Sharing The Success

For those statistics junkies in the world, there were some very intriguing numbers recently released by several new organizations.  According to Fortune magazine, the average Fortune 500 CEO now makes 331 times as much as their average worker.  This is up from 46 times in 1983, and actually down from 455 times at the peak of the technology boom in 1998.  These are not ratios against starting or bottom-rung salaries, but the average of all salaries.  In dollar and cent terms, “331 times” means that if you are making a “getting-by” salary of $30,000/year, your CEO would be making $9,930,000; if you are making a more reasonable salary of $60,000/year, your CEO would be making $19,860,000.

Another survey by Bloomberg News of 250 of Standard & Poor’s index companies gets more specific.  Comparing CEO pay to average worker salaries in individual industries, Ronald Johnson’s $53M salary at JC Penney leads the pack with pay “1795 times” the $29,688 average salary for general merchandise stores.  (JC Penney has spent the last several years trying to stay one step ahead of bankruptcy, so this salary seems even more extremely unfathomable.)  Even Michael Duke, CEO of the oft-villainized Wal-Mart, is “only” #18 on the list with a “611 times” ratio.  The entire list of 250 companies makes for some interesting reading.

Even in this era of staggering CEO pay and golden parachute firings – compensation usually set by fellow CEOs with similar salaries and benefits looking out for each other – “331 times” is hard to comprehend, much less “611 times” for a failing company.  But when corporate revenues are consistently talked about in multi-billion dollar terms, and profits in 8-9 digit millions, it is hard to connect those numbers to the thousand dollar salaries of real-life people.  Then again, when head football coaches make more money than the collective salaries of the state’s governor and the entire cabinet, and baseball players sign $100M contracts, and “celebrities” with little demonstrable creative talent earn fortunes from allowing voyeurs to peer into every moment of their (fictional) personal lives on cable TV, then is it any wonder that we have lost our perspective about the value of real work in this modern American age?

This is not a criticism about individual wealth in America.  Certainly not a criticism of personal success, which is one of the historically and wonderfully notable facets of American’s many enviable stories of human creativity.  Rather, it is a questioning about how much wealth is “enough,” versus an insatiable accumulation that knows no bounds and ultimately can never satisfy its accumulator.  It is a questioning about to what ends one will go in pursuit of that wealth in disregard of ethical and legal boundaries, and the morals of religious teachings.  And it is a questioning about recognizing our obligations and responsibilities to others who join us on our career road, the many who make possible the success of the one.

This is also not an argument for “income redistribution.”  It is a push to acknowledge that a CEO and his/her employees are all in it together.  MUST be in it together.  Because in reality, no CEO succeeds unless the workers on the line, the salesman in the field, the receptionist answering the phone, and the product designers in the lab, are successful in their endeavors.  Because if the product is bad or unreliable, or the service is unresponsive or uncaring, then all the spreadsheets and strategic plans and organizational skills from the CEO will be worthless in generating company profit.

Greed and ego may drive a CEO to great heights in the short term, but it is a dangerous precipice from which to fall over the long haul.  And the employees, shareholders, and customers will be the worse for allowing that kind of self-worldly view to sit at the power pinnacles of America’s companies.  And thereby so we see once proud corporate names that once personified America for generations instead falling by the wayside – witness Sears, JC Penney, AT&T, and numerous automobile brands that once personified the power and allure of American industry.

The truth is, CEOs do not make any products, do not sell products to a customer, do not fix them when they are broken.  A company only survives and thrives by making a sale – and a CEO does not sell anything; employees do.  A CEO’s only real job is ensuring that the right people are in the right place to do the right work for the right people under the right conditions.  And then hope that those folks come through because good decisions have been made.  If a CEO’s pay goes up, it should only be because the corporate profits went up, and as a result, everyone’s pay should go up in the same proportion.  It is not about limiting CEO salaries; it is about sharing that result and reward with everyone who made it possible.  CEO wealth by itself does not make them “job creators” or add much to our GDP, and no company (except badly managed ones) ever went broke raising the minimum wage for their employees.

CEOs deserve higher pay because their actions and decisions affect greater numbers of people and corporate outcomes.  So all salaries are, and should be, proportional to the scope of an employee’s impact – at all levels.  But success and failure is a shared outcome, and should be reflected in shared compensation.  When Ronald Johnson at Penney’s makes 53$M dollars, and Michael Duke at Wal-Mart makes $18M, yet many of their employees must rely on public benefits to feed and clothe their families, then the understanding of this “shared responsibility and mutual interdependency” has clearly been lost.  And the buying public, who are frequently critical of such CEOs and companies, nevertheless implicitly supports this blind callousness as a result of their continued shopping decisions.

There is a prayer some say at mealtimes in which the diners acknowledge “the ten thousand people” who made that meal possible.  That prayer serves to remind us of all the many who came together for our benefit in order to provide that simple slice of bread on our plate.  So also the thousands who made possible that CEO’s success, such as one’s parents and family; the friends throughout life; the many teachers, and the taxpayers who funded the free, public education; the mentors, and the good, caring managers who encouraged and promoted; the indirect contributors who provided the raw materials and infrastructure needed by the company; all of the aforementioned employees; and so many forgotten others.  We do and should recognize and acclaim the successful go-getter and entrepreneur who creates something from nothing, advances one’s personal status, and  achieves great personal triumphs.  America has always rightly admired and benefited from such people – the theoretical “self-made person.”  But when a CEO forgets where s/he came from, and that “lone rangers” and never truly “lone,” then admiration equally deservedly goes down.  Financial failure then lurks around every corner, and spiritual bankruptcy replaces the illusion of “success.”  No amount of money can buy back that kind of bankruptcy of character.

“When you drink the water, don’t forget those who dug the well.”     (Chinese proverb)

© 2014   Randy Bell

Unaffirming Affirmative Action

In the latest Supreme Court ruling on social issues, the Court ruled 6-2 that Michigan voters did have a right to pass a state constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of Affirmative Action (AA) (i.e. racial preferences) in state higher education admission decisions.  It was not an amendment precluding AA in other higher education matters – employment, promotion, etc. as implied by many news media.  The Court did not rule on the use of AA per se, but only on the technical question of whether Michigan voters had the right to limit it in this manner.  This ruling follows several recent rulings overturning other long-standing tools enacted during the 1960s/70s to compensate for years of structural and legalized discrimination in America.

From the beginning, Americans have always struggled with the idea of AA – the concept of giving priority to one group of Americans over another.  “Racial preferences” has always covered over a reality of “reverse discrimination,” smacking of “two wrongs do not make a right.”  But AA came after a hundred years of shutting out African-Americans from equal access to schools, jobs, services and accommodations, even after being “freed” from 225 years of slavery.  It sought to force open doors of access in order to quickly catch up and rebalance that inequity.  The expectation was that, once rebalanced, we could then move ahead in a normally stabilized manner – just as a ship that is listing in the water must first right itself before it can successfully cruise forward.

However difficult it may have been to accept philosophically, or to acknowledge and pay for “the sins of our fathers,” AA has worked.  Our country is now more diversified in structure and affiliations than any country in the world.  Corporate employment, political offices, public images, and yes, college campuses, reflect a diversity unthinkable when I was young.  And not just for African-Americans, but for other races, gender, and sexual orientations.  It is no longer just a white, man’s world anymore – and that scares the hell out of many people.

Part of the legal discussion about racial/equality issues is that “times have changed,” that conditions in America have changed dramatically since mechanisms like the Voting Rights Act, AA, and school busing were originally enacted.  So, some believe, there is a need to update the law and processes to reflect current reality.  But is racism in America truly eliminated and dead, as some commentators and politicians claim?

No, racism is not dead, though it is certainly in deep decline, working its way into irrelevance.  As each generation attached to the past dies off, and each new generation comes along with no memories of the “Whites Only” signs, the direction is clear.  But ever so often, we are still reminded that we have a way to go.  Whether it be George Zimmerman, the self-appointed vigilante and executioner in Florida; or perhaps Cliven Bundy, the free-loading cattle grazer who Negroes were better off as slaves because they learned to pick cotton and stayed off of government assistance; or Donald Sterling who views his NBA basketball team akin to a southern planation, yet does not want any black players anywhere near him.  No, racism is not dead, and these kind of people remind us of more work to be done.  Work we will do.  But the overwhelming negative public condemnation to these acts and words helps us to affirm that we have made major collective progress as a culture and a community.

So how should we go forward in this changed environment and our different circumstances?  It is clear that the courts, if not the general population, is becoming less tolerant of the old ideas for remedying an even older problem.  Even as one may decry the appearance on its face of a reduced commitment to fighting racism and discrimination, is there some truth, even justification, in rethinking the appropriate tools for this fight?

Voting law preapprovals, school busing, AA, etc. were all instituted as corrective tools, not a way of American life.  Their goal was always to move America to being a colorblind community, with the expectation that their success would inherently invalidate the need for these tools.  America will always have some percentage of Donald Sterlings and Cliven Bundys.  But perhaps we should accept the benefits of our interim successes, and now move to a new legal and cultural plateau.  A plateau where “corrective rebalancing” actions are not where our priority should be, versus giving all Americans the ongoing legal tools for punitive action where proven violations of discrimination occur.  A plateau that focuses on punishing the guilty instead of the wide swath of the innocent.

The reality is, beyond the decreasing percentage of true racists in our American community, our biggest issue of discrimination is not race, it is economic.  It is poverty and the lack of career advancement that create most of today’s social issues, crossing issues of race, gender, religion and birthright.  50 years after Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty, we have much to show for our efforts against racism, but not as much headway against poverty – the homeless, the destitute, the infirm, the insufficiently-educated, and the working poor.  Which leaves too many Americans – black, white, Latino, older, female – in fear of their well-being and stymied by those who have more.  And angry at public institutions and politicians across the spectrum who are seen as perpetuating, if not exacerbating, their diminishing economic position.

I am not speaking naively about where we are.  But we are not where we were.  Nor are we yet where we want to be.  Yet perhaps it is time to let our gains take even deeper roots, solidify even stronger, let what has worked yield its full rewards.  To move away from special mechanisms in favor of universal mechanisms.  To a mindset that knows that diversity in thought and association provides each of us with a far richer life.  We need to concentrate our attention and efforts on the front end of the equality pipeline.  On the root causes of our problems.  On the economic and educational opportunities at the beginning of people’s lives.  Thereby, leaving punitive force to legal remedies and, more importantly, to the very great weight and force of public opinion – as so well demonstrated in these recent weeks.  This is not a liberal perspective; it is not a conservative perspective.  It is simply the next appropriate step in the maturing of America.  Let us be as energetically committed to this collective adult maturity as we were to our collective adolescence.

©   2014   Randy Bell

 

The Sky Is Falling

Have you noticed how fast that, whenever a tax increase, regulatory change, or new mandate is proposed on a business activity or income, the End of America and our Economy is quickly upon us?  The corporate press releases immediately flood the “news” shows and print media decrying “this latest attack on free enterprise.”  Jobs will most certainly be lost, costs to consumers will rise, innovation will be stifled, freedoms will be lost; capitalism will be plunged into an unrecoverable downward spiral.  Lobbyists and special interest groups jump into action and start organizing their campaigns: more pictures of polar bears stranded on disappearing ice floes will show up in mailboxes; mini-drama ads of a married couple at the dinner table staring at stacks of already unpaid bills will hit the TV airways.  Twitter and Facebook messages will spike.  Political parties and candidates will take some small legal footnote, or one isolated anecdotal story, and make it into a seemingly grave national issue.  In the deafening roar of all of the noise, the original substantive issue, and the truly pertinent information relative to it, will be drowned out.  Meanwhile, the Fate of the Republic will seemingly hang in the balance.

In the end, if the proposal does make it into passage and implementation, doomsday will surprisingly somehow manage to slip away.  It will be all but forgotten as the country adjusts, moves on, and awaits the next forthcoming mis-informational crisis.

In the 1980s, Congress managed to actually pass a reform of the U.S. Tax Code.  A lot of special interests were losers in that battle, the general public the overall winner.  Yet the economy survived, the lobbyists continued to thrive, and over the last 25 years the Tax Code has been subsequently and gradually riddled into even worse shreds – now unfair to most everybody.

In this same period, the “3-martini businessman lunch” was curtailed by limiting the tax deduction for business/travel meals to 50% of the actual charge.  The food and leisure industry projected a great loss of revenue as business people would “no longer spend their money on client entertainment.”  Didn’t happen.  Business lunches (and dinners) had already become an embedded part of the business culture.  The only restaurants with empty tables were the establishments serving bad food.

Ditto those locales that banned smoking in eating establishments.  Restaurants, and particularly bars, protested loudly that smokers would no longer come to them.  Yet as this grass-roots, local-option initiative progressively moved across the country, smokers adjusted, non-smokers were delighted, and the bar stools stayed occupied.  Even in tobacco country.

Ditto with seat belts in automobiles.  These and other safety measures were projected to add significant costs to manufacturing a car, costs that would be passed on buyers who would no longer buy.  Today seat belts are a given, drawing none of our attention.  Auto sales are at a record high.

Ditto with gas efficiency.  From the dawn of the oil/energy crisis in the 1970s and the rise of gasoline prices at the pump, for 30 years car manufacturers fought making any improvements in gasoline efficiency.  Until the federal government bailed them out of bankruptcy and made “improved mpg” a requirement for the cash infusion.  Five years later the auto companies are now tripping all over each other trying to out-claim who has the best mpg – double what they used to produce. Mandates and the marketplace still work.

Ditto when, 40 years ago, some states started requiring a 5¢ deposit on glass and canned drink containers.  The food and drink industry howled that this added “cost” would reduce their sales.  But consumers paid this one-time 30¢-for-a-6-pack container charge, brought their recyclables back for a revolving refund, and bought just as much beer and soda as before.  Meanwhile, a whole recycling industry was quick-started, and litter on the roadsides went down dramatically – something that our mountains of western North Carolina could greatly benefit from.

The list goes on and on.  Proposals made; screams of protest about loss of jobs and revenue as costs rise; and then little or nothing of the doomsday scenarios happens.  Because in the end, Americans have always been creative and adaptable to new changes in their lives, even if they come kicking and screaming.  Americans like what they like, and being creatures of routine and habit with continuing expectations of “a better life,” their creativity finds a way to still meet their needs.  The added costs do not materialize, off-setting schemes are developed, consumers adjust their budgets to compensate.  Every time gasoline spikes to $4/gallon, drivers protest to their local news shows how they “will have to cut back on their driving and vacation trips.”  A few months later people are putting just as many miles on the road as before.

It is all a reality of life we need to remember as politicians posture their rhetoric for the November 2014 (and 2016) elections forthcoming, and businesspeople push for their pet special interests.  Obamacare will not bankrupt or destroy the economy.  Equal pay for women and raising hourly wages above the poverty level will not likely prevent my next franchise or fast food meal or hotel stay.  The same will be true as alternative  energy products come into being; as solutions arrive to our air pollution that leads to adverse climate change; as fairness is ultimately returned to the Tax Code; as “more wealth” no longer means “paying a lesser tax rate”; and as spiraling health care costs are finally reined in.  Chicken Little hysterically told everyone that the sky was ready to fall; he was wrong, and corporate America and politicians are wrong.  The sky is still properly safe and where it belongs.

Corporate America needs to buck up and stop whining and find solutions rather than problems.  “The wealthy 1%” needs to start paying tax rates at least equal to everyone else.  Yet there is another obligation that is required.  An obligation on We the General Public.  We have to stop being fear prone, and susceptible to the fear-advertising that is sent our way.  We also have to buck up and agree to pay our own fair share of the true costs of living.

Roads and bridges are crumbling and desperately need major repair.  Gas taxes pay for that.  Converting old power plants to cleaner turbines takes significant investment money.  Rate charges pay for that.  Throwing litter and waste into streams and roadsides costs money to clean up.  State taxes pay for that cleanup.  Growing safe food and manufacturing safe products cost more money than deadly items from an unregulated China.  Federal taxes pay for those inspections that keep us safer.

Buying things on the cheap without recognizing the true long-term costs they actually require – from initial production to final disposal – is both foolish and irresponsible.  Taking in our recyclables is incomplete unless we subsequently buy the goods made from those recyclables.  Safety, waste disposal, humane working conditions come at a price – a price we all have to be willing to pay in full.  That may require some new priorities in our budgets, some different spending decisions.  But we cannot yell at corporate America’s bluster and self-serving decisions if we in turn bluster about our self-serving needs for “cheap prices at any cost.”  Our consumer dollars need to be spent far more wisely, whatever our financial circumstances.  The real cost of a car is far more than the invoice taped to the windshield.  The real cost of our life has been heretofore more than we have been willing to pay.  No more.

© 2014    Randy Bell

 

War Against Religion

“I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests ... I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives … For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read.”

(Thomas Jefferson)

“Jesus – The ONLY way to God.”  Thusly said a large billboard high above the busy interstate highway.  Reading that sign, my immediate thought was, “Given this message of spiritual arrogance and separation, no wonder we have such tensions and fighting among ourselves in America today.”  Not that my thought was of any criticism of Jesus and his profound teachings.  Quite the contrary.  But it did have everything to do with what people do in their own use of those inspiring teachings.

There is a lot of talk from a segment of politicians, media commentators and clergy about a supposed “war on religion” going on in America.  That Americans are being denied the opportunity to practice their religion where and how they see fit; that their personal and religious values are being attacked and compromised.  Most all of these claims – often expressed quite angrily – come from some segments of Christian churches and their congregants.  And, not coincidentally, the leaders of this outcry are usually ones with their hands out asking for donations, or television ratings, or secular laws passed to mandate their religious causes.

In fact, there is good cause for such religious leaders and congregants to feel threatened.  But not because a big, evil government is threatening their religious beliefs.  Not because politicians with different views are advocating for different actions.  And not because other religions are trying to convert seekers to their cause.  The threat is not from without; it is from within.

Various opinion polls help shed light on what is happening in the spiritual landscape of America. Data from the respected Pew Research Foundation found that @75% of American adults declare themselves to be “Christians.”  That is a significant portion of the citizenry, but that significance falls apart when we acknowledge that not all Christians believe the same things and have highly irreconcilable practices.  When we subdivide the distribution among Catholics (@24%), and then Protestants across their myriad branches (26% Evangelical, 18% all the mainline churches combined together, 7% historically Black), none of these segments has a commanding hold on the American citizenry.

The differences among these various Christian groups are often quite profound.  Some Christian segments are “top-down” authoritarian in their decisions regarding religious dogma and organizational management, thereby requiring adherence to a shared set of beliefs.  Others are “local-control” organizations without a central governing authority, thereby more independent in creed and action.  More than half of American Catholics have said they do not follow established Catholic dogma and practice (e.g. birth control) in spite of the “infallible Pope” principle of their Church.  A worship service in a rural Southern Baptist Convention church in Alabama is apt to look and sound nothing like a Baptist church in a large Oregon city.  It took from 1788-1960 before Protestant America was willing to elect a Catholic as President, and only then by the thinnest of margins, due to centuries of distrust and discrimination.

Most Christian religions are deep in the throes of contentious disagreements regarding theological issues.  Ordination of women and/or gays/lesbians to full pastoral rights; gay/lesbian marriage; abortion; the role of the pulpit in politics; “modern” religious services versus “traditional” ritual; the church’s role in servicing the poor versus accumulating wealth.  These kinds of issues are breaking up the unity of many denominations, if not bordering on outright schism as some churches seek to secede and form new affiliations.

Many churches struggle with the “graying” of their congregations as pews go unfilled, older generations occupy most spaces, young adults are increasingly unseen.  Over 25% of adults have left the religion in which they were raised (44% if intra-Protestant changes are included).  This often reflects the gap in social / political / religious views today between the under-40 population and “their elders,” which is as great as the extreme divisions of the 1960s/1970s.  The increasing politicization of many religions is described as a major reason young people are rejecting the church.  The religions and the sermons of the 1950s simply are not meeting the needs of today’s young adults and their children.

The fastest-growing religious group had been the decentralized Evangelical Christians.  But this movement has also been hurt by its increasingly aggressive secular involvement in the politics of the country: the secular reigns over the spiritual.  Currently, one of the fastest-growing groups includes those describing themselves as “unaffiliated” or “spiritual but not religious” (16% among all adults; 25% for ages 18-29) – many highly serious about their own personal spirituality, but who do not find their religious home in organized churches or with a pre-occupation with some required orthodox dogma.

Yoga and Buddhist spiritual and meditation practices are engaging people of all faiths, and are also becoming part of mainstream medical and mental health practices.  Islam is scattered across the country, but is laying low due to the post-9/11 prejudice from some Americans.  Judaism remains religiously strong, its impact belying their smaller numbers.  Yet I do not know when we might see our first Jewish president.  Numerous other smaller, independent religious groups abound to offer alternatives to the mainstream religions.  Again, almost all of these religious groups also have their own subdivisions into differing, more specialized beliefs and practices.

All in all, “America’s religion” (singular) does not exist.  Our religions lie in near-chaos, being pushed, pulled and stretched all over the spiritual landscape.  And that is the great news – that America still stands, as it has since its beginning, for Freedom of Religion.  Religious diversity was what our Founders intended to protect, not religious hegemony.  That all religions are acceptable and protected in America, living side-by-side each other.  That no religion is preferred or mandated by the State.  That every American is free to seek out the religion that best services his/her spiritual seekings and aspirations.  That freedom FROM religion, or from any one religion, is as ensured as freedom TO any religion.  Our national religious issue today is an internal conflict among good people of good intent in each religion, each trying to find their own way.  Those who would seek to exploit these difficult divisions for their own personal gain should be shunned to the sidelines, cast out from involvement in this more serious spiritual contemplation.

In the end, we need to stop arguing about who is “right,” who is the “more spiritual,” and who are “the chosen ones.”  Instead, we should simply be respectful and supportive of each person’s individual quest to discover their own spirituality and how to best fulfill that potential of “self.”  Perhaps then our churches could better serve us by focusing more on how people carry their weekly Sabbath lesson into their other six days of the week.  If we feel we must judge the spiritual worth of another, let it be based upon the depth of his beliefs and the purity of her actions, not by the catechisms that they rotely recite.  For too many centuries, we have attached more importance to the label under which we dress our religious beliefs than we have to the content and practice of our personal religion.

“Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim fathers who Crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom of opinion have always proved themselves intolerant of the Spiritual liberty of others?”

(Robert E. Lee, General, Army of Northern Virginia)

 

© 2014   Randy Bell

Marching Boldly Into ... The Past

In a number of state legislatures, there has been a strong effort to reverse previous years of social legislation.  We see this especially true in states like Arizona, Kansas, and increasingly North Carolina, along with a smattering of other southern/plains states on particular issues.  Certainly there are some longstanding ideas that may need to be reassessed, reset, or rethought.  But is a wholesale casting out of this legacy legislation really smart?

We see these reversal movements focusing on topics such as opposition to gay/lesbian rights and marriage; access to voting; the state’s role regarding women’s health; equal legal rights and pay for women in the workplace; and support programs for those in financial jeopardy.  In the push to undo many of the changes made over the last 60 years regarding these issues, one has a sense that the goal is a nostalgic return to an America of long ago.  Not quite “The Waltons,” but more of a “Leave-It-To-Beaver” America transported to the great rural farmlands of America.  But one has to wonder, did any of these legislators ever study American History in high school as my classmates and I did?  Because much of the reverse legislation being proposed does not quite jell with the post-World War II America I lived through.  It may come as a shock to some, but the Beaver’s world was not real.  Ever.  A simpler time – yes, in many ways.  But an idyllic and fair time – no, also in many ways.

It was a time when African-American demand for long-promised civil rights broke wide open, unable to be contained after 300 years of waiting.  In my hometown in western Arkansas, I remember Blacks being restricted to the back of the buses; sitting in their own “reserved” 2^nd balcony at the movies; attending separate, inferior schools that never led to any college; consigned to living in the tiny, rickety-framed houses in the “Negro section” of town.  There were the “Whites Only” signs in public facilities and buildings that limited access; the polling places that were effectively closed to Blacks through a variety of deceptive ruses encoded in law.  A large Black population lived in our midst; yet the only two I knew personally were Charlotte, hired as a maid for our extended family, and Roy who did our yard work.  Young White children were taught that this was simply the way Life was; our normalcy.

The civil rights demonstrations grew, and so did White resistance to them, often with increasing violence – the murders, the bombings, the bus burnings, the fire hoses, the beatings, the federal troops required so that Black children could enter a “white” school.  I remember clearly the twisted, angry look I received from a White woman when I, by reflex, respectfully held the door open so that an elderly Black woman could enter the hospital ahead of me.  And the Black family sitting alone in the dead center of a restaurant, the surrounding tables conspicuously empty, with all of the White families blatantly seated in booths along the surrounding walls; not a word spoken.  This was after young Black men had been turned away from a public lunch counter because “calling them ‘equals’ and serving them as anyone else was [supposedly] contrary to one’s ‘religious views’ which prohibited intermixing the races” (not unlike the current misguided rationale of legislators in Arizona regarding gay couples).  It took a Supreme Court decision to end the laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

I remember as a teenager asking my mother why the family of a good friend, his father a business client of my father, did not belong to the town’s country club.  Her answer was apologetic but straight-forward: “They’re Jewish.”  I never went back to that country club again, except to attend my brother’s wedding reception.  (I pray that today that rule has now been eliminated.)  All public prayers in schools and public meetings ended with “In Jesus’ name we pray,” unconcerned about who might be the “we” actually in the audience.

In history class, the internment of thousands of Japanese-American citizens during World War II was never mentioned.  Regarding Native-Americans, our history lessons acknowledged the fact of the Cherokee’s “Trail of Tears” without any discussion as to its real meaning or impact; Custer’s “heroic” Last Stand was celebrated as an example of Indian savagery, never mentioning all the treaties broken by the White settlers and their governments.  The “melting pot” of European immigration gave noble purpose to America’s story; the “Irish Need Not Apply” signs and the Italian big-city ghettos did not make it into print.  Yet the noble cause of Southern secession was given full play, “Lest we forget.”  History was what the school boards told us it was.

In the 1950s, as a practical matter my mother had virtually no legal rights or status on her own without a father/husband’s endorsement.  Divorce was rare; domestic violence never talked about; “You made your bed, now sleep in it” was the prevailing social attitude.  After my first wife and I divorced, I had to sign a written document certifying that she had been an active partner in the use of our jointly-named credit; otherwise she would not be able to get any credit in her own single name.  (I still have a copy of that letter to remind me of its inanity.)  Yet it was only 10 years ago that my then-partner, when she was looking to buy a car, was told to “go home and come back with ‘your man’ and then we can talk.”  Needless to say, that salesman lost that commission.

Women’s career choices back then were minimal: e.g. nurse, teacher, office assistant, garment worker, phone operator, maybe real estate salesperson – if she was “allowed” to work at all.  A “woman cop” was actually only a parking meter collector.  They were, conveniently enough, all lower-paying jobs – even if she was able to get “a man’s work.”  Today’s women have virtually any career path open to them, but pay and advancement often still reflect that 1950’s mentality.

At least back then the State mercifully stayed out of prescribing women’s health and treatment.  Those decisions were left fully to the doctors (who back then were actually self-employed) and their patients.  Except that it took another Supreme Court decision to allow women to have access to “the pill” – a new form of birth control that started a sexual / economic / societal revolution.  One exception was abortion.  It was officially illegal in many states.  But, like the earlier attempted legal prohibition against alcoholic drink, it did not stop the practice, it just moved abortion underground into other jurisdictions or to back alley “fixers” whose work threatened women’s health and lives.  None of the women I have personally known who have had abortions did so thoughtlessly and casually.  Unwed motherhood was a serious stigma with major social consequences nearly unimaginable today.

These are merely selected examples from a long list of our true past realities.  Going back to “the good ol’ days?”  No thanks.  Not for me.  Been there, lived that.  A lot of good experiences in those times, but they are past.  A lot of regrettable experiences in those times, but we have thankfully made many corrections to take us forward.  Corrections not yet finished.  Corrections easily undone if we should slip back into old human habits.

We must always be on guard for humankind’s continual inclination to return to old distorted memories; it is the familiarity of the past versus the uncertain cloudiness of the future.  But there were significant reasons that changes were made in America 50 years ago.  We should not be tempted to believe that those reasons simply no longer exist.  We can fine tune our direction, make needed adjustments in our course.  But no U-turns are allowed on this road.  Too many have worked too hard to get us to here.  Our map is in the history books.

“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart.
But it can restrain the heartless.”

(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

©  2014   Randy Bell

 

Political Reflection

Failure can be a wonderful thing.  Even though in the short term the admitting of it, and the acceptance of it, can be cruelly painful.  The pain may be short-term, but what we do with that failure will stay with us a very long time.  The critical factor is reflection.  Do I lower my embittered head and just bulldoze my way forward, determined to somehow prove myself right in some future manner?  Or do I learn some very valuable lessons from this experience of failure to better guide my future?  (“I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light … Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.” – Thomas Edison)

In November 2012, Republican Mitt Romney lost the presidential election.  Handily.  It was an election that many confidently expected him to win, an election in which most all historical markers virtually guaranteed his victory.  But he failed.  Across the Republican Party in the ensuing months, the excuses, the finger-pointing, the blaming, the volume of calls for a change of direction – or no change of direction – hit the news media.  Mr. Romney wasn’t conservative enough; he was too conservative for the general election.  The Republican political messages were fine; the messages were all wrong.  The Party was not inclusive enough; the Party needs to be loyal to its principles and its voting base.  The Party fielded self-destructive candidates; the Party abandoned its best candidates.  Perhaps the most insightful analysis came from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who said, “We have to stop being the stupid Party.  We have to stop saying stupid things.”  Continually shooting yourself in the foot is, in fact, pretty stupid.

In response to all this politician and commentator analysis, the Republican National Committee commissioned a formal in-house study specifically to assess what happened and recommend changes to improve Republican electoral outcomes.  The resulting report, entitled “Growth & Opportunity Project,” was released with the usual fanfare in March, 2013.  In a nutshell, the report called for such things as immigration reform to better appeal to Hispanics, else “our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only” – important, given that the Republican base of older, white males is, in fact, shrinking.  It called for coming together, saying “Republican organizations need to understand that all of this will work better if they all participate in these discussions and play their respective roles” – also important, given the bitter split between Tea Party and “moderate” (i.e. not-as-far-to-the-right) Republicans, and the dominating influence of Super-PACs, conservative think tanks and corporate lobbyists.

The report went on to call for fewer primary debates – potentially pulling the rug out from potential lower-funded candidates without the deep funding pockets needed to generate exposure.  More targeted outreach to women (“they are not a ‘coalition’; they represent more than half of the voting population in the country, and our inability to win their votes is losing us elections”); more “mutually respectful” conversations with African-Americans; more receptivity to gays and lesbians (“for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be”).  Finally, the report called for some “populist” support, saying “we should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.”

Lots of good ideas and frank admissions, suggesting some meaningful reflection going on.  But one year later we should ask, “how’s that working out for you?”

Immigration reform?  Barely passed the Senate, and only with extravagant funding for a small army to close the border with Mexico; dead in the House.  Deep opposition to gays and lesbians remains an almost universal knee-jerk response, so no welcoming “big tent” there.  For women, there are continued new “back door” laws to shut down abortion services, and now Mike Huckabee is leading opposition even to contraception prescriptions (women’s right to “the pill” was mandated by the Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago); plus near-unanimous negative votes against “equal pay” laws and renewal of the Violence Against Women law.

Then there is the full-scale attack on the rights and mechanisms to vote; the cynical message appears to be that if you cannot win on the strength of your ideas and candidates, then just change the rules on who can vote.  (The Supreme Court’s 1-person/1-vote rule from forty years ago is still in effect, and the “poll tax” – e.g. our modern day equivalent by a voter ID – was also outlawed 50 years ago.)  As far as middle-class/populist appeal, Republicans have reduced food stamps, cut extending unemployment benefits, and in seeming indifference to the middle-class and small business person, shut down the federal government provoking a significant setback to our national economy.  Finally, as far as Republicans “working together,” the Party remains in civil war from both internal and external forces.  One side is focused on winning elections; the other side is focused on ideological purity regardless of the outcome.  It is a war with no end in sight.

The result is that – no surprise – “Growth & Opportunity Project” is yet another strategic plan with no support making no impactful change.  Instead, actions have cemented a view among many Independents that Republicans want to turn back the clock 50 years on social issues, and cut finances to the poor and middle-class while subsidizing the rich and protecting corporate America.  (Requiring the rich to pay at least as much percentage taxes is not “anti-capitalism income redistribution” as some claim; it is “fairness distribution.”)

And how did focus groups around the country describe the Party?  The report itself states, "Asked to describe Republicans, they said that the Party is 'scary,' 'narrow minded,' and 'out of touch' and that we were a Party of 'stuffy old men.'  This is consistent with the findings of other post-election surveys."  Being simply “the Party of No” is not a way to attract an American public looking for problems to be solved; people who sound perpetually angry rarely make even good ideas seem attractive.  “To succeed, we have to be the party of change … and we have to be the party of solutions.”  (Bobby Jindal, once again.)

Where will the Party go with its internal dynamics?  Attention is predominately focused on capturing the Senate in 2014.  It may well happen.  But there is another primary season coming, which will pull incumbent Republican candidates even further right against Tea Party opponents.  Who the resulting candidates will be, and how well they will be positioned for the fall general election, is highly unknown at this point.  For those who survive the primaries, their best hope then will the Democrats’ usual ineptitude at turning out their base in off-year elections.  For in November, it is all about turnout, and Republicans have done best in off-years when zealot partisans rule the day.  Nothing is assured either way.

And 2016?  The Tea Party right-wing will not be denied.  It will dominate the Party, and will insist on its day in the sun with a candidate solidly from their ranks.  Their True Believer Candidate will carry the banner confidently into the 2016 general election.  But when the public gets a close look at what that agenda really means, means to them personally, the candidate and the movement will be trounced at the polls – almost no matter who the Democratic candidate is.  Then experienced Congresspersons will take back this co-opted Republican Party, correct its course back to just right-of-center, and the nation will benefit once again from having a true 2-party system that can rediscover how to govern.

It is a replaying of the 1964 election – when extremism in the Republican Party won the nomination and lost the election (in spite of fielding a principled and worthy candidate), and conservatism subsequently found truer reasonable voices.  You heard it here first.  1964.  It is coming back again.

©  2014   Randy Bell

 

To Be An American

As a consultant advising college and university leaders on how to identify and effect change in their institutions, I was always struck by how planning groups would typically want to begin their work.  People would march into the room, fully confident that they knew what the problem to be solved was, why the problem existed, and usually very clear in their minds about what should be done about it.  Unfortunately, each person’s perspective would prove to be very different, which would normally come as a big surprise to the group members.  To complicate it further, the underlying attitude would frequently be, “I’m OK and doing fine, if YOU would just change what you are doing!”

What would then usually follow in these group discussions would be protracted and difficult arguments about what actions should be taken, with people promoting their tactics as of course superior to the tactics of others.  Proposed actions would bog down into pointing fingers over “who’s at fault,” and get lost within personality conflicts or individual power plays.  Over time, I learned a very valuable lesson from these painful discussions: If people cannot agree on what the TRUE PROBLEM is, and what RESULTING OUTCOMES need to be accomplished, then they will never agree on which tactical steps – in between the problem and the outcomes – need to be implemented.  Unless the necessary time was spent up front listening to each other, looking at the facts and statistics and varied human experiences behind the issue at hand, and hearing what the world looks like from each vantage point, no common understanding of the real problem would exist.  (“What do we really know about this problem?”)  And all of this advance work had to be done with the humility of realizing that perhaps each of us does not fully have the solution so conveniently in hand after all.  Without that upfront clarity and a shared sense of outcomes, no discussion on tactics was worthwhile nor would it ever produce truly effective results.

A similar lack of agreement on goals versus tactics infects our political discussions today.  We spend so much time throwing out a hodgepodge of proposals and draft laws, and then arguing about whose idea is “best,” that virtually nothing of much meaningful impact gets done.  It is like playing a game of darts with a large group of people but with no target painted on the wall.  Hence anyone can claim that their dart is the winner regardless of wherever it lands, because nothing exists to provide an agreed-to criteria for the winner.

In President Obama’s State of the Union address recently, he called for an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10, adding that “In America, no one working a fulltime job should have to live in poverty.”  The point of this particular blog commentary is not whether $10.10 is a good or bad thing; that is a separate discussion debatable on many fronts.  But calling the question of whether being an American should mean that a fulltime worker does not live in poverty is a good and proper discussion to have.  Answering those kinds of fundamental questions can breathe much needed fresh air through the hot, stale air of our current economic discussions.

What it means to be “an American” is the real question that the public and our leaders should be grappling with.  Because we might find that we have many disagreements over our fundamental assumptions.  Or perhaps even many agreements.  Or that there is a slice of American life different from mine that I really do not understand or appreciate.  Where we find we disagree, we should then work to explain our differing perspectives and reasonings in order to come into more shared perspectives and common goals.

Besides the principle that fulltime workers should not be living in poverty, what might be some other basic questions about “what it means to be an American”?  Does every American have the right to vote for his/her political leaders in an easy and unhindered way?  Should each American be entitled (or forced) to have the same education at the same age with the same quality as any other American?  Should every American have access to medical services and at the same level of needed care?  Should every American willing and able to work have a job available?  Should every American be left alone to choose their life decisions unless those decisions truly and substantively adversely affect others?  Should every American be able to identify the religious and spiritual practices most appropriate to themselves, free from domination or coercion from other beliefs?  Should every American be treated equally, fairly, and with honesty in the economic marketplace?  Should every American be entitled to a safe and healthy environment, free from violence, illness, defective goods, tainted foods and a toxic natural environment?  Should “successful” Americans have an obligation to give back to those less fortunate – either now or to support future generations?

At first blush, one might immediately think “of course,” or “of course not,” to such basic kinds of questions.  Or assume that they were answered long ago.  Or argue that there are substantive “yes, buts,” nuances, or shadings about these universal themes.  Yet these types of questions underlie our divisive political arguments today, suggesting that we have not come to agreement or declared a clear, national commitment regarding these goals.  We look for simple answers to these questions, yet consensus remains elusive because we have not stopped to fully educate ourselves on their background, and the reality-on-the-ground of these issues.  We have 300 million people in this country, each with widely varying experiences, most often of which we are highly unknowledgeable because they are out of our daily routine and immediate view.  So we have not come to a shared understanding of what we need to accomplish across that wide swath.

When America has committed itself to a common purpose, the appropriate solutions have surfaced and fallen into place, and our successes have been notable.  When we committed ourselves to defeating Japan and Germany in World War II, America marshaled its full military and civilian strength to achieve that outcome.  When we committed to landing on the moon, Neil Armstrong’s footsteps walked for all of us.  When we committed to eradicating the scourge of polio, that dreaded disease disappeared – ultimately world-wide.  When we committed to breaking down the barriers to opportunity from racial discrimination, we changed the color of this country in less than one lifetime – even as the work remains undone.

Direction comes from knowing where one wants to go.  Right actions come from knowing one’s direction.  This is the missing conversation in America, a conversation in greater depth than mere bumper-sticker headlines.  The real question is not whether or not the minimum wage should be $10.10; it is about what any minimum wage should be able to afford.  What is the baseline of being “an American”?  What remains above that baseline that is for each of us to individually achieve?  Let us have that thoughtful conversation, one-on-one, listening closely to each other, without the angry posturing and empty political rhetoric.

©  2014   Randy Bell