In 1776, Thomas Paine began his series of pamphlets entitled, The American Crisis with the famous words, "These are the times that try men's souls." If Paine were alive today he would express the same sentiment regarding the current American crises. We have big problems yet we can't come together enough to solve even the simple ones. We've faced tremendous challenges throughout or history, but right now whether we're talking about routine matters such as raising the debt ceiling or vexing, intractable problems such as our dismal employment situation, all struggles have been exacerbated because, among other things, Republicans have decided to cut off the country's nose to spite the president's face.
Conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers are cheering on GOP lawmakers who seek first and foremost to obstruct President Obama at every turn. If their opposition happens to mesh with a principled stand, so much the better, but in the absence of a good reason or anything resembling integrity, they'll oppose the president anyway. Of course if al-Qaeda had hatched such a plan to paralyze our national government, rendering us incapable of dealing with our pressing issues, these very same right-wingers would become hysterical and pour into the streets in a blind rage with three or four guns apiece in tow. Sadly, Republican lawmakers have been ideologically hijacked by the fringe elements of their party and, consequently, while our nation is foundering, these legislators who are well paid to be part of the solution, have become a conspicuous part of the problem.
The employment situation is still a nightmare. As I said in a previous post, we need to add at least 125,000 jobs per month just to essentially maintain the status quo. Thus, from June 1, 2000-June 30, 2011 (133 months) we needed to add over 16.6 million jobs, but we actually lost 868,000 jobs over that period, leaving us 17.5 million jobs in the hole. I don't blame President Obama for the job losses that have occurred since he took office 30 months ago any more than I would blame a pitcher for his dreadful 1-7 win loss record if four of the eight guys playing behind him have been bribed by gamblers to purposely lose ballgames. The Republican Party has made dimming President Obama's reelection prospects a top priority, and in their eyes, deliberately prolonging the agony of the American people is nothing more than acceptable collateral damage.
I know that people are upset. I understand that the Tea Party faithful could (and did) weather economic hard times with a president they kind of liked and economic good times with a president they didn't like, but hard times with a black Democratic president named Barack Obama was more than they could endure and they were sucked into a vortex of paranoia and unbridled hatred. What I don't understand is why so many people of comparatively modest means insist on throwing themselves on live grenades just so the very rich won't have to be bothered by those distracting explosion sounds.
Republicans have at every opportunity replaced the term "wealthiest Americans" with the term "job creators" and made these people sacred cows we disturb at our peril. However, our wars and other endeavors must be paid for by someone, so every dollar those at the top don't contribute must come from those below them on the economic ladder. More importantly, the notion that increasing taxes on those with the highest incomes will cost us jobs is questionable at best. In 1993 Republicans thundered the same warning as Bill Clinton raised taxes on top earners. However, what followed was the greatest expansion of jobs in our country's history. Right after that boom, George W. Bush lowered taxes on the economic elite, unleashing the worst prolonged period of job losses since the Great Depression. This would suggest two lessons about the claim that we need to cut taxes on the very rich or we'll lose jobs: First, ignoring this and doing the polar opposite can yield the best results we've ever seen and, secondly, following this advice can unleash a gut-wrenching catastrophe for all but the extremely wealthy.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Long Road Back
The April jobs report came out today and again the news was good. The economy gained 244,000 jobs last month, with the private sector gaining 268,000 jobs and the public sector shedding 24,000. This has been the trend for some time now, with private sector job growth outpacing the overall jobs number because the public sector is shrinking. Although the March and April numbers are still preliminary, we've added 768,000 jobs in the first four months of 2011 and, leaving off January, we've gained 700,000 jobs in the last three months.
Although the unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from last month's rate of 8.8%, this is less important than job growth for reasons that I won't get into here since this is already going to be wonkish enough as it is. I will say, however, that the makeup of the unemployed has shifted, with far more people unemployed for less than five weeks and far fewer unemployed for more that twenty-seven weeks. This too is welcome news.
If the good news is that we're on the road to recovery, the bad news is that it's an extremely long road. Primarily because our population grows, we need to add more jobs to the workforce just to maintain the status quo. Specifically, we need to add at least 125,000 new jobs every month or 1.5 million every year, and that's a conservative estimate. Many economists use 150,000 a month or 1.8 million new jobs a year and, frankly, this higher number is historically sound. In the 1960s when the population was smaller, we added over 17 million jobs, and in the decades of the '70s, 80s and '90s we added over 18 million jobs in each. Over the forty years from 1960 through 1999, we added an average of about 160,000 jobs a month. Nevertheless, I'll use the 125,000 number. Now, let's look at the facts and do the math.
In the Great Recession we lost millions of jobs, but the periods before it and after it were also marked by anemic job growth, and we mustn't forget the 1.5 million jobs we need to add annually just to keep up. In the last 11 years, from May 2000 through April 2011, we should have added 16.5 million jobs, but over that period we actually lost 632,000 jobs, leaving us with a shortfall of more than 17.1 million jobs that we need to make up, over and above the 1.5 million per year we need to add going forward if we want to get back to where we were 11 years ago when Clinton was president.
If we add 225,000 jobs every month, that would mean 2.7 million a year. The only president to exceed that over his entire presidency was Bill Clinton, although, believe it or not, Jimmy Carter was closest with a rate of over 2.6 million for his whole presidency. I know Sean Hannity likes to say that we lost 10 million jobs under Carter, but once again he's wrong and we gained over 10 million jobs under Carter. LBJ also added well over 2 million jobs a year and Ronald Reagan, although falling short of 2 million a year for his entire tenure, did manage to do so for one of his two terms.
In any event, even if we can add jobs at a rate of 2.7 million a year over a sustained period of time, when you consider that 1.5 million of that is just to tread water, it won't be until September 2025 that we can get back to where things were in May 2000. That's a 25+ year long national nightmare. We need to focus on job creation or we'll condemn an entire generation of Americans to the eroded peace of mind that attends our woeful employment picture. I'm begging everyone to keep their eyes on the ball and ignore those who would use wedge issues to divide us and render us unable to solve our real problems.
Although the unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from last month's rate of 8.8%, this is less important than job growth for reasons that I won't get into here since this is already going to be wonkish enough as it is. I will say, however, that the makeup of the unemployed has shifted, with far more people unemployed for less than five weeks and far fewer unemployed for more that twenty-seven weeks. This too is welcome news.
If the good news is that we're on the road to recovery, the bad news is that it's an extremely long road. Primarily because our population grows, we need to add more jobs to the workforce just to maintain the status quo. Specifically, we need to add at least 125,000 new jobs every month or 1.5 million every year, and that's a conservative estimate. Many economists use 150,000 a month or 1.8 million new jobs a year and, frankly, this higher number is historically sound. In the 1960s when the population was smaller, we added over 17 million jobs, and in the decades of the '70s, 80s and '90s we added over 18 million jobs in each. Over the forty years from 1960 through 1999, we added an average of about 160,000 jobs a month. Nevertheless, I'll use the 125,000 number. Now, let's look at the facts and do the math.
In the Great Recession we lost millions of jobs, but the periods before it and after it were also marked by anemic job growth, and we mustn't forget the 1.5 million jobs we need to add annually just to keep up. In the last 11 years, from May 2000 through April 2011, we should have added 16.5 million jobs, but over that period we actually lost 632,000 jobs, leaving us with a shortfall of more than 17.1 million jobs that we need to make up, over and above the 1.5 million per year we need to add going forward if we want to get back to where we were 11 years ago when Clinton was president.
If we add 225,000 jobs every month, that would mean 2.7 million a year. The only president to exceed that over his entire presidency was Bill Clinton, although, believe it or not, Jimmy Carter was closest with a rate of over 2.6 million for his whole presidency. I know Sean Hannity likes to say that we lost 10 million jobs under Carter, but once again he's wrong and we gained over 10 million jobs under Carter. LBJ also added well over 2 million jobs a year and Ronald Reagan, although falling short of 2 million a year for his entire tenure, did manage to do so for one of his two terms.
In any event, even if we can add jobs at a rate of 2.7 million a year over a sustained period of time, when you consider that 1.5 million of that is just to tread water, it won't be until September 2025 that we can get back to where things were in May 2000. That's a 25+ year long national nightmare. We need to focus on job creation or we'll condemn an entire generation of Americans to the eroded peace of mind that attends our woeful employment picture. I'm begging everyone to keep their eyes on the ball and ignore those who would use wedge issues to divide us and render us unable to solve our real problems.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Birther Don't You Come Around Here Anymore
Yesterday President Obama released his long form birth certificate, which was at the center of the so-called "birther" controversy. While in theory this should have put the entire disgraceful matter to rest, we quickly learned that we couldn't simply move on and try to regain our national dignity. As soon as the document they clamored for was released, rather than apologizing for perpetrating a fraud on the American public, these same people resorted to everything from saying it was a fake to calling for President Obama's college transcripts.
With regard to the latter, Donald Trump claims to have heard that Barack Obama was a "terrible student" who somehow mysteriously got into Columbia and Harvard. Of course this is unsourced and is either based on hearsay of indeterminate reliability, or it's simply a bald-faced lie contrived in Trump's own mind. When assessing how seriously to take this accusation, we need to consider two things. First, since nothing Trump said about the birth certificate, what his investigators were finding, the birth announcement, and so forth had any truth to it whatsoever, we need to evaluate anything he says with the harsh scrutiny that we reserve exclusively for those who have lied to us. Secondly, the one thing we do know about Barack Obama's academic record is that he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the law review. This would suggest that President Obama was a superb student, not a terrible one.
Moreover, for the sake of argument, I'll even entertain the possibility that Donald Trump isn't lying, and that in his youth Barack Obama wasn't the academic star that he later indisputably became. To a reasonable American, the arc of this story would actually flatter Mr. Obama. He took a weakness of his youth, and worked at it until he was not only no longer weak, but he had excelled to the point that he was among the very best in the nation. We don't condemn that; we celebrate it. However, this is still grist for Mr. Trump's deplorable mill.
What Trump is saying loud and clear to his receptive audience is that this _______ (you know the word) only got where he got in life by being unqualified but stealing what rightly belonged to a deserving white person. Not only do Trump's supporters instantly decode his message, but it's sweet music to their ears. Their wretched and tortured souls can only find peace if President Obama's achievements can be attributed to usurpation and not legitimacy. A shark needs to swim, a racehorse needs to run and a bigot needs to hate. I'm not judging these people on anything superficial, but on the content of their character, which happens to be an unholy mess.
If the ugly dark cloud of this story has a silver lining it's that, while we still have a long we to go, we've also come a long way. Fifty years ago a black man making a serious run for president would more likely find himself in a round noose than an oval office. Today a man born of a black father and a white mother is the duly elected President of the United States. Yes, it's terrible that millions of Americans refuse to accept that basic truth and they'll do everything in their power to wish it away with shameful attempts to attack his legitimacy, but it seems that our 21st Century vile racists are less dangerous than their 20th Century counterparts. At this point, I'll take any victory, however small.
With regard to the latter, Donald Trump claims to have heard that Barack Obama was a "terrible student" who somehow mysteriously got into Columbia and Harvard. Of course this is unsourced and is either based on hearsay of indeterminate reliability, or it's simply a bald-faced lie contrived in Trump's own mind. When assessing how seriously to take this accusation, we need to consider two things. First, since nothing Trump said about the birth certificate, what his investigators were finding, the birth announcement, and so forth had any truth to it whatsoever, we need to evaluate anything he says with the harsh scrutiny that we reserve exclusively for those who have lied to us. Secondly, the one thing we do know about Barack Obama's academic record is that he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the law review. This would suggest that President Obama was a superb student, not a terrible one.
Moreover, for the sake of argument, I'll even entertain the possibility that Donald Trump isn't lying, and that in his youth Barack Obama wasn't the academic star that he later indisputably became. To a reasonable American, the arc of this story would actually flatter Mr. Obama. He took a weakness of his youth, and worked at it until he was not only no longer weak, but he had excelled to the point that he was among the very best in the nation. We don't condemn that; we celebrate it. However, this is still grist for Mr. Trump's deplorable mill.
What Trump is saying loud and clear to his receptive audience is that this _______ (you know the word) only got where he got in life by being unqualified but stealing what rightly belonged to a deserving white person. Not only do Trump's supporters instantly decode his message, but it's sweet music to their ears. Their wretched and tortured souls can only find peace if President Obama's achievements can be attributed to usurpation and not legitimacy. A shark needs to swim, a racehorse needs to run and a bigot needs to hate. I'm not judging these people on anything superficial, but on the content of their character, which happens to be an unholy mess.
If the ugly dark cloud of this story has a silver lining it's that, while we still have a long we to go, we've also come a long way. Fifty years ago a black man making a serious run for president would more likely find himself in a round noose than an oval office. Today a man born of a black father and a white mother is the duly elected President of the United States. Yes, it's terrible that millions of Americans refuse to accept that basic truth and they'll do everything in their power to wish it away with shameful attempts to attack his legitimacy, but it seems that our 21st Century vile racists are less dangerous than their 20th Century counterparts. At this point, I'll take any victory, however small.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Disastrous vs. the Unpalatable
Nearly a century after Otto von Bismarck famously said that politics is the art of the possible, economist John Kenneth Galbraith contradicted Bismarck in a letter to President Kennedy, advising that, "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." This is a worthy companion to Churchill's quote about democracy being the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. These celebrations of the least bad option should be taken as signposts that might guide us back onto the path to sanity. We have become deluded by ridiculous expectations of all imaginable rewards without a trace of sacrifice or cost, and we need to abandon childish fantasy and face reality.
When all of our options are fraught with shortcomings, we have to choose the best of the flawed bunch and ignore the hysteria that will accompany endorsing something that isn't godlike in its perfection. Let's take the example of health care reform. For generations we've identified problems in our health care system, yet we've been unable to solve them, try as we might. Based on our impressive history of innovation, we can rule out the possibility that we are simply ineffective problem solvers, and conclude instead that we have failed to fix the system because there simply is no good solution that will satisfy everyone and we're hesitant to pick among the conspicuously flawed choices. We faced the following problem: Millions of people were uninsured because they either couldn't afford health insurance or couldn't obtain it from the market because of an existing health problem. More to the point, some of these people will need life saving medical treatment, so what do we do?
After being put through the legislative sausage grinder of compromise and special interest appeasement, we ultimately decided on a package that would, among other things, force insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions, in exchange for which we would require people to carry heath insurance so they couldn't cheat the actuarial tables by waiting until they needed care before buying insurance. Americans by nature despise having the government tell them what to do, but what was our better option? We could have maintained the status quo where the uninsured receive needed care despite their inability to pay. The costs are then paid by everyone else. Alternatively, we could deny care to those we believe will stiff us on the bill, but is that really a world in which anyone wants to live? Should we tell someone in desperate need of medical attention I'm sorry, but you have to go across the street and stand behind the L.D. (line of death) right behind the hysterical woman holding the convulsing child and screaming "Oh God Oh God! Won't someone please help my baby?!"
I'm fascinated and amused by those who are enraged because this insurance provision represents communism, socialism, etc. Let me see if I have this straight: The current situation in which the cost of the medical care for the uninsured is absorbed by others who can pay (to each according to his need, from each according to his ability) is NOT considered communism, but having people pay their own way by padding the bloated coffers of giant profit-making private insurance companies IS communism? What?!
Finally, we can't discuss the ranting about communism/socialism/fascism without talking about the bailouts and other actions taken to rescue the economy. By all accounts, the economy was facing imminent collapse if we didn't act quickly and decisively. The bailouts are perfect examples of the unpalatable being preferable to the disastrous. Some may rail against the extraordinary efforts to rescue our economy from utter devastation, but if they could peer into the world in which we would be living had we listened to them and kept the government out of it, they would sit down and shut and shut up in a hurry.
When all of our options are fraught with shortcomings, we have to choose the best of the flawed bunch and ignore the hysteria that will accompany endorsing something that isn't godlike in its perfection. Let's take the example of health care reform. For generations we've identified problems in our health care system, yet we've been unable to solve them, try as we might. Based on our impressive history of innovation, we can rule out the possibility that we are simply ineffective problem solvers, and conclude instead that we have failed to fix the system because there simply is no good solution that will satisfy everyone and we're hesitant to pick among the conspicuously flawed choices. We faced the following problem: Millions of people were uninsured because they either couldn't afford health insurance or couldn't obtain it from the market because of an existing health problem. More to the point, some of these people will need life saving medical treatment, so what do we do?
After being put through the legislative sausage grinder of compromise and special interest appeasement, we ultimately decided on a package that would, among other things, force insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions, in exchange for which we would require people to carry heath insurance so they couldn't cheat the actuarial tables by waiting until they needed care before buying insurance. Americans by nature despise having the government tell them what to do, but what was our better option? We could have maintained the status quo where the uninsured receive needed care despite their inability to pay. The costs are then paid by everyone else. Alternatively, we could deny care to those we believe will stiff us on the bill, but is that really a world in which anyone wants to live? Should we tell someone in desperate need of medical attention I'm sorry, but you have to go across the street and stand behind the L.D. (line of death) right behind the hysterical woman holding the convulsing child and screaming "Oh God Oh God! Won't someone please help my baby?!"
I'm fascinated and amused by those who are enraged because this insurance provision represents communism, socialism, etc. Let me see if I have this straight: The current situation in which the cost of the medical care for the uninsured is absorbed by others who can pay (to each according to his need, from each according to his ability) is NOT considered communism, but having people pay their own way by padding the bloated coffers of giant profit-making private insurance companies IS communism? What?!
Finally, we can't discuss the ranting about communism/socialism/fascism without talking about the bailouts and other actions taken to rescue the economy. By all accounts, the economy was facing imminent collapse if we didn't act quickly and decisively. The bailouts are perfect examples of the unpalatable being preferable to the disastrous. Some may rail against the extraordinary efforts to rescue our economy from utter devastation, but if they could peer into the world in which we would be living had we listened to them and kept the government out of it, they would sit down and shut and shut up in a hurry.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Is the Tea Cup Half Full of Half Empty?
As a political junkie, I've watched various trends and movements come and go, but I find the Tea Party oddly fascinating because, like so many other observers, I still don't quite know what to make of them. They have certainly generated more buzz than their size would seem to warrant. It's entertaining to watch commentators and journalists spending inordinate amounts of time discussing this group, if only to tell us that journalists and commentators are spending inordinate amounts of time discussing this group. The Tea Party movement seems to be something of a political Rorschach test that different people look at and see very different things.
The Tea Party was essentially formed from various factions of the political right although there are exceptions. The most obvious constituency are those who think that the government has grossly overstepped its mandate, and the processes through which it has illegitimately seized power and insinuated itself increasingly into our lives must be reversed. They believe in a very strict and narrow interpretation of the Constitution and they wear three-cornered hats to celebrating the patriots of the late 18th Century, the era in which both the original Boston Tea Party took place and the Constitution was framed. If this were the movement's only core group then they would be garden variety small government conservatives. However, there are other elements that make this movement different.
If those wearing the felt three-corner hats represent one core Tea Party group, then another part of the its base should be wearing hats of any shape as long as they're made of tin foil. This is the crazy conspiracy theory lunatic fringe. The final group I want to discuss should be wearing hats made of any material as long as they're tall, pointy and fashioned to be worn over a hood. These groups are undeniably a part of the movement, but the bone of contention between supporters and detractors concerns their relative size. Advocates say that you will find kooks and bigots in any group and this one is no exception. They should be no more stained by these elements than the local Elks Club, union hall or bowling league. Opponents argue that while any large organization will have some bad apples, the share of teabaggers driven by hatred is so disproportionately high that without these people the movement would be dramatically reduced. This is the crux of the disagreement. Those who see the unsavory characters as a fringe to be found in any group praise the movement, and those who see them as one of the main pillars of the Tea Party condemn the movement. As is often the case, the truth may lie in the middle.
At its best, the Tea Party can be to politics what Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 satirical masterpiece, Network was to TV. They both essentially implore the masses to run to their windows and shout, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" With 30 years of reckless deficit spending putting our future in hock, someone needs to sound a clarion call. At its worst, the Tea Party summons humanity's baser side, promoting the fear and hatred that will shame us once we return to our senses. Yes, if the policies of this administration were being advanced by a president who was a blue-eyed Mayflower descendant named James Wellington, there would still be strong and vocal opposition, but we wouldn't see the level of insanity we're seeing now. Too many people who were already uneasy about having insufficient control over their lives see the election of this president as their "Leave it to Beaver" world being preempted by "Soul Train" and they've gone stark raving mad.
The claims that President Obama is essentially the living embodiment of Leon Trotsky, or that he's a Kenyan born Muslim, or other nonsense coming from teabaggers destroy the Tea Party's credibility and that's a shame because someone does need to speak up about the troubling gap between the government's spending and its revenue. Speaking of which, they also lose credibility when they claim their rage comes from big government spending piling on debt, but they applaud George W. Bush's presidency. Likewise, they can't be taken seriously when they roundly support Medicare (a system where the government seizes your money through taxation to fund a single-payer health care system) while simultaneously saying that a mandate to carry health insurance is a cataclysmic socialist nightmare that reminds them of Hitler. If they stuck to a legitimate argument against big government, they could potentially have an important voice.
The Tea Party was essentially formed from various factions of the political right although there are exceptions. The most obvious constituency are those who think that the government has grossly overstepped its mandate, and the processes through which it has illegitimately seized power and insinuated itself increasingly into our lives must be reversed. They believe in a very strict and narrow interpretation of the Constitution and they wear three-cornered hats to celebrating the patriots of the late 18th Century, the era in which both the original Boston Tea Party took place and the Constitution was framed. If this were the movement's only core group then they would be garden variety small government conservatives. However, there are other elements that make this movement different.
If those wearing the felt three-corner hats represent one core Tea Party group, then another part of the its base should be wearing hats of any shape as long as they're made of tin foil. This is the crazy conspiracy theory lunatic fringe. The final group I want to discuss should be wearing hats made of any material as long as they're tall, pointy and fashioned to be worn over a hood. These groups are undeniably a part of the movement, but the bone of contention between supporters and detractors concerns their relative size. Advocates say that you will find kooks and bigots in any group and this one is no exception. They should be no more stained by these elements than the local Elks Club, union hall or bowling league. Opponents argue that while any large organization will have some bad apples, the share of teabaggers driven by hatred is so disproportionately high that without these people the movement would be dramatically reduced. This is the crux of the disagreement. Those who see the unsavory characters as a fringe to be found in any group praise the movement, and those who see them as one of the main pillars of the Tea Party condemn the movement. As is often the case, the truth may lie in the middle.
At its best, the Tea Party can be to politics what Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 satirical masterpiece, Network was to TV. They both essentially implore the masses to run to their windows and shout, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" With 30 years of reckless deficit spending putting our future in hock, someone needs to sound a clarion call. At its worst, the Tea Party summons humanity's baser side, promoting the fear and hatred that will shame us once we return to our senses. Yes, if the policies of this administration were being advanced by a president who was a blue-eyed Mayflower descendant named James Wellington, there would still be strong and vocal opposition, but we wouldn't see the level of insanity we're seeing now. Too many people who were already uneasy about having insufficient control over their lives see the election of this president as their "Leave it to Beaver" world being preempted by "Soul Train" and they've gone stark raving mad.
The claims that President Obama is essentially the living embodiment of Leon Trotsky, or that he's a Kenyan born Muslim, or other nonsense coming from teabaggers destroy the Tea Party's credibility and that's a shame because someone does need to speak up about the troubling gap between the government's spending and its revenue. Speaking of which, they also lose credibility when they claim their rage comes from big government spending piling on debt, but they applaud George W. Bush's presidency. Likewise, they can't be taken seriously when they roundly support Medicare (a system where the government seizes your money through taxation to fund a single-payer health care system) while simultaneously saying that a mandate to carry health insurance is a cataclysmic socialist nightmare that reminds them of Hitler. If they stuck to a legitimate argument against big government, they could potentially have an important voice.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
You Say Nazi I Say Not So
Can we please, for the love of God, stop equating the Obama administration with Hitler's reign of terror?! As far as I can tell, the reasoning underlying the linkage between Obama and Hitler is this: Nazis called themselves national socialists and in the minds of some Americans, any increased government presence in something other than national defense makes us a socialist nation and Obama its socialist leader. I can only presume that to them any socialist regime is indistinguishable from any other, so the U.S. under Obama would be the same as Germany under Hitler. I'm not sure where to even begin setting the record straight. The entire exercise is reminiscent of debating the fine points of implausibility regarding Gilligan's Island, but I suppose I have to begin somewhere.
First, I've heard voices from the far right asserting that more government involvement in health care would make us the same as Hitler's Germany. Barney Frank famously heard the same thing at a town hall meeting. I have to ask, is that really the lesson you took away from history? Hitler wanted to offer health care to all citizens, Jew and gentile alike? Really?! For one thing, Germany had universal health care going back to Bismarck, before Hitler was even born (in Austria), so I'm having difficulty understanding how it's peculiar to Hitler and Obama. Also, Israel has universal health care. Are you prepared to tell Israelis who still bear the tattoos of Nazi atrocities that their country is identical to the one they fled for their lives after seeing their family members slaughtered? I know of no 20th Century historian whose mind turns immediately to health insurance when reflecting upon Nazi Germany. By the way, Singapore, a purer example of market capitalism than the U.S. also has universal health care.
Now let's compare the feared Nazism of the Obama administration with the halcyon days of Ward and June Cleaver and the Eisenhower presidency. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower never dipped below 91%. Also, when we think about domestic policy initiatives in those eight years, we likely think of the interstate highway system, which was inspired by the advantages that the autobahn system gave the Nazis. During the Eisenhower years we had legally enforced segregation, and blacks, who were not part of our country's master race, would be thrown in jail if they tried to escape the ghetto of their second-class citizenship by using a public toilet or occupying a seat on the bus. Now let's be clear, Eisenhower's presidency bears no resemblance to Nazi rule, but that's equally true of Obama's. When the private sector failed and we were facing a collapse that most people can't even imagine, Obama, like Bush before him, stepped into the breach to rescue the country from catastrophe. His decision not to fiddle while Rome, Georgia burned should not be confused with a plan to enslave all Americans under his megalomaniacal whip.
This is not new; the same charges of socialism, destroying America and so forth were leveled against FDR. Notwithstanding the Chicken Little ranting, the sky was not falling. We ultimately thrived as never before and our dime now bears FDR's image. I will concede that on the continuum between pure capitalism and pure socialism, greater government involvement moves us along that line away from pure capitalism, but we need to retain a sense of proportion. The government stepping in to shore up a failed private institution rather than allowing another devastating blow to an already battered economy does not equal or even foreshadow a complete disappearance of private property and freedom. We'll always have a mix of public and private in this country, and that's a good thing. Complete government control of our lives would be an Orwellian nightmare, but a society without any safety net whatsoever would be a Dickensian nightmare. I don't want to live under totalitarian oppression any more that you want to live in a country where people who can't afford medical care are left to die in the streets. There's plenty of room for disagreement on the proper role of government, but let's keep our heads, tone down the rhetoric and work together to solve our common problems.
First, I've heard voices from the far right asserting that more government involvement in health care would make us the same as Hitler's Germany. Barney Frank famously heard the same thing at a town hall meeting. I have to ask, is that really the lesson you took away from history? Hitler wanted to offer health care to all citizens, Jew and gentile alike? Really?! For one thing, Germany had universal health care going back to Bismarck, before Hitler was even born (in Austria), so I'm having difficulty understanding how it's peculiar to Hitler and Obama. Also, Israel has universal health care. Are you prepared to tell Israelis who still bear the tattoos of Nazi atrocities that their country is identical to the one they fled for their lives after seeing their family members slaughtered? I know of no 20th Century historian whose mind turns immediately to health insurance when reflecting upon Nazi Germany. By the way, Singapore, a purer example of market capitalism than the U.S. also has universal health care.
Now let's compare the feared Nazism of the Obama administration with the halcyon days of Ward and June Cleaver and the Eisenhower presidency. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower never dipped below 91%. Also, when we think about domestic policy initiatives in those eight years, we likely think of the interstate highway system, which was inspired by the advantages that the autobahn system gave the Nazis. During the Eisenhower years we had legally enforced segregation, and blacks, who were not part of our country's master race, would be thrown in jail if they tried to escape the ghetto of their second-class citizenship by using a public toilet or occupying a seat on the bus. Now let's be clear, Eisenhower's presidency bears no resemblance to Nazi rule, but that's equally true of Obama's. When the private sector failed and we were facing a collapse that most people can't even imagine, Obama, like Bush before him, stepped into the breach to rescue the country from catastrophe. His decision not to fiddle while Rome, Georgia burned should not be confused with a plan to enslave all Americans under his megalomaniacal whip.
This is not new; the same charges of socialism, destroying America and so forth were leveled against FDR. Notwithstanding the Chicken Little ranting, the sky was not falling. We ultimately thrived as never before and our dime now bears FDR's image. I will concede that on the continuum between pure capitalism and pure socialism, greater government involvement moves us along that line away from pure capitalism, but we need to retain a sense of proportion. The government stepping in to shore up a failed private institution rather than allowing another devastating blow to an already battered economy does not equal or even foreshadow a complete disappearance of private property and freedom. We'll always have a mix of public and private in this country, and that's a good thing. Complete government control of our lives would be an Orwellian nightmare, but a society without any safety net whatsoever would be a Dickensian nightmare. I don't want to live under totalitarian oppression any more that you want to live in a country where people who can't afford medical care are left to die in the streets. There's plenty of room for disagreement on the proper role of government, but let's keep our heads, tone down the rhetoric and work together to solve our common problems.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding
In the unlikely event that reading my blog is the first thing you're doing after emerging from a lengthy coma, let me say welcome back and tell you that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday. This award, surprising even to its recipient, was met with very mixed reactions, which is perfectly understandable and completely appropriate under the circumstance. It was also met with grossly inappropriate though utterly predictable rage and scorn from the legion of people who have been afflicted with a particularly virulent strain of white hot hatred for President Obama and all that he represents. The fair and arguably correct criticism of the award is that President Obama has not yet done anything worthy of the prize. With respect to the haters, had President Obama discovered a way for cars to run on household garbage and emit no pollution, simultaneously solving our landfill problem and our dependence on foreign oil, they would only scream about how he just ruined America by costing us jobs in both the sanitation and petroleum industries.
While those who believe that the Peace Prize should have been given to someone more deserving have a persuasive argument, I can also see some merit in the committee's decision and give it the benefit of the doubt. America's shift from a country with a foreign policy endorsed by the, "Nuke 'em 'til they glow then shoot 'em in the dark" set to a country that wants a leader who favors diplomacy, respect and understanding is an enormous boon to world peace. The United States' only peer in terms of military spending and might is the rest of the word combined. This brings us to "American exceptionalism." President Obama's foes, primarily the haters but also some reasonable thinkers who simply disagree with him, rail against his failure to preach American exceptionalism, and they bristle when he dares to suggest that we lack godlike infallibility. They want the president to be the equivalent of the unfit parent who swears that his or her child is never wrong and every conflict must therefore be someone else's fault. Ironically, Obama's Nobel Prize can be defended from either side of the American exceptionalism discussion. Simply because a U.S president can do more to alter the course of world peace than any other leader (American exceptionalism), President Obama's inauguration was a monumental event, particularly given his appetite for diplomacy and nuclear disarmament. At the same time, exceptional or not, he refuses to make jingoistic arrogance the centerpiece of his foreign policy, which is also a giant leap towards global peace.
If a research biologist uncovered an extremely promising cure for cancer, leaving the medical community giddy with excitement and landing the discovery on the cover of every news magazine, that scientist would be a slam dunk for the Nobel Prize in Medicine even before a single human patient had been cured. Yes, the discovery is itself an achievement and I'm not arguing that it's perfectly analogous to President Obama's Peace Prize, but it would still be an award based its promise of a yet unrealized benefit. Moreover, there is precedent for the Peace Prize to be awarded based on hope for the future as opposed to a completed accomplishment. Finally, the political right can't simultaneously argue that President Obama has ruined America by doing this, that and the other in his foreign policy and that he has not yet done anything. It seems to me that either he's done something or he's done nothing. If these critics are to avoid being dismissed out of hand, they must be consistent and not let their hatred contradict itself.
While those who believe that the Peace Prize should have been given to someone more deserving have a persuasive argument, I can also see some merit in the committee's decision and give it the benefit of the doubt. America's shift from a country with a foreign policy endorsed by the, "Nuke 'em 'til they glow then shoot 'em in the dark" set to a country that wants a leader who favors diplomacy, respect and understanding is an enormous boon to world peace. The United States' only peer in terms of military spending and might is the rest of the word combined. This brings us to "American exceptionalism." President Obama's foes, primarily the haters but also some reasonable thinkers who simply disagree with him, rail against his failure to preach American exceptionalism, and they bristle when he dares to suggest that we lack godlike infallibility. They want the president to be the equivalent of the unfit parent who swears that his or her child is never wrong and every conflict must therefore be someone else's fault. Ironically, Obama's Nobel Prize can be defended from either side of the American exceptionalism discussion. Simply because a U.S president can do more to alter the course of world peace than any other leader (American exceptionalism), President Obama's inauguration was a monumental event, particularly given his appetite for diplomacy and nuclear disarmament. At the same time, exceptional or not, he refuses to make jingoistic arrogance the centerpiece of his foreign policy, which is also a giant leap towards global peace.
If a research biologist uncovered an extremely promising cure for cancer, leaving the medical community giddy with excitement and landing the discovery on the cover of every news magazine, that scientist would be a slam dunk for the Nobel Prize in Medicine even before a single human patient had been cured. Yes, the discovery is itself an achievement and I'm not arguing that it's perfectly analogous to President Obama's Peace Prize, but it would still be an award based its promise of a yet unrealized benefit. Moreover, there is precedent for the Peace Prize to be awarded based on hope for the future as opposed to a completed accomplishment. Finally, the political right can't simultaneously argue that President Obama has ruined America by doing this, that and the other in his foreign policy and that he has not yet done anything. It seems to me that either he's done something or he's done nothing. If these critics are to avoid being dismissed out of hand, they must be consistent and not let their hatred contradict itself.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Calling All Angels
This post is named after a Jane Siberry song that was used in the movie Pay it Forward to provide foreground music for the film's powerful ending scene. However, I'm really using the word angels to refer to our "better angels" as Lincoln did in his first inaugural address, about five weeks before Fort Sumter was fired upon. These were the closing words of that speech, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory...will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
The battle between our demons and our better angels is one that is constantly being waged within each of us on a personal level, and by our society on a broader level. Over the long haul our better angels tend to prevail, at least on a societal level, but how much misery we inflict upon ourselves and one another in the interim depends on how much we indulge our demons. I'm saddened by the way we have given in to our worst selves lately. There was a lesson in The Karate Kid that, while given in reference to martial arts, can just as easily be applied to politics or how we shape our society. Mr. Miyagi's said, "Karate here" (pointing to his head); "karate here" (pointing to his heart); "karate never here" (pointing to the pit of his stomach). Sadly, we are going in the opposite direction with intellectual rigor, compassion and empathy too often being unseated by anger and bile as the locus of our public discourse.
What ever happened to the benefit of the doubt? Right now, if a statement can be taken two ways, one of them benign and one not, we not only assume the worst, but we take it and run with it, attaching a series of things that will follow as a logical consequence, then scream at the top of our lungs, we're all doomed, doomed I say, doomed!! Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are literally making their living at the moment by swearing that an Obama administration means nothing less than literally the complete and utter annihilation of everything America has ever been. While most of us, even thoughtful conservatives who disagree with the president, can laugh off the absurd hyperbole, the number of people who have come unglued by the endless ranting of doomsayers is probably in the millions. Fox News Channel should change its motto from "Fair and Balanced" to "Keeping Angry White People Angry Since 1996." Of course, Fox News has branched out and they now keep angry white people angry and scared.
I'll leave you with an illustration of my point. We grew up venerating Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Now imagine Obama saying the same thing. Talk radio hosts and listeners would be in a blind rage, and in some cases literally crying, over this indisputable proof that Obama's true agenda is to dismantle the America our forefathers fought and died for. Here's one possible example of the blathering, "See, this is what I've been warning you about ladies and gentleman! This radical communist is showing his true colors. This guy wants to throw out 230 years of the rugged individualism that made this country the greatest the world has ever known. Comrade Obama doesn't want you to keep the fruits of your labor that you so richly deserve from your blood, sweat and tears! He wants you to ask yourselves what you can do to contribute to his statist agenda. I swear to you ladies and gentleman if we don't stand up and stop this radical now, the American dream will be dead and the country we love will no longer exist." Kennedy's words would be the same whether spoken by him in 1961 or by Obama 2009, but the meaning we would give them depends on whether we accept the translation of our demons or our better angels. The choice is ours.
The battle between our demons and our better angels is one that is constantly being waged within each of us on a personal level, and by our society on a broader level. Over the long haul our better angels tend to prevail, at least on a societal level, but how much misery we inflict upon ourselves and one another in the interim depends on how much we indulge our demons. I'm saddened by the way we have given in to our worst selves lately. There was a lesson in The Karate Kid that, while given in reference to martial arts, can just as easily be applied to politics or how we shape our society. Mr. Miyagi's said, "Karate here" (pointing to his head); "karate here" (pointing to his heart); "karate never here" (pointing to the pit of his stomach). Sadly, we are going in the opposite direction with intellectual rigor, compassion and empathy too often being unseated by anger and bile as the locus of our public discourse.
What ever happened to the benefit of the doubt? Right now, if a statement can be taken two ways, one of them benign and one not, we not only assume the worst, but we take it and run with it, attaching a series of things that will follow as a logical consequence, then scream at the top of our lungs, we're all doomed, doomed I say, doomed!! Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are literally making their living at the moment by swearing that an Obama administration means nothing less than literally the complete and utter annihilation of everything America has ever been. While most of us, even thoughtful conservatives who disagree with the president, can laugh off the absurd hyperbole, the number of people who have come unglued by the endless ranting of doomsayers is probably in the millions. Fox News Channel should change its motto from "Fair and Balanced" to "Keeping Angry White People Angry Since 1996." Of course, Fox News has branched out and they now keep angry white people angry and scared.
I'll leave you with an illustration of my point. We grew up venerating Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Now imagine Obama saying the same thing. Talk radio hosts and listeners would be in a blind rage, and in some cases literally crying, over this indisputable proof that Obama's true agenda is to dismantle the America our forefathers fought and died for. Here's one possible example of the blathering, "See, this is what I've been warning you about ladies and gentleman! This radical communist is showing his true colors. This guy wants to throw out 230 years of the rugged individualism that made this country the greatest the world has ever known. Comrade Obama doesn't want you to keep the fruits of your labor that you so richly deserve from your blood, sweat and tears! He wants you to ask yourselves what you can do to contribute to his statist agenda. I swear to you ladies and gentleman if we don't stand up and stop this radical now, the American dream will be dead and the country we love will no longer exist." Kennedy's words would be the same whether spoken by him in 1961 or by Obama 2009, but the meaning we would give them depends on whether we accept the translation of our demons or our better angels. The choice is ours.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Enemies Foreign and Domestic
Between the big political stories and the eighth anniversary of the barbaric 9/11 attacks, which were nothing less than an assault on civilization itself, this has been quite a week. There's actually a common thread running through all of it if you consider the words, "Yes, we've seen it before but never like this." We had experienced acts of war, terrorist attacks, and even a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center before September 11, 2001, but nothing like what we witnessed on that horrible day. Similarly, the political stories had certain historical parallels, but as a matter of degree, they were unprecedented. People were so profoundly affected by the events of eight years ago that my words can add nothing to the dialogue, but I would like to discuss the other stories.
Presidents often address schoolchildren, and though it's properly seen as an honor and privilege to have the president speak to you, it's frequently accompanied by partisan complaints. When Republican presidents do it Democrats cry political campaigning masquerading as service to our youth, and when Democratic presidents do it Republicans cry foul in the same way. But once again, yes, we've seen it before but not like this. Some people across the country were furious, making wild, often patently false, accusations and some school districts refused to show the address even though the full text of the thoroughly inoffensive speech was given in advance. Some critics were enraged because the department of education prepared a lesson plan at all, and some were apoplectic because an earlier version of that plan included an exercise where students write a letter outlining how they can help the president achieve his education goals.
Not only is that letter writing exercise exactly what George H.W. Bush suggested when he addressed students, but it's a perfectly valid lesson extending exercise that promotes critical thinking and active learning. The lesson plan was prepared by some of the country's top teachers and their big mistake was in not hate-proofing it. This is understandable; Americans are by nature optimistic, but teachers are especially so. They simply don't understand the cesspool of darkness in which the hearts and souls of some of these critics reside. Sadly, they have now learned the hard way and America is a little bit uglier for it. Speaking of which, the other big story was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) openly shouting "You lie!" at the president from the House floor. We have seen partisan rumbling and undercurrents at similar events but once again, yes, we've seen it before but never like this. Even worse, talk radio was upset that he apologized for what every lawmaker of any stripe would call a breach for which an apology would be required.
It's easy to understand the enemy from without that cravenly attacked us eight years ago, but we desperately need to address the ever increasing corrosion from within. As Walt Kelly said via his Pogo comic strip, "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."
Presidents often address schoolchildren, and though it's properly seen as an honor and privilege to have the president speak to you, it's frequently accompanied by partisan complaints. When Republican presidents do it Democrats cry political campaigning masquerading as service to our youth, and when Democratic presidents do it Republicans cry foul in the same way. But once again, yes, we've seen it before but not like this. Some people across the country were furious, making wild, often patently false, accusations and some school districts refused to show the address even though the full text of the thoroughly inoffensive speech was given in advance. Some critics were enraged because the department of education prepared a lesson plan at all, and some were apoplectic because an earlier version of that plan included an exercise where students write a letter outlining how they can help the president achieve his education goals.
Not only is that letter writing exercise exactly what George H.W. Bush suggested when he addressed students, but it's a perfectly valid lesson extending exercise that promotes critical thinking and active learning. The lesson plan was prepared by some of the country's top teachers and their big mistake was in not hate-proofing it. This is understandable; Americans are by nature optimistic, but teachers are especially so. They simply don't understand the cesspool of darkness in which the hearts and souls of some of these critics reside. Sadly, they have now learned the hard way and America is a little bit uglier for it. Speaking of which, the other big story was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) openly shouting "You lie!" at the president from the House floor. We have seen partisan rumbling and undercurrents at similar events but once again, yes, we've seen it before but never like this. Even worse, talk radio was upset that he apologized for what every lawmaker of any stripe would call a breach for which an apology would be required.
It's easy to understand the enemy from without that cravenly attacked us eight years ago, but we desperately need to address the ever increasing corrosion from within. As Walt Kelly said via his Pogo comic strip, "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
You Can't Fix Stupid...or Can You?
As football coaches are fond of saying, "You can't fix stupid." Until very recently I have labored under the presumption that these words are true. I'm only now beginning to question the wisdom of this maxim, and only because I think the very notion of stupidity may need to be examined more closely. Obviously, there is an important difference between ignorance and stupidity, but there may also be a critical distinction between different types of stupidity.
Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. Being unaware of something doesn't necessarily indict someone's intellect. I'm not smarter than Stephen Hawking because I know my Aunt Barbara's phone number and Dr. Hawking doesn't. Let's say you can't identify the color puce because it's a shade so esoteric that crayola never even included it in the giant box with the built-in sharpener. (You know you exist on the fringe when you're excluded while Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber get seats at the table). Seeing something puce identified as such will forever eliminate your ignorance. On the other hand, let's say you refuse to accept the idea that limes are green, even though you concede that they're the same color as grass and that grass is green. In that case, we have stupidity rather than ignorance because you have all the required facts but you lack the ability to process them.
Thus, conventional wisdom would argue that ignorance can be very easily erased while stupidity is an intractable problem. I want to challenge this to an extent by suggesting that there are two types of stupidity, one which conforms to this reasoning and one which doesn't. I'll call them Type A and Type B. Someone with Type A stupidity was born that way and pretty much all you can do is put a paper hat on him and wish him well. He's as incapable of sophisticated thought as I am of bench pressing 300 lbs. Type B stupidity is another matter altogether. This phenomenon occurs when fear, rage, hatred or any combination thereof hijacks and paralyzes a well-functioning brain, rendering it as feckless as that of a low-grade moron. This has been occurring lately with disturbing frequency.
Take the example of Sean Hannity and Frank Luntz shortly after President Obama's address to Congress. They talked about how the president called insurance executives bad people (about 4:05 remaining in the video clip for those checking the link) because he said, referring to a series of current problems with insurance, "Insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people; they do it because it's profitable." No one with an IQ above 75 would draw that conclusion from those words unless he or she was stricken with acute Type B stupidity. Unless we can retreat from the brink, this will become more commonplace as people, particularly from the right wing grow increasingly unhinged.
Here's the good news, we'll eventually regain our bearings and settle back into being a country that's not the embarrassment I'm watching on my television night after night. My entire point is that this temporary or Type B stupidity is easily curable. The moment one decides not to give into the madness, the demons are automatically exorcised and the mind regains it's full ability to function. You can fix (some forms of) stupid.
Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. Being unaware of something doesn't necessarily indict someone's intellect. I'm not smarter than Stephen Hawking because I know my Aunt Barbara's phone number and Dr. Hawking doesn't. Let's say you can't identify the color puce because it's a shade so esoteric that crayola never even included it in the giant box with the built-in sharpener. (You know you exist on the fringe when you're excluded while Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber get seats at the table). Seeing something puce identified as such will forever eliminate your ignorance. On the other hand, let's say you refuse to accept the idea that limes are green, even though you concede that they're the same color as grass and that grass is green. In that case, we have stupidity rather than ignorance because you have all the required facts but you lack the ability to process them.
Thus, conventional wisdom would argue that ignorance can be very easily erased while stupidity is an intractable problem. I want to challenge this to an extent by suggesting that there are two types of stupidity, one which conforms to this reasoning and one which doesn't. I'll call them Type A and Type B. Someone with Type A stupidity was born that way and pretty much all you can do is put a paper hat on him and wish him well. He's as incapable of sophisticated thought as I am of bench pressing 300 lbs. Type B stupidity is another matter altogether. This phenomenon occurs when fear, rage, hatred or any combination thereof hijacks and paralyzes a well-functioning brain, rendering it as feckless as that of a low-grade moron. This has been occurring lately with disturbing frequency.
Take the example of Sean Hannity and Frank Luntz shortly after President Obama's address to Congress. They talked about how the president called insurance executives bad people (about 4:05 remaining in the video clip for those checking the link) because he said, referring to a series of current problems with insurance, "Insurance executives don't do this because they're bad people; they do it because it's profitable." No one with an IQ above 75 would draw that conclusion from those words unless he or she was stricken with acute Type B stupidity. Unless we can retreat from the brink, this will become more commonplace as people, particularly from the right wing grow increasingly unhinged.
Here's the good news, we'll eventually regain our bearings and settle back into being a country that's not the embarrassment I'm watching on my television night after night. My entire point is that this temporary or Type B stupidity is easily curable. The moment one decides not to give into the madness, the demons are automatically exorcised and the mind regains it's full ability to function. You can fix (some forms of) stupid.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Uncivil War
For those of you who find it odd that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, here's another linguistic irony: Two of the worst instances of our country being torn apart at the seams are The Civil War of the mid 19th Century and what I call the "The Uncivil War" of the early 21st Century. I've lived through the "War on Poverty", "The War on Drugs", "The War on Terror", and now it appears, "The War on Civility" or The Uncivil War. Throughout our history, we've criticized our leaders and institutions, often harshly, but what we've witnessed recently is beyond the pale. Yes, in protests or while venting in private rants, many of us are guilty of saying some remarkably intemperate things. God knows I'm guilty of more than my share. It is, however, very different to have those who posture as responsible spokespeople acting in such a conspicuously irresponsible manner.
I need to clarify that the loss of civility I'm bemoaning doesn't merely relate to politeness or the tone of political discourse, but rather to substance. We have lost the restraint that marks a civilized society. Our disagreements have become back alley brawls where absolutely nothing is off-limits. We've shamelessly lost our sense of decency. You may recall that the beginning of the end of McCarthyism came when someone finally stood up and openly chastised Senator McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, Sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" We desperately need a similar moment now. We need leaders with the courage and integrity to stand up and say, "Stop it!"
We are poisoning the well of our democracy with dishonest and scurrilous attacks and we need to stop it immediately. A recent poll showed that only 42% of Republicans were satisfied that President Obama was born in the United States. This is not the tin foil hat wearing lunatic fringe; this also includes mainstream Americans who have been so conditioned by a relentless stream of fear, hatred and lies from right wing media and even some prominent Republicans to automatically swallow any negative claim about this president. The latest tempest in the latest teapot is the flap over the president's address to schoolchildren. The chairman of the Florida Republican Party condemned it as socialist indoctrination even though there wasn't a shred of evidence to support his fraudulent claim.
There is an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you (for being dishonest); fool me twice, shame on me (for being a chump). Well, shame on both of you, and knock it off. We have serious problems to solve, and we need all hands on deck. We simply can't afford the luxury of indulging reckless fantasies that serve to splinter our society at a time when we desperately need cooperation. We're better than this and we will certainly rise above it one day. The only open question is how much more of this disgrace we'll have to endure before we grow up and say, "Enough!"
I need to clarify that the loss of civility I'm bemoaning doesn't merely relate to politeness or the tone of political discourse, but rather to substance. We have lost the restraint that marks a civilized society. Our disagreements have become back alley brawls where absolutely nothing is off-limits. We've shamelessly lost our sense of decency. You may recall that the beginning of the end of McCarthyism came when someone finally stood up and openly chastised Senator McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, Sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" We desperately need a similar moment now. We need leaders with the courage and integrity to stand up and say, "Stop it!"
We are poisoning the well of our democracy with dishonest and scurrilous attacks and we need to stop it immediately. A recent poll showed that only 42% of Republicans were satisfied that President Obama was born in the United States. This is not the tin foil hat wearing lunatic fringe; this also includes mainstream Americans who have been so conditioned by a relentless stream of fear, hatred and lies from right wing media and even some prominent Republicans to automatically swallow any negative claim about this president. The latest tempest in the latest teapot is the flap over the president's address to schoolchildren. The chairman of the Florida Republican Party condemned it as socialist indoctrination even though there wasn't a shred of evidence to support his fraudulent claim.
There is an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you (for being dishonest); fool me twice, shame on me (for being a chump). Well, shame on both of you, and knock it off. We have serious problems to solve, and we need all hands on deck. We simply can't afford the luxury of indulging reckless fantasies that serve to splinter our society at a time when we desperately need cooperation. We're better than this and we will certainly rise above it one day. The only open question is how much more of this disgrace we'll have to endure before we grow up and say, "Enough!"
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Game On
There was a West Wing rerun on Bravo this morning that in some ways fits current events. In that episode, entitled "Game On", fictional President Bartlett was preparing for, then participating in, a debate with his Republican challenger. A great deal of time and energy was devoted to picking out the right tie and trying to find 10-word sound bites for complicated issues. The idea was to cultivate broad superficial support and offend as few as possible. Senior staff, however, feared that this "Uncle Fluffy" approach would be a mistake. To his staff's delight, the president went after his opponent hammer and tong, and ultimately showed why he was the better candidate. President Bartlett pointed out that instances of absolute right and absolute wrong are rare and almost always include body counts. There are few un-nuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for 10-word answers. We later learn that polls showed no matter what he did, President Bartlett would be seen as arrogant. With nothing to lose, he was free to be himself without fear or consequence.
That should be a lesson for both President Obama and his opponents. If Republicans choose to favor misinformation and demagoguery over acting in good faith, then the president will have no incentive to participate in the charade that the other side of the aisle, as a whole, is interested in serving the interest of the American people on this issue, as they will have chosen instead to deliberately mislead and frighten an already unsettled populace for their own Machiavellian gain. Those who tacitly endorse the lies in the hope of reaping some benefit are every bit as guilty as those who spread them. Still, the most important word above is "if". Unless the president can be certain that all hope of reasonable cooperation is lost, something as big as health care reform shouldn't be done on a purely partisan basis.
For what it's worth, I still can't believe what I'm seeing. I feel as though I'm watching the chess club kid with the taped up glasses and the pocket protector adorning his 30 inch chest somehow managing to bully the biggest guy on the football team. Democrats hold the White House and significant margins in both the House and Senate, yet, perhaps out of force of habit, they are cowering in the corner begging not to be stuffed in a locker. However, should they elect to fight back and fight to win, they can make the Republicans painfully regret the day they thought the "death panel" gambit was a good idea. It entails some risk, but again, not if there is nothing to lose.
That should be a lesson for both President Obama and his opponents. If Republicans choose to favor misinformation and demagoguery over acting in good faith, then the president will have no incentive to participate in the charade that the other side of the aisle, as a whole, is interested in serving the interest of the American people on this issue, as they will have chosen instead to deliberately mislead and frighten an already unsettled populace for their own Machiavellian gain. Those who tacitly endorse the lies in the hope of reaping some benefit are every bit as guilty as those who spread them. Still, the most important word above is "if". Unless the president can be certain that all hope of reasonable cooperation is lost, something as big as health care reform shouldn't be done on a purely partisan basis.
For what it's worth, I still can't believe what I'm seeing. I feel as though I'm watching the chess club kid with the taped up glasses and the pocket protector adorning his 30 inch chest somehow managing to bully the biggest guy on the football team. Democrats hold the White House and significant margins in both the House and Senate, yet, perhaps out of force of habit, they are cowering in the corner begging not to be stuffed in a locker. However, should they elect to fight back and fight to win, they can make the Republicans painfully regret the day they thought the "death panel" gambit was a good idea. It entails some risk, but again, not if there is nothing to lose.
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