The political mantra of 2011 thus far is that it is all about “cutting spending.” This is supposedly the people’s message coming out of the 2010 election. But I suspect that some among us are listening to the people’s message with a tin ear. In fact, 43% in a recent CBS/New York Times poll listed Job Creation as the most important government priority, far outstripping the 18% wanting to revisit Health Care, and only 14% who prioritized Budgeting Cutting.
So let’s talk about this #3 priority – budget cutting – which has nevertheless become the #1 priority of the Washington folks. Is our national debt too high? Yes. Is our annual budget deficit too high? Yes. Is that budget deficit increasingly limiting our ability to be flexible in our national spending decisions, to be able to move spending where it needs to go? Yes. And is our national debt lurking as a behind-the-scenes national security issue, minimizing our response to international issues based upon our debt to other countries? Yes.
We hear of a target by some Tea Party conservatives of cutting $100B from the federal budget this year. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech, proposed a spending freeze for 5 years at 2008 levels, but only on non-security spending. This after he had already proposed a 2-year salary freeze on some – but not all – government employees. He endorsed the Republican proposal to end budget earmarks, to which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told him to “back off.” House Republicans voted to reduce their own operating budget; Obama endorsed spending cuts but is opting to reinvest in education, infrastructure and energy. Representative Paul Ryan, House Budget Committee Chairman and once a firebrand of targeted, radical spending cuts, came on TV and gave a very good Republican response to Obama’s speech. He reinforced the goal of spending cuts, but said such very gently, in a non-threatening manner, with no specifics stated.
The fact is, everyone is now on board the same “USS Spending Cuts” ship, but no one has yet plotted a sailing course. The nautical maps remain in the drawers. It is like my junior high school prom where all the boys and girls are standing against opposite walls, no one willing to be the ones to break the ice and actually go out on the dance floor. Everyone talks about cutting spending, but no one wants to be the first to say “where.” Why? Because talking about cutting spending at the gross level is easy – “Let’s cut $100B.” (Everyone applauds.) But a cut in spending is actually a cut in some favored program, a cut in services, a cut in someone’s grant award, a loss of someone’s tax benefit. The cut ultimately becomes personal and shows up in someone’s bank account, pay stub, or loss of expected services.
Parks close or stop being maintained. Teachers and police get laid off. Medical assistance gets eliminated. New buildings or municipal projects don’t get built. Agricultural subsidies get cut for food corporations. Purchases from businesses are reduced. “Cutting spending” ultimately translates into “you don’t get anymore what you used to get.” And we have gotten very used to getting what we have gotten. Vague, generic headlines become personal. And when it gets personal, people get angry.
So no politician wants to move yet past the headlines and tell people what really has to happen. The President’s special debt commission delivered their true and sobering report in December – and politicians both left and right said “no” and scurried for cover. But that commission jump-started the real conversation and thankfully gave us a good yardstick we can use to measure all the empty rhetoric we will hear through this year.
Everyone is for cutting government spending – as long as it is money being spent on YOU. If we all can agree on the need to cut, we do not agree at all on where to cut. Your “savings” are my “loss.” Almost all states are facing significant budget deficits this year, having been artificially kept afloat the past two years by the federal stimulus program. Reality beckons. When schools start closing and teachers are let go and class sizes swell, 50% of a police force are let go, libraries are shuttered, students can’t get into college, and municipal services are cut back, then spending cuts will hit home. Eliminating cell phones for many state employees is nice symbolism, but will not make much of a dent in California’s $20B+ deficit.
When we finally really talk about cutting significant spending, it will be ugly. Doomsday scenarios will abound; finger-pointing will be plentiful. Conservatives will rush to protect military spending and the corporate welfare (versus military needs) that drive that budget; liberals will decry cuts to social programs and human welfare that drive discretionary spending. Cutters will nevertheless seek to insulate; insulators will seek to cut. We will go around in circles over what are really questions of 1) national priority; 2) the role of government; and 3) impacts on the American people. Is protecting a national park more or less important than protecting a job than protecting me from a robber than keeping citizens healthy?
The discussion will start with trying to identify the losers, who will get cut, how to maneuver to save my needs from the budget ax. It is only when we accept that all of us have to take this hit in some form that true progress will begin to happen. When nothing is sacrosanct then we have a chance to equitably move forward. We have to look at all things without prejudice.
When Republicans are willing to stop spending dollars on military hardware we don’t need because it pays corporations and employees back home in their districts; when liberals are willing to hold up on educational investments that support shoddy schools, incompetent teachers and self-promoting universities; when WE the citizens stop judging our elected officials by how much grant money they bring home to us for projects we often don’t really need nor are a national priority – when we begin to see politicians on the left and right move away from their traditional stump speeches, sound-bites and stated priorities, only then will I begin to believe that we are truly serious about cutting government ending. And when I see We, the People, supporting those political changes, and giving up our personal benefits and sharing the pain together, then I will believe that we are serious. Until then, it is all talk, all show, all going nowhere. It will just be another angry, divisive moment that we are becoming numb to.
It is time for all my junior high classmates to move away from the wall, talk to each other, and begin to dance together before our dreaded curfew arrives.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Words Matter
Words Matter.
Last week, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was wounded while conducting a street-side open house with her constituents. Six people in attendance were killed, including a senior federal judge and one of Gifford’s aides, and 13 were wounded. Another angry, loony shooter – whose name I intentionally refuse to state here –has once again captured headlines and left us shaking our collective heads.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who spent most of the last year being a most hateful person in word, demeanor and action, offered (empty) condolences to Giffords and the many families. In contrast, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (of Giffords’ home county) spoke truth to power and called out what we truly know. He observed that, “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government: the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.” Arizona, embroiled over the last year by bitter divisions over illegal immigration and health care reform, has become “the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin, never able to let respectful silence go by unfilled, said that, “we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.” But in her statement, Mrs. Palin took no responsibility for helping to create the environment of violence in which politics now operates. However, the image on her website of Congresswoman Giffords’ house district which showed an “X” target in the crosshairs of a gun sight was quickly deleted. Just a coincidence of timing, I am sure. Palin subsequently posted a video defending herself against accusations that her words had contributed to this situation, but then went on to use inflammatory words against those she felt used inflammatory words. There are times when plain silence is the best response.
Words Matter.
I have decried before the cavalier manner in which too many people will say anything, and often do so in violent imagery, for personal fame and gain. Black congressmen walking into the Capitol building to vote for health care reform were subjected to a gauntlet of racial slurs; gun-toting protestors showed up at political rallies; screamers dominated political meetings; public officials have been threatened or their offices broken into; a congressman was treated as a hero for yelling “you lie” at the President in an official State of the Union address. This last year in politics has been tortuous to observe, and an embarrassment to our supposed moral and political leadership role in the world. There have been times when it has felt like we are living in some 3rd- or 4th- world backward country in which violence, lies and revolution are the norm.
As with so many things these days, when is enough yet enough? When does political life stop being a game and become something far more important? How and when does the great American Middle – the Middle that still knows what respect and thoughtful discussion entails – stand up and say STOP. Whether the 20120 election sends a corrective message or aggravates an already intolerable situation remains to be seen. Likely, “the message” will be in the ear of the congressional listener, interpreted not as a “voice of the people” but a “voice of the people I choose to hear that already agree with me.”
The inflammatory rhetoric will likely continue. The talk of “doing the people’s business” will likely dissolve into “doing our political business as usual.” Disrespectful, non-compromising non-relationships will likely continue as people seek their own agenda over any legitimate goals and needs of others. The art of reaching out, finding common ground, and making progress within a greater good rather than a selfish good, will struggle to not become a disappearing art. Fox News chief Roger Ailes told his broadcasters to “Shut up, tone it down, make your arguments intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast.” But will this edict last after all the memorial services are over? Only 24-hours later it was questionable. Ailes also said that “Both sides (the right and left) are wrong, but they both do it.” He is right about that: proper conduct is a personal thing, and no one political group owns it. Congress observed a moment of silence in respect for the shooting victims; perhaps an hour of silent reflection would be more meaningful and effective?
It may never be able to be proved that this latest shooter actually saw Sarah Palin’s website, and so saw his congresswoman in a rifle’s crosshair sight. He may never have specifically heard Michelle Bachman talk about “Obama Nazi youth camps” or Palin’s “death panels.” He may not have heard the numerous other voices using the branded code words like “Obama-care” (Republicans) or “Socialist agenda” (Gingrich); he may not have read the many websites claiming that our freedoms are endangered and must be defended – implicitly or explicitly by violent resistance. But he clearly lives, as do we, in a place where fear and anger increasingly surround us every day in our news and in our “entertainment,” and in a Facebook world built upon a need for individual attention if not notoriety. Regardless of where the shooter’s obsession with Giffords came from, we have taught our crazies all too well and frequently that the release of their angers and achievement of their need for attention is in mass shootings – from whence the cameras and news media will come; anonymity will give way to infamy.
Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting will soon move to a distant memory, like all the other shooting victims before her. Her shooter will have his 15 minutes of non-stop attention that he could not get otherwise. An unfortunate number of people offering prayers today will shortly go back to their lies and hateful words. Business as usual will return all too soon. Will any lasting lessons have been learned?
Words Matter.
The reality is that our current environment of fear and anger is ugly. Too many blatantly contribute to this directly through their media role, or in a political role that gives them access to that media. Supposedly “responsible mainstream media” who allow this environment to continue without complaint nor exposing it to truth share responsibility for this environment.
But we are equally responsible when we buy into this misinformation, and make these “fakers of fear” into perverted celebrities of would-be truth. It is our job to speak out against this dangerous climate, and the dangerous people who hide behind soft words, nice appearances, cutesy smiles and simpleton statements. In each of our own little corners of the universe, we are obligated to model right speech in right relationships with our neighbor – and chastise those who do not. If our leaders cannot lead us to where we need to go, then we need to lead ourselves in right directions through right conduct. Then, hopefully, our leaders will find us and follow.
Words Matter. We always have the power to choose the words that we speak, and the speakers that we listen to. Finding the right words begins, as it always does, at home, with ourselves.
Last week, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was wounded while conducting a street-side open house with her constituents. Six people in attendance were killed, including a senior federal judge and one of Gifford’s aides, and 13 were wounded. Another angry, loony shooter – whose name I intentionally refuse to state here –has once again captured headlines and left us shaking our collective heads.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who spent most of the last year being a most hateful person in word, demeanor and action, offered (empty) condolences to Giffords and the many families. In contrast, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (of Giffords’ home county) spoke truth to power and called out what we truly know. He observed that, “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government: the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.” Arizona, embroiled over the last year by bitter divisions over illegal immigration and health care reform, has become “the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin, never able to let respectful silence go by unfilled, said that, “we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.” But in her statement, Mrs. Palin took no responsibility for helping to create the environment of violence in which politics now operates. However, the image on her website of Congresswoman Giffords’ house district which showed an “X” target in the crosshairs of a gun sight was quickly deleted. Just a coincidence of timing, I am sure. Palin subsequently posted a video defending herself against accusations that her words had contributed to this situation, but then went on to use inflammatory words against those she felt used inflammatory words. There are times when plain silence is the best response.
Words Matter.
I have decried before the cavalier manner in which too many people will say anything, and often do so in violent imagery, for personal fame and gain. Black congressmen walking into the Capitol building to vote for health care reform were subjected to a gauntlet of racial slurs; gun-toting protestors showed up at political rallies; screamers dominated political meetings; public officials have been threatened or their offices broken into; a congressman was treated as a hero for yelling “you lie” at the President in an official State of the Union address. This last year in politics has been tortuous to observe, and an embarrassment to our supposed moral and political leadership role in the world. There have been times when it has felt like we are living in some 3rd- or 4th- world backward country in which violence, lies and revolution are the norm.
As with so many things these days, when is enough yet enough? When does political life stop being a game and become something far more important? How and when does the great American Middle – the Middle that still knows what respect and thoughtful discussion entails – stand up and say STOP. Whether the 20120 election sends a corrective message or aggravates an already intolerable situation remains to be seen. Likely, “the message” will be in the ear of the congressional listener, interpreted not as a “voice of the people” but a “voice of the people I choose to hear that already agree with me.”
The inflammatory rhetoric will likely continue. The talk of “doing the people’s business” will likely dissolve into “doing our political business as usual.” Disrespectful, non-compromising non-relationships will likely continue as people seek their own agenda over any legitimate goals and needs of others. The art of reaching out, finding common ground, and making progress within a greater good rather than a selfish good, will struggle to not become a disappearing art. Fox News chief Roger Ailes told his broadcasters to “Shut up, tone it down, make your arguments intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast.” But will this edict last after all the memorial services are over? Only 24-hours later it was questionable. Ailes also said that “Both sides (the right and left) are wrong, but they both do it.” He is right about that: proper conduct is a personal thing, and no one political group owns it. Congress observed a moment of silence in respect for the shooting victims; perhaps an hour of silent reflection would be more meaningful and effective?
It may never be able to be proved that this latest shooter actually saw Sarah Palin’s website, and so saw his congresswoman in a rifle’s crosshair sight. He may never have specifically heard Michelle Bachman talk about “Obama Nazi youth camps” or Palin’s “death panels.” He may not have heard the numerous other voices using the branded code words like “Obama-care” (Republicans) or “Socialist agenda” (Gingrich); he may not have read the many websites claiming that our freedoms are endangered and must be defended – implicitly or explicitly by violent resistance. But he clearly lives, as do we, in a place where fear and anger increasingly surround us every day in our news and in our “entertainment,” and in a Facebook world built upon a need for individual attention if not notoriety. Regardless of where the shooter’s obsession with Giffords came from, we have taught our crazies all too well and frequently that the release of their angers and achievement of their need for attention is in mass shootings – from whence the cameras and news media will come; anonymity will give way to infamy.
Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting will soon move to a distant memory, like all the other shooting victims before her. Her shooter will have his 15 minutes of non-stop attention that he could not get otherwise. An unfortunate number of people offering prayers today will shortly go back to their lies and hateful words. Business as usual will return all too soon. Will any lasting lessons have been learned?
Words Matter.
The reality is that our current environment of fear and anger is ugly. Too many blatantly contribute to this directly through their media role, or in a political role that gives them access to that media. Supposedly “responsible mainstream media” who allow this environment to continue without complaint nor exposing it to truth share responsibility for this environment.
But we are equally responsible when we buy into this misinformation, and make these “fakers of fear” into perverted celebrities of would-be truth. It is our job to speak out against this dangerous climate, and the dangerous people who hide behind soft words, nice appearances, cutesy smiles and simpleton statements. In each of our own little corners of the universe, we are obligated to model right speech in right relationships with our neighbor – and chastise those who do not. If our leaders cannot lead us to where we need to go, then we need to lead ourselves in right directions through right conduct. Then, hopefully, our leaders will find us and follow.
Words Matter. We always have the power to choose the words that we speak, and the speakers that we listen to. Finding the right words begins, as it always does, at home, with ourselves.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Religion of War
Remember September 2010? The news stories then were predominantly filled with threats about Americans supposedly under attack from Islam. A proposed Islamic community center in New York City was going to irretrievably disgrace our memorial to 9/11 victims. A media-savvy preacher with 50 congregants in Florida threatened to burn a copy of the Qur’an to protest “godless Islam” – until he accomplished his real goal of international attention. Protests against proposed mosque sites were breaking out around the country – including places where Muslims had been worshipping quietly for years. And, of course, politicians looking for headlines – and their sycophants at Fox News – came out with all kinds of statements that insulted and unnecessarily challenged the religious compassion and tolerance that is part of the best definition of America. Talk about “aiding and abetting the enemy”: we managed to prove that our enemies were exactly right in accusing Americans of being hostile to the Muslim and Arab world.
All of those supposedly relevant and important news stories magically disappeared in the noise of the 2010 midterm elections. But no wonder that they left upwards of 40% of Americans – most of whom have never met a Muslim or read a single word of the Qur’an – distrusting Islam and viewing it as a “religion of war” directed against non-Muslims (and Americans in particular). Who can blame them when we read the following examples of calls to violence from supposedly religious scripture:
1. “They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level with them. So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of God; if they turn back to enmity, then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them. Except those who seek refuge with a people between whom and you there is a covenant, or those who come unto you because their hearts forbid them to make war on you or make war on their own folk. Had God willed He could have given them power over you so that assuredly they would have fought you, So, if they hold aloof from you and wage not war against you and offer you peace, God alloweth you no way against them. Ye will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk. So often as they are returned to hostility they are plunged therein. If they keep not aloof from you, nor offer you peace, nor hold their hands, then take them and kill them wherever you find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.”
2. “[For the wicked and deceitful who are against me] … let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out … As he clothed himself with cursing like as his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones ... Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.”
3. “… ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other God; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
4. “Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bounds, and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance).”
5. “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect … I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. For thou has girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.”
These are certainly very violent images, ones that should give all peace-seeking peoples concern. It is understandable that we would reject those who advocate such violence in the name of the religious promotion of one faith over others. Yet exactly who is it that we are to reject?
Examples 1 and 4 above are God’s words through Muhammad in the Qur’an. But examples 2 & 5 are verses from the Psalms, typically portrayed as some of the best poetry to God found in the Old Testament. Example #3 is God’s word through Moses to destroy non-believers. So towards what peoples, what faiths, are we to target our resistance, focus our rejection, marshal our defenses against religious violence?
Virtually all religions were born in violence and persecution, requiring a vigorous defense to survive. Various Hebrew kings, Muhammad, and others fought to birth and nourish their religions. Yet killing and warfare are easily addictive. From such a violent birth, how do we know when it is time to stop fighting, to avoid crossing the line from religious defense into earthly aggression?
Jesus asked us to “love our enemies as ourselves”; God spoke through Muhammad to admonish Muslims to “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.” Yet millions of people have been persecuted and died as local cultures and man’s ego have perverted God’s messages into mankind’s pursuit of wealth, power, geography or revenge for all kinds of self-justified reasons. When we are truly threatened, we must resist such actions upon us. But “As we resist the action, we must still love the person.” (Dalai Lama)
In our religious texts and in our own minds, we can find justification for anything we do if we start with our self-serving intention and work backwards. Any religion – Christian, Jewish, Islam – can be rationalized into violence by a precise selection of code words, fueled by ambition towards personal power. It is in the overriding spirit of our faiths where there is moral consistency across all beliefs – a spirit of unthreatened confidence in all beings, a knowledge that real Truth needs no forced rationalizations. Right versus wrong is known in all our hearts intuitively if we just listen quietly to that intuition. And Right is the same for all of us, however differently our faiths may express it.
All of those supposedly relevant and important news stories magically disappeared in the noise of the 2010 midterm elections. But no wonder that they left upwards of 40% of Americans – most of whom have never met a Muslim or read a single word of the Qur’an – distrusting Islam and viewing it as a “religion of war” directed against non-Muslims (and Americans in particular). Who can blame them when we read the following examples of calls to violence from supposedly religious scripture:
1. “They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level with them. So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of God; if they turn back to enmity, then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them. Except those who seek refuge with a people between whom and you there is a covenant, or those who come unto you because their hearts forbid them to make war on you or make war on their own folk. Had God willed He could have given them power over you so that assuredly they would have fought you, So, if they hold aloof from you and wage not war against you and offer you peace, God alloweth you no way against them. Ye will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk. So often as they are returned to hostility they are plunged therein. If they keep not aloof from you, nor offer you peace, nor hold their hands, then take them and kill them wherever you find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.”
2. “[For the wicked and deceitful who are against me] … let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out … As he clothed himself with cursing like as his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones ... Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.”
3. “… ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other God; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
4. “Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bounds, and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance).”
5. “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect … I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. For thou has girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.”
These are certainly very violent images, ones that should give all peace-seeking peoples concern. It is understandable that we would reject those who advocate such violence in the name of the religious promotion of one faith over others. Yet exactly who is it that we are to reject?
Examples 1 and 4 above are God’s words through Muhammad in the Qur’an. But examples 2 & 5 are verses from the Psalms, typically portrayed as some of the best poetry to God found in the Old Testament. Example #3 is God’s word through Moses to destroy non-believers. So towards what peoples, what faiths, are we to target our resistance, focus our rejection, marshal our defenses against religious violence?
Virtually all religions were born in violence and persecution, requiring a vigorous defense to survive. Various Hebrew kings, Muhammad, and others fought to birth and nourish their religions. Yet killing and warfare are easily addictive. From such a violent birth, how do we know when it is time to stop fighting, to avoid crossing the line from religious defense into earthly aggression?
Jesus asked us to “love our enemies as ourselves”; God spoke through Muhammad to admonish Muslims to “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.” Yet millions of people have been persecuted and died as local cultures and man’s ego have perverted God’s messages into mankind’s pursuit of wealth, power, geography or revenge for all kinds of self-justified reasons. When we are truly threatened, we must resist such actions upon us. But “As we resist the action, we must still love the person.” (Dalai Lama)
In our religious texts and in our own minds, we can find justification for anything we do if we start with our self-serving intention and work backwards. Any religion – Christian, Jewish, Islam – can be rationalized into violence by a precise selection of code words, fueled by ambition towards personal power. It is in the overriding spirit of our faiths where there is moral consistency across all beliefs – a spirit of unthreatened confidence in all beings, a knowledge that real Truth needs no forced rationalizations. Right versus wrong is known in all our hearts intuitively if we just listen quietly to that intuition. And Right is the same for all of us, however differently our faiths may express it.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Headlines Are Not News
I recently signed on to my online browser, and was greeted with a breaking top news headline that said, “Federal Judge Rules Health Care Law Unconstitutional.” Considering all the time and effort that went into creating and passing this bill, a decision to nullify it would seem a significant and noteworthy news event. So I chose to read on.
As it turns out, buried down in the heart of the story were three extremely important clarifications (corrections?) of that headline:
1. The federal judge who ruled on this case only deemed one portion of the bill unconstitutional – namely that portion that mandates that everyone buy health insurance as of 2014;
2. This Virginia-based federal judge ruled in one lawsuit brought solely by the Virginia Attorney General (an AG who has on repeated occasions shown questionable judgment in his ability to distinguish between his personal political agenda and his broader obligations as Virginia’s chief legal officer), so the result of the judge’s decision would only affect the citizens of Virginia;
3. Nationally, 12 other federal judges have already previously dismissed out-of-hand similar state-brought lawsuits as without merit; two other federal judges who did elect to hear such cases both ruled the law constitutional. So the more correct box score now reads: 14 individual judges have approved the law; one has not.
We all know that, in this highly politicized climate, the Obama health care law will ultimately wind up in the Supreme Court. That event is still years away, moving through all kinds of interim legal and political wrangles and the various court jurisdictions and levels. Once it arrives in the laps of Chief Justice Roberts & Company, it is anyone’s guess what will then happen. But that is for later. So in the broader context of “legal process,” yes, the Virginia decision was noteworthy, but nowhere near decisive – contrary to the impression created by that news headline.
Unfortunately, this more balanced, more complete perspective of the Virginia ruling got completely lost in most all news reporting of that day. The “unconstitutional” headline statement ran unchanged in most all other reporting media – both online as well as cable and network news programs, including the little “news ticker” that runs across the bottom of our TV screens.
News headline writing is a uniquely creative art form. Headlines are typically not written by the author of the in-depth article but by a separate person supposedly skilled in collapsing and highlighting an entire story into perhaps less than ½-dozen words, all without distorting the story itself. It is not an easy task. The author may in fact never even see the headline prior to publication, usually with no opportunity given to comment on or edit it. I am sympathetic to those who perform this challenging and necessary task. But I am more concerned about readers who come away from a headline with a wrong or significantly incomplete understanding of the underlying news. It is similar challenge that television guide editors face in seeking to describe an entire movie plot line in 3-4 words, often with laughable results – e.g. Gone With The Wind (“Woman saves her home”), or The Wizard of Oz (“Girl leaves Kansas”). But however difficult the challenge, the news headline – designed to both get our attention and to entice the reading of the full report – must be subject to the same standards of accuracy and objectivity as we expect from the story itself. In this instance, that standard was not met on what is acknowledged is a critical and emotional subject in America.
We are bombarded today by far more news, or opinion masquerading as news, or “news” that we should have no interest in, than we can possibly absorb. (How many Lindsay Lohan or Mel Gibson stories do we have to read before we can comfortably conclude that these are two significantly troubled people?) In our self-defense of this onslaught, more and more of us must scan the news in order to just stay marginally aware of what is happening around us. In times past, leisurely reading the morning and/or evening newspaper at the breakfast table or after dinner was part of our daily routine. Today we have very little time available to read full news reports from start to end, much less to then think and reflect on what we have read.
Nevertheless, the responsibility remains ours for staying properly informed, and basing our opinions on substantive and well-reasoned information. We need to pick our information sources wisely; differentiate between reporting, versus informed opinion, versus soapbox self-promoting demagoguery; and continually remind ourselves that when we “scan” the headlines, we only see a list of topics that we may need to follow up on. Good headline writing can help us with our task of being informed. There is input in a news headline, but there is clearly no knowledge therein. Gleaning knowledge, and from that wisdom, is still our job to do.
As it turns out, buried down in the heart of the story were three extremely important clarifications (corrections?) of that headline:
1. The federal judge who ruled on this case only deemed one portion of the bill unconstitutional – namely that portion that mandates that everyone buy health insurance as of 2014;
2. This Virginia-based federal judge ruled in one lawsuit brought solely by the Virginia Attorney General (an AG who has on repeated occasions shown questionable judgment in his ability to distinguish between his personal political agenda and his broader obligations as Virginia’s chief legal officer), so the result of the judge’s decision would only affect the citizens of Virginia;
3. Nationally, 12 other federal judges have already previously dismissed out-of-hand similar state-brought lawsuits as without merit; two other federal judges who did elect to hear such cases both ruled the law constitutional. So the more correct box score now reads: 14 individual judges have approved the law; one has not.
We all know that, in this highly politicized climate, the Obama health care law will ultimately wind up in the Supreme Court. That event is still years away, moving through all kinds of interim legal and political wrangles and the various court jurisdictions and levels. Once it arrives in the laps of Chief Justice Roberts & Company, it is anyone’s guess what will then happen. But that is for later. So in the broader context of “legal process,” yes, the Virginia decision was noteworthy, but nowhere near decisive – contrary to the impression created by that news headline.
Unfortunately, this more balanced, more complete perspective of the Virginia ruling got completely lost in most all news reporting of that day. The “unconstitutional” headline statement ran unchanged in most all other reporting media – both online as well as cable and network news programs, including the little “news ticker” that runs across the bottom of our TV screens.
News headline writing is a uniquely creative art form. Headlines are typically not written by the author of the in-depth article but by a separate person supposedly skilled in collapsing and highlighting an entire story into perhaps less than ½-dozen words, all without distorting the story itself. It is not an easy task. The author may in fact never even see the headline prior to publication, usually with no opportunity given to comment on or edit it. I am sympathetic to those who perform this challenging and necessary task. But I am more concerned about readers who come away from a headline with a wrong or significantly incomplete understanding of the underlying news. It is similar challenge that television guide editors face in seeking to describe an entire movie plot line in 3-4 words, often with laughable results – e.g. Gone With The Wind (“Woman saves her home”), or The Wizard of Oz (“Girl leaves Kansas”). But however difficult the challenge, the news headline – designed to both get our attention and to entice the reading of the full report – must be subject to the same standards of accuracy and objectivity as we expect from the story itself. In this instance, that standard was not met on what is acknowledged is a critical and emotional subject in America.
We are bombarded today by far more news, or opinion masquerading as news, or “news” that we should have no interest in, than we can possibly absorb. (How many Lindsay Lohan or Mel Gibson stories do we have to read before we can comfortably conclude that these are two significantly troubled people?) In our self-defense of this onslaught, more and more of us must scan the news in order to just stay marginally aware of what is happening around us. In times past, leisurely reading the morning and/or evening newspaper at the breakfast table or after dinner was part of our daily routine. Today we have very little time available to read full news reports from start to end, much less to then think and reflect on what we have read.
Nevertheless, the responsibility remains ours for staying properly informed, and basing our opinions on substantive and well-reasoned information. We need to pick our information sources wisely; differentiate between reporting, versus informed opinion, versus soapbox self-promoting demagoguery; and continually remind ourselves that when we “scan” the headlines, we only see a list of topics that we may need to follow up on. Good headline writing can help us with our task of being informed. There is input in a news headline, but there is clearly no knowledge therein. Gleaning knowledge, and from that wisdom, is still our job to do.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Giving Thanks 2010
In these days of endless drumbeats of gloom ’n doom, it can seem a fertile time for bountiful pessimism. But as this year’s Thanksgiving holiday comes to a close, perhaps we need to counterbalance that pessimism by focusing on a broader view of our current state of things.
Our biggest shortcoming is that around 9½% of our working population is not working. But 91.5% are working, even if some of them are not in jobs of their ideal preference. That is nine people of potential help to every one unemployed individual. How do we bring that potential support network to bear?
Most small businesspeople are struggling. But most big corporate/multi-national businesses are enjoying record profits. A significant portion of that profit is coming from international business, not domestic. Yet corporate CEOs complain that they cannot hire because of supposed “future business uncertainty” out of Washington rather than admitting that they are doing just fine, thank you very much, with higher productivity and more work from the employees they have already. Executive pay continues to grow comfortably; middle-class employee income has been stagnant for years. How can that profitability be spread around among those who are truly generating it – or need a new opportunity?
1½ years ago, our American-iconic automobile industry was verging on collapse. Decades of incompetency, can’t-do and non-competitive / non-innovative thinking had finally caught up to them. Today, in spite of all the rhetoric of a “government takeover,” the industry is plunging forward, creating the cars they said for years couldn’t be made, competing successfully on quality, all under long-awaited new leadership. Left alone, supposed free-enterprise capitalists almost caused 2 million industry and affiliated jobs to be lost; a supposedly “socialist” government intervention restored capitalism to a nearly dying industry. Who woulda thunk?
Two years ago John McCain “suspended” his presidential campaign (for about 3 days!) to race back to Washington to “help save our economy from collapse” at the hands of the financial / banking industry. As it turned out, McCain had no ideas to offer, and went back to campaigning. Talk of a full-scale depression with 20+% unemployment filled the airwaves. Economic indicators were all in the negative. It was a truly frightening time, with no parallel experience in the lifetimes of all Americans born after 1940. Today all these discussions have magically disappeared. Now we spend our time instead arguing about how we did/did not accomplish this return to stability, and talking endlessly while avoiding the hard steps needed to prevent a future recurrence of this catastrophic greed. But now there is no economic depression scenarios backdropping our conversations. I may not like that a “too big to fail” strategy let a lot of guilty financiers off the hook without impact on their personal finances. But I will accept that Grapes of Wrath – The Sequel has so far not had to be written.
Credit card and other consumer debt has thankfully continued to fall as people restructure their finances to something more viable. Selling one’s home takes longer than in memory, but prices are no longer continuing to drop significantly. Many home mortgages are still in jeopardy, but hundreds of thousands have been redone by the FDIC to prevent foreclosure. The shameful tragedy is that commercial banks did not follow the FDIC’s lead, even thought they could have – which had they done so would have actually improved their income statements instead of depressing their profits through foreclosures. Short-term thinking one again trumped long-term investment and the public good.
Yes, we still have our problems, issues to resolve, hurdles to overcome. And there are many different voices pitching many different proposals for “next steps.” Far too many of these ideas are ill-thought and/or self-serving for personal benefit. But somewhere in that cacophony of hollering are the thoughtful, innovative, free-thinking and substantive ideas that have the potential to lead us all to a collective better place. But those beneficial ideas need nurturing to survive, grow, and stand out from the meaningless noise. That nurturing includes our willingness to listen and discern carefully; to think unselfishly in favor of a greater good; to take a step or two backward in order to advance two or more steps forward; to be willing to live and work differently from before if we want things to be different; to separate out true thinkers and leaders from the hucksters who want our votes and/or money for their own reward.
Coming back from this deep a hole, while fighting political battles instead of creating economic solutions, with unpunished guilty persons preventing future course corrections, was never going to be quick or easy. Our short-term impatience is quite unrealistic (and immature), however justifiably frustrated we may often become. But Americans are bright and creative people – we have not yet lost that national characteristic. We are a pretty resilient people, and after a grief period we typically go about what needs to be done – and get it done. And when we have come together to act collectively in the same direction, we typically have come out of our adversity stronger than ever.
So that is our focus for this Thanksgiving. In the midst of our struggle, we have endured far worse. We have stabilized the patient, and have moved out of ER and into intensive care; almost every indicator is moving in the right direction. Progress has been achieved; more progress is on the radar. For those bright candles within the large darkness, we do give thanks. And give ourselves an interim pat on the tush.
Our biggest shortcoming is that around 9½% of our working population is not working. But 91.5% are working, even if some of them are not in jobs of their ideal preference. That is nine people of potential help to every one unemployed individual. How do we bring that potential support network to bear?
Most small businesspeople are struggling. But most big corporate/multi-national businesses are enjoying record profits. A significant portion of that profit is coming from international business, not domestic. Yet corporate CEOs complain that they cannot hire because of supposed “future business uncertainty” out of Washington rather than admitting that they are doing just fine, thank you very much, with higher productivity and more work from the employees they have already. Executive pay continues to grow comfortably; middle-class employee income has been stagnant for years. How can that profitability be spread around among those who are truly generating it – or need a new opportunity?
1½ years ago, our American-iconic automobile industry was verging on collapse. Decades of incompetency, can’t-do and non-competitive / non-innovative thinking had finally caught up to them. Today, in spite of all the rhetoric of a “government takeover,” the industry is plunging forward, creating the cars they said for years couldn’t be made, competing successfully on quality, all under long-awaited new leadership. Left alone, supposed free-enterprise capitalists almost caused 2 million industry and affiliated jobs to be lost; a supposedly “socialist” government intervention restored capitalism to a nearly dying industry. Who woulda thunk?
Two years ago John McCain “suspended” his presidential campaign (for about 3 days!) to race back to Washington to “help save our economy from collapse” at the hands of the financial / banking industry. As it turned out, McCain had no ideas to offer, and went back to campaigning. Talk of a full-scale depression with 20+% unemployment filled the airwaves. Economic indicators were all in the negative. It was a truly frightening time, with no parallel experience in the lifetimes of all Americans born after 1940. Today all these discussions have magically disappeared. Now we spend our time instead arguing about how we did/did not accomplish this return to stability, and talking endlessly while avoiding the hard steps needed to prevent a future recurrence of this catastrophic greed. But now there is no economic depression scenarios backdropping our conversations. I may not like that a “too big to fail” strategy let a lot of guilty financiers off the hook without impact on their personal finances. But I will accept that Grapes of Wrath – The Sequel has so far not had to be written.
Credit card and other consumer debt has thankfully continued to fall as people restructure their finances to something more viable. Selling one’s home takes longer than in memory, but prices are no longer continuing to drop significantly. Many home mortgages are still in jeopardy, but hundreds of thousands have been redone by the FDIC to prevent foreclosure. The shameful tragedy is that commercial banks did not follow the FDIC’s lead, even thought they could have – which had they done so would have actually improved their income statements instead of depressing their profits through foreclosures. Short-term thinking one again trumped long-term investment and the public good.
Yes, we still have our problems, issues to resolve, hurdles to overcome. And there are many different voices pitching many different proposals for “next steps.” Far too many of these ideas are ill-thought and/or self-serving for personal benefit. But somewhere in that cacophony of hollering are the thoughtful, innovative, free-thinking and substantive ideas that have the potential to lead us all to a collective better place. But those beneficial ideas need nurturing to survive, grow, and stand out from the meaningless noise. That nurturing includes our willingness to listen and discern carefully; to think unselfishly in favor of a greater good; to take a step or two backward in order to advance two or more steps forward; to be willing to live and work differently from before if we want things to be different; to separate out true thinkers and leaders from the hucksters who want our votes and/or money for their own reward.
Coming back from this deep a hole, while fighting political battles instead of creating economic solutions, with unpunished guilty persons preventing future course corrections, was never going to be quick or easy. Our short-term impatience is quite unrealistic (and immature), however justifiably frustrated we may often become. But Americans are bright and creative people – we have not yet lost that national characteristic. We are a pretty resilient people, and after a grief period we typically go about what needs to be done – and get it done. And when we have come together to act collectively in the same direction, we typically have come out of our adversity stronger than ever.
So that is our focus for this Thanksgiving. In the midst of our struggle, we have endured far worse. We have stabilized the patient, and have moved out of ER and into intensive care; almost every indicator is moving in the right direction. Progress has been achieved; more progress is on the radar. For those bright candles within the large darkness, we do give thanks. And give ourselves an interim pat on the tush.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Election 2010 - Reflections
Another bi-annual election has come and gone. One that confirms that our level of enlightened discussion about truly relevant and critical issues continues its decade-long free-fall into a new modern-day era of the Dark Ages. Regardless of one’s political views or party affiliation, we should all collectively hope that a new Age of Reason is around the corner. But such a corner frankly escapes my present view. So what did we see and hear in the many months leading up to this election? And what did we learn and take away from this election day?
In sum, the American people are confused, angry, impatient, and willing to strike at anything they can hit in order to express those feelings. It was clearly an “agin’er” election, a search for the lesser of unacceptable choices – logic or rationale be dammed. It was the third straight major swing of majority representation, with all the potential for a 4th straight swing again in 2012. It demonstrated the heightened volatility of our electorate, with a mixture of winners and losers scattered about like roadside litter. So let us set aside for the moment all the self-indulgent and self-promoting claims and hyperbole of the politicians, political consultants, and cable TV pundits, and see if we can sort out some modicum of sense from these latest results.
Clearly, this election was one that in the end mostly favored candidates with “Republican” beside their names. And for a party pronounced “all but dead” after 2008, they are entitled to be complimented for their achievement. Yet, something I have not seen before, in almost every political TV ad that I saw, candidates never identified him/herself as either Republican or Democrat. Some claimed to be “the conservative choice,” but generally it was a race between this person versus the evil / corrupt / unethical “other guy.” Given that both political parties are currently rated so low by the populace, their hiding of political affiliation shouts at a high volume. And it also thereby seriously undermines any claim to victory by the Republican Party.
Similarly, the dramatic shift in majority party was in the House, where Republicans replaced over 60 Democrats. But statistical analysis showed that most of these shifts happened in already-normally Republican districts. These were districts Obama and Democrats had stolen away in 2006 and 2008 given high dissatisfaction with Bush Republicans. Now these voters were returning to their traditional fold. This has to be a big disappointment for Democrats looking to court red states turning blue, but it is not an unnatural cycle.
Democrats also won some key, and perhaps unexpected, victories, e.g. California, Nevada and Colorado. In one recent post-election poll, only 40% of voters supported “the Republican Agenda” – whatever that may prove to be. This further reinforces the view that this was an “agin’er” election, not an endorsement of much of anyone on either side. Especially when you factor in all the Republicans who were turned out in their own primary elections and who never even made it to November. Which is why the number of new faces in Congress is significantly higher than just the winning seat count. There are now a lot of new kids on the block thumping for attention the next two years.
Which brings us to the phenomena of the Tea Party movement. A fair number of candidates claiming that label got elected, so that “movement” will have to be paid attention to and courted by some future political candidates. But such candidates also lost some key races – mainly statewide versus district races, often fielding some pretty marginal (flaky?) candidates. So the Tea Party appeal clearly has its limits, not just with the obvious liberal voters but also with a significant core of Independents. Quality of the candidates still thankfully matters. Sarah Palin’s endorsement helped some, but it was no guarantee of success. Witness her inability to oust her avowed nemesis Murkowski in her own home state of Alaska. Talent still matters too. The Republican establishment tried to corral and manage the Tea Party, but with limited success. This group will likely cause more problems for Republicans than the Democrats will!
It was not a good day for rich CEOs – not a group with much fan support these days. The three biggies (California, Connecticut) spent millions of their own money, and all three lost. Being a CEO seems less attractive today than being a politician – incumbent or otherwise. After the Wall Street excesses, being a good CEO is not much of a job qualification right now.
So with all these outcomes and the public temperament, why would anyone (besides the highly limited and untalented Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell) try to claim an endorsement for their political party or agenda? John Boehner, incoming Speaker, has so far spoken cautiously, unlike senate counterpart McConnell. Marco Rubio, the sanest and most charismatic of the “new conservatives,” spoke accurately when he said voters had not endorsed Republicanism, only given it a second chance – because they did not like what Obama and Democrats had delivered versus their expectations. It is not that the vast majority are so upset at things like “Obamacare” or other such campaign rhetoric; their anger is over the economy combined with the political process of Washington. Jobs, secure employment, loss of income, loss of homes, slippage in real income, loss of faith that tomorrow will be better – these are the electorate’s concerns, while they perceive corporate America to be doing fine with all kinds of assistance from Washington lawmakers. They wanted a new “transparency and cooperation” from our legislators, but the political deal-making they watched unfolding only affirmed how badly distasteful the legislative process has become.
Economic insecurity and unfairness are driving voters today, and a Washington that continues to be consumed with self-serving political gamesmanship while problems and needs go unaddressed may well be the foundation for another potential sweeping in 2012. People are looking for action that yields results that creates positive outcomes for them. Political distrust and lack of confidence is at an all-time high. Political party affiliation, infighting, and “business as usual” – for business and not for people – will be the likely climate of the next two years, with the prospect of little substantive accomplishment. It is a climate that people will not tolerate, because they are still looking for a representative government that they feel represents them and their goals, and they could care less about party, incumbency, or political/governmental philosophy. They are impatient for a real change in political life, and jaded about the likelihood of achieving it. Party/incumbent loyalty runs very shallow, because people are still shopping for the person(s) who can deliver on their real goals. This is the true message of 2010. The politician, or the party, who ignores that message does so at his/her own political peril.
In sum, the American people are confused, angry, impatient, and willing to strike at anything they can hit in order to express those feelings. It was clearly an “agin’er” election, a search for the lesser of unacceptable choices – logic or rationale be dammed. It was the third straight major swing of majority representation, with all the potential for a 4th straight swing again in 2012. It demonstrated the heightened volatility of our electorate, with a mixture of winners and losers scattered about like roadside litter. So let us set aside for the moment all the self-indulgent and self-promoting claims and hyperbole of the politicians, political consultants, and cable TV pundits, and see if we can sort out some modicum of sense from these latest results.
Clearly, this election was one that in the end mostly favored candidates with “Republican” beside their names. And for a party pronounced “all but dead” after 2008, they are entitled to be complimented for their achievement. Yet, something I have not seen before, in almost every political TV ad that I saw, candidates never identified him/herself as either Republican or Democrat. Some claimed to be “the conservative choice,” but generally it was a race between this person versus the evil / corrupt / unethical “other guy.” Given that both political parties are currently rated so low by the populace, their hiding of political affiliation shouts at a high volume. And it also thereby seriously undermines any claim to victory by the Republican Party.
Similarly, the dramatic shift in majority party was in the House, where Republicans replaced over 60 Democrats. But statistical analysis showed that most of these shifts happened in already-normally Republican districts. These were districts Obama and Democrats had stolen away in 2006 and 2008 given high dissatisfaction with Bush Republicans. Now these voters were returning to their traditional fold. This has to be a big disappointment for Democrats looking to court red states turning blue, but it is not an unnatural cycle.
Democrats also won some key, and perhaps unexpected, victories, e.g. California, Nevada and Colorado. In one recent post-election poll, only 40% of voters supported “the Republican Agenda” – whatever that may prove to be. This further reinforces the view that this was an “agin’er” election, not an endorsement of much of anyone on either side. Especially when you factor in all the Republicans who were turned out in their own primary elections and who never even made it to November. Which is why the number of new faces in Congress is significantly higher than just the winning seat count. There are now a lot of new kids on the block thumping for attention the next two years.
Which brings us to the phenomena of the Tea Party movement. A fair number of candidates claiming that label got elected, so that “movement” will have to be paid attention to and courted by some future political candidates. But such candidates also lost some key races – mainly statewide versus district races, often fielding some pretty marginal (flaky?) candidates. So the Tea Party appeal clearly has its limits, not just with the obvious liberal voters but also with a significant core of Independents. Quality of the candidates still thankfully matters. Sarah Palin’s endorsement helped some, but it was no guarantee of success. Witness her inability to oust her avowed nemesis Murkowski in her own home state of Alaska. Talent still matters too. The Republican establishment tried to corral and manage the Tea Party, but with limited success. This group will likely cause more problems for Republicans than the Democrats will!
It was not a good day for rich CEOs – not a group with much fan support these days. The three biggies (California, Connecticut) spent millions of their own money, and all three lost. Being a CEO seems less attractive today than being a politician – incumbent or otherwise. After the Wall Street excesses, being a good CEO is not much of a job qualification right now.
So with all these outcomes and the public temperament, why would anyone (besides the highly limited and untalented Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell) try to claim an endorsement for their political party or agenda? John Boehner, incoming Speaker, has so far spoken cautiously, unlike senate counterpart McConnell. Marco Rubio, the sanest and most charismatic of the “new conservatives,” spoke accurately when he said voters had not endorsed Republicanism, only given it a second chance – because they did not like what Obama and Democrats had delivered versus their expectations. It is not that the vast majority are so upset at things like “Obamacare” or other such campaign rhetoric; their anger is over the economy combined with the political process of Washington. Jobs, secure employment, loss of income, loss of homes, slippage in real income, loss of faith that tomorrow will be better – these are the electorate’s concerns, while they perceive corporate America to be doing fine with all kinds of assistance from Washington lawmakers. They wanted a new “transparency and cooperation” from our legislators, but the political deal-making they watched unfolding only affirmed how badly distasteful the legislative process has become.
Economic insecurity and unfairness are driving voters today, and a Washington that continues to be consumed with self-serving political gamesmanship while problems and needs go unaddressed may well be the foundation for another potential sweeping in 2012. People are looking for action that yields results that creates positive outcomes for them. Political distrust and lack of confidence is at an all-time high. Political party affiliation, infighting, and “business as usual” – for business and not for people – will be the likely climate of the next two years, with the prospect of little substantive accomplishment. It is a climate that people will not tolerate, because they are still looking for a representative government that they feel represents them and their goals, and they could care less about party, incumbency, or political/governmental philosophy. They are impatient for a real change in political life, and jaded about the likelihood of achieving it. Party/incumbent loyalty runs very shallow, because people are still shopping for the person(s) who can deliver on their real goals. This is the true message of 2010. The politician, or the party, who ignores that message does so at his/her own political peril.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Election 2010
Next Tuesday is yet another Congressional election day. The high energy and drama of the 2008 election seem so long ago. This year just seems like loud noise and often incoherent yelling from a vocal minority, and a quiet muted frustration from a disillusioned majority. It is not an easy year to exercise our civic duty.
Personally, I cannot seem to find any Republican that I can put an “X” next to on the ballot (with the possible exception of the two senators from Maine; but I believe that neither of them is up for reelection, and I do not live in Maine anyway). I just cannot vote an endorsement for a political strategy that says 1) “say anything” without regard to accuracy or consistency from one day to the next, and 2) vote against everything, whether good for the country or were your own ideas now disregarded, in order to deprive the Democrats of any legislative success. At a critical time when this country needs leadership and solutions to our current morass, such thumbing your nose at the electorate for purely personal political gain is inexcusable and intolerable. My simple question is ... why in the world would I vote for or trust the people/party who drove us to this current ruin, and whose only proclaimed program now is to take us back to those very same policies?
The Democrats, on the other hand, had no lack of ideas and agenda, fueled by being out of power these past years. What they did lack was the ability to manage that agenda. They took on milestone legislation and major economic issues – and somehow managed to come out on the rhetorical defensive, looking totally incompetent in their ability to focus and achieve a core agenda. There were a half-dozen critical “to dos” for health care; instead, they expanded that to a 2000 page bill seemingly filled with every health care idea ever thought about. That overreach almost sunk the topic entirely. They passed an economic stimulus bill that was inadequate to the need, and then never adequately defined the successes it achieved (leaving the Republicans to successfully tag it as a failure). They never developed a credible argument for why borrowing our way out of our recession made sense (which it does), even though smart CEOs are doing exactly the same thing for their companies where in similar straits. You borrow money when you need it (not when you don’t), and you spend it on investments not operating expense, which is exactly why the business community is complaining now about the unavailability of loan money to finance their growth. (Borrowing for day-to-day operating expense is still a stupid idea, for government and businesses.)
Democrats passed a badly needed financial reform bill. It restored regulation and oversight that had stabilized us for 60 years – until dismantled under 25 years of Republican rule, thereby leading us to this current financial devastation. But then they failed to nail the Republicans who, as expected, opposed it even though this should have been THE connecting issue with the American public. And they have inexplicably continued the Bush strategy of trying to fix the financial industry through the banks and investment companies instead of going around them and working directly with the financially injured citizens. The unsurprising result is that the banks and financial companies have emerged virtually unscathed and richer than ever, while the average Joes and Josephines are still hurting and losing ground.
Politically , Republicans continue to demonstrate that they are far better at winning the sound bite battles, and keeping all their people on board the same political train. Conversely, Democrats squandered their both-houses-and-president monopoly and sent out a dizzying cacophony of messages. Republicans can reduce any problem issue, no matter how complex, to a simplified 1 sentence message easily understood by the public, but they have no program to offer up behind it except the time-worn and disproven “cut taxes” call without paying for it – while claiming to be against deficit spending. (Only Republicans could get away with proclaiming such a paradoxical position with a straight face!) Conversely, Democrats can expand any problem issue to an exhausting paragraph incomprehensible to virtually anyone except an obscure technical policy wonk, with more programmatic solutions than anybody could ever want – a classic “killing the ant with a sledgehammer” approach.
Further disrupting all this confusion is the emergence of the Tea Party movement. What started as a legitimate grass roots expression of justifiable exasperation at Washington’s incompetence and ineffectiveness morphed into a vehicle for bad and irrational behavior. Betraying its constituent-led origins, it has become a marching tool for Fox News, secret donors and backroom wheeler-dealers (a la Karl Rove). It was given voice by self-centered promoters like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and Jim DeMint. It smartly magnified its perceived power by supporting fringe candidates in Republican primaries in small populated districts where their influence could overwhelm “establishment” Republican candidates. The result has been a slew of embarrassing and uninformed candidates exemplified by Sharon Engle (the Nevada kook) and Christine O’Donnell (the New Jersey witch-wanna-be) along with other such types. These are “against everything” candidates guided by colossal constitutional ignorance who personify how ridiculously low our standards for political qualifications have become. They have polarized the Republican Party even further to the extreme right (could any of us thought that possible?), and driven out some competent people into the “Independent” ranks as “ideologically impure.” If they win anything (questionable), they are likely to be as problematic to Republican party leadership as the “Blue Dog” Democrats are to their party leaders. Besides all the unwarranted news they generate for the media, until they win some significant and contested positions in the general election they still have no credibility. But every election year the media always look for “the underdog” story and give it excessive weight, and this year it’s the Tea Party as underdog.
Running in parallel to the candidates elections are an exhausting number of relevant peripheral currents, such as:
• The collapse of the U.S. Senate as an effective institution, drowning in its own rules of (non-) order, a 60 vote “super-majority” required to do anything in spite of our long-standing legislative principle of “majority rules,” action on any topic subject to the whim of any one senator to put the item “on hold,” and the mere threat of a filibuster sufficient to prevent a vote. Harry Reed needs to be reelected, if for no other reason to keep kooky Sharon Engle out of the Senate, but he is clearly not up to the job of Majority Leader.
• President Obama has a substantial list of successes to point to, but doesn’t seem able to point to them. The economy is no longer in doomsday; our receivership of the auto industry is paying visible dividends in economic stability and providing badly-needed new corporate direction; financial wildcatting has been somewhat reined in; health care made huge progress despite the bad distortion of it; foreign relations are significantly better than in a decade. Other worthwhile initiatives are at least in the pipeline. But however well-intended, Obama abdicated leadership by leaving legislation to be defined and thereby run amuck by Congress (“damn it, you’re the President, not a senator anymore!”), and his vaunted speaking voice escaped him. A clear, focused message on core directions that accurately reflects the mood of the people has been nowhere visible. Frankly, Obama’s first act on Wednesday, November 3rd, should be to fire his entire Communications Office – who seem to consistently live in a fog of surprise at the events around them they did not see coming – and get some competent help who can reconnect his voice with the people.
• Campaign dollars are out of control, projecting the most expensive election in history. This is thanks in no small part to the Supreme’s Court’s preposterous decision that “corporations are people, too” and thereby entitled to freedom of speech. Meg Whitman has already spent $140 million of her own money to win California’s governor race. We can only hope that she, like others, will find that not only can “money not buy you love,” but it can’t necessarily buy political office either.
• If you really want some amusement, look no further than the Democratic candidates to replace Republican senators in South Carolina and North Carolina. The former is a candidate-no-one-ever-heard-of that seems like a walking Tina Fey/Saturday Night Live comedy farce; the latter seems like she just woke up a couple of weeks ago and decided “Maybe I should actually campaign for this office!” Or look at the Alaska senate race where Sarah Palin’s very visible personal grudge campaign against Lisa Murkowski, the former-Republican-now-independent incumbent, is reducing Tea Party candidate Joe Miller to a back seat; it is a political form of a Desperate Housewives soap opera drama.
• Left-wing Democrats are complaining because results these past two years “did not go far enough?” Folks, get off the sidelines, and get real. A lot went your way; why do you think the right wing is now so vocal – because you failed? Do you not get that you won more than many thought possible to win? Even Ted Kennedy, an undisputed champion of universal health care, ultimately admitted he was wrong not to take up President Nixon on his health care proposals in the 1970s “just because they didn’t go far enough.”
So what is a concerned citizen supposed to do in this election? The litany of complaints against the current state of our national government could go on unendingly. The anger of our citizens is entirely justified, even if our specific complaints may differ. Let us trust no politician who promises to “cut spending / reduce the government / balance the budget” without telling us exactly where s/he would cut so we can determine if we really do agree with their easy rhetoric. And let us similarly trust no politician who promises that government can right all wrongs, and can protect us from all our fears and calamities.
Not voting is an abdication of civic responsibility, even if we are hesitant to give the appearance of endorsement to the winners. In the end, we need vote for pussycats even if for no other reason than to keep the mice at bay. General expectations are that 2011-2012 will be a non-event for Congressional accomplishments, as gridlock completely takes over and Republican presidential wanna-bes come out swinging for 2012. So we need to be ready, to find our own real voice, and to figure out the actions that we are called upon to take to restore honor, direction, integrity and promise to this great country. Enough is enough of this political gamesmanship at our expense. As has been said, in the end we ultimately get only the government that we work for and deserve. What shall that be?
Personally, I cannot seem to find any Republican that I can put an “X” next to on the ballot (with the possible exception of the two senators from Maine; but I believe that neither of them is up for reelection, and I do not live in Maine anyway). I just cannot vote an endorsement for a political strategy that says 1) “say anything” without regard to accuracy or consistency from one day to the next, and 2) vote against everything, whether good for the country or were your own ideas now disregarded, in order to deprive the Democrats of any legislative success. At a critical time when this country needs leadership and solutions to our current morass, such thumbing your nose at the electorate for purely personal political gain is inexcusable and intolerable. My simple question is ... why in the world would I vote for or trust the people/party who drove us to this current ruin, and whose only proclaimed program now is to take us back to those very same policies?
The Democrats, on the other hand, had no lack of ideas and agenda, fueled by being out of power these past years. What they did lack was the ability to manage that agenda. They took on milestone legislation and major economic issues – and somehow managed to come out on the rhetorical defensive, looking totally incompetent in their ability to focus and achieve a core agenda. There were a half-dozen critical “to dos” for health care; instead, they expanded that to a 2000 page bill seemingly filled with every health care idea ever thought about. That overreach almost sunk the topic entirely. They passed an economic stimulus bill that was inadequate to the need, and then never adequately defined the successes it achieved (leaving the Republicans to successfully tag it as a failure). They never developed a credible argument for why borrowing our way out of our recession made sense (which it does), even though smart CEOs are doing exactly the same thing for their companies where in similar straits. You borrow money when you need it (not when you don’t), and you spend it on investments not operating expense, which is exactly why the business community is complaining now about the unavailability of loan money to finance their growth. (Borrowing for day-to-day operating expense is still a stupid idea, for government and businesses.)
Democrats passed a badly needed financial reform bill. It restored regulation and oversight that had stabilized us for 60 years – until dismantled under 25 years of Republican rule, thereby leading us to this current financial devastation. But then they failed to nail the Republicans who, as expected, opposed it even though this should have been THE connecting issue with the American public. And they have inexplicably continued the Bush strategy of trying to fix the financial industry through the banks and investment companies instead of going around them and working directly with the financially injured citizens. The unsurprising result is that the banks and financial companies have emerged virtually unscathed and richer than ever, while the average Joes and Josephines are still hurting and losing ground.
Politically , Republicans continue to demonstrate that they are far better at winning the sound bite battles, and keeping all their people on board the same political train. Conversely, Democrats squandered their both-houses-and-president monopoly and sent out a dizzying cacophony of messages. Republicans can reduce any problem issue, no matter how complex, to a simplified 1 sentence message easily understood by the public, but they have no program to offer up behind it except the time-worn and disproven “cut taxes” call without paying for it – while claiming to be against deficit spending. (Only Republicans could get away with proclaiming such a paradoxical position with a straight face!) Conversely, Democrats can expand any problem issue to an exhausting paragraph incomprehensible to virtually anyone except an obscure technical policy wonk, with more programmatic solutions than anybody could ever want – a classic “killing the ant with a sledgehammer” approach.
Further disrupting all this confusion is the emergence of the Tea Party movement. What started as a legitimate grass roots expression of justifiable exasperation at Washington’s incompetence and ineffectiveness morphed into a vehicle for bad and irrational behavior. Betraying its constituent-led origins, it has become a marching tool for Fox News, secret donors and backroom wheeler-dealers (a la Karl Rove). It was given voice by self-centered promoters like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, and Jim DeMint. It smartly magnified its perceived power by supporting fringe candidates in Republican primaries in small populated districts where their influence could overwhelm “establishment” Republican candidates. The result has been a slew of embarrassing and uninformed candidates exemplified by Sharon Engle (the Nevada kook) and Christine O’Donnell (the New Jersey witch-wanna-be) along with other such types. These are “against everything” candidates guided by colossal constitutional ignorance who personify how ridiculously low our standards for political qualifications have become. They have polarized the Republican Party even further to the extreme right (could any of us thought that possible?), and driven out some competent people into the “Independent” ranks as “ideologically impure.” If they win anything (questionable), they are likely to be as problematic to Republican party leadership as the “Blue Dog” Democrats are to their party leaders. Besides all the unwarranted news they generate for the media, until they win some significant and contested positions in the general election they still have no credibility. But every election year the media always look for “the underdog” story and give it excessive weight, and this year it’s the Tea Party as underdog.
Running in parallel to the candidates elections are an exhausting number of relevant peripheral currents, such as:
• The collapse of the U.S. Senate as an effective institution, drowning in its own rules of (non-) order, a 60 vote “super-majority” required to do anything in spite of our long-standing legislative principle of “majority rules,” action on any topic subject to the whim of any one senator to put the item “on hold,” and the mere threat of a filibuster sufficient to prevent a vote. Harry Reed needs to be reelected, if for no other reason to keep kooky Sharon Engle out of the Senate, but he is clearly not up to the job of Majority Leader.
• President Obama has a substantial list of successes to point to, but doesn’t seem able to point to them. The economy is no longer in doomsday; our receivership of the auto industry is paying visible dividends in economic stability and providing badly-needed new corporate direction; financial wildcatting has been somewhat reined in; health care made huge progress despite the bad distortion of it; foreign relations are significantly better than in a decade. Other worthwhile initiatives are at least in the pipeline. But however well-intended, Obama abdicated leadership by leaving legislation to be defined and thereby run amuck by Congress (“damn it, you’re the President, not a senator anymore!”), and his vaunted speaking voice escaped him. A clear, focused message on core directions that accurately reflects the mood of the people has been nowhere visible. Frankly, Obama’s first act on Wednesday, November 3rd, should be to fire his entire Communications Office – who seem to consistently live in a fog of surprise at the events around them they did not see coming – and get some competent help who can reconnect his voice with the people.
• Campaign dollars are out of control, projecting the most expensive election in history. This is thanks in no small part to the Supreme’s Court’s preposterous decision that “corporations are people, too” and thereby entitled to freedom of speech. Meg Whitman has already spent $140 million of her own money to win California’s governor race. We can only hope that she, like others, will find that not only can “money not buy you love,” but it can’t necessarily buy political office either.
• If you really want some amusement, look no further than the Democratic candidates to replace Republican senators in South Carolina and North Carolina. The former is a candidate-no-one-ever-heard-of that seems like a walking Tina Fey/Saturday Night Live comedy farce; the latter seems like she just woke up a couple of weeks ago and decided “Maybe I should actually campaign for this office!” Or look at the Alaska senate race where Sarah Palin’s very visible personal grudge campaign against Lisa Murkowski, the former-Republican-now-independent incumbent, is reducing Tea Party candidate Joe Miller to a back seat; it is a political form of a Desperate Housewives soap opera drama.
• Left-wing Democrats are complaining because results these past two years “did not go far enough?” Folks, get off the sidelines, and get real. A lot went your way; why do you think the right wing is now so vocal – because you failed? Do you not get that you won more than many thought possible to win? Even Ted Kennedy, an undisputed champion of universal health care, ultimately admitted he was wrong not to take up President Nixon on his health care proposals in the 1970s “just because they didn’t go far enough.”
So what is a concerned citizen supposed to do in this election? The litany of complaints against the current state of our national government could go on unendingly. The anger of our citizens is entirely justified, even if our specific complaints may differ. Let us trust no politician who promises to “cut spending / reduce the government / balance the budget” without telling us exactly where s/he would cut so we can determine if we really do agree with their easy rhetoric. And let us similarly trust no politician who promises that government can right all wrongs, and can protect us from all our fears and calamities.
Not voting is an abdication of civic responsibility, even if we are hesitant to give the appearance of endorsement to the winners. In the end, we need vote for pussycats even if for no other reason than to keep the mice at bay. General expectations are that 2011-2012 will be a non-event for Congressional accomplishments, as gridlock completely takes over and Republican presidential wanna-bes come out swinging for 2012. So we need to be ready, to find our own real voice, and to figure out the actions that we are called upon to take to restore honor, direction, integrity and promise to this great country. Enough is enough of this political gamesmanship at our expense. As has been said, in the end we ultimately get only the government that we work for and deserve. What shall that be?
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