If the political pundits are correct that purple is the new black, then Massachusetts is becoming tres chic. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, in political speak, blue states are reliably Democratic, red states are reliably Republican, and purple is, of course, what you get when you have a mix of red and blue. Massachusetts was just about the bluest state in the union, but last night, Scott Brown, a comparatively unknown Republican state senator defeated well known Democratic Attorney General, Martha Coakley in a special election to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. This latest "Massachusetts Miracle" will doubtlessly be discussed by political junkies and social scientists for years to come, and it may take quite some time to sort out its meaning and implications.
According to some polls, Ms. Coakley had a 31% lead two months ago. Not since the 1978 Red Sox has anyone in Massachusetts blown a lead so big so close to the finish line, and this time no one can curse Bucky F--king Dent. Mr. Brown ran an excellent campaign and Ms. Coakley did not, but that doesn't seem enough to fully explain last night's result. Was it perceived arrogance on the part of Coakley, Obama, or the Washington Democrats? Was it the unpopular health care bill working through Congress, the Tea Party, anti-incumbent fever (Coakley wasn't an incumbent but the seat was controlled by her party), or was Brown just that attractive a candidate? All of the above and likely every combination thereof will be claimed by someone as the right answer, but we'll never really know for sure. Among other things, voters can't always pinpoint exactly what makes them pick A over B. All we can say for sure is that Massachusetts, which seemed destined to send its first woman to the Senate, will instead be sending a Republican to the Senate for the first time since the Nixon landslide of '72.
The bigger question is what does it all mean? If the reason is the health care bill, does it mean reform is dead for now or does it mean that we'll pass different reform? If it's anti-incumbency, are Republican incumbents as vulnerable as Democratic incumbents in November? What if people just prefer Scott Brown? Also, what are the broader implications of now having 41 senators in the Republican caucus? Yes, Obama is losing popularity, but he remains popular in Massachusetts. Yes, the Tea Party fought for Brown and he won a seat held by Democrats for a long time, but in November in the New York 23rd, the Tea Party backed a conservative and they lost a long held Republican seat to a Democrat. I don't know; maybe moderates are sick of both sides trying to pull them to the respective lunatic fringes.
If there's anything I feel safe in saying it's that our recent political history can teach us something. Shortly after the Republican Revolution of 1994, people wrote the epitaph for the Democratic Party as a national force. A few years later, the same was said of the Republicans, asserting that they now represented only the Deep South and Mountain West. After seeing this go back and forth with the speed of Olympic ping-pong, even Americans, notorious for having a short historical memory, will likely hesitate before drawing such sweeping conclusions. Congratulations to Senator Brown and, as one of your constituents, let me thank you in advance for your service to our state and country. May your election usher in a new era of more responsible governing and less of the partisan bickering that has eroded the respect we should have for those who represent us in Congress.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Ugly American
Rewind to September 2001, and you'll see that in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attacks, our airports are shut down and the world has opened its heart to a battered and shaken nation. Fast forward to January 2010 and the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is shut down because the world has opened its heart to a battered and shaken nation. They simply can't accommodate the enormous outpouring of aid. That hasn't stopped the overwhelming flow of charity as people wait for things to get sorted out so they can help. At times such as these we see humanity at its best. I'm proud that the United States, as it so often does, is taking a lead role in helping the devastated people. Oh how I wish that was all I could see, but the United States is also home to Rush Limbaugh and others like him.
Rush wasted no time in playing to his base of angry, often bigoted, white men and the women who love them. There is a chicken and egg relationship between the rise and subsequent dominance of far right-wing talk radio and the rising perception among angry white men that they were the group most adversely affected by discrimination. I know such a claim sounds as incredible as Shaquille O'Neal fearing that he's too short to go on the good rides at Disneyland, but I swear they really think that! Of course, they have it backwards and the three greatest gifts at birth for outperforming meritocracy are, in descending order, a huge trust fund, a powerfully connected family, and a white penis.
For starters, Rush primed his merry band of snivellers with the old standby - an attack on President Obama and how he's doing this to please black people. He then went on to discourage donations to Haiti by saying we already give to Haiti through our taxes. Rush is a despicable excuse for a human being, but he's not stupid. He knew exactly how those words would be taken by his audience. Allow me to translate from English to Dittohead, "The government already steals your hard earned money just so they can give it to undeserving minorities." Then to top it off, he couldn't resist one more kick to the poor people of Haiti as they lie prostrate on the ground. Here is the link. Check it out for yourselves; I've typed enough of his filth for one day.
Alas, there are others cast in the Limbaugh mold. Listen to Glenn Beck claim that Obama is dividing America by quickly coming to the aid of Haiti. Obama isn't dividing America, Beck and those like him are dividing America by deliberately fanning the flames of fear, anger, frustration, hatred, bigotry, and ignorance. Worst of all, the pretenders and wannabes who stand in the shadows of these elite hate merchants have to be even more outrageous if they want to make their bones and gain wider notoriety. Enter Jim Quinn. This guy doesn't even try to pretend he's not deliberately exploiting white anger and resentment. In his rant on President Obama and Haiti he said, in so many words, that President Obama ignored "Fly-over country white guy America" when it needed help because it wasn't a third world country. Of course, if Obama had offered more aid, Quinn would have likened that federal bailout to Hitler anyway, leaving both host and audience in the enviable position of heads we win; tails you lose. For good measure, he went on to claim that Haiti was poor because it was communist, revealing an ignorance that will likely be lost on his followers.
Finally, there's Pat Robertson's twaddle about a deal with the devil. I almost gave this a pass because I think at this point he's more a doddering fool than an evil man, but I can't manage to let it stand without comment. To say, in essence, "serves you right" to innocent disaster victims who are suffering so deeply is an unconscionable disgrace. Robertson's nonsense may get a rousing amen from his followers who are too gullible and superstitious to understand that this catastrophe has more to do with plate tectonics than an invisible bogeyman in the sky smiting these poor people, but it should disgust anyone who believes in human decency or any prescription for living that Jesus would abide. I find it interesting that being fundamentally unchristian is perhaps the single most salient feature of Christian Fundamentalism. If that doesn't set a new ground speed record for irony, it ought to.
Rush wasted no time in playing to his base of angry, often bigoted, white men and the women who love them. There is a chicken and egg relationship between the rise and subsequent dominance of far right-wing talk radio and the rising perception among angry white men that they were the group most adversely affected by discrimination. I know such a claim sounds as incredible as Shaquille O'Neal fearing that he's too short to go on the good rides at Disneyland, but I swear they really think that! Of course, they have it backwards and the three greatest gifts at birth for outperforming meritocracy are, in descending order, a huge trust fund, a powerfully connected family, and a white penis.
For starters, Rush primed his merry band of snivellers with the old standby - an attack on President Obama and how he's doing this to please black people. He then went on to discourage donations to Haiti by saying we already give to Haiti through our taxes. Rush is a despicable excuse for a human being, but he's not stupid. He knew exactly how those words would be taken by his audience. Allow me to translate from English to Dittohead, "The government already steals your hard earned money just so they can give it to undeserving minorities." Then to top it off, he couldn't resist one more kick to the poor people of Haiti as they lie prostrate on the ground. Here is the link. Check it out for yourselves; I've typed enough of his filth for one day.
Alas, there are others cast in the Limbaugh mold. Listen to Glenn Beck claim that Obama is dividing America by quickly coming to the aid of Haiti. Obama isn't dividing America, Beck and those like him are dividing America by deliberately fanning the flames of fear, anger, frustration, hatred, bigotry, and ignorance. Worst of all, the pretenders and wannabes who stand in the shadows of these elite hate merchants have to be even more outrageous if they want to make their bones and gain wider notoriety. Enter Jim Quinn. This guy doesn't even try to pretend he's not deliberately exploiting white anger and resentment. In his rant on President Obama and Haiti he said, in so many words, that President Obama ignored "Fly-over country white guy America" when it needed help because it wasn't a third world country. Of course, if Obama had offered more aid, Quinn would have likened that federal bailout to Hitler anyway, leaving both host and audience in the enviable position of heads we win; tails you lose. For good measure, he went on to claim that Haiti was poor because it was communist, revealing an ignorance that will likely be lost on his followers.
Finally, there's Pat Robertson's twaddle about a deal with the devil. I almost gave this a pass because I think at this point he's more a doddering fool than an evil man, but I can't manage to let it stand without comment. To say, in essence, "serves you right" to innocent disaster victims who are suffering so deeply is an unconscionable disgrace. Robertson's nonsense may get a rousing amen from his followers who are too gullible and superstitious to understand that this catastrophe has more to do with plate tectonics than an invisible bogeyman in the sky smiting these poor people, but it should disgust anyone who believes in human decency or any prescription for living that Jesus would abide. I find it interesting that being fundamentally unchristian is perhaps the single most salient feature of Christian Fundamentalism. If that doesn't set a new ground speed record for irony, it ought to.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A New Decade and Two Wolves
The '00 decade, or the 0's or the aughts or whatever you want to call the period from 2000-2009 has finally ended to a deafening chorus of "Good Riddance!" For the United States it was a decade of loss. We lost money, we lost jobs, and most of all, we lost our way. In terms of material wealth, American prosperity took a beating. Here's a sobering illustration of my point. If you had taken your life savings as of December 31, 1999 and stuffed it in a mattress, content to earn a return of 0.00% over 10 years, you would be 35% richer than if you divided your wealth into equal thirds and invested each third broadly across the stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ, and S&P 500.
This was bound to happen sooner or later as the American dream gave way to the American pipe dream. We lost touch with reality, and our delusion led to an inevitable fall. We replaced our parents' and grandparents' dreams of owning their own homes in order to build a better life with our own avaricious fantasies of buying homes in the expectation of selling them for obscene profits and borrowing against this windfall in the interim. Likewise, we viewed the stock market as a casino that would make us filthy rich without the bother of contributing something of value to the world. Now with the financial and housing markets only averting collapse through extraordinary government intervention that has mortgaged our future, we have fallen back to reality with a sickening thud. We knew all along that risk and reward were directly correlated, i.e. low rates of return involve low risk and high rates of return involve high risk, but our misplaced sense of invincibility allowed us to ignore the forces of gravity that would surely have their day.
The last decade also saw our peace of mind and sense of security shattered as a routine Tuesday morning in September 2001 became a living nightmare few dared to even imagine. Never again could we see ourselves as invulnerable to the barbarity we once thought only happened in other countries. As if the carnage weren't bad enough, we compounded the tragedy of that day by quickly squandering the sense of national unity and common purpose within our country and the communion we shared across the world. On top of everything else, we have lost faith in all of our institutions. We don't trust the government, corporations, church leaders, mega church leaders, the media, or each other. Even baseball, which once served as a refuge from the scandals of the day has been infected with wholesale cheating.
We have struggled before, but this time the voices or reason are being drowned out by the shrill voices of hate and division for which we have developed an insatiable appetite. All too often, the notion of two sides merely disagreeing is vanishing in favor of the perception that the world is divided into those who agree with us are right and those who are evil and must be defeated. With the advent of the new decade, we should resolve to make a desperately needed course correction and stop the madness. Like a coach with a gift for making halftime adjustments, our greatest asset as a nation may be our ability to correct problems and make improvements. Notwithstanding the gloom of the preceding paragraphs, I have confidence in our future, but we need to make changes now. To illustrate the choices before us, let me leave you with an old Cherokee parable:
The old chief was teaching his grandson about life. He told the boy, "A terrible fight is going on inside of me and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too." The boy thought for a moment then asked his grandfather which wolf will win. The chief replied, "Whichever one you feed."
This was bound to happen sooner or later as the American dream gave way to the American pipe dream. We lost touch with reality, and our delusion led to an inevitable fall. We replaced our parents' and grandparents' dreams of owning their own homes in order to build a better life with our own avaricious fantasies of buying homes in the expectation of selling them for obscene profits and borrowing against this windfall in the interim. Likewise, we viewed the stock market as a casino that would make us filthy rich without the bother of contributing something of value to the world. Now with the financial and housing markets only averting collapse through extraordinary government intervention that has mortgaged our future, we have fallen back to reality with a sickening thud. We knew all along that risk and reward were directly correlated, i.e. low rates of return involve low risk and high rates of return involve high risk, but our misplaced sense of invincibility allowed us to ignore the forces of gravity that would surely have their day.
The last decade also saw our peace of mind and sense of security shattered as a routine Tuesday morning in September 2001 became a living nightmare few dared to even imagine. Never again could we see ourselves as invulnerable to the barbarity we once thought only happened in other countries. As if the carnage weren't bad enough, we compounded the tragedy of that day by quickly squandering the sense of national unity and common purpose within our country and the communion we shared across the world. On top of everything else, we have lost faith in all of our institutions. We don't trust the government, corporations, church leaders, mega church leaders, the media, or each other. Even baseball, which once served as a refuge from the scandals of the day has been infected with wholesale cheating.
We have struggled before, but this time the voices or reason are being drowned out by the shrill voices of hate and division for which we have developed an insatiable appetite. All too often, the notion of two sides merely disagreeing is vanishing in favor of the perception that the world is divided into those who agree with us are right and those who are evil and must be defeated. With the advent of the new decade, we should resolve to make a desperately needed course correction and stop the madness. Like a coach with a gift for making halftime adjustments, our greatest asset as a nation may be our ability to correct problems and make improvements. Notwithstanding the gloom of the preceding paragraphs, I have confidence in our future, but we need to make changes now. To illustrate the choices before us, let me leave you with an old Cherokee parable:
The old chief was teaching his grandson about life. He told the boy, "A terrible fight is going on inside of me and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too." The boy thought for a moment then asked his grandfather which wolf will win. The chief replied, "Whichever one you feed."
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