Headline Buffet

Some general observations on a few of the stories of the day …

Ted Cruz is the first Republican to formally declare his candidacy for President.  His platform: repeal “every word” of Obamacare; eliminate the IRS; prevent same-sex marriage.  Really?  His first action after announcing was to go out and hustle for campaign money.  His second action was to sign up for Obamacare, since he lost his family plan coverage when his wife quit her high-paying Wall Street executive job to join his campaign.  Good thing he now has a coverage option that did not exist pre-Obamacare to help him out of his quandary.  He is clearly a man for his time – if the time were 1916.  Chance of becoming President: nil.   Chance of getting the Republican nomination: quite plausible.  He will certainly make the Republican primary season mind-numbingly crazy but highly entertaining to watch.

Donald Trump announced the formation of his “exploratory committee” to consider running.  Trump is the best self-promoter around of The Donald, the P.T. Barnum fraud of our times.  The only question is – why does the media, or the American public, care one twit about anything he has to say, given that his words are all a put-on of no real importance.  He would have made Andy Kaufman, a comic master of the put-on, proud.

Speaking of Ted Cruz: he was born in Canada to a Cuban father escaping the Castro government and an American mother (of Irish descent).  Sounds pretty much like Barack Obama’s birth story – except Obama was born in an American state.  So now where are all “the birthers” who were supposedly so intent on protecting the presidency from “foreigners”?  Was it really, as we long suspected, just about Obama himself?  And why is Cruz, of all people, so stubbornly against immigration?

Benjamin Netanyahu was recently reelected prime minister of Israel.  Say good-by to any peace progress in the Middle East for yet another six more years.  We are now in our seventh decade of conflict in that area.  Fear wins elections, and not just in America.  Where are Anwar Sadat and Meacham Began when we really need them?

According to a recent Gallup poll, less than 40% of Americans approve of the Democratic Party.  And less than 40% of Americans approve of the Republican Party.  It is the first time in Gallup’s polling history that both parties have been less than 40% at the same time.  Combined with a Congressional approval rating that is consistently less than 20%, does anyone think that there is anyone who knows how to run this country anymore?

If we really want to make Congress more effective, there is one simple step we could take that would help.  Require all confirmation votes, and all sections of and amendments to any legislation, be germane to the core topic.  Quit tacking on “extraneous issues” to pending matters, and just vote yea/nea on the issue’s merits.  Case in point: holding up confirmation of the current nominee for Attorney General deemed “eminently qualified” by all concerned until the overwhelmingly bi-partisan-supported renewal of the Violence Against Women Act is passed, which is being held up over anti-abortion amendments that were quietly snuck into the bill.  Congress insists on wasting time on political maneuvering and trickery instead of getting things done.  For which the justifiably cynical American public has little patience left.

Ever notice that the loudest protests against the Affordable Care Act come from people who already have medical insurance coverage?

Indiana just passed a new law protecting its citizens from lawsuits if they refuse to provide commercial services due to their personal “religious convictions.”  It was signed by Governor Mike Pence who inexplicably claimed that, “If this bill were about discrimination I would not have signed it.”  The provocation for this bill was towards gays and lesbians, but the wording effectively allows people to pick and choose services towards ANY group and blame it on their religious beliefs.  If Indiana needs some display signs to help enforce this new law, they can probably find plenty to reuse lying in basements and dust bins throughout the South saying “Whites Only” or “Colored Only.”  Or the “Irish Need Not Apply” signs left over in Boston.  Just some simple spray can editing would easily bring them up to date.  And here I thought that all of those old “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” signs were actually eliminated 50 years ago.  Back when African-American segregation was claimed to be justified as “God’s Will” because “God did not intend the intermingling of the races.”  Religious exemptions belong in our churches, not in our public places and the marketplace.

Recently, Tom Cotton, a two-month freshman Senator from Arkansas, decided he also wanted to be the Secretary of State in the Executive Branch.  He got 46 other Republican senators to sign an unprecedented and highly dangerous letter  to Iran’s leadership about the current ongoing diplomatic negotiations to prevent Iran’s atomic bomb capability.  (Combined with Speaker John Boehner’s unprecedented foreign affairs engagement, unprecedented is rapidly becoming the precedent.)  I was tempted to chastise my home state friends in Arkansas for sending this arrogance to the U.S. Senate.  But then I remembered that my adopted state of North Carolina also sent a similar freshman senator, Thom Tillis, who believes that requiring food and restaurant workers to wash their hands after every trip to the toilet, and posting signs to that effect, is an unnecessary regulatory burden on businesses.  Instead, they should be required to post signs if that is NOT their policy, and leave it to the consumer to make a choice.  Somehow, a requirement to post signs that do not require hand washing is supposedly not a regulatory burden.  I guess questionable intelligence and conduct can come from anywhere.  And I should not throw stones at my home state from within my current glass house.

In 1946, we started a cold war with Russia over its attempts to dominate other countries.  In 1948, the Middle East erupted into military and diplomatic chaos over the United Nations’ establishment of the State of Israel.  In 1953 America conducted a covert overthrow of the legitimate government of Iran, thereby justifiably earning their lasting distrust of us.  In 1965 voter discrimination and barriers were made illegal.  In 1965 and 1972 the Supreme Court affirmed women’s right to obtain “the pill.”  In 1973 the Supreme Court protected, with some limitations, a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.  In 1973 our reliance on imported carbon fuels was shown to be a national security issues, long before their adverse affects on our health and climate were subsequently discovered.  In the late 1970s wage deviations between genders doing the same job were statistically proven.  It is now the year 2015.  Why are we still bogged down and continuing to argue on and on about these old issues?  Can we not finally move on to the new very real issues that need addressing?

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

Showing How To Govern

In the November 2014 elections, the Republican Party increased their majority in the House of Representatives by a substantial margin, and took control of the Senate for the first time since 2008.  With this new domination of Congress, Republicans issued forth the word that this was their opportunity, their obligation, to “show the American people that we know how to govern.”  For a citizenry worn tired of political opportunism and obfuscation, of threats to “shut the government down” or defaulting on our national debt, such a new governing ability would certainly be a welcome sight.  Two months in, how is this new governing working out?  We perhaps only need look at a recent chronology to help answer that question.  The narrative speaks for itself.

November 2014: After years of non-action on illegal immigration going back to the George W. Bush administration, President Obama announced an Executive Order exempting from deportation those illegal aliens that are parents of children legally in this country.  The Republican Right goes ballistic.

December 2014: The lame duck Republican House and Democratic Senate passed the still pending budget for FY 2014-2015 that had started the previous October 1.  Republican-desired budget cuts were omitted, but talk about another forced government shutdown (a la the October 2013 shutdown blamed on Republicans) was put aside.  EXCEPT that the budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was continued only to February 27, 2015.  The strategy was to wait until the new Congress (and their majorities) would be sworn in come January, and then fight the immigration battle using the DHS budget as a negotiating hostage.

January 2015: House voted for the 57^th time to repeal Obamacare.  No alternative health care initiative proposed.  Died in the Senate (as usual) even with the new Republican majority in charge.  Nothing appeared to be changed, still fighting old battles.

Early February 2015: House passed a DHS funding bill containing a provision to defund Obama’s executive order.  Senate Democrats blocked consideration of that bill using the filibuster tactic Republicans had perfected over the past four years.  Same maneuverings; switched players.

Late February 2015: Federal judge in Texas halted implementation of Obama’s executive order.  That decision is now under appeal, with resolution expected to take many months.

February 27, 2015: (morning)  No DHS funding legislation had moved forward in spite of the midnight deadline for funding to run out.  Senate Majority Leader McConnell allows a vote on a “clean” funding bill stripped of any reference to the executive order.  The face-saving rationale offered is “let it play out in the courts.”  Passes 68-31.  “Republicans should have never tried to include immigration measures in the DHS bill in the first place.  Hopefully we are going to end attaching bulls**t to essential items of government.”  (Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Il.)

(afternoon)  Speaker John Boehner introduced an interim 3-week funding bill to allow more time for his Republican caucus to find a solution.  To his surprise (and miscounting of potential voting), House Democrats and 52 conservative Republicans defeat his compromise – generally described as an “embarrassment and humiliating setback” for the Speaker.

(early evening)  House pushes for a House/Senate “conference committee” to resolve the impasse in hopes such a committee could revise a “clean” bill by adding back in the immigration de-funding legislation.  Senate Democrats block that bill.  Instead, Senate passes an alternative 1-week continuation bill on a voice vote.  Senate members go home for the night.  “It is [the House’s] problem now.”

(late evening)  Speaker Boehner brings up the Senate’s bill for a 1-week delay.  Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi emails her caucus and encourages them to vote for the 1-week option, “having been assured that the House would take up the Senate’s clean, full-year funding bill next week.”  1-week bill passes 357-60.  (60 Republicans opposed.)

(minutes before midnight)  President Obama signs the 1-week extension.  DHS funding continues for another week.

February 28-March 1 Weekend: Debate continues via weekend news shows and individual interviews.  Boehner’s office denies making any promise to consider the Senate’s clean bill during the next week.  He instead calls for Democrats and Obama to “negotiate.”  House Republicans publicly fight among themselves over who are the “true” versus “phony” conservatives; whether to “stand on principle” or “not let this faction … impede what we’re trying to do.”  Speaker Boehner: “Friday wasn’t all that fun … the House is a rambunctious place.”

March 3, 2015:  In spite of his weekend denials, Speaker Boehner brought up the Senate’s bill, containing no reference to the Obama executive order, for a House vote.  257 votes for (182 Democrats, 75 Republicans); 167 against (all Republicans).   (Once it was clear that the bill was going to pass, 125 additional Republicans apparently decided it was “safe” to join the core 52 conservatives in saying “no” for the voting record.)  “Maybe I should be more angry, but I’m not.  I’m just sort of resigned to the fact this is exactly where I knew we would be.”  (Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC)  “This is the signal of capitulation.”  (Rep. Steve King, R-IA)  “Sanity is prevailing.  I do give John Boehner credit.”  (Rep. Peter King, R-NY)

So finally DHS is funded through September so that it can go about its business of protecting the country in these inordinately dangerous times.  The fight over illegal immigration will have to await another more appropriate time and place – likely a protracted battle in the courts.

And our assessment of “the new governance” we were promised?  Seems to look a lot like the old governance.  Using budget bills to push for other unrelated pet parochial goals.  Holding legislation affecting core governmental functions hostage to these same unrelated goals.  Using threats of a government shutdown to get one’s way – despite the bad precedence and public distaste for that tactic.  Playing the political theater of cliff-hanger deadlines before anything finally gets done – the “decision-making by crisis” mentality.  A Party that fights among itself as much as with its opposition.  Pursuing political strategies that cannot win, with no “Plan B” to fall back on.  Continuing to fight old battles that have been settled instead of moving on to deal with current issues.  Strictly in opposition while offering no alternative solutions.

I cannot imagine that anyone, whether a liberal lefty or a conservative righty, or one of the dominant middle-roaders, thinks this is any way to run a government.  Or could be happy with their Congress regardless of where one falls in the political spectrum.  For all our talk about our greater mission to bring democracy to the world, we – the country that invented elected representative government – have become anything but a shining example of how democracy is supposed to work.  We do the “elected” part; but we no longer govern.  We confront, not collaborate.  The only thing Congress can seem to accomplish together is to agree to adjourn early to beat the snow to be on time for their next vacation recess.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

To Protect And To Serve

We get up in the morning.  We follow our daily routine to get the body ready for our planned day, and put on our uniform that identifies our work.  Some uniforms are more obvious and distinctive, clearly defining us and the life we live and work that we do.  Some uniforms are more subtle, more generic, more ambiguous.  But they are all uniforms.  Properly tuned and attired, each of us goes off to our respective job, volunteer role, family chores, or personal activity.  To serve our “customer” or clients, and then come home.  All is routine.

A few other people follow a similar daily pattern.  But it may occur at differing hours of one day versus another.  The uniform they put on is typically blue, very official-looking, clearly indicative of their high-visibility role in society.  They leave each day heading towards a very different customer base.  Their return home is a little less assured than the rest of us.  They are cops.

Much has been written and discussed recently about the state of policing in America today.  Particularly as regards profiling and discrimination in selective enforcement; sentencing and incarceration; and violence committed towards suspected offenders.  Some claim we have not progressed beyond the misuse of law enforcement we saw in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  Some view with alarm the increasing frequency of violent arrests and killings in circumstances of perceived public threats.  And some are worried about a growing militarization of our police forces; the “cop on the beat” increasingly looks like a member of a heavily armed military force – will America begin to look like those foreign countries where police and military are indistinguishable?
In truth, this is not the police environment of the 1960s-South, as anyone who lived through those times knows all too well.  To claim such a correlation, and to ignore the great changes that have occurred over these past 50 years, is to trivialize and disrespect the brave individuals who changed that entrenched system.  But one also cannot dismiss the violence that permeates much of America today.  Nor our increasing awareness of such violence from our news media that has shrunk our entire country into one virtual neighborhood, which distorts our sense of proportionality, balance and imminent threats in our immediate environment.

There is no arguing that this violence exists.  Concerns over home-grown and imported terrorists are warranted.  Concerns over domestic and foreign religious fanatics from all religions are warranted.  Concerns about the socially isolated and mentally disturbed who seek importance and worthiness from distorted notoriety are warranted.  This kind of violence is growing, along with our personal fears that call out for “protection” – often at any cost.

Responding to the rising chorus for that protection falls to that person in blue – the cop.  How to respond to it is no easy job, with few easy answers.  These people see the most broken, the most destructive, the most amoral people and situations in our society.  That is their territory every day, all the while challenged to keep their sense of humanity and good will in the face of such brokenness.  The weapons of this conflict continue to expand; the tools of defense are obligated to keep pace.  Combat veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan learned that the most innocent face of a civilian could turn into a killer at a moment’s notice; our local cops have learned that same lesson, challenging their ability to trust their otherwise instinct towards goodwill.  This is an everyday life few of us ever see as we contentedly go about our daily business.  In the isolated safety of our separation, we can be quick to judge harshly when cops over-react to a situation.  But we can be just as quick to judge harshly when cops under-react and casualties happen.  It is easy to criticize from the sidelines.

While this hardest of professions deserves our measured assessments and patient judgments, mistakes do happen which we need to understand.  And like all professions, policing can attract wrong people who are undeserving of the uniform, unqualified to enter its ranks, and not worthy to remain on the force.  And the prime instigators to remove these internal outlaws should come from inside the profession itself, who are unduly blemished by these ill-performing cops.  Instead, all too often the profession seems structurally incapable of cleansing itself.  This has to change.  Recently, some NYPD personnel chose to play politics by turning their backs on their mayor at separate memorial ceremonies honoring two policemen assassinated in their patrol car.  These cops dishonored themselves, as well as the intended solemnity of these policemen’s ultimate sacrifice.  Grandstanding in the wrong place is wrong for everyone.

Clearly there is a problem in Fergusson, Missouri, in the makeup of that city’s police force and its operation.  But it is a problem that did not warrant the destruction of its downtown by opportunistic hoodlums.  Clearly a videotaped chokehold death screams out for accountability that did not come about, which therefore warrants our collective protest.  Clearly a pre-teen boy with a toy gun killed within seconds of an officer’s arrival on the scene flies in the face of “standard police protocol,” and demands a thorough investigation into this officer’s questionable hiring credentials.

Finding proper responses to these structural issues may be difficult.  But a failure to find any response is unacceptable.  Because these and other situations highlight genuine public safety difficulties that are fed by numerous societal issues that cannot be ignored.  Issues that precede, and come to a head in, the seemingly inexplicable crimes we see in our headlines.

We live in a hair-trigger society today, with an excess of triggers to go around.  In such a tenuous environment, oftentimes cops must make critical decisions in a split second, sometimes in otherwise seemingly innocuous circumstances.  Mistakes will be made, which in turn will require compassionate judgments to be made.  Sometimes, though, misconduct requires harsher judgments, preferably coming from within the profession itself.

We must not turn our backs on the people doing this most critical, life-threatening job.  Yet we must protest for change, for fair treatment towards the protectors and the protected, for accountability where warranted.  We need to search for the elusive ideas and difficult corrective actions required, always striving for that tenuous balance between public order versus individual freedom.  And when we encounter it, we must houseclean our dirty laundry where needed and not cover it up.  Yet we must protect and serve well those who strive every day to protect and to serve us.

©  2015  Randy Bell                 www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

An Unholy War

ISIS.  al-Qaeda.  Boko Haram.  Mass killings and beheadings.  Executions of  cartoonists.  Kidnapped girls and child bombers.  These can be frightening times, when one’s sense of rational decency is challenged, the moral ground shifting beneath our shaking feet.  We wonder what has happened, how to explain this descent into seeming madness.  After so many hopes arising, now we seem to be spiraling into chaos.  Where is world civilization heading?

Clearly there is a wave of mind-numbing violence occurring that must be stopped.  But how do we stop something so outlandish that we really do not even understand?  Yet we must try to understand, however difficult.  Because even as we realize that violence must be met with violence in the short term, long-term resolution must come from responding to the thinking and ideas permeating the minds of these violent offenders.

The first understanding must be about who these terrorists are, and as importantly, who they are not.  Many news media descriptions say that: these are the acts of Islamist radicals; Islam is the root cause of this violence; followers of Islam (Muslims) are by nature violent and opposed to all others; Muslims are inherently different from “us” (i.e. western non-Muslims).  That is simply wrong.  By using such a broad stroke of prejudice and stereotyping, we lose the ability to separate the good guys from the truly bad guys.  We need to differentiate between genuine Islam and the bad people inappropriately distorting true Islamic beliefs.

Some background.  Islam (“surrender unto God”) is based upon the worship of a single god called “Allah.”  It is not a different heathen god; it is the Arabic language word for the same “God” that Jews and Christians worship.  It is the God of the biblical patriarch Abraham, from whom Arabs were descended through his second son Ishmael.  The prophet Muhammad began to establish the religion of Islam in Arabia in the early 600s based upon the words of God as recorded in the Qur’an, Islam’s most holy book.  It is in the Qur’an that we must look to find the true nature of Islam, not the blogosphere.

We are led to believe that Islam hates Jews and Christians, and are in a perpetual war against those faiths.  In the Qur’an, nothing could be further from the truth.  Muhammad was an admirer of Judaism, and in some respects Islam was modeled after Judaism.  Much of the Qur’an focuses on the stories from the Jewish Torah/biblical Old Testament, and the lessons to be learned from Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Noah.  The Qur’an’s is very specific that other non-Islam religions are to be respected and protected: e.g. “There shall be no coercion in matters of faith … there is no compulsion in religion.”  Like many today, Muhammad did not believe that Jesus was God in human form, but he did believe that Jesus was one of God’s true angels and was to be so honored.  The only issues Muhammad spoke out against were: 1) those who failed to observe their Jewish/Christian beliefs and led hypocritical lives; and 2) claims by Christians that their religion is the one and only path to God, all others being wrong.  (Both are objections we should share today.)  The Qur’an requires that those of other religions who follow their faith honestly and devotedly be honored and left unharmed, expecting that they reciprocate that honor to Muslims.

Another misconception in the West is that Islam is a “warring” religion, committed to violence.  Yes, there are passages in the Qur’an calling for Muslims to “defend the faith.”  But these come from Islam’s founding history of being attacked and persecuted by the Arab establishment who felt threatened by, and were opposed to, this new religion that espoused belief in one god, living a simple life, fair treatment for all, and living responsibly within community.  Islam was literally baptized in a violent birth, requiring fighters to come to its defense.  And after this religious war was won, no conversion to Islam was required of its opponents.  (“Go back to your homes; you are all free.”)  It was a defensive war in which cruelty was prohibited; the defeated who sought peace were to be harmed no further; war against any “fellow believers” was prohibited; “offensive” wars were rejected.  Certainly harming defenseless innocents – women, children, non-combatants – is a great sin.

Space in this blog does not allow for more examples of our misconceptions.  But even these three examples do not jell with the actions and images that are pouring through our televisions and displayed on our web pages.  The disconnect is that these violent perpetrators are not true Muslims acting from the religious basis of Islam.  Which is why true Muslims do not condone or share in these aberrations of their faith.  This violence is the work of the few, not the beliefs of the many.

This violence is in fact a secular war, reflecting a litany of perceived grievances – cultural disrespect, secular conflicts, lack of economic opportunity, homeland issues, foreign interference, etc. – that are falsely cloaked under a religious mantle.  That mantle is manipulated to give nobility to this secular fight in order to attract many despondent and suffering people looking for greater purpose in their life.  Whatever religious benefit Islam might give to them has been contorted in the morass of that desperation.  In the end, this is a violent war led by people seeking personal power – just as such wars have been fought through the millennia.

In 2005-2007, I had the great opportunity for business travel to Lebanon.  These trips allowed me to talk directly with many diverse and wonderful people of that country during times of significant political upheavals.  In one such conversation, I was able to speak at length with a Muslim college professor about his religion and the Middle East environment in the context of the 9-11 attacks.  He said to me quite emphatically: “These people were not Muslims.  They did not act out of Islam.  They are simply thugs.”  Succinctly said.  A decade later, the brother of a recently slain Paris policeman said, “My brother was Muslim, and he was killed by people who pretend to be Muslims.  They are terrorists, that’s it.”

If we are ultimately to “win” this war and reclaim our sense of safety, then we need to see these terrorists for who they truly are, and quit labeling them what they are not.  They are not Muslims, any more than Timothy McVeigh was “Catholic,” or the Ku Klux Klan is “Protestant Christian,” or the German military in WWII was “Lutheran.”  Terrorists do not act out of religious faith; their actions in fact deny their faith.  They act out of a momentary fantasy of power in a life consumed by powerlessness.  Powerlessness always seeks a cause, preferably one wrapped up in a seemingly unarguable religious justification.  What we are witnessing is not a holy war of Islam against Jews and Christians.  Powerlessness is our true enemy.  It is an enemy within and without.  Given that we cannot shoot powerlessness, what is our alternate strategy?

If we truly want to know what Islam and Muslims are about, stop listening to the media commentators.  Read the Qur’an for ourselves.  I have.  Three times.  (Or perhaps read my book “Lessons From The Teacher Muhammad” about some of the significant teachings from the Qur’an.)  Or talk to a religious leader in a nearby mosque.  Or talk to everyday Muslim citizens quietly going about their daily business, aspiring to the American Dream by trying to make a better life for their families.  Then grapple with the fact that it was Western Europe in 1095-1291 that first started religious war against the Muslim community (the Crusades) “to defend the [Christian] faith.” An aggressive war over religious differences.  The West lost that war.

At the very least, we need to recognize that by blaming all Muslims for being anti-Jewish/anti-Christian terrorists, we play directly into the hands of terrorist recruiters by confirming their sales pitch that “everyone is against us.”  And it keeps us trapped in yet another cycle of prejudice and intolerance that have plagued American for centuries.  So even if we still believe it, we need to stop saying it!  We need to deny the terrorists the false cloak of religious respectability and the fantasy of being self-righteous religious avengers.  They are simply thugs, criminals, cowards, gangsters.  Let us just call them what they are, and deal with them accordingly.  If we are ever to stop this terrorist threat, we need to stop fighting religion and start fighting cultural powerlessness.

©  2015  Randy Bell     www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

Who Is Running America, Anyway?

“Justice is indiscriminately due to all,

without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”

(John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1794)

 

The concept sounds simple enough.  “We the People … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  We the People run our government, versus thousands of years of the government running the people.  A radical concept in the development of civilization.  And each of us has an equal say in how it is run, by right of citizenship rather than the right of royalty, ownership, wealth, or heredity.  But 225 years later, how is that concept working out?  At best, a cautious “OK.”  Which is all the more frustrating since we have had over 200 years to try to get it right (while criticizing “emerging democracies” for not getting it right in just a few years!).

 

Clearly, wealth buys favoritism in running our government.  The influence of wealth on government has been a problem since America’s founding, influencing the design of the Constitution itself to protect property (wealth) as much as ensuring human rights and liberty (for some).  Until presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy called out federal troops to protect civil rights protestors fighting then-legalized discrimination, all previous use of federal power was to protect business property and wealth against protests from the working population.

 

Today wealth control of government shows up as lobbyists stalking Congresspersons and Executive agencies personnel, out of the limelight, pleading their cases for special treatment.  Or, more directly, bundles of cash are given to finance candidates’ elections, or for the wealthy to publishing whatever statements they wish without regard to truth, reasonableness or relevance.

 

The result shows up in legislation and tax rules that upend the “level playing field” of competition needed for true capitalism to thrive.  It shows up in the tax code that now results in a “reverse” graduated income tax system – the more you make, the LESS you pay.  It shows up by neutering regulations that seek to keep consumers, and the general public, safe from unethical/criminal actions by companies unconcerned about the products they make and sell.

 

And it shows up in Congresspersons doing whatever corporate moneymen tell them to do, regardless of the convoluted explanations they give to a dubious public.  Just when you think you have seen it all with Congress’ incompetency, ineptitude, and indifference, they still manage to leave us shaking our heads is disbelief.  Witness a here-to-fore unknown Representative from Kansas who inserted a rider into the federal budget that reversed the Dodd-Frank prohibition against “derivative” trading – the very activity that brought about the 2009 recession.  It was a rider written by Citigroup banking corporation that once again puts the American taxpayer on the hook for losses from these banking speculations.  A taxpayer guarantee not available to the local Mom and Pop business on Main Street.  A guarantee any other business person would certainly love to have.  A guarantee I would like to have for my own pension investments.  But it is clear that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase and “the king of Wall Street,” is running the country far more than I.  As entertainer Will Rogers said back in the 1930s, “We have the best Congress that money can buy.”

 

We also have elected officials who wield unequal power among themselves.  Our Constitution said we would elect persons from our residential entity to go to Washington to represent our needs.  But the Constitution never mentioned Majority/Minority Leaders and their deputies, or legislative committees and their Chairs who control legislation.  Our Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal.  But our Constitution forgot to say that all Congresspersons are created equally.  So the truth is that some representative or senator far away from where I live likely has more control over my political agenda that does the representative or senator subject to my vote.  So when I am told to “write to my Congressperson,” to whom should I really address my letter?  My locally elected officials?  Or the person who actually controls all the marbles on my pet issue, but who does not even accept my email on his/her website?

 

Congressional “procedures,” bewildering to most common-sense Americans, further hide the real power, and makes folly of “majority rules.”  Committees, chairs, and leadership decide whether my issue even gets heard for a vote.  40-50 Tea Party House Republicans manage to control their party’s agenda over the other 175 Republicans.  The Senate has its overused and abused filibuster procedure such that 60% is the real majority vote on most all issues.  And it has a lesser known “privilege” called “Holds”: that any one senator can prevent a vote – especially on executive appointments – without their name or their reason for objection being revealed.  It all means that regardless of what the majority of Americans may want, some hidden minority of legislators can effectively block those wishes.  Do we wonder why Congress now has only a 10% approval rating?  And 2/3rds of American voters did not bother to vote in 2014?

 

We are told that the way to fix this broken system and to return equal citizen ownership is to “throw the bums out.”  Exercise the power of the ballot box.  Except that the ballot box has a “going out of business” sign sitting over it.  Access to voting is the first key to making a democracy work.  But that access is being closed in by the powers-that-be in order to protect those same powers-that-be.  The tools of such exclusion are the Voter ID, costing millions of wasted dollars to solve a voting fraud problem we do not have; reduction in days/hours of early voting to make it harder for busy people to get to the polls; more restrictions on who, when and how people can register for voting.  But he most insidious tool for undermining our equal government ownership is the gerrymandering of legislative districts.  Instead of bringing like-minded voters together, districts are blatantly hacked out to divide the electorate into safe, political camps designed to overwhelm opposition voters.  Hence in North Carolina, for example, 44% of Congressional votes went to Democratic candidates, but 10 of 13 seats were awarded to Republican candidates.  Lesson: when you cannot win on principled arguments, then change the rules and eliminate the argument.

 

Jamie Dimon and I are not equal owners of our government.  My Congressman does not have an equal say in federal spending as does Paul Ryan.  My Senator does not even respond to my monthly letters anymore, and has not cast an independently-minded vote in years.  David Koch and George Soros have millions of dollars to spend on commercials to express their highly divergent opinions; I have none.  The CEOs of auto, high-tech, energy, medical, financial and agribusiness industries all have dependent friends in Washington ready to do their bidding.  Mom and Pop on Main Street and I have none who even care what we think (versus how much I can donate to their campaigns).

 

America is still a land of opportunity, but not one of equal opportunity.  So who is running America anyway?  Not me.  Not anyone I know.  Not the 2/3rds who did not vote.  Is it you?

 

“This would be a great time in the world for some [person]

to come along that knew something.”  (Will Rogers, 1931)

 

©  2015   Randy Bell              www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

The Lame Duck Walks

The term “lame duck” describes a person (or institution) just riding out their current position.  Marking time, not rocking the boat, avoiding major conflicts or initiatives.  Just waiting for the next changing of the guard.  Everyone knows that is the operative environment.  And so “everyone knows” effectively neuters the individual into powerlessness.  All involved are simply waiting for the next scene in the play to present itself.

The despised 113^th Congress that just closed up shop after a wasted two-year record of non-accomplishment is a good example of this.  In January we will start over again with a revised Congressional cast of characters.  Everything supposedly will then be different – agenda, power centers, and “getting things done.”  Because a chastened President will be such a lame duck, a nuisance in the way of a newly profiled Congress and an upcoming 2016 presidential election race.  It sounds like a good story.  But apparently someone forgot to tell President Obama.

On the heels of Democratic congressional losses in November’s election, the President was presumed to now be on the defensive against aggressive new/old Republican initiatives.  So far it has not turned out that way.  First came a completely unexpected agreement with China on climate change that had secretly been in the works for months.  The world’s two biggest polluters voluntarily agreed to substantively cut their respective emissions over the next decades.  It was done as a simple “agreement” between the two leaders, not a formal diplomatic treaty.  Therefore it requires no Senate vote to approve it (leading to all the ridiculous theatrics that would certainly ensue).  Technically, future presidents could walk away from this agreement.  But historically presidential precedents loom large, and are not easily changed once in place.  Especially when they are interconnected internationally, as this one is.  Who wants to be the one to tell China “never mind,” that America’s word cannot be relied upon?

After catching everyone flat-footed on the climate topic, soon thereafter came a long-promised action on illegal immigrants.  After eight years (extending back into George W. Bush’s presidency) of constant noise from Congress promising to do something about this issue, with a track record of nothing done whatsoever, it has long been past time for action of some kind.  So President Obama took executive action while everyone else sat on the sidelines gawking, complaining or praising depending upon their constituent base.  There are three core elements to Obama’s declaration: 1) parents of children that are legal citizens by birth or are on valid immigration permits will not be deported for the foreseeable future; 2) future prosecutions and deportations will be focused on those immigrants committing serious crimes; 3) additional security resources will be redeployed to the border by realigning existing personnel and funding from multiple agencies.  There is NO amnesty being granted, and there is no “pathway to citizenship” that objectors vehemently protest so loudly.  There is simply a reprioritization of resources and focus to higher-level needs – just as police organizations have to do every day with their constrained resources.  Such reprioritizing is all perfectly legal within the realities of the administration of policing.  Republican leaders can scream all they want about Obama “poisoning the well” of future cooperation and working relationships, but that well has been long poisoned by six years of rhetorical pollution and confrontation.  Opponents of immigration reform have finally been called to task – put up or shut up – and have been found wanting, now boxed in by the political realities of a changing demographic electorate.  It is long past time to move beyond this.  Other needs demand our attention.

Now has come the latest grand announcement.  After 53 years of America’s ineffective trade embargo and political isolation of Cuba, diplomatic relations between the two countries will finally be restored.  The embargo and diplomatic break was begun in 1961 by President John Kennedy after Fidel Castro, once the romantic revolutionary celebrated by Americans for forcing out Cuba’s then-dictator, revealed himself to be a socialist at heart.  Cuba changed from being a free-wheeling playground for the American-Italian Mafia and big-corporate agriculture interests.  Instead, it turned into a state-owned and operated economic model friendly to Russia instead of the American good guys.  And Fidel himself turned out to be as dictatorial as his predecessor.  So like a suitor spurned, Americans turned on Fidel.  50+ years later, our political and economic embargo has changed Cuba hardly a twit except to cause economic suffering by its people.  Cuba’s government is unchanged; political prisoners are still in jail; families in America are still shut out of their home country, separated from their extended families.  But no politician has had the courage to risk the wrath of the Cuban-American exiles in south Florida to change this status quo stalemate.  Until now.

This is standoff long overdue for change.  Especially if we truly want to see a different Cuba in the future, because what we have been doing clearly would not achieve it.  The precedent for Obama’s action is America’s foolish role with Communist China from the 1940s-1970s.  After the Communists drove out the corrupt central government of China in 1949, we similarly spent the next 30 years ignoring the reality of what mainland China had become.  Instead, we only recognized and backed the tiny remnant of the overthrown regime then removed to the island of Taiwan.  Refusing to recognize the People’s Republic of China and isolating them from the community of nations, no matter how noxious to us philosophically, simply drove them into deeper alliance with our cold war nemesis Russia, and left us with no leverage over China’s decisions and actions.  (Witness the Korean War and the Viet Nam war.)  It took the courage of “[Richard] Nixon goes to China” to finally end our diplomatic fantasy of China’s reality.  China is still, and will continue to be, a thorn in America’s side.  But we now sit together at the table and periodically find ways to work together.  And China is a vastly different country today than in the 1970s, in no small part because we are there on the ground working with them.

Fidel Castro is in the hospital dying, out of the picture in the day-to-day running of Cuba.  His brother Raul, now in charge, is in his 80s.  A new generation of Cuban leaders will soon be forthcoming.  When they arrive, we need to be already there, in place, connected to that new emerging Cuban government and its changing population.  The reality is that you ultimately create real change from within, not from the outside.  This decision is perfect timing for a completely correct action.  After the usual knee-jerk criticism from those who have vested interests in continuing to exploit the current no-win situation (e.g. presumed presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio), this issue will finally move forward as it should.  And many now-vocal political critics will privately and silently be equally thrilled to finally be unchained from this dead weight.

Presidential lame duck?  Apparently not.  Those who have been complaining for years about a supposed “lack of presidential leadership” should remember to be careful what you ask for.  Sometimes real leadership – like we have watched these past weeks – may unexpectedly lead one where one did not intend to go.  But these are directions where we have needed to go.  There comes a time to stop the endless talking, stop doing nothing, break the endless loop.  Make a decision, take action, adjust from the new baseline.  DO something.  So thank you, Mr. President, for these actions.  Now, about Iran …

©   2014   Randy Bell             www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com

Everything Different, Nothing Changed

Election 2014 has now come and gone.  The votes have been counted.  The commentators have analyzed every minute data point and drawn whatever conclusions they likely set out to prove in the first place.  The political parties have claimed their victories or expressed their anguish as appropriate.

Numerically, the end result was a bigger Republican majority in the House, and a shifting of the majority in the Senate – a place where in fact the “majority” rarely actually rules.  All Senate committee chairs will change over, and a new Republican Majority Leader will manage what gets voted upon.  With additional major gains in state governorships and legislatures, the Republican Party rightly deserves congratulations for their numerous victories.  But amidst the declarations that “the people have spoken” also comes the question: can this political party, previously consigned to six years of nothing but blind, reflexive opposition, actually govern with an eye to all Americans versus just being a negative voice echoing the narrow base of their party?

The people may have “spoken,” but the loudest voice was heard from those who never made it to the polling booths.  Less than 40% of eligible citizens voted on November 4^th, a record low.  So any claims of victory or synchronicity with the American public ring quite hollow.  Public approval of Congress in general, and each political party, still hovers in the teens and low 20s percentage.  Which actually makes President Obama’s 40% approval rating –the central issue of the campaign for both parties – nevertheless look comparatively like a sweeping endorsement!  A majority of the minority governs America today.

Historically, the political party results simply followed past traditions.  In the sixth year, the incumbent president’s party virtually always loses ground in Congress.  And the party that gains always claims “a message from the people.”  There is a message, yes; but the politicians rarely hear it.  In truth, with so much expectation placed upon all presidents that can never be fulfilled, by year six the people are tired of the incumbent.  The original energy has waned, the expectations achieved are far less, and Americans’ short memory begins its habitual longing for “something new.”  Given that we have just borne witness to the worst case of Congressional obstructionism of a president since the post-Civil War Congress of 1865-1868 stripped President Andrew Johnson of much control over anything, high discontent with Obama’s perceived lack of outcomes was inevitable.

After several recent campaigns of Republican candidates infected with foot-in-mouth disease, this year the GOP: managed to avoid flawed, extreme candidates saying outright insulting and stupid things; brought forth no other real issue other than public dissatisfaction of Obama; avoided any real discussion of political/social issues or position-taking that would give the election substance; talked in “moderate” terms, hiding their true political positions; and drove home the public’s fear factors around illegal immigration (which will cost them politically long-term), Ebola (for the one death and half-dozen or so infections to date in America), and ISIL (which are still in Syria and Iraq at last check).  Tactically, their strategy worked.

Meanwhile, the Democrats retreated to the hills, unwilling to stand and defend their ground of legitimate accomplishments, avoided discussion of the fact of a significantly improved economy (voters’ #1 issue), sidelined their president, and thereby bumbled their way into surrender.  In the wilderness of the 2014 campaign, Democrats could never find a real message they could articulate that would connect effectively with the public.  The result: everything now looks different on its face.

So what comes next?  In the aftermath of the vote counting, Obama, McConnell and Boehner met together, ate lunch, and talked about “working together like the American people expect.”  That make-nice atmosphere lasted until about dinnertime.  Obama’s promise to “act where Congress won’t” led to accusations from McConnell about “poisoning the well” for the future and Boehner’s objection about “usurping Congress and the legislative process.”  It all ignored the reality that Congress has not accomplished much of anything the past six years following their dead-end “process” while it was encamped around a well that has been long-since poisoned.

So nothing has truly changed.  It will now be two more years of stalemate and inaction, precipice politics, even more nonsensical committee hearings strictly for public show, and continuing appeals not to the independent middle of the American citizenry, but to the hard edges.

Senate Democrats will stay tightly together, reversing roles to now be the minority effectively blocking the Republican majority.  Senate Republicans will still be a fractured party of go-it- my-own-way individuals jockeying for individual power while organizing their 2016 presidential campaigns.  House Republicans will still be held captive by their 40-50 extreme Tea Party members, limiting the Speaker’s ability to put forward any real substantive propositions meaningful to Middle Americans.  Lots of noise, overwhelming meaningful discussion; name-calling and accusations overwhelming meaningful action; current needs overwhelmed by the 2016 election.

2016 will not be the same political territory as 2014.  The voting numbers and demographics will change, pulled in by even further disgust with “those in Washington” and the potential attraction of a very enticing presidential race.  The contested seats in the Senate, highly favorable to the Republicans in 2014, will swing back in favor of the Democrats.  And if this new Republican Congress follows the path of previous Democrat and Republican Congresses over this past decade who mistakenly believed that their numerical majority endorsed them to go overboard with their sense of a “voter mandate,” the 2016 election will do what the past several elections have done: punish the overreach and yet again reverse the party in power.

So from time to time, each party can enjoy its day in the sun of winning the voters.  But “majority rules” all too often yields “majority fools.”  And so we go back and forth with one course correction after another.  Ultimately, favorable redistricting and new voter law hurdles will hide bad performance for only so long.  And there does not seem an assessment of any good performance much in evidence.  As the political pendulum continues its swing to the extremes of its arc, politicians should remember the destiny of the pendulum: from the one extreme end, it moves to the opposite polarity.  But each subsequent swing gradually over time moves the arc to its ultimate resting place – sitting quietly still in the middle.  It is in that middle that our political life awaits its resting place.

©  2014   Randy Bell              www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com