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."

With Profound Apolologies to William Blake

Tiger! Tiger! less than bright
Hitting hydrants in the night
He who breaks his marriage pledge
Will lose a window to a wedge

Wielded by an angry spouse
Whose lawyers claim she'll get your house
And alimony steep in price
Because you wouldn't heed advice

That men get taken to the cleaners
When they're thinking with their wieners
There's no clue in all the twaddle
Who cheats on a Swedish model?!

Sponsors may soon step aside
As your betrayal of your bride
Seems less to be a one time slip
Than nothing but the iceberg's tip

On the course you've earned your laurels
But in life you have the morals
Of a pig or a hyena
Lucky Elin's not Lorena

Tiger! Tiger! less than bright
Hitting hydrants in the night
He who breaks his marriage pledge
Will lose a window to a wedge

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.

Monday Morning Quarterbacks

Today I want to discuss Monday morning quarterbacking and a couple of recent stories concerning the Bush administration's handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. First, in a report being released today, literally on a Monday morning, although news outlets reported the findings over the weekend, a Senate committee has determined that the U.S. could have and should have captured or killed Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in December 2001. I'm no fan of the Bush administration, particularly with respect to its war machine brain trust, but I like this current exercise in coulda, woulda, shoulda even less. I am particularly troubled that the report was called for by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and perhaps not coincidentally, Bush's presidential rival in 2004. In my very first blog entry I called for grown ups to step up and lead, but apparently that call has gone unheeded. To say the least, expending these resources just to formally say, "Nyah, nyah, I told you so!" is unbecoming of an elder statesman.

People will criticize Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al for Tora Bora just as countless Southerners are still upset over Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. Occasionally, military leaders make strategic errors, football coaches make questionable calls and world class poker players badly misplay hands. So what? We study history to gain wisdom and insight from its lessons, not to use hindsight to second guess every decision. We should also keep in the forefront of our minds the peril that attends counterfactual history, once you change anything, you have, at least potentially, changed everything. There is no way to know all the consequences that accompany the road not taken.

The other recent story concerns the Iraq War. While there are no new revelations, the ongoing Chilcot inquiry, which is intended to be an exhaustive study of Great Britain's involvement in the Iraq War, has once again put the run-up to that war under the microscope. The news concerns statements being made by senior British officials such as Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the U.N. at the time and envoy to Iraq after the invasion. Greenstock testified that the U.S was "hell bent on the use of force" regardless of what anyone else in the world community thought. While other nations and the U.N. itself wanted to give weapons inspectors more time to find evidence that war was justified, the Bush administration saw that as a waste of time and a distraction. The U.N. Security Council was not going to authorize this war based on existing evidence despite the considerable power the U.S. has in this body. President Bush was determined to invade anyway and he managed to convince Great Britain and others to join the U.S. effort.

Unlike the Tora Bora story, this is fair game for harsh criticism because the point of contention is not merely a strategic call but rather an overarching philosophy and a blatant disregard of an inviolable principle. The legitimacy of warfare is predicated on its necessity. War is a tool that must only be used when all other means at our disposal have been deemed ineffective in stopping prohibited activities that carry dire consequences. Justification for war can be likened to a criminal trial where we won't severely punish the accused unless we are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that such punishment is warranted. The Iraq War, on the other hand, can be likened to The Ox-Bow Incident, with George W. Bush playing the role of Major Tetley. If you didn't read The Ox-Bow Incident, read it; you'll thank me later.

Bishop Tobin's Fatwa Against Patrick Kennedy

Yesterday marked the 46th anniversary of the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first and so far only Roman Catholic president of the United States. Today President Kennedy's nephew, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy) is embroiled in an ugly battle with the Bishop of Providence who has pronounced Rep. Kennedy ineligible to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion because of his politics. There are a number of ironic elements to this story that I'll discuss in no particular order. First, this is happening as we remember President Kennedy and how he made the American public abandon the fear that a Catholic president would be loyal to the Catholic hierarchy instead of the Constitution. Secondly, the controversy involves JFK's blood relative, and finally, this is happening in Rhode Island, which was founded by Roger Williams as a haven for religious tolerance. Roger Williams is, if you will, the patron saint of church state separation. He was a preacher who only settled what is now Rhode Island because he was forced to flee Massachusetts for daring to differ with the Puritans. He was among the first to call for a wall of separation between church and state.

I was raised and educated in the Catholic faith and I am well versed in its teachings and terminology. I know, for instance, that the Immaculate Conception does not refer to a virgin bearing a child, but rather to Mary being born without original sin. The former is a widely held erroneous belief that I call the immaculate misconception. I also know that Transubstantiation is the process through which bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. I would like to make my own contribution to the Catholic lexicon by coining "Translineation", which means to cross the line. This is the process by which bishops transform the already consecrated Body and Blood of our Lord into a weapon with which to bully Catholic politicians who choose not to impose their personal beliefs on a pluralistic society.

While I no longer practice Catholicism, I'm saddened to see this happening. I once heard the writer Anna Quindlen say that being Catholic is the reason she's liberal. Some may find that surprising or even contradictory, but I instantly knew exactly what she meant. My childhood coincided with things like urban rioting, the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. I marched for peace and justice from the time I was in kindergarten at Our Lady of Mercy, and I participated in urban renewal from the time I was old enough to wield a paintbrush. In every instance, my participation began on a bus leaving the church parking lot, full of clergy and laity alike singing "We Shall Overcome" and believing that being Catholic meant to be like Jesus and make the world a better place through love and service to one another. The Church had its problems as any large institution will, but it emphasized the charity and compassion of Jesus rather than the sanctimonious self-righteousness of the Pharisees whose holier that thou ways Jesus despised. I wonder what Jesus would think of the Church now.

The War on Common Sense

Just as the cure for a catastrophic flood is not a devastating drought, the proper correction of an old misguided policy that tilts way too far to one side is not the creation of a new misguided policy that tilts way too far to the other side. While I expect no disagreement on this, I do expect to see it widely ignored as we fashion remedies that don't solve problems so much as replace them with equal and opposite problems. I'm reminded of the woman who wanted to be a dancer but her mother forced her to be a singer instead. She vowed to correct this injustice by forcing her own daughter to be a dancer. With Black Friday only days away, 'tis the season to once again hear about the "War on Christmas." I don't believe there is a war on Christmas; I believe there's a war on common sense and Christmas is merely one battleground in that conflict. I see the two impassioned sides in this debate as unwitting allies, each attacking common sense from an opposite flank.

First, Christmas is doing just fine, thanks for asking. The seasonal music broadcast by radio stations and countless public venues isn't dominated by Hanukkah carols, and children at the mall are not lining up for a picture on Kwanzaa Calvin's lap. If all shoppers were greeted with Happy Hanukkah instead of Merry Christmas I could better understand the outrage, but inclusive pleasantries such as Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings and other long traditional tidings shouldn't be so upsetting. For those who are that concerned about honoring the birth of Jesus, reaching out to all who celebrate a holiday should not be seen as affront, but rather an opportunity to be good Christians and share your toys. Forgive those who trespass against you by using this season to spread peace on earth, good will toward men instead of another opportunity to reaffirm your dominance.

That said, let's be clear about something. A majority celebrating its culture does not constitute a jackboot to the throat of a minority. While the mighty must not oppress and abuse the weak, that doesn't mean the more powerful must placate the less powerful by bowing to their every whim. In this country and elsewhere, Christmas has transcended its origin as a religious holiday, and I see no reason why it can't be celebrated as such without fear of offending anyone. Adorning a school or town square with a Christmas tree or image of Santa Claus is no more an imposition of religion than "God bless you" after a sneeze. This is a far cry from the days of forcing public schoolchildren to recite New Testament passages. While it was right to correct that injustice, we have now grossly overshot the mark.

We should be building bridges to resolve our differences, not erecting walls to create new ones. As we are facing trying and uncertain times, I can't fathom a reason to manufacture a new source of outrage over something so innocuous. Thus, the very existence of this conflict is a crippling assault on common sense. This problem will vanish if we can agree on two simple points. First, those who prefer to say Merry Christmas are not proselytizing or harming anyone of any background in any way. Secondly, the huge institution of Christmas is not facing an existential threat because some people are more comfortable saluting the various seasonal holidays as one, particularly when addressing strangers. The correct response to all well wishes, whether in the form of Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or anything else is always "thank you" followed by well wishes of your own.

All the World's a Nail

In the words of Abraham Maslow, "To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail." Likewise, to a country with an unnatural love for anything that goes bang, boom or zap and an addiction to conflict resolution through violent means, every problem we encounter looks like something to be resolved through bloodshed. Our insatiable appetite for violence manifests itself on the personal level in our disturbing rates of homicide and other violent crime, and on the institutional level in our complete inability to avoid warfare for more than a few years at a time if we're lucky. We seek to vanquish all opposition rather than working to settle our differences.

Curiously, or perhaps not, as a nation we are at once intensely religious, overwhelmingly Christian and extremely bellicose. Combining these attributes would tend to suggest that we desperately seek to honor and please the Prince of Peace with a mounting body count of God's precious children. While this seems absurd, if we look a bit deeper we may find a plausible explanation. Religion concerns itself with human decency, charity and compassion. It has been a powerful catalyst in getting people to give generously of themselves and help one another throughout the world. However, religious fundamentalism is all too often aligned with brutality and ruthlessness. As we are much more inclined toward fundamentalism than other post-industrial nations, this may shed some light on the paradox of claiming to be such a Christian nation while so often doing the opposite of what Jesus stood for and taught us.

Firing missiles, dropping bombs, and deploying combat troops is not the answer to every problem. When the Cold War ended, we were told that the days of excessive military spending would be gone and we would enjoy the new found prosperity of the "peace dividend." Needless to say, we squandered this windfall as the ne'er-do-well idiot son would blow through an inherited fortune because we simply can't resist armed conflict whenever something in the world displeases us. We are now debating whether or not to send more troops into Afghanistan and whether we should expand the war into Pakistan. Let me state clearly that the U.S. armed forces have been a tremendous source for good in the world, and when the job calls military intervention there is simply none better. The question at hand is whether or not military force is the right tool for the job. Yes, terrorists must be stopped by whatever means are at our disposal, but the war on terror simply can't be prosecuted in the same way as all prior wars. Our enemy wears no uniform and defends no flag. As the war of ideas is a central front in this campaign, hearts and minds are of paramount importance. Guns, bombs and so forth can kill flesh and blood beings and destroy brick and mortar structures, but they lack the ability to destroy or incapacitate ideas. There is a time to use a driver and a time to use a pitching wedge. Confusing the two will lead to a most unsatisfactory result.