy and health and education and environment are long overdue items precisely because we have refused to deal with them previously and now they are all ganging up on us; and b) each problem is part of the solution to the other. They are in fact interdependent among each other, and solving one is part of solving the others. “Solving” one problem at a time will take us baby steps when we desperately need to take the giant step that is now available to us. And have you noticed that the ones screaming that we should be focusing only on the economy right now are either a) the politicians who overlooked the economy for the past several years, or b) the economists or corporate career folks – they make it sound good and easy, but they are just like everyone else, pushing their own parochial agenda and perspective.
Of course, my favorite object of scorn – the cable news media – are in a feeding frenzy over all of this. Hour after hour, it is one doomsday scenario after another, poll after poll about how fearful Americans are, conspiracies uncovered one after another, 24-hour tracking of the latest embezzler of note. It is like watching those crazy weather folks in hyper-mode when the hurricanes are coming. It is also numbing to our brains, and the value-added of all this (dis-)information diminishes by the day.
Are there good people hurting these days, many of them reasonably innocent bystanders and/or casualties to the irresponsible actions of others? Yes. But we would be better-served not just to run feature stories about their hurts, but to focus on other people and organizations who are trying to help these neighbors find transition relief.
I suggest that we all turn down our TVs, skip over a few internet “timely news updates,” and ignore for awhile some of the hyper bloggers out there (except for this blog, of course!). The truth is, 90% of the American workforce is still working, even if working harder for less money in a less preferable job. Most family bills are being paid. Freebie living on borrowed money is slowing down, if not ending. Gasoline is still holding at @$2. Restaurants are still serving food, even if they are full only 5 nights instead of 7. Tomorrow the sun will rise again, as it has always managed to do. In a few weeks, one of those big magnificent full moons will dominate the night sky. Tomorrow (March 20), spring arrives yet again, ending our long winter and beginning yet again another year’s seasons. Planting, growing, harvesting and resting is a year's process, it is not done in a day. Life will refresh and renew itself in its annual ritual as it has for eons.
So let us quiet down a bit. Get back in balance. Act wisely for ourselves, and compassionately towards others. Use our adversity to move us to a better place we should go, not hunker down in a place in which we should not stay. Let our innate good and strong character come through yet again. And if we do, this too will pass. Turn off the noise, and listen to the music that is still playing our song.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Homeowner Life Preserver
I recently commented on this blog site that Obama’s stimulus package had to be seen as one leg of four. We also needed a home mortgage response, a new budget (long-term and short-term), and a banking restructuring plan. We now have a proposed plan for dealing with the home mortgage issue that was the original thorn that pricked this economic bubble.
Fiscally, the Obama mortgage plan looks like a right step (even if long overdue) to keep as many people in their homes as possible. The method: refinance current mortgages to a payment level that can be handled by the homeowner, assuming that the new mortgage meets certain limits and profiles. Non-resident mortgagees (i.e. speculators) would be excluded from this program, which seems reasonable. Unfortunate, all of these restructured loans would still flow through banks, who are not required to restructure but will be “incentivized” (whatever that means!) to do so.
This program follows the lead of Shelia Bair, head of the FDIC. She has been commendably fearless and the only sane voice for the past year in leading loan restructuring as the right way to resolving mortgage failures in her takeover and resolutions of failed banks. It is a good step, and will hopefully convince banks to convert their bad loans into good, and thereby be lending once again. For me, though, I would go even further on the premise that having homeowners staying in their homes and paying a mortgage every month is the key to both ending the slide in home values as well as resolving the instability of banks.
Firstly, I would require the banks getting taxpayer dollars to make every possible loan rewrite; it is the price of them playing with our money. Or, if banks will not rewrite, then I would use Fannie Mae or some other agency to go into the business of making loans directly to these consumers. Lending competition from the US Government should force the banks to choose to become competitive once again sufficiently to drive the federal government back out of the marketplace (which ideally it should not be in). The overriding necessity is that problem home loans need to be restructured, by whoever will do it. Ideally, let the banks beat the government at their own game in order to resolve the problem they caused in the first place.
Secondly, I would throw out any means test for these problematic homeowners. Yes, I know that sounds crazy. But a lesson I learned years ago is that it is the consumer that holds the key to a bank’s success, just like any other business. If a bank does not lend money, it goes out of business – which is exactly what is happening now. NOT lending is unprofitable. Once I figured out that premise, I no longer thanked a bank for “approving” me for a loan; I expected them to thank me for choosing to borrow from them. And if one bank will not loan me the money, I am confident that someone else will.
The practical application of all of this is that:
· hardly anyone keeps an initial mortgage for 30 years anymore; they either continually refinance it, creating in effect a life-long revolving line-of-credit, or they sell and move and start a new mortgage;
· banks are constantly encouraging mortgagees to refinance so they get new loan fees and high interest income;
· banks invented the balloon mortgage – i.e. low payments now in exchange for higher payments 3-5 years later when loans are in effect “automatically refinanced.”
So we need to quit playing games: find a payment amount these hurting people can handle, write a 5-year loan to fit that amount, and automatically rewrite it again 5 years out. Continue this indefinitely. In 5 years the bank is just going to be looking to lend the money again to someone anyway. What do we or the bank care whether the same person or a different new buyer holds this loan a few years from now – it’s all the same mortgage money. The outstanding balance (perhaps with some smaller loss) can be finally made up at the point of future sale or death. Even if losses ultimately result, we will have spread them out over years instead of all at the same time right now.
This approach stops the loss of home values. It stops foreclosures. It keeps people in a mortgage, not defaulting. It keeps them in their homes in a “normal” and continuing life, not a disrupted one. And banks now make money (or at least substantially reduce their losses).
Is this “fair” to current homeowners who have managed their mortgages steadily and in good faith? Perhaps not. I have been paying on some form of a mortgage for 25 years, and am scheduled to do so with my latest loan for another 29½. My current mortgage is on reasonable enough terms, assuming I do not suffer an economic setback. It is the loss in home value that hurts me far more directly than whether my neighbor’s troubles provide him with a more generous deal than I got. But if I can help that person stabilize his/her mortgage situation, that indirectly helps me in the long run.
We are where we are. And there but for the grace of God go I. I can shoot myself in the foot by attempting to punish my defaulting neighbor, or I can suck it up, be generous to that neighbor, hoping that my generosity today will come back to help me later if/when I may need it. Or I can do this just because selfishly his/her new deal will thereby help me, whereas foreclosure will most certainly come back to hurt me. Ultimately we will all sink or swim together in this rather overwhelming situation. So we might as well all share a life preserver and swim to shore together instead of arguing about who steered the ship into the rocks.
Fiscally, the Obama mortgage plan looks like a right step (even if long overdue) to keep as many people in their homes as possible. The method: refinance current mortgages to a payment level that can be handled by the homeowner, assuming that the new mortgage meets certain limits and profiles. Non-resident mortgagees (i.e. speculators) would be excluded from this program, which seems reasonable. Unfortunate, all of these restructured loans would still flow through banks, who are not required to restructure but will be “incentivized” (whatever that means!) to do so.
This program follows the lead of Shelia Bair, head of the FDIC. She has been commendably fearless and the only sane voice for the past year in leading loan restructuring as the right way to resolving mortgage failures in her takeover and resolutions of failed banks. It is a good step, and will hopefully convince banks to convert their bad loans into good, and thereby be lending once again. For me, though, I would go even further on the premise that having homeowners staying in their homes and paying a mortgage every month is the key to both ending the slide in home values as well as resolving the instability of banks.
Firstly, I would require the banks getting taxpayer dollars to make every possible loan rewrite; it is the price of them playing with our money. Or, if banks will not rewrite, then I would use Fannie Mae or some other agency to go into the business of making loans directly to these consumers. Lending competition from the US Government should force the banks to choose to become competitive once again sufficiently to drive the federal government back out of the marketplace (which ideally it should not be in). The overriding necessity is that problem home loans need to be restructured, by whoever will do it. Ideally, let the banks beat the government at their own game in order to resolve the problem they caused in the first place.
Secondly, I would throw out any means test for these problematic homeowners. Yes, I know that sounds crazy. But a lesson I learned years ago is that it is the consumer that holds the key to a bank’s success, just like any other business. If a bank does not lend money, it goes out of business – which is exactly what is happening now. NOT lending is unprofitable. Once I figured out that premise, I no longer thanked a bank for “approving” me for a loan; I expected them to thank me for choosing to borrow from them. And if one bank will not loan me the money, I am confident that someone else will.
The practical application of all of this is that:
· hardly anyone keeps an initial mortgage for 30 years anymore; they either continually refinance it, creating in effect a life-long revolving line-of-credit, or they sell and move and start a new mortgage;
· banks are constantly encouraging mortgagees to refinance so they get new loan fees and high interest income;
· banks invented the balloon mortgage – i.e. low payments now in exchange for higher payments 3-5 years later when loans are in effect “automatically refinanced.”
So we need to quit playing games: find a payment amount these hurting people can handle, write a 5-year loan to fit that amount, and automatically rewrite it again 5 years out. Continue this indefinitely. In 5 years the bank is just going to be looking to lend the money again to someone anyway. What do we or the bank care whether the same person or a different new buyer holds this loan a few years from now – it’s all the same mortgage money. The outstanding balance (perhaps with some smaller loss) can be finally made up at the point of future sale or death. Even if losses ultimately result, we will have spread them out over years instead of all at the same time right now.
This approach stops the loss of home values. It stops foreclosures. It keeps people in a mortgage, not defaulting. It keeps them in their homes in a “normal” and continuing life, not a disrupted one. And banks now make money (or at least substantially reduce their losses).
Is this “fair” to current homeowners who have managed their mortgages steadily and in good faith? Perhaps not. I have been paying on some form of a mortgage for 25 years, and am scheduled to do so with my latest loan for another 29½. My current mortgage is on reasonable enough terms, assuming I do not suffer an economic setback. It is the loss in home value that hurts me far more directly than whether my neighbor’s troubles provide him with a more generous deal than I got. But if I can help that person stabilize his/her mortgage situation, that indirectly helps me in the long run.
We are where we are. And there but for the grace of God go I. I can shoot myself in the foot by attempting to punish my defaulting neighbor, or I can suck it up, be generous to that neighbor, hoping that my generosity today will come back to help me later if/when I may need it. Or I can do this just because selfishly his/her new deal will thereby help me, whereas foreclosure will most certainly come back to hurt me. Ultimately we will all sink or swim together in this rather overwhelming situation. So we might as well all share a life preserver and swim to shore together instead of arguing about who steered the ship into the rocks.
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