Election 2012 - The Political Parties

Almost 1½ years after the pre-primary Republican campaign began, and nearly five months of de facto general election campaigning between each of the “presumptive” candidates, Republicans and Democrats finally have their official candidates for president.  The farcical, surreal, but always entertaining comedy that was the Republican primary season is behind us.  In exchange is the audio torture of hundreds of millions of dollars spent on negative advertising and untruths to buy the general election for one of the candidates.  At a time of many new emerging democracies across the globe, we the creators of “popular self-government” are certainly proving to be a lousy role model for these global transitions in government.

Political parties were never envisioned by the writers of our Constitution.  Certainly there were deep divisions of strongly-voiced opinions among those Founders.  But they did not foresee those divisions manifested into formal organizations of political operations.  Organizations that function as a virtual 4^th branch of government, but were never defined or sanctioned in the Constitution.  But this sub-government defines the reality and functioning of our government as much or almost more than the three branches that are legally constituted – much to the chagrin of our early leaders.  As George Washington stated in his Farewell Address, “[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.  It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

In the 150 years since the Civil War, the Republican and Democratic parties have thoroughly dominated our elections (with some occasional short-lived 3^rd-party attempts).  For the first 70 years of this period the Republicans held a virtual lock on the government.  Then three successive presidents in the Roaring Twenties oversaw the country’s collapse into its worst economic depression and ushered in 12 years of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt.  Thereafter in post-WWII modern America, Americans have emphasized “balance” in their voting, automatically ceding their ballots to neither party: 6 Democratic presidents accumulating 32 years in the White House; 6 Republican presidents accumulating 36 years.  One might conclude that Americans are a fickle lot, or instead that they simply like keeping both parties in check.

Over time, each party has changed its political posture in many ways, even while they retain their classic brands of “Republicans for the rich businessman” and “Democrats for the disadvantaged little guy.”  Republicans freed the slaves and guaranteed voting rights to blacks and women by constitutional amendments, while Southern Democrats sought to extend de facto slavery.  Yet today’s Republicans are shamelessly attempting to block eligible voters from voting, while Democrats are resisting these efforts.  Republicans fought a war 150 years ago to hold the Union together against Southern Democrat attempts at secession; today’s Republicans speak incessantly in favor of “states’ rights.”  Corporate and workplace regulation and anti-monopoly laws were instituted by Republican presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft, and environmental regulations were greatly expanded by Richard Nixon.  Today’s Republicans argue that deregulation is the savior step for economic recovery, even as stories of corporate corruption or dangers to the American public are reported weekly.  Republicans continually vocalize about the interference of “big government,” yet it is today’s Democrats who are fighting against laws invading our privacy and encroaching against our civil liberties.  And amidst all the pontificating about financial responsibility, it was the three Republican presidents starting with Ronald Reagan who exploded our deficit spending and national debt – leading us into this current greatest of recessions.

President Obama is absolutely correct that Election 2012 represents as distinctive a political choice as we have seen in decades.  A choice not just for president and vice president, but for state and local governments and decisions on how we choose to live our lives.  As much as Mitt Romney would like to talk only about jobs and the economy, the Republican ascendancy of 2010 has wreaked huge upheavals in the states with assaults on voting rights and redistricting, marital rights, religious rights, public education, and government infrastructure and services – all hidden under the umbrella of supposed “financial reform.”  Financial reform is needed, yes.  But that should not be used to hide a radical social agenda that marches us backward from being a progressive, just, opportunistic, and safe society in the 21^st century.  As president-wanna-be Newt Gingrich observed, Americans dislike radical social engineering from the right as much as they dislike it from the left.

For me personally, when I look at the Republican Party of today, all of these “policy” issues pale next to one overriding issue.  Democrats are often rightly accused of bad messaging skills, undisciplined strategizing, over-reach and excess in government programs, and a knee-jerk instinct for a government response to solve virtually all economic and social shortcomings.  But over these last four years, at a time of severe economic and human crisis potentially just one step away from a free-fall collapse, at least they have tried to DO something.  Because some significant things have needed to be done, and done quickly, with the patience to allow those somethings to bear long-term fruit.  In these moments of universal need, affecting in one way or another Americans of all income levels and situations, a collective response has been needed for the collective good.  But instead, today’s Republican Party chose to turn its back on its proud traditions and to ignore the needs of the American public.  It decided to simply become the “party against” for the sole objective of just being against.  Politics and a grab for political power, wrapped in a willingness to say anything regardless of its truth, has been the openly declared priority of this Party.  Even the term “conservative” has been tossed upside down to become something that would be unfathomable to the conservative heritage of Goldwater and Reagan.

That decision to conduct a self-serving revolt instead of to achieve solutions for the American people has been a total breach of public trust and a violation of ethical responsibility.  For that failure to put the American people first, forgiveness is not yet warranted.  But accountability is demanded now.

“If I could not go to heaven but with a (political) party, I would not go there at all.”  (Thomas Jefferson)

The Arab Summer

The past few weeks, Americans have been shocked by a wave of anti-American demonstrations erupting unexpectedly in a number of countries across North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.  Most Americans have been supportive of the “Arab Spring” upheavals against ruling dictators that have occurred over the past 21 months.  But these recent coinciding events have left many, as Secretary of State Clinton said, “trying to make sense of the senseless.”  And these events have sowed potential seeds across America for more indiscriminate anger and prejudice against Muslims in general.

Such seedings are unwarranted.  When the American Embassy in Cairo discovered the existence of an inflammatory anti-Muslim YouTube video, it quickly issued a statement (before any violence had occurred) that said simply (and correctly) that “[we] condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”  Mitt Romney alternately made an ill-informed and ill-advised political criticism in the wake of the subsequent demonstrations that “an apology for American values is never the right course.”

I have no idea what “American values” Mr. Romney was referring to in his campaign statement.  Or what “apology” he thinks was even made.  I know that I value very much the freedom of everyone to practice their religion of choice without interference, obstruction or denigration.  I value that each person is equal in the law and in God’s eyes, and thereby deserves respect as a valued human being.  I know I value freedom of speech, but accept that this freedom is limited by the responsibility to avoid harming others.  These are the very values implicit in our government’s statements.  Which of these values would Mr. Romney have us retract?

As for making an apology, apologies are perhaps due to much of the Muslim world by the Western powers.  We have collectively treated Islam and its Muslim followers with unwarranted contempt and disdain for a thousand years.  Even though their Koran calls for worshiping the same God as Jews and Christians; treats the Jewish and Christian teachings as righteous and from God; commands that Jews and Christians who faithfully adhere to their religious teachings are to be respected and honored – Christians have labeled Muslims as “the infidels” for a millennium.  Christians fought religious Crusades against the Muslims for two hundred years.  In the last 100 years following World War I, the West has sought to hold the Arab/Muslim communities as virtual economic and political hostages – a subservience Western countries would never tolerate.  We have exploited their wealth (mainly oil) until countries have gradually regained control over their own resources.  We have covertly overthrown legitimate popular governments when they refused to follow our direction.  We supported cruel dictators with arms and dollars – arms and dollars used to suppress their populations and keep them poor and un-empowered – and then looked away as long as they sided with us instead of Russia.

Hillary Clinton stated that “America had nothing to do with the making of this [YouTube] film.”  Americans understand full well that this film is protected by our First Amendment right of freedom of speech.  But we are speaking that distinction to millions of people who have never known freedom of speech, i.e. the freedom to speak separately and independently from one’s government.  How can we expect these masses to understand such a fine distinction about an individual right that has been completely outside of their own personal and cultural experience?

We pontificate about the supposed “cultural and educational backwardness” of many Muslim societies, lumping all Muslims and Muslim-dominated countries together as if one homogeneous peoples.  But we skip over the excessive functional illiteracy still present in America.  We decry the stories we hear of Muslim family violence, but domestic violence inexplicably rages every day in America.  We protest the limited rights of Muslim women, but our Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, and many Evangelical and other religious branches continue to operate on a male-dominated / female-subservient inequality in faith and family.  American hate groups claiming to be Christians act in terrorist ways against their fellow citizens of different color, faiths, and lifestyles; both good Christians and good Muslims each get lumped together with the aberrational thugs in their midst.  American political power and economic wealth is increasingly weighted to only a select few businesspeople, politicians, and clergy in a hierarchy not unlike many Middle East countries.  Yet most Americans never mentioned in our headlines go about their daily lives honestly and law-abidingly while trying to be helpful to others, horrified by our own violence against each other – just as we see with people across the Muslim world.  Jesus’ guidance to “judge not lest you also be judged” is highly applicable here.

We Americans have so much to be proud of about this country and our efforts to try to make lives better and more just.  But an honest look in the mirror of self-examination would show us many reasons for overseas Muslims to rightly resent us even as they also admire us for other reasons.  Even our support for their freedom revolutions has been limited by many to “as long as they believe and act like us.”  After centuries of such attitudes and treatment toward these fellow men and women, we should not be surprised at their short fuses over what we may see as insignificant circumstances.  When we “walk around in another’s [Muslim] shoes,” supposedly simple rights and wrongs begin to look a whole lot less simple.  It is like continuing family tensions over long-ago hurts, rubbed raw over years of neglect alternated with exacerbative needling, exploding in a disproportionate argument at a suddenly unexpected moment.  We fear the latent anger of the beast we helped to create.  We need only to look at our own history of attitudes and conduct toward African-Americans and Native-Americans to see the truth of this.

We need to recognize that a bond between American and Muslim cultures and countries must come from people connecting directly with people; observing their right to self-determination over their own affairs; taking time to truly understand the great religion of Islam and respecting their choice of faith; and helping to end Muslim poverty, desperation and hopelessness in favor of a better life.  The same things that American people seek.  We who barely understand how differently people think and live from one region of America to another should remember that Cairo, Egypt is not Cairo, Illinois.  Given that most Americans have never set foot in a Muslim country, we can barely begin to fathom how extraordinarily different their daily life is than in America.

We often forget that our American Revolutionary War took eight years to complete, resulting in a confederative government of thirteen individual states (“tribes”) barely able to work together or collectively decide anything, disrespected and ridiculed by the international community.  A government so weak that four years after the War’s end its potential collapse pushed our Founders into a Constitutional Convention to finally create this strong central government that has now stood for 225 years.  As the Arab Spring moves into the Arab Summer of new governance, we need to extend the same understanding and patience to these various Muslim communities as was required in establishing our new country.

As John McCain eloquently stated, “I know many Americans may feel a temptation … to distance ourselves from people and events in Libya, and Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East … We were right to take the side of the Libyan people, and others in the region who share their peaceful aspiration.  And we would be gravely mistaken to walk away from them now.  To do so would only be a betrayal of everything that [Ambassador] Chris Stevens and his colleagues believed in and ultimately gave their lives for, but it would also be a betrayal of America’s highest values and our own enduring national interest in supporting people in the Middle East who want to live in peace and freedom.”  Those are the true American values that need no apology.

The Truth Of Lying

Awhile back, standing in the well of the Senate while proposing to eliminate government funding to Planned Parenthood, Senator John Kyle (R-AZ) stated, “90% of Planned Parenthood’s funding goes toward providing abortion services.”  In fact, the percentage was @10% or less.  Nevertheless, when challenged about this egregious error of fact, Kyle released a now-infamous reply that “what I said was not intended to be a factual statement.”  Somehow that rationale was supposed to excuse his glaring lie.

Shortly after Paul Ryan gave his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee for Vice President – a speech riddled with false statements – former mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to explain away those errors in an interview by saying, “When someone gives a speech, not every fact is 100% accurate.”  I guess this includes when someone gives his/her speech of their lifetime for the history books for which they had weeks to prepare.  (Versus a meandering off-the-cuff ad lib address, a la Clint Eastwood.)  Funny, I always thought a “fact” less than 100% accurate was no longer a fact.

We all understand that at times in political campaigns truths will compromised, context will be omitted, and logic will be stretched beyond recognition.  That is a shame, because it is during political campaigns that the public is most often paying attention to the issues of governance, and good information on which to make substantive decisions is critically needed.  We accept this “stretching” of truths, intended to create an electoral advantage, as just another one of our sad realities of life.  Just as we discount much of the other advertising that we hear about the many evils of “Brand X.”

But when a politician seeks to unabashedly lie about things, knowingly ignoring today’s realities of videotape, fact-checking researchers and internet information sharing, it shows either a woeful ignorance of today’s media world and/or a shortage of character and a willingness to deceive that insults the public trust.  Such is the case with Mr. Ryan’s speech, for which he has been appropriately called out.  For example:

• Ryan accused President Obama of failing to deliver on a presidential promise to prevent the closing of a GM plant in Ryan’s home state.  Except that no such promise was made, and the plant’s closing was announced and competed all within George W. Bush’s presidency.
• Ryan claimed that Obama has removed the work requirement within welfare programs that was adopted in the Bill Clinton years.  Not at all true, as all responsible news media (and Clinton himself) have confirmed.
• Ryan has accused Obama of not supporting the Simpson-Bowles deficit report that Obama had commissioned.  But Mr. Ryan failed to mention that he was a member of that same Commission, voted against its findings and recommendations, and refused to allow it to be brought up and considered in his House budget committee.
• Ryan has accused Obama of taking $716 billion out of the Medicare program “to pay for Obamacare.”  He left out that this reduction was based on reduced payments to health care providers, not Medicare enrollees, based upon expected productivity and other gains.  And Ryan pointedly failed to mention that he has also proposed the same transfer in his latest House budget proposal.
• Finally, Ryan has laid responsibility for America’s credit downgrade solely on Obama, omitting that he himself was one of the leaders of House Republicans in creating the debt/budget standoff of a year ago. It was the only time that the raising of the debt ceiling and the protecting of our collective credit rating had been held hostage by Congress under any Republican or Democratic president.

The selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate has been a curious story unto itself.  Ryan is certainly the darling of the conservative Right for his willingness to outspokenly go out on a limb without apologies in support of drastically reducing government programs and services.  And make no mistake: budget cuts are exactly that – reduced dollars going into the hands of business people and consumers (and voters).  Americans who love the idea of lower taxes and reduced spending also want NO reduction in the services, business contracts, and grant monies that now come to them.

The reality is that Paul Ryan’s role to Mitt Romney in 2012 is the same as Sarah Palin’s was to John McCain in 2008 – but with the major difference that Paul Ryan has both intelligence and substance.  Nevertheless, like Ms. Palin, Ryan is there to provide political energy and “star power” in support of the nominee on top who has minimal such attractions.  He is there to shore up support from a party base that fundamentally distrusts the conservative credentials of their top-of-the-ticket nominee.  Ryan is a man with a detailed track record of significant conservative proposals.  But having made Ryan his appointee, Romney now spends his time disavowing those same proposals.  And Mr. Ryan now no longer speaks of those proposals or his convictions in order to hide the differences between the two men.  It is as if those ideas that are required to convince the Republican base are anathema to moderate and independent Americans who will ultimately decide the election winner.  So why would Romney select Ryan as his choice in the first place, only to then quietly disavow what Ryan stands for?  And why would Ryan choose to give up the very independence and honest-speaking position that endeared him to his followers in the first place?  The attraction to power can certainly do harsh things to one’s character.

We all understand the “attack dog” role of a Vice Presidential nominee.  And we understand the stretching of truths that occurs in political campaigns.  But Americans are struggling right now, painfully trying to figure out the next step in their individual and collective future.  People need solid and truthful information to answer their difficult questions.  Questions that are actually of far greater importance than who will be the winners and losers in November’s election.  There are political candidates who choose to cross a fine but critical line of outright lying to the American people in a deliberate attempt to hide truth for political gain.  Such unethical conduct makes it more difficult for all of us to intelligently and accurately find our way.  Perhaps we should just shrug our shoulders and dismiss all of this as simply “campaign rhetoric.”  But if a person – regardless of their political party or viewpoints – chooses to step across that ethical line as a candidate, should we not then assume that they will believe that that choice of action is politically permissible?  And that as an elected official they will then continue that pattern of lying to the public?

First Amendment Chicken Sandwiches

By all accounts, S. Truett Cathy has been a very successful businessman and entrepreneur.  Years ago he decided to offer an alternative to the usual fast food business by serving chicken exclusively instead of the omni-present beef hamburger.  And so Chick-Fil-A was born in Atlanta in 1967.

Cathy’s restaurants are notable for (as fast food goes) excellent quality from good ingredients; unfailingly cheerful, prompt, and eager-to-please staff; good, adult onsite local management; orders brought to the table along with a strolling staff member continually offering free drink refills; and buildings kept impeccably clean.  It is an experience replicated in virtually every outlet I have visited.  It is exactly the first-class operation (within its fast-food niche) that American ingenuity can deliver and the American people should support so as to encourage good corporate conduct and customer service.

In addition to his business skills, Mr. Cathy is also a very fundamentally religious man.  His expectations of employee conduct are reputed to be very high; he generously rewards in return; and he closes all of his restaurants on Sunday to allow his people a day of rest away from work and the opportunity to share in their own observance of the Sabbath.  Sunday closing is almost unheard of any more, particularly in the restaurant business.  In some ways it is nice to see a return to that quiet time 50 years ago when people did not need to shop seven days/week and twenty-four hours/day.  A time when people could stop the endless pursuit of profit and labor for at least one day of recuperation, recreation and reflection.  Perhaps surprisingly, that one day of closing does not seem to have affected Chick-Fil-A’s financial statements in any serious way.

S. Truett Cathy remains as Chairman and CEO of Chick-Fil-A, while daily operation of the corporation has now been passed to his son, Dan Cathy, as President and COO.  A few weeks ago in a television interview, Dan Cathy expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage.  He went on to say that “I think we are inviting God’s judgment as a nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you what constitutes a marriage.’”  Why Dan Cathy chose to speak out in this controversial topic, having little or no special insight or contribution to add to the topic, is unclear.  But as to be expected in this age of instantaneous dissemination and responding commentary, his comments “went viral” all over the Internet and broadcast airwaves.  The gay/lesbian community and various liberal commentators denounced his comments, and many called for a boycott of Chick-Fil-A.  Fox commentator/former Governor Mike Huckabee off-handily proposed an eat-in day as a show of support to Chick-Fil-A, and hundreds of thousands subsequently lined up at some of the establishments.  Videos showed some Cathy protestors trying to inappropriately engage Chick-Fil-A staff into the debate and hold them guilty-by-association.  Yet it is safe to say that a smiling 17-year-old high schooler sitting in the drive-through window making $7/hour is hardly going to alter this political/social discourse or change Mr. Cathy’s thinking.

My support for same-sex marriage is likely well known by my readers.  (See an extensive discussion on the topic in my blog of 12/15/2008.)  I am in full disagreement with Mr. Cathy’s opinion and his basis for it.  I am also an advocate and practitioner of using my purchasing dollar to try to influence corporate conduct.  (I still avoid Exxon gas due to the Exxon-Valdez incident over two decades ago!)  So my immediate reaction was to instinctively join the boycotters and avoid any Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in my future.  But the more I continued to think about it, I have hesitated.

There are many people in this country who have opinions I disagree with, at times very strongly.  And certainly vice-versa.  But the bigger problem we have in America right now is not one of our disagreements, but our inability to work through these in a civil and productive way to the benefit of the many.  We simply argue, shout louder, move further and further apart, and seek to defeat each other at all costs any way we can.  Nobody gets anything instead of many getting something.  Social and economic progress does not move.

 I do not agree with Mr. Cathy’s views.  But in America our First Amendment protects each of us to hold and speak whatever views we have; we must respect that right in others if we are to have that right in turn for our own beliefs.  So I would be happy to sit quietly with Mr. Cathy and have a civil discussion of our disagreements to see what we might be able to learn from each other.  But it is when one moves from thoughts to actions that consequences are to be truly measured.  In that regard I think the Cathys run an excellent business in a manner I wish more businesses would follow.  To my knowledge, there has been no report of a gay or lesbian (either married or single) being refused employment or fired from a Chick-Fil-A establishment, or a customer being turned away, solely due to their sexual identity.  However abhorrent Dan Cathy’s views may be to me, it does not appear that those views have permeated into his corporation’s policies and practices.  And, to my somewhat surprise, that has come to make a significant distinction to me.

So I will continue to protest Mr. Cathy’s views whenever and however possible.  Nevertheless, I choose not to penalize his company and its many good employees as long as in their actions they remain independent of those views.  But let me be clear: the minute I may hear of a confirmed report of any such discrimination occurring in the business place, I will join such a boycott and return all of my dollars to the hamburger world without hesitation.

The older I get, and the more experiences that I have with tough ethical situations, the blacks-and-whites of my values and principles seem to become more clear.  But the clarity of the right course of action to take in consideration of all those involved becomes more gray, more nuanced.  Maybe, in one ideal world, that hesitation should not be.  But hopefully it simply reflects a greater willingness to pause in reflection, work through a more thoughtful reasoning, and make a small personal step towards achieving greater wisdom.  Our hardest decisions never come easily.

It Cannot Happen In America - Again

On February 9, 1950, a little-known and undistinguished senator from Wisconsin gave a luncheon speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.  In that speech, Joe McCarthy waived a sheet of paper in the air that he claimed listed 205 people working in the U.S. Department of State that were supposedly members of the Communist Party.  But McCarthy actually showed that piece of paper to no one.  Thus began a four-year assault on the character and reputations of countless individuals in the court of public opinion, but which produced no legal convictions of criminal or treasonable activity whatsoever.

Russia, our World War II ally, had become America’s principal peacetime foe.  Their postwar conduct internationally had led to a national paranoia that believed Communist supporters and spies were everywhere, a suspicious climate fueled by self-promoting politicians and sensational elements of the news media.  In this setting, Joe McCarthy did not invent “Congressional terrorism,” an assault on Constitutional liberties perpetrated by Congresspersons undeserving of their office.  That beginning is more properly attributed to the House Un-American Activities Committee of the late 1940s, with their attempt to decry any perceived lack of patriotism as un-American if not treasonable.  But Joe McCarthy raised such political terrorism to a new height and gave it a human face.  Virtually no one in power spoke out against McCarthy, and he raged through the shreds of our Constitution for four years until his endless one-note stream of unsubstantiated accusations finally caught up with him.  After the public finally tired and turned on McCarthy, his Senate colleagues voted to “condemn” him after his years of unrestricted rampage.  People had said that the trampling of the Constitution could not happen in America, that people’s right to innocence until proven otherwise was our fundamental right never to be denied.  But it did happen in America, and “McCarthyism” would forever after define political demagoguery by innuendo, smear, and unproven questions of one’s patriotism.

Fast forward to 2012.  In July, Representative Michele Bachman of Minnesota and four other Republican Congressmen (from Arizona, Texas, Florida and Georgia) sent letters to government agencies demanding an investigation into a supposed “subversive infiltration of our government” by the Muslim Brotherhood.  Singled out in these allegations were charges directed towards one Huma Abedin, a Muslim-American with broad bipartisan support who serves as Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  No details, no examples, no documentation, no substantiation of this supposed infiltration were offered by any of the Congresspersons.  Ms. Bachman, who has a long and documented history of publicly displaying an absence of concern about facts, history or substance – combined with an apparent willingness to say anything about anything to garner political attention – once again offered nothing to support her outrageous accusations.

This time, however, condemnation was quick from bipartisan quarters at high levels of visibility.  Secretary Clinton said that claims of Ms. Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood “have no place in our politics.”  Senator John McCain called the accusations “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman.”  House Speaker John Boehner called the accusers’ charges “pretty dangerous.”  And Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, while not condemning Bachman & Company outright, had previously stated that “It is absolutely wrong to stereotype or look badly at anyone because of their religion.  It is a bad thing to look at a Muslim and think bad things.”  Since originally sending these letters, these five Congresspersons have since been notably silent.  No apology offered, but no further press for their dubious case.

In the 1950s, Communism and the seeing of Communists in every alleyway was the tool of the demagogue.  Innocent people who had identified with peace movements and economic communism decades before – all then fully legal activities – were hounded from their livelihoods for no ethical or legal reason.  It was made all possible out of public fear and political opportunism.

Today, the scapegoat is the Muslim, including our bona-fide Muslim-AMERICANS.  Like “Communism” in the 1950s, “Muslim” is the fear word towards which people react with minimal-to-no knowledge of substance.  And there appears to be no end to the people willing to aggravate and trade on that public fear.  People willing to strike out against people who have done nothing more than choose to be different from their accusers.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the actual Muslim Brotherhood organization is trying with their other countrymen to bring order and a new form of government to a country dominated by military dictators (with U.S. assistance) for the last sixty years.  A ranking leader of the organization was asked about the Brotherhood’s infiltration of the U.S. government.  The spokesperson, Ibrahim ali Iraqi, responded by saying, “The Muslim Brotherhood cannot even penetrate the Egyptian government!”  So much for a fearsome enemy, who has much bigger problems on their hands right now.

Two weeks ago, a member of America’s domestic white supremacy movement walked into a Sikh temple in Wisconsin just before the beginning of Sunday services.  The Sikhs are a religious group from India who believe devotedly in peace, social justice for all, in the name of one God.  Into this peaceful setting, this gunman massacred six defenseless worshipers before killing himself after being wounded by police.  His particular reason for selecting this Sikh temple to vent his rage is still unknown.

Given the pattern of exploited hate that we have experienced in this country, where should we in fact be looking to find the greatest threat to our country?  The threat to our best values, and our promise of freedom and equality for all, no matter our differences?

Public Dis-Unions

Recently, the political eyes of the country were turned towards the state of Wisconsin.  Wisconsin is a state with a long tradition of political activism supporting working Americans.  In this instance, the draw was the grass-roots effort to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker due to his aggressive tactics of budget cutting by ending public union bargaining rights.  It has been a contentious year in Wisconsin from this political turmoil, and the Lt. Governor and four state senators were also included in the recall effort.  Walker won the recall and retained his seat by a comfortable margin – only the 3^rd governor nationally to be subject to a recall and the only one to hold onto his chair.

In the aftermath assessments of the outcome, attention focused on a) how and why Walker won in spite of the strong emotional push against him, and b) why almost a third of “union households” voted for him in spite of their union affiliation.  MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz, an ardent working-class supporter and strong critic of Walker, wondered aloud, “Explain to me how union workers could vote for this guy.  I don’t get this.”  From my distant observation, there are two factors at work here: 1) political tactics, and 2) perceptions of unions.

Politically, millions of dollars of out-of-state money poured into Walker to support his campaign and make a political impact nationally.  Walker outspent his Democratic opponent $30 million to $4 million, a 7-1 advantage.  In Wisconsin, we have now seen the first real example of the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” unfortunate decision allowing for unlimited spending by corporations and secret political groups.  Then in a tactical mistake, Democrats nominated to replace Walker their gubernatorial candidate who had already run in 2010 and lost against Walker.  In effect, the Democrats took a hot, potentially winnable election issue, and ran again the same losing candidate.  The issue needed a fresh face, a fresh spokesperson.  Instead, the race came off not looking like a referendum on public unions and their rights, but simply a “sour grapes” attempted rerun of the 2010 election by the “same ol’ pol.”  Voters do not like reruns.  (Nationally, only Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon came back from losses to subsequently win the presidency.)  The result was that Walker won by virtually the same margin of victory as before.  It was in fact just a rerun.  Once again as they have so many times before, the Republicans proved to be the better campaign strategists.

Then there was the core galvanizing issue of the public unions and their bargaining rights.  Walker had painted the unions as a prime culprit in overly-bloated state and municipal budgets.  But he was tactically smart by omitting the police and fire fighter unions – the ones who “protect and serve us” – from his budget-cutting and anti-union moves.  That somewhat neutralized a key constituent group and kept many of them out of the ranks of protest.  Which in turn left government administrators, teachers and their support personnel, and the many other public service employees as the prime budget targets.

American labor unions have had a long and proud history of fighting for better working conditions and fairer employment practices.  They have served as a needed counterweight to those managers who see employees as simply another expense line item diminishing potential profit or cost savings.  Through the middle of the 20^th Century, unions enjoyed organizational strength and high membership, and generally had the support of the public.  But in the 1950s/1960s, revelations of corruption, Mafia connections, self-promoting unions leaders acting at the disservice of their members, and the large growth of “white collar” (i.e. non-union) jobs caused a progressive decline in union membership and support.  Today, the Department of Labor estimates that 12% of workers nationally are unionized.  But union membership in private industry is only around 7%, while an estimated 36% of public employees are unionized.

Most of the public now see labor unions as an anachronistic relic providing little benefit to workers or to the public.  Job protection and the guarantee of continuous employment at any cost have seemingly become the only priorities for today’s union leaders.  Accurately or unfairly, many workers battered by our economic downturn see public employees as overly protected from the realities of the workplace, enjoying protections not available to those who pay their salaries through their taxes.  And they see government and schools not delivering on their promises and responsibilities, and public workers not performing up to expectations.  When people see non-needed jobs being filled, and confirmed non-performing employees staying on the payroll, these antagonisms grow worse.  Even from private industry union members frustrated with their public counterparts.  The result of this sense of public workers being unaccountable for their performance is an increasingly angry and unsupportive private sector that unfairly but understandably casts its complaints on the whole of these public professions – to the demoralization of the many good public employees who do work hard every day and give great value to their constituents.

Teachers, clerical workers, professional technicians, maintenance and road workers all have good stories to tell that are worthy of our recognition.  And given the management callousness and arrogance that we still see too often today, a counterbalance to management excess is certainly still needed.  But American labor unions are failing badly in this mission, thereby ceding most of their balancing functions to the government through labor laws and regulations governing employment conduct.

Public workers are far more dependent on public goodwill to survive than are private employees.  Until public workers and their unions begin to take leadership in solving our many problems instead of being seen as simply reactionary and obstructive to proposed solutions, and higher wages and absolute job security stop being the only goal heard from union leaders, that needed public support will continue to decline.  Trying to hold on to a past is not leadership, and today it is leadership that is sorely needed in America.  It is union members themselves who need to change what it means to be a union member within a collective union organization.  That change must come from within the ranks.  If unions, particularly public service unions, do not change, the world will continue to change around them without their input, and they will continue their slide towards irrelevance.

There are many lessons to be learned from Wisconsin.  And for better or for worse, we should expect to see many of those lessons applied in this coming fall’s elections.

The War On ––– Anything

Most Americans would likely agree with the statement that we are a peace-loving people, not a militaristic one.  It is also likely that people of many other nations would disagree with our self-assessment based upon their own experience with us.  Often those two differing views come from two different perceptions and two different interpretations of the same event as seen through two different sets of eyes perceiving two very different motivations for our actions.

It is certainly true that Americans seem continually attracted to being in a state of war, whether a physical or rhetorical one.  In our post-World War II era, we have sent our troops into harm’s way under every president except Eisenhower, Kennedy and Carter, so our willingness to use military power in a “hot” conflict is a bipartisan one.  We have used those troops all over the world, so our willingness is also generally unlimited by geography.  When hot wars were insufficient, a 40-year “cold war” kept us in a quasi-state of perpetual conflict, leading to building missile armaments sufficient to wipe out the planet in mere minutes.  It kept us in a constant state of fear that emphasized war as the primary instrument to overcome those who caused our fear.

Politically and socially, we have needed a similar state of warfare to frame our internal discussions and mass movements.  We declare a war on various social ills in order to give it sufficient gravitas and priority so as to marshal commitment, resources and popular enthusiasm to that cause.  We had Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”  Judging by all of the poverty still around us, one might conclude this to have been a lost war.  Yet judging by the changes in circumstances brought to many of the disadvantaged over the years, perhaps some individual battlefront victories were won.

We had Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs.”  Clearly not enough people “just said no” to drugs as his wife Nancy asked of us.  That war has accomplished seemingly little over the long haul given the billions of dollars invested.

Fox News generated an accusation of a “War on Christmas” a few years ago.  It came about because people felt they had a right (if not an obligation) to wish everyone in sight a “Merry Christmas” whether they were Christians (or Christmas observers) or not.  Somehow, wishing everyone a “Happy Holiday” in keeping with each person’s individual faith was seen as a bad thing to do.  Yet once upon a time we just called that common courtesy.

Similarly comes the “War on Religion.”  This war is generally espoused by the religious right and Catholic church leaders.  It reflects supposed limits being placed upon their ability to say and do anything anywhere they wish in the name of exercising their religious rights; or to compete and service the public (in schools, hospitals, publishing, etc.) but with special non-competition rules or exemptions applied to them.  It is a religious exercise increasingly occurring in the public arena and the legislative halls.  Yet in the perverse inverse logic that today passes for public and political discussion in America, the very people who claim to be the victims of this war are in fact the very aggressors themselves.  It is their personal and legal attacks against the beliefs of other faiths, and their attempted religious domination over other citizens, that fuels this conflict.  These rightist elements have met their enemy, and the face of that enemy is in their mirrors.

Ditto the “War on Marriage” and the “War on Family.”  I know of no gay or lesbian marriage that has thereby prevented a man and a woman from having a traditional marriage ceremony.  I know of no same-sex marriage that has thereby forced a male/female marriage to be dissolved.  I know of no woman choosing an abortion that has thereby prevented another woman from having her own baby.  I know of no prayers not said in our public schools that were thereby prevented from being said in the home at the dinner table or in the halls of our churches, synagogues or mosques.  What others may say or do does not stop nor define who I am.

Most recently, we now have “The War on Women.”  Women are being attacked by: trivializing their legitimate concerns; minimizing the meaningfulness of the job of motherhood; continuing to dispute the reality of unequal pay for equal work; and equating birth control to “slut-hood.”  These comments – echoing debates thought long settled way back in the 1970s – come from all ends of the political spectrum.  It is hard to tell aggressor from victim because everyone accuses everyone else of starting this war.  Soccer moms yield to momma grizzlies who yield to …?  In the end, all women get marginalized and patronized by political opportunism.

War is not a pretty thing, but it is a very serious thing.  After thousands of years of civilization’s advances, we should be rid of it by now.  But we are not.  It remains a fact and necessity of life, though best used very sparingly.  We have fought some wars with a very worthwhile purpose, and others not so worthwhile.  We have had many American men and women in uniform who have performed incredible acts of wisdom, courage, inventiveness, and sacrifice.  People whose names we know, and many more we have never known, identified in public anonymity only to family and close friends.  They are people who have witnessed unspeakable horrors and cruelty beyond what humans should be subject to.  This is what “war” truly means.

When we play at war, or convert a cause or ambition or crusade into a “War on …” in order to dream up support and energy, we thereby trivialize and disrespect those who fight our real wars.  Such casual use of “war” as a political slogan also makes us far too casual about committing young men and women into attacks from real bullets rather than just listening to words hurled back and forth.

There are serious needs to address in this country, and we are certainly highly divided about what these needs are and how to resolve them.  But as bitterly as we may continue to yell at each other, we are not in a real war with each other.  At least not yet, even though it too often feels like we could descend into that state with each senseless shooting that occurs.  But let us not hurry such a descent any more or sooner than necessary.  If we keep declaring war too easily on every thing we disagree with, we may wake up some morning to find that we have gotten exactly what we asked for.  And our then-confused military will not know who to defend.