Years ago, I had a good friend who had a favorite expression that I find myself thinking of more frequently of late. Whenever she would hear someone say something really stupid, or observe someone act thoughtlessly or maliciously, she would just shake her head and quietly say, “Some mother’s kids.” In those three words, she was able to raise a legitimate question about what someone had learned in their childhood upbringing and what they had not (or had long forgotten). Simultaneously, she was assessing that person’s words or actions as being so outrageous that they were coming from someone only a mother could love – and perhaps even a severe test of that.
With some of the things we see and hear that leave us scratching our heads incredulously, her three little words seem more and more apt. As an interesting statistical anomaly, the state of South Carolina seems of late to be breeding a whole batch of “some mother’s kids.” I am not sure what causes such lapses in word and deed, but here are some examples:
1. Governor Mark Sanford, who supposedly took a long weekend hike on the Appalachian Trail, only to discover that the trail went way south all the way to his mistress in Argentina. His classic statement of apology? “I need to try to learn to love my wife again.” Not surprisingly, Mrs. Sanford took that ringing endorsement of affection and moved out of the house. The added gall to all of this was that when Governor Sanford was a U.S. Congressman 10+ years ago, he was one of the floor managers seeking to impeach Bill Clinton because of his “infidelity and lack of respect for marriage.” What goes around …
2. Lt. Governor (and now candidate for governor) Andre Bauer gave us a good lesson in dealing with our poorer citizens, thanks to his grandmother. “She was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals – because they breed.” He went on to say that there was a direct correlation between schools with a high percentage of government funded lunch programs and low test scores. His sterling conclusion? Government feeding of hungry children destroys their sense of responsibility and initiative and fosters dependency, so test scores are low. So we need to stop feeding them so that … what? So an 8-yearold will quit school and get a job so s/he can buy food? Did Mr. Bauer skip over the other possible correlation: that kids getting government funded lunches come from poor homes struggling just to get by and lack the ability to give educational support and advantages to their kids as found in middle-to-upper class homes? (He later apologized for comparing “poor children to stray animals.”)
3. The former GOP chairman of the state elections commission, Rusty DePass, made a comment on Facebook about the escape of a gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo. His insightful observation? “I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s (Obama) ancestors – probably harmless.” I am sure that that reassuring observation calmed any fears from the zoo’s neighboring residents. His subsequent apology was, “I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone. The comment was clearly in jest.” It would seem that Mr. Rusty needs to seriously rethink what constitutes humor, versus what is just thoughtless hurtful.
4. Of course, we all know about the now infamous “You Lie” comment from Congressman Joe Wilson directed to President Obama while speaking to a joint Congressional session. You take an inappropriate remark, speak it at an inappropriate time, broadcast that disrespect publicly to the world, and then subsequently be proven that your statement was blatantly false. Obama did not lie, but all those people who do not know the difference between reasoned debate and ill-tempered shouting found a new champion. A champion who apparently learned no simple manners in his home.
5. Two Republican county chairmen, Edwin Merwin, Jr. and James Ulmer, Jr., seeking to voice their support for Senator Jim DeMint’s fiscal conservatism, wrote in an article that, “There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.” Their apology came only one day later: “I have always abhorred in the past, and shall continue to do so in the future, anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever.” Truth is, watching the pennies is a good thing for all of us to do. Did not Ben Franklin tell us 200 years ago that a penny saved was a penny earned? Isn’t finding a penny an omen of good fortune to come? Good ethics, lost in a bad context. Try it again, Edwin and James, but this time try using brain before tongue.
6. And do I even need to bring up the current poster boy of deception – South Carolina native John Edwards? How far can the once mighty fall when they sit atop their own illusions of invulnerability? The ripples of hurt from his misstatements and lies now grow larger and wider, enveloping everyone around him. No one is coming out looking admirable, including Elizabeth Edwards, and the sleazy aide with the book deal.
I generally prefer to not get too caught up in public infidelity issues – private lives should be just that: private. And I am not too fond either of the political correctness police who leave you virtually unable to open your mouth about truthful realities without someone getting hysterically bent out of shape. A good sense of humor is still necessary to get through life. Yet thoughtful words and actions still count if one is going to speak in public forums.
We need to know the differences, and where the lines are. Lately it seems like those lines are not visible in the morning fog of South Carolina. It is seemingly a place where inexplicable speech and action seem to be in greater-than-usual quantity. Leaving us all to just shake our heads in bewildered wonderment at Some Mother’s Kids.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Massachusetts Message
In Massachusetts recently, the unthinkable happened: the senate seat held by John and Ted Kennedy for 50+ years went to a Republican. All the hysteria and post-election punditry notwithstanding, what does this portend about the next ten months of 2010 political reporting? Some thoughts …
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” in sports and in politics. No election is a guaranteed outcome, regardless of what one may think going in. The good campaigners always know they could lose, and campaign fully from day 1 through election day.
A lousy candidate has a lousy chance to win, regardless of party affiliation or political beliefs. By all accounts, Massachusetts Democrats could not have picked a lousier candidate. Did Scott Brown win, or did overconfident Martha Coakley lose? All too often, never underestimate the Democratic Party’s ability to blow an opportunity. (See “a 60-vote supermajority.”)
Once again, Republicans showed that – all other conditions being equal – as a party they are typically the far better campaign strategists. And they can run a far more effective campaign – if “effective” is winning being the total objective at any/all cost – though they are likely to not run a more ethical or intellectually honest campaign. Democrats too often are really bad tacticians. (See Willie Horton, Swift Boat, racial ads in Tennessee, and Florida elections.)
Meanwhile, Democrats usually stand flatfooted against a Republican steamroller campaign and have never really learned how to counterpunch political attacks, even when grossly false. They have never learned the British art of the surgical oratorical cut, the comeback that exposes the untruth of your opponent in one sentence. Sometimes, no matter your druthers, you just have to fight back and respond in kind and call dishonesty out. Americans do not like dirty politics or blatant misdeeds, but they do like a fighter who will show strength about his/her convictions and a willingness to stand and fight for them. (See Michael Dukakis and John Kerry who didn’t, versus Bill Clinton who did.)
A political campaign is no place for a philosophical discussion. The voting public does not have the time or the attention span for that. You need simple goals expressed in simple tag lines with the details in the file cabinet (or web site) – but not too many details! (See Ronald Reagan presidential debates, Richard Nixon’s “secret peace plan,” versus Al Gore and John Kerry speaking in tongues in paragraphs.)
Scott Brown rode in a pickup truck and proposed “a Jack Kennedy tax cut” while simultaneously decrying deficit spending. We already tried that from 2000 – 2008, when Republicans piled on the spending rather than cutting it, and can we see the results? But the juxtaposition of these two conflicting ideas has never bothered any Republican. And it has always left Democrats scrambling on the defensive for how to say “no” to tax cuts without seeming to pick the middle class pocket. (See George W. Bush on the ranch in his pickup, looking like everyman’s beer buddy.)
American voters have such a short memory. The last three Republican presidencies each ended on a financial downturn from events accumulated during their term. Reagan, who began the dismantling of financial regulation, ended with a collapse of the savings and loan (remember those?) industry (a preview of the 2008 bank collapse), with an unstable voodoo economic instrument (remember “junk bonds”?), and large deficits from tax cuts that never trickled down to the middle class. George H.W. Bush left the country in recession, which Bill Clinton turned into an economic boom with a government budget surplus by 2000. George W. Bush left us nearing depression from the almost-collapse of the entire financial infrastructure world-wide, based upon yet another phony financial instrument (derivatives) along with our first trillion dollar deficit. So why would we turn to that same political party espousing the same economic policies who have no credibility to restore fiscal stabilization?
In the wake of Republican wins in 2 governorship and 1 senate races, the media and Republican leadership talk is all about some supposed Republican comeback. This restoration is supposedly built on a middleclass revolt against Democratic proliferate spending. But I think that is a false read. Is the populace angry? Yes, that seems clear. But I think they are now mad at everyone in political power, regardless of party or philosophy, particularly the “independent” voter. Mad at national, state and local incumbents. They are angry at being ignored, left behind, looking at a governing system that is lost and aimless, and not working almost anywhere. The political process is ugly, the wealthy are overtly calling the shots in the backrooms, the only economic trickle is up, corruption and dishonesty among politicians seems rampant, and political gamesmanship is the only thing seemingly important. Republican political stonewalling is as repugnant as Democratic deficit spending when people are looking for responsive solutions. Everyday middle class people, just trying to make it through the day, who need basic services and fairness from all levels of government, are feeling left out, powerless, unheard, and overwhelmed by it all, with no productive place to put their frustrated energies. So before anyone counts their electoral chickens prematurely, I suspect most all incumbents should be concerned. Is a whole new deck of cards held by brand new players the only way to break the impasse of these last years?
We need to prepare ourselves for a tough 2010. I wish this would not be so, but I am doubtful. More incumbents opting to bail out of the 2010 election. Complete paralysis of Congress as obstructionist senate Republicans hold it hostage to the 60-vote filibuster rule, rejecting any presidential/Democratic initiative just to prevent a success, so that nothing substantive gets done. Politics becomes even more of a simple blood sport, to no one’s benefit except the politicians themselves. And cable news incites everything to a screaming frenzy. In this period of irrelevant governments, most of us will be left to find our own solutions in spite of government.
After all of this is done, where will we find ourselves on Wednesday, November 3, 2010?
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” in sports and in politics. No election is a guaranteed outcome, regardless of what one may think going in. The good campaigners always know they could lose, and campaign fully from day 1 through election day.
A lousy candidate has a lousy chance to win, regardless of party affiliation or political beliefs. By all accounts, Massachusetts Democrats could not have picked a lousier candidate. Did Scott Brown win, or did overconfident Martha Coakley lose? All too often, never underestimate the Democratic Party’s ability to blow an opportunity. (See “a 60-vote supermajority.”)
Once again, Republicans showed that – all other conditions being equal – as a party they are typically the far better campaign strategists. And they can run a far more effective campaign – if “effective” is winning being the total objective at any/all cost – though they are likely to not run a more ethical or intellectually honest campaign. Democrats too often are really bad tacticians. (See Willie Horton, Swift Boat, racial ads in Tennessee, and Florida elections.)
Meanwhile, Democrats usually stand flatfooted against a Republican steamroller campaign and have never really learned how to counterpunch political attacks, even when grossly false. They have never learned the British art of the surgical oratorical cut, the comeback that exposes the untruth of your opponent in one sentence. Sometimes, no matter your druthers, you just have to fight back and respond in kind and call dishonesty out. Americans do not like dirty politics or blatant misdeeds, but they do like a fighter who will show strength about his/her convictions and a willingness to stand and fight for them. (See Michael Dukakis and John Kerry who didn’t, versus Bill Clinton who did.)
A political campaign is no place for a philosophical discussion. The voting public does not have the time or the attention span for that. You need simple goals expressed in simple tag lines with the details in the file cabinet (or web site) – but not too many details! (See Ronald Reagan presidential debates, Richard Nixon’s “secret peace plan,” versus Al Gore and John Kerry speaking in tongues in paragraphs.)
Scott Brown rode in a pickup truck and proposed “a Jack Kennedy tax cut” while simultaneously decrying deficit spending. We already tried that from 2000 – 2008, when Republicans piled on the spending rather than cutting it, and can we see the results? But the juxtaposition of these two conflicting ideas has never bothered any Republican. And it has always left Democrats scrambling on the defensive for how to say “no” to tax cuts without seeming to pick the middle class pocket. (See George W. Bush on the ranch in his pickup, looking like everyman’s beer buddy.)
American voters have such a short memory. The last three Republican presidencies each ended on a financial downturn from events accumulated during their term. Reagan, who began the dismantling of financial regulation, ended with a collapse of the savings and loan (remember those?) industry (a preview of the 2008 bank collapse), with an unstable voodoo economic instrument (remember “junk bonds”?), and large deficits from tax cuts that never trickled down to the middle class. George H.W. Bush left the country in recession, which Bill Clinton turned into an economic boom with a government budget surplus by 2000. George W. Bush left us nearing depression from the almost-collapse of the entire financial infrastructure world-wide, based upon yet another phony financial instrument (derivatives) along with our first trillion dollar deficit. So why would we turn to that same political party espousing the same economic policies who have no credibility to restore fiscal stabilization?
In the wake of Republican wins in 2 governorship and 1 senate races, the media and Republican leadership talk is all about some supposed Republican comeback. This restoration is supposedly built on a middleclass revolt against Democratic proliferate spending. But I think that is a false read. Is the populace angry? Yes, that seems clear. But I think they are now mad at everyone in political power, regardless of party or philosophy, particularly the “independent” voter. Mad at national, state and local incumbents. They are angry at being ignored, left behind, looking at a governing system that is lost and aimless, and not working almost anywhere. The political process is ugly, the wealthy are overtly calling the shots in the backrooms, the only economic trickle is up, corruption and dishonesty among politicians seems rampant, and political gamesmanship is the only thing seemingly important. Republican political stonewalling is as repugnant as Democratic deficit spending when people are looking for responsive solutions. Everyday middle class people, just trying to make it through the day, who need basic services and fairness from all levels of government, are feeling left out, powerless, unheard, and overwhelmed by it all, with no productive place to put their frustrated energies. So before anyone counts their electoral chickens prematurely, I suspect most all incumbents should be concerned. Is a whole new deck of cards held by brand new players the only way to break the impasse of these last years?
We need to prepare ourselves for a tough 2010. I wish this would not be so, but I am doubtful. More incumbents opting to bail out of the 2010 election. Complete paralysis of Congress as obstructionist senate Republicans hold it hostage to the 60-vote filibuster rule, rejecting any presidential/Democratic initiative just to prevent a success, so that nothing substantive gets done. Politics becomes even more of a simple blood sport, to no one’s benefit except the politicians themselves. And cable news incites everything to a screaming frenzy. In this period of irrelevant governments, most of us will be left to find our own solutions in spite of government.
After all of this is done, where will we find ourselves on Wednesday, November 3, 2010?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Amputation of the Invisible Hand
When I was a young university freshman majoring in business administration eons ago, one of my obligatory courses was Principles of Economics. I do not remember a whole lot that was said back then. But there were two themes that we all had to minimally take with us:
· Supply & Demand: the quantity of available supplies would balance and thereby equal the price people were willing to pay for them;
· “Invisible Hand”: Adam Smith’s principle that “if consumers are free to choose what to buy, and producers are free to choose what to sell, an ‘invisible hand’ will cause markets to settle on products and prices beneficial to all. I.e. self-interest will drive everyone to beneficial behavior.”
So why is this mini-Economics 101 lesson relevant to us? Because these days we hear a lot of people complaining about the federal government’s supposed takeover of the American free-market economy. Complaints about: “GM” now means Government Motors; federal ownership of banks and financial institutions; government funded jobs instead of private industry jobs; and out of control deficit spending. The supposition is that, if we could just get government out of the way and let “natural market forces” be free to do their thing, all would be economically right with the world. Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and innumerable conservative politicians and free-wheeling CEOs would then be vindicated. And we would all become wealthy.
Wealthy is perfectly fine unto itself. How one achieves that wealth should always be a wholly separate discussion. When one achieves business success working within these basic economic principles, that success can be admired. The problem today (and for most of America’s history) is a rigged game. And the rigging is not due to the government intervening to disrupt the marketplace; the rigging is by our Captains of Industry, in many instances with that rigging then reinforced by government law, regulation or program.
The capitalism/free-market system that we aspire to presumes: a) a large population of buying consumers; b) a large number of innovators, producers and suppliers to service these consumers and their needs; c) easy-in penetration of new suppliers and innovation into the marketplace. Within this open framework capitalism can thrive, probably towards the community benefit that Adam Smith envisioned. But that “market openness” is not what is present today.
Instead, supplies of desired or needed goods are being deliberately controlled or withheld, artificially distorting price. The number of suppliers continues to contract into fewer national/international mega-companies capable of dictating market position. Given that product creation and market distribution is so concentrated in huge companies, the high cost of entry into the market is prohibitive to most would-be new suppliers seeking to expand consumer options.
Supplies of home heating oil sit in tankers off the coast of New England, holding back their cargo until the price moves up into a greater profit. When gasoline hit $4/gallon last year, the Saudi Arabian oil minister correctly said, “We are still producing what we have always produced; there is plenty of oil out there.” That $4 came from commodity traders bidding up a barrel of oil from $40 → $140 just because everyone in the production chain could make money along the way – until the market topped and fell back to $40, leaving all those late buyers holding the empty oil can. The Big 3 automakers over the years repeatedly blocked new carmakers or innovations, and ignored consumer desires for their automobiles, in order to protect their status quo. As we have now learned, the financial industry concentrated its wealth into a handful of giant institutions that effectively dictate lending rates, credit card fees, and credit terms while previous competitors disappeared in merger-mania. As various retail outlets dissolve into bankruptcy, 2-3 lenders in each industry at either the low-end or high-end of price effectively dictate price, product, and customer service. (Is there really any difference in the merchandise in Lowe’s or Home Depot?) Corporate agriculture continually tries to block the growth of organic or local foods, while price support payments from the Department of Agriculture primarily underwrite corporate profits versus the small farmer.
Two real exceptions to the marketplace barriers are technology (2 guys in a basement can still make an impact) and home construction, both of which can provide real opportunities to the wanna-be entrepreneur. We like to trumpet America’s small businesspersons as our economic backbone, and that’s the ideal that economic protestors like to point to. The reality is that there are vast numbers of them, but the few national companies and their branches/franchises control product, pricing, and wealth. The small business person tries to survive in the economic alleyways left over, frozen out of the real Main Street. All those pizzas from our corner mom-and-pop pizzerias are still the minority of the pepperoni.
How we can genuinely open the American free market to the entrepreneurs that deserve it, rather than just give more market power to an already small club of players, needs far more discussion. When we clamor for a more free market system, just exactly who are we really helping? Should not today’s protesters of economic socialism also be equally protesting serfdom under the economic barons of this land? This is not a question of class warfare nor a debate of economic philosophies. It is rather a question of enforcing ethics and fairness. In the meantime, does anyone really doubt the return of $3.00/gallon gas soon? Or $4.00 once again?
· Supply & Demand: the quantity of available supplies would balance and thereby equal the price people were willing to pay for them;
· “Invisible Hand”: Adam Smith’s principle that “if consumers are free to choose what to buy, and producers are free to choose what to sell, an ‘invisible hand’ will cause markets to settle on products and prices beneficial to all. I.e. self-interest will drive everyone to beneficial behavior.”
So why is this mini-Economics 101 lesson relevant to us? Because these days we hear a lot of people complaining about the federal government’s supposed takeover of the American free-market economy. Complaints about: “GM” now means Government Motors; federal ownership of banks and financial institutions; government funded jobs instead of private industry jobs; and out of control deficit spending. The supposition is that, if we could just get government out of the way and let “natural market forces” be free to do their thing, all would be economically right with the world. Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and innumerable conservative politicians and free-wheeling CEOs would then be vindicated. And we would all become wealthy.
Wealthy is perfectly fine unto itself. How one achieves that wealth should always be a wholly separate discussion. When one achieves business success working within these basic economic principles, that success can be admired. The problem today (and for most of America’s history) is a rigged game. And the rigging is not due to the government intervening to disrupt the marketplace; the rigging is by our Captains of Industry, in many instances with that rigging then reinforced by government law, regulation or program.
The capitalism/free-market system that we aspire to presumes: a) a large population of buying consumers; b) a large number of innovators, producers and suppliers to service these consumers and their needs; c) easy-in penetration of new suppliers and innovation into the marketplace. Within this open framework capitalism can thrive, probably towards the community benefit that Adam Smith envisioned. But that “market openness” is not what is present today.
Instead, supplies of desired or needed goods are being deliberately controlled or withheld, artificially distorting price. The number of suppliers continues to contract into fewer national/international mega-companies capable of dictating market position. Given that product creation and market distribution is so concentrated in huge companies, the high cost of entry into the market is prohibitive to most would-be new suppliers seeking to expand consumer options.
Supplies of home heating oil sit in tankers off the coast of New England, holding back their cargo until the price moves up into a greater profit. When gasoline hit $4/gallon last year, the Saudi Arabian oil minister correctly said, “We are still producing what we have always produced; there is plenty of oil out there.” That $4 came from commodity traders bidding up a barrel of oil from $40 → $140 just because everyone in the production chain could make money along the way – until the market topped and fell back to $40, leaving all those late buyers holding the empty oil can. The Big 3 automakers over the years repeatedly blocked new carmakers or innovations, and ignored consumer desires for their automobiles, in order to protect their status quo. As we have now learned, the financial industry concentrated its wealth into a handful of giant institutions that effectively dictate lending rates, credit card fees, and credit terms while previous competitors disappeared in merger-mania. As various retail outlets dissolve into bankruptcy, 2-3 lenders in each industry at either the low-end or high-end of price effectively dictate price, product, and customer service. (Is there really any difference in the merchandise in Lowe’s or Home Depot?) Corporate agriculture continually tries to block the growth of organic or local foods, while price support payments from the Department of Agriculture primarily underwrite corporate profits versus the small farmer.
Two real exceptions to the marketplace barriers are technology (2 guys in a basement can still make an impact) and home construction, both of which can provide real opportunities to the wanna-be entrepreneur. We like to trumpet America’s small businesspersons as our economic backbone, and that’s the ideal that economic protestors like to point to. The reality is that there are vast numbers of them, but the few national companies and their branches/franchises control product, pricing, and wealth. The small business person tries to survive in the economic alleyways left over, frozen out of the real Main Street. All those pizzas from our corner mom-and-pop pizzerias are still the minority of the pepperoni.
How we can genuinely open the American free market to the entrepreneurs that deserve it, rather than just give more market power to an already small club of players, needs far more discussion. When we clamor for a more free market system, just exactly who are we really helping? Should not today’s protesters of economic socialism also be equally protesting serfdom under the economic barons of this land? This is not a question of class warfare nor a debate of economic philosophies. It is rather a question of enforcing ethics and fairness. In the meantime, does anyone really doubt the return of $3.00/gallon gas soon? Or $4.00 once again?
Friday, December 25, 2009
The Seeds For The Decade From Hell
TIME magazine recently called the 2000-2009 years “The Decade From Hell.” Which, of course, has led many commentators to the next level of adjective inflation by calling it “the worst decade ever.” It is perhaps easy to understand the temptation to apply that appellation to this thankfully-ending decade:
- Two wars are still going on, both longer than any war except Viet Nam, one of which in Afghanistan is essentially being restarted from scratch after eight years;
- We are now billions of dollars more in debt given a complete throwaway of government fiscal responsibility at all levels from all political parties;
- We are very gradually coming out of the worst economic disaster since the 1930s, spread across the country in varying degrees but not across all strata of our population;
- Traditional pillars of our economic society have collapsed into bankruptcy, a result of mismanagement, greed, and short-sighted thinking, forcing us into government bailouts of undeserving companies as the necessary lesser of two bad options;
- Yet in spite of such bailouts, we have witnessed an unrepentant arrogance from such mis-managers, failing to reform their expectations and ways of thinking;
- Unemployment, bankruptcies, homelessness are all up, personal income and asset valuations are down.
There are certainly many causes for gloom at this year-/decade-end. I am sure anyone could add to this short list of negatives. Decade from hell? That seems to fit. But worst decade ever? We’re still far away from the 1930s; its 25% unemployment pales our 10%. And that full-blown international depression lasted through the entire decade; we’re only one year into our recession. So let us give our parents/grandparents of that generation credit for patience, stamina, and perseverance. And ultimate success.
The 1940s started badly with our entry into the incomprehensible horrors of World War II fought by the “greatest generation” now dying off. It ended with the baby boomer population spurt now moving into senior citizenship. And it spawned the new economic middle class that anchors us today.
The 1950s had its Cold War with Russia, visions of atomic bombs falling on school children hiding underneath their wooden desks (!) or in backyard underground shelters, and the frightening specter of McCarthyism shredding our Constitution – thereby planting the seeds of “the politics of fear.” In the end, scare tactics and fears of cataclysmic destruction went unrealized in the overall tranquility of Eisenhower.
Which gave way to the tumult of the 1960s/1970s. Two back-to-back hellish decades. Our reinvigoration by Kennedy was lost in his assassination, setting the stage for 20 years of violence as a political solution. High expectations continually gave way to dashed results: Johnson’s Great Society produced some long-lasting institutions in the social safety net and civil rights. But it lost its momentum and coalition in the climate of Viet Nam. The great adventure and challenge of landing on the moon became seen as a frivolous indulgence. The peace and love of Woodstock died in the drug centers of Haight-Ashbury. “Peace with Honor” was tripped up and exposed in a place called Watergate, and the seeds of “the politics of hate” were planted. And just when “our long national nightmare [was] over,” Ford (correctly) pardoned Nixon and a Georgia peanut farmer lost his way in a “great national malaise” of gas lines, sweaters in the White House, and hostages in Iran. These were truly consecutive decades of hell.
Followed by a decade in 1980 of optimism and a re-found sense of humor – at least on surface. “Supply side economics” was rightfully exposed as “voodoo economics.” We pulled out of a short recession, but savings and loan institutions went bankrupt due to a lack of oversight. Deregulation came into vogue and generated much prosperity, though the wealthy / middle class / poor gaps grew wider while public accountability began to fade. “Greed is good” brought “let the buyer beware” to a new zenith, threatening the stabilities achieved from our 1930s lessons learned. The seeds for future financial ruin were planted here, hidden by feel-good sunny optimism, yet waiting to belatedly sprout in this last decade like the choking southern kudzu weed. But the Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain was raised, the Cold War defrosted, and a genuine Middle East threat was stopped by a truly united coalition with a clear and limited objective.
And minus a woman named Monica, the 1990s were pretty good for us. Economic prosperity, international cooperation in the Balkans, overall stability. But the dual seeds of terrorism and the “politics of winning over governing” were being planted during this period, the “dot.com bubble” was looming, yet computer programmers the world over successfully averted a very real potential “Year 2000” catastrophe.
Which brought us 2000-2009. The decade when the accumulated seeds sprouted. Fear and hate sprouted as the Constitution was turned inside out “to keep us safe.” Deregulation sprouted as our economy was handed over to unchecked incompetents with a responsibility only to their own wallets, and a willing public believed there was no cost to prosperity. Terrorism exploded upon us, reflecting years of our patronizing dismissal of other cultures and an arrogant belief in our own self-righteous virtue. And government became paralyzingly ineffective amid a partisan priority for winning versus “governing to the greater good.” A lot of chickens came home to roost in our own back yards in this decade, living within the flowering weeds from seeds we planted years ago.
So what can we expect from this forthcoming “teens” decade? Another decade from hell, or a decade of regeneration? It could go either way. If we are still thinking and acting in our 2000-9 mentality, then it could be grim. If we have learned anything from that decade, and we can apply those lessons with patience, it could be a positive redirection of our collective and individual selves. Like the sick patient, we need to 1) stop the bleeding, 2) then stabilize, 3) then redefine our health regime, then 4) then work through long-term rehabilitation. We’ve done step 1 and are in step 2 right now. If the negative media and politicians do not overwhelm us first, the signs and metrics of recovery are all there. It has taken us a few decades to mess things up this way. If we have the confidence, commitment, and stay-with-it-ness, the Decade of Hell may not lead to the Decade of Heaven. But it may lead to the Decade of Renewal that we need. And individual and national renewal could be pretty damn good.
Happy New Year, and Best Wishes for the New Decade.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Happy Holidays - Revisited
(TIME Magazine recently stated that only 22% of people polled preferred to use a “Happy Holidays” greeting during this holiday season, versus a “Merry Christmas” greeting. In the midst of the Hanukkah celebration, upcoming Christmas, the winter solstice for nature observers, and all other forms of seasonal festivities, it seemed appropriate to repeat the following modified blog from December 13, 2007.)
********************************************
NEWS ITEM: “(New York) A group of people exchanging holiday greetings on a subway last week hurled anti-Semitic slurs and beat four Jewish riders who had wished them “Happy Hanukkah,” authorities said. The prosecutor’s office was investigating a possible hate crime.” (USA Today, 12/12/07)
In our country’s continuing need to create a controversy where there need not be one, we have now annualized this penchant. I refer to the great “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” cloud that hangs over salesclerks everywhere. What does one say to a stranger in this season of joy and love for people of virtually all faiths over an extended calendar of celebration?
I guess there are some folks who feel it to be their First Amendment and unalienable right and spiritual obligation to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Whether the recipient celebrates Christmas or not, or celebrates within a Christian or secular context, and usually without bothering to ask. Where companies have asked employees to use the Happy Holidays greeting (a meaningful wish applicable to virtually all peoples), employee groups and speeches from the pulpit decry once again “another assault on religion.” I think such outraged individuals have it backwards. If I may, I will use a personal story to illustrate.
When I left my native Arkansas at 21 to go to Boston, a more Wonder-bread kid from a homogeneous white Protestant environment could probably not be found. (What diversity existed in my town was out-of-sight/out-of-discussion, e.g. non-Protestants, Blacks.) Yet in Boston I found myself in a completely foreign melting-pot environment unlike any I had known. Religions, cultures, nationalities, with all their various Americanizations, were all there. Reflecting against all of these new experiences caused me to have to go back and understand where I had come from in my safe, all-the-same upbringing. It was a head-swirling multi-year process of change and assimilation, all for the far better I know.
On my return to Boston after a 2-year absence, I became dear friends with a couple whose history could not have been more different. Raised in New York City, in close knit Jewish communities, immersed in the performing arts, I seemingly had nothing in common with them at all. But over the years I learned so much from them and their family and friends. Not just about Jewish culture, but about many other cultures as well and the ability to all live together, given their broad exposure to such versus my nil.
For years, when the December holidays came around, I always sent them and his parents a Christmas card. Because Christmas cards is what I did every year. It was an unthinking reflex. Kind people that they are, they never pointed out to me my un-thoughtfulness, but just accepted the wish in good (and probably bemused) grace.
It was probably 15-20 years later when, out of the blue, it suddenly hit me how backwards I had been. Christmas is MY holiday, MY set of long memories. Their holiday, their memories, are of a different celebration and meaning --- in their case Hanukkah. I take joy when they wish me a Merry Christmas, their knowing that is a special time for me and my family. In my special feelings for them, I finally realized that my heart should wish them not my holiday but theirs: Happy Hanukkah, the holiday that brings similar seasonal warmth to them.
There are millions of non-Christians in this country (@25% of the population), and many non-religious celebrators of Christmas. Many no longer live in isolated homogeneous communities, but increasingly we live intermixed all together. One can choose to “spread the Gospel” in the winter holiday time, or one can express true love and acceptance of each other and their respective celebrations. People who insist on the “right” to wish a Merry Christmas to people whose tradition of observance is different are in fact being very selfish. They make themselves feel better, but they are not truly spreading “joy and good will to others.”
Our country’s diversity is one of our strengths. But say Happy Birthday to me on my birthday, not yours. Wish me a happy 4th of July, not a Happy Bastille Day. Wish people joy and peace in their own personal form. And if you don’t know, or haven’t tried to understand another’s culture, don’t assume; just know that “Happy Holidays” really does work just fine.
Happy Holidays and Peace be to each of you, and to your friends and families, my readers.
********************************************
NEWS ITEM: “(New York) A group of people exchanging holiday greetings on a subway last week hurled anti-Semitic slurs and beat four Jewish riders who had wished them “Happy Hanukkah,” authorities said. The prosecutor’s office was investigating a possible hate crime.” (USA Today, 12/12/07)
In our country’s continuing need to create a controversy where there need not be one, we have now annualized this penchant. I refer to the great “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” cloud that hangs over salesclerks everywhere. What does one say to a stranger in this season of joy and love for people of virtually all faiths over an extended calendar of celebration?
I guess there are some folks who feel it to be their First Amendment and unalienable right and spiritual obligation to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Whether the recipient celebrates Christmas or not, or celebrates within a Christian or secular context, and usually without bothering to ask. Where companies have asked employees to use the Happy Holidays greeting (a meaningful wish applicable to virtually all peoples), employee groups and speeches from the pulpit decry once again “another assault on religion.” I think such outraged individuals have it backwards. If I may, I will use a personal story to illustrate.
When I left my native Arkansas at 21 to go to Boston, a more Wonder-bread kid from a homogeneous white Protestant environment could probably not be found. (What diversity existed in my town was out-of-sight/out-of-discussion, e.g. non-Protestants, Blacks.) Yet in Boston I found myself in a completely foreign melting-pot environment unlike any I had known. Religions, cultures, nationalities, with all their various Americanizations, were all there. Reflecting against all of these new experiences caused me to have to go back and understand where I had come from in my safe, all-the-same upbringing. It was a head-swirling multi-year process of change and assimilation, all for the far better I know.
On my return to Boston after a 2-year absence, I became dear friends with a couple whose history could not have been more different. Raised in New York City, in close knit Jewish communities, immersed in the performing arts, I seemingly had nothing in common with them at all. But over the years I learned so much from them and their family and friends. Not just about Jewish culture, but about many other cultures as well and the ability to all live together, given their broad exposure to such versus my nil.
For years, when the December holidays came around, I always sent them and his parents a Christmas card. Because Christmas cards is what I did every year. It was an unthinking reflex. Kind people that they are, they never pointed out to me my un-thoughtfulness, but just accepted the wish in good (and probably bemused) grace.
It was probably 15-20 years later when, out of the blue, it suddenly hit me how backwards I had been. Christmas is MY holiday, MY set of long memories. Their holiday, their memories, are of a different celebration and meaning --- in their case Hanukkah. I take joy when they wish me a Merry Christmas, their knowing that is a special time for me and my family. In my special feelings for them, I finally realized that my heart should wish them not my holiday but theirs: Happy Hanukkah, the holiday that brings similar seasonal warmth to them.
There are millions of non-Christians in this country (@25% of the population), and many non-religious celebrators of Christmas. Many no longer live in isolated homogeneous communities, but increasingly we live intermixed all together. One can choose to “spread the Gospel” in the winter holiday time, or one can express true love and acceptance of each other and their respective celebrations. People who insist on the “right” to wish a Merry Christmas to people whose tradition of observance is different are in fact being very selfish. They make themselves feel better, but they are not truly spreading “joy and good will to others.”
Our country’s diversity is one of our strengths. But say Happy Birthday to me on my birthday, not yours. Wish me a happy 4th of July, not a Happy Bastille Day. Wish people joy and peace in their own personal form. And if you don’t know, or haven’t tried to understand another’s culture, don’t assume; just know that “Happy Holidays” really does work just fine.
Happy Holidays and Peace be to each of you, and to your friends and families, my readers.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Our Cultural Labels
I was born in America; I am an American. I was born in one of the Confederate succession states of 1861-1865, within a mainly Scot-Irish immigrant ancestry extending back through states of the Old South; I am a Southerner. I was born and raised in Arkansas, on the Oklahoma border; I am an Arkansan, with a western trace. My American / Scot-Irish / Southern / Arkansan heritage was geographical, distinctly cultural, religious, and familial, all within a predominantly conservative homogeneous setting.
At 21, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts for college. Excepting 2 years after college, I stayed in New England for the next 38 years. My geography, my religious connections, my exposure to vastly different and varied peoples, and my thinking about the world, all evolved. Homogeneity became heterogeneity. So am I now a liberal New England Yankee?
Except that now I am living in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina, another distinctly different locale. North Carolina was the home of my primary maternal and paternal ancestors. Am I a transplanted Arkansan or New Englander? Or have I simply returned to my original roots?
In the past, perhaps after one ancestral adventurer moved to start a new beginning, people for the most part lived and died within one place. That one place contained a significant portion of their lineage, siblings and extended family. And that place existed in a culture and support framework extending probably no more than a 100 mile diameter circle. That culture typically lived in near isolation except for tourists passing through, or the books, magazines or movies that gave vague, intangible hints of different worlds beyond. In this isolation, native foods, speech patterns, indigenous careers, and community standards and values took deep roots, flowering vastly different landscapes. If you did travel, you knew clearly that you “weren’t in Kansas anymore.”
As television broadcast images and a standard speech pattern instantly and incessantly across the country (and globe), as franchised food outlets nationalized regional foods, as shopping malls replaced local downtowns with bland repetitive line-ups of national chain stores, our distinct localism and regionalism is being irrevocably lost. With “fresh” Maine lobster, Californian See’s candies, Chicago pizza, and New York cheesecake now available anywhere, the anticipation and surprise of exploring new territories and experiences are increasingly only fond recollections. Sameness, rather than individuality, seems to have become a national priority. When southern-style sweet tea is now available in a prepackaged bottle at McDonald’s in Connecticut, we know that distinctive regionalism and individual identity have suffered a major casualty! The desire for new experiences loses out to the quest for the comfort and safety of familiarity.
Why does all of this matter? Because I believe this increasing loss of geographic / regional / cultural identity contributes to people’s current sense of loss of personal identity. To an increasing anger at a perceived loss of individuality in favor of standardization. A fear of an ill-defined force that is pushing a sameness onto each of us, with a mandate for thinking and behavior that is disconnected from our everyday world. It is a force that seems oblivious and unaware of the framework and reality of our daily lives. It is a force felt regardless of political party affiliation, conservative or liberal bents, religious beliefs, ancestral heritage, geography or race.
So when we see people rallying against health care reform, health is often only a tangential issue. When we see record numbers of people lined up at gun shows to make purchases, the right to bear arms is often only a tangential issue. When “tea baggers” hold up their anti-tax signs, taxes are often only a tangential issue. When “birthers,” led by demagogic politicians and broadcasters, question the citizenship of our current president, citizenship and one’s right to hold presidential office are often only tangential issues. At the heart of these emotional displays is a reaction to a sense of threat to people’s personal life, their personal control over that life, and the disappearance of one’s local community and cultural familiarity. The world feels too big; the individual too small and still shrinking.
This past week, Switzerland passed a public referendum prohibiting the construction of new minarets – those distinctive spires on top of Islamic mosques. This in spite of there being only four minarets currently in the whole country. Switzerland is that historically fanatically-neutral country famous for taking sides on no question, with a long tolerance of multiple cultures and religions. Yet in a country with a Muslim population less than 6% of the Swiss population, cultural fears and perceived threats were aroused and dominated the vote. Spain and Germany have similarly grappled with mosque architectural construction in these long-standing Christian countries, while France and England increasingly struggle with issues arising from growing immigrant cultures. Underneath these struggles is the fundamental question –what does it now mean to be, or look to be, an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German or Spaniard? Where will all those Swiss A-frame cottages or French chateaus go? As some here grapple with having a president who looks very different than all those other presidential portraits, how do the French, the most adamant in preserving their native culture, now respond to a French president with a non-French ancestry?
I expect that Europe, with its history of small homogeneous nation-states, will struggle mightily over the next several years with this issue of cultural / national identification. We in America have been multi-cultured from our founding. Yet even with our long experience, our track record for assimilation has been, and is, very spotty. Underneath our immigration discussions, our educational policies, our “national versus local action” debates, we are in fact still often asking ourselves, “What does it mean to be a southerner, a westerner, a Californian, a Texan, a Vermonter? What does it mean to be an American?” And is our personal label really relevant anymore?
At 21, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts for college. Excepting 2 years after college, I stayed in New England for the next 38 years. My geography, my religious connections, my exposure to vastly different and varied peoples, and my thinking about the world, all evolved. Homogeneity became heterogeneity. So am I now a liberal New England Yankee?
Except that now I am living in the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina, another distinctly different locale. North Carolina was the home of my primary maternal and paternal ancestors. Am I a transplanted Arkansan or New Englander? Or have I simply returned to my original roots?
In the past, perhaps after one ancestral adventurer moved to start a new beginning, people for the most part lived and died within one place. That one place contained a significant portion of their lineage, siblings and extended family. And that place existed in a culture and support framework extending probably no more than a 100 mile diameter circle. That culture typically lived in near isolation except for tourists passing through, or the books, magazines or movies that gave vague, intangible hints of different worlds beyond. In this isolation, native foods, speech patterns, indigenous careers, and community standards and values took deep roots, flowering vastly different landscapes. If you did travel, you knew clearly that you “weren’t in Kansas anymore.”
As television broadcast images and a standard speech pattern instantly and incessantly across the country (and globe), as franchised food outlets nationalized regional foods, as shopping malls replaced local downtowns with bland repetitive line-ups of national chain stores, our distinct localism and regionalism is being irrevocably lost. With “fresh” Maine lobster, Californian See’s candies, Chicago pizza, and New York cheesecake now available anywhere, the anticipation and surprise of exploring new territories and experiences are increasingly only fond recollections. Sameness, rather than individuality, seems to have become a national priority. When southern-style sweet tea is now available in a prepackaged bottle at McDonald’s in Connecticut, we know that distinctive regionalism and individual identity have suffered a major casualty! The desire for new experiences loses out to the quest for the comfort and safety of familiarity.
Why does all of this matter? Because I believe this increasing loss of geographic / regional / cultural identity contributes to people’s current sense of loss of personal identity. To an increasing anger at a perceived loss of individuality in favor of standardization. A fear of an ill-defined force that is pushing a sameness onto each of us, with a mandate for thinking and behavior that is disconnected from our everyday world. It is a force that seems oblivious and unaware of the framework and reality of our daily lives. It is a force felt regardless of political party affiliation, conservative or liberal bents, religious beliefs, ancestral heritage, geography or race.
So when we see people rallying against health care reform, health is often only a tangential issue. When we see record numbers of people lined up at gun shows to make purchases, the right to bear arms is often only a tangential issue. When “tea baggers” hold up their anti-tax signs, taxes are often only a tangential issue. When “birthers,” led by demagogic politicians and broadcasters, question the citizenship of our current president, citizenship and one’s right to hold presidential office are often only tangential issues. At the heart of these emotional displays is a reaction to a sense of threat to people’s personal life, their personal control over that life, and the disappearance of one’s local community and cultural familiarity. The world feels too big; the individual too small and still shrinking.
This past week, Switzerland passed a public referendum prohibiting the construction of new minarets – those distinctive spires on top of Islamic mosques. This in spite of there being only four minarets currently in the whole country. Switzerland is that historically fanatically-neutral country famous for taking sides on no question, with a long tolerance of multiple cultures and religions. Yet in a country with a Muslim population less than 6% of the Swiss population, cultural fears and perceived threats were aroused and dominated the vote. Spain and Germany have similarly grappled with mosque architectural construction in these long-standing Christian countries, while France and England increasingly struggle with issues arising from growing immigrant cultures. Underneath these struggles is the fundamental question –what does it now mean to be, or look to be, an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German or Spaniard? Where will all those Swiss A-frame cottages or French chateaus go? As some here grapple with having a president who looks very different than all those other presidential portraits, how do the French, the most adamant in preserving their native culture, now respond to a French president with a non-French ancestry?
I expect that Europe, with its history of small homogeneous nation-states, will struggle mightily over the next several years with this issue of cultural / national identification. We in America have been multi-cultured from our founding. Yet even with our long experience, our track record for assimilation has been, and is, very spotty. Underneath our immigration discussions, our educational policies, our “national versus local action” debates, we are in fact still often asking ourselves, “What does it mean to be a southerner, a westerner, a Californian, a Texan, a Vermonter? What does it mean to be an American?” And is our personal label really relevant anymore?
Friday, November 20, 2009
The Cancer Of Hypocrisy
There are a couple of topics that send me right to my personal soapbox. (That statement will be no surprise to friends who know me well!) One of those topics is encounters with hypocrisy. Meaning people’s ability to act with complete disregard for what they have stated. Or similarly, one’s use of selective memory to avoid linking current actions / statements to past actions / statements.
The ability to change one’s mind can be a strength of character. It is why we inquire intellectually, consider intuitively, learn spiritually, and (hopefully) conclude rationally. As our knowledge expands and our experiences broaden, our conclusions evolve over time IF we take the time to reflect on these. It is what we call maturity or wisdom. If learning is continuous, it is supposedly what differentiates child from adult.
The American public can actually be quite understanding and accommodating to public officials who change their minds on an issue, whose statements of values evolve, whose current actions contrast with their actions in prior periods. I have long opposed political campaigns that reach back 20-30 years and trumpet some youthful indiscretion, early writings, or now-questionable judgments. We all have our skeletons, our tapes we’d like to erase, our do-overs we wish were available, our regrets.
The key to public acceptance of a “change of mind” is that it is an acknowledged CHANGE of one’s position. Meaning that there is a) confirmation of a once-held old position; b) an explanation of what new has been learned (the transition); and c) an acknowledgement that today’s opinion or action is a departure from the past. We may not agree with that new position, and we may be disappointed that the change happened within a particular individual. But if it is a change from a position of integrity, we are able to at least respect that integrity.
On that basis, Nixon’s public “rehabilitation” after his resignation began only after genuinely and finally acknowledged his culpability in the Watergate fiasco. 20 years later, Ted Kennedy presented Gerald Ford with a Profile in Courage award, acknowledging publicly that he was wrong and Ford was right in pardoning Nixon and moving country forward. In the 1980s, George Wallace rejected his past resistance to civil rights and black equality, and acknowledged he was wrong in leading this resistance. Each gained credibility with their change of heart. Few politicians today are willing to follow similar suit.
Hypocrisy is a whole ‘nother matter from integrity. Hypocrisy acknowledges no prior action or statements, even though they in fact existed. Hypocrisy makes no explanation of a change of heart, or an evolved viewpoint. Hypocrisy ignores counterarguments, relevant information, or very real impacts on people resulting from a new position. Hypocrisy manages to live comfortably between conflicting public-serving words (pandering) and self-serving actions.
Why is this discussion important to raise at this time? Because hypocrisy infests so many of our institutions and discussions of the day. The most notable political example of this is within the Republican Party’s wholesale rejection of any new health care reform because “it would raise the federal budget deficit over $1 trillion over 10 years.” So Republicans are now our guardians of federal budget integrity? In my blog of September 18, I reported the history of budget deficits 1969-2009, which showed major deficit jumps during the Reagan/GWBush years, and further large increases with GWBush and a Republican-controlled Congress. Digging further: there are currently 40 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. 25 of these were already in office when GWBush was inaugurated; 15 were elected during Bush’s 2001-2008 terms; 3 are serving their 1st year in office. This means that virtually all of the current U.S. Republican senators protesting budget deficits were all there when the biggest deficits ever were run up. (I suspect the same results would show up looking at Republican tenures in the House.) So why would we give any of these politicians any credibility on this subject? Fight health care on its merits if you wish, but please spare us newly-found and un-credible moral outrage.
We get great pronouncements of moral indignation and expectations from politicians and religious leaders of all affiliations who subsequently are found committing the very same moral failings they railed against. Would-be anti-homosexual and “family value” protectors are found in fact to be what they protest against. Governors who protested federal TARP money are front and center for the photo ops when the those checks are given out to constituents. Anti-corruption prosecutors and governors prove to be corrupt themselves. Religious leaders who condemn perceived “sinners” ignore their founder’s words of love and forgiveness. The Cardinal of Boston gave a funeral mass to Ted Kennedy, yet was strongly criticized by some Catholic leaders because Kennedy did not support the Church’s position on abortion; balanced against Kennedy’s lifetime of committed effort to bring health care, education and opportunity to America’s disadvantaged, who do we think came out the more ethically compassionate in this public argument?
Hypocrisy reveals claims of a “greater purpose” and “higher good” to be, in fact, blatant self-serving personal promotion. Facts are irrelevant; history is not acknowledged; responsibility is not taken; integrity is not present. In this age of video archives and Google Internet searches, one wonders why someone would seek to deny where they have been. The old and new displayed side-by-side. Past meets future. When the two do not match up, both individual and institutional credibility crumbles; credibility gives way to cynicism.
This is what we now see: low approval ratings of politicians from all parties at all governmental levels; declining church enrollments; reduced charitable support; lack of informed dialog. We need to acknowledge our past, whatever it may have been. Then we can build productively on that past, rather than wasting time running away from it. We need to humbly accept that holding high positions of trust is less important than serving honestly in those positions.
The ability to change one’s mind can be a strength of character. It is why we inquire intellectually, consider intuitively, learn spiritually, and (hopefully) conclude rationally. As our knowledge expands and our experiences broaden, our conclusions evolve over time IF we take the time to reflect on these. It is what we call maturity or wisdom. If learning is continuous, it is supposedly what differentiates child from adult.
The American public can actually be quite understanding and accommodating to public officials who change their minds on an issue, whose statements of values evolve, whose current actions contrast with their actions in prior periods. I have long opposed political campaigns that reach back 20-30 years and trumpet some youthful indiscretion, early writings, or now-questionable judgments. We all have our skeletons, our tapes we’d like to erase, our do-overs we wish were available, our regrets.
The key to public acceptance of a “change of mind” is that it is an acknowledged CHANGE of one’s position. Meaning that there is a) confirmation of a once-held old position; b) an explanation of what new has been learned (the transition); and c) an acknowledgement that today’s opinion or action is a departure from the past. We may not agree with that new position, and we may be disappointed that the change happened within a particular individual. But if it is a change from a position of integrity, we are able to at least respect that integrity.
On that basis, Nixon’s public “rehabilitation” after his resignation began only after genuinely and finally acknowledged his culpability in the Watergate fiasco. 20 years later, Ted Kennedy presented Gerald Ford with a Profile in Courage award, acknowledging publicly that he was wrong and Ford was right in pardoning Nixon and moving country forward. In the 1980s, George Wallace rejected his past resistance to civil rights and black equality, and acknowledged he was wrong in leading this resistance. Each gained credibility with their change of heart. Few politicians today are willing to follow similar suit.
Hypocrisy is a whole ‘nother matter from integrity. Hypocrisy acknowledges no prior action or statements, even though they in fact existed. Hypocrisy makes no explanation of a change of heart, or an evolved viewpoint. Hypocrisy ignores counterarguments, relevant information, or very real impacts on people resulting from a new position. Hypocrisy manages to live comfortably between conflicting public-serving words (pandering) and self-serving actions.
Why is this discussion important to raise at this time? Because hypocrisy infests so many of our institutions and discussions of the day. The most notable political example of this is within the Republican Party’s wholesale rejection of any new health care reform because “it would raise the federal budget deficit over $1 trillion over 10 years.” So Republicans are now our guardians of federal budget integrity? In my blog of September 18, I reported the history of budget deficits 1969-2009, which showed major deficit jumps during the Reagan/GWBush years, and further large increases with GWBush and a Republican-controlled Congress. Digging further: there are currently 40 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. 25 of these were already in office when GWBush was inaugurated; 15 were elected during Bush’s 2001-2008 terms; 3 are serving their 1st year in office. This means that virtually all of the current U.S. Republican senators protesting budget deficits were all there when the biggest deficits ever were run up. (I suspect the same results would show up looking at Republican tenures in the House.) So why would we give any of these politicians any credibility on this subject? Fight health care on its merits if you wish, but please spare us newly-found and un-credible moral outrage.
We get great pronouncements of moral indignation and expectations from politicians and religious leaders of all affiliations who subsequently are found committing the very same moral failings they railed against. Would-be anti-homosexual and “family value” protectors are found in fact to be what they protest against. Governors who protested federal TARP money are front and center for the photo ops when the those checks are given out to constituents. Anti-corruption prosecutors and governors prove to be corrupt themselves. Religious leaders who condemn perceived “sinners” ignore their founder’s words of love and forgiveness. The Cardinal of Boston gave a funeral mass to Ted Kennedy, yet was strongly criticized by some Catholic leaders because Kennedy did not support the Church’s position on abortion; balanced against Kennedy’s lifetime of committed effort to bring health care, education and opportunity to America’s disadvantaged, who do we think came out the more ethically compassionate in this public argument?
Hypocrisy reveals claims of a “greater purpose” and “higher good” to be, in fact, blatant self-serving personal promotion. Facts are irrelevant; history is not acknowledged; responsibility is not taken; integrity is not present. In this age of video archives and Google Internet searches, one wonders why someone would seek to deny where they have been. The old and new displayed side-by-side. Past meets future. When the two do not match up, both individual and institutional credibility crumbles; credibility gives way to cynicism.
This is what we now see: low approval ratings of politicians from all parties at all governmental levels; declining church enrollments; reduced charitable support; lack of informed dialog. We need to acknowledge our past, whatever it may have been. Then we can build productively on that past, rather than wasting time running away from it. We need to humbly accept that holding high positions of trust is less important than serving honestly in those positions.
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