It is not hard to intellectually give fundamentalism a bad rap. Generally fundamentalism refers to an individual’s strict obedience to a specific set of theological doctrines. It can be found in behaviors ranging from Jihadist terrorism to Sarah Palin bromides. All it really means is that individuals apply certitudes to beliefs that are neither provable nor universally shared. That doesn’t make them necessarily wrong; however, the inflexibility can create a whole host of conflicts, and historically has contributed to human tragedy on a massive scale from time to time. Certainly the ability to compromise one’s fundamental position can be a virtue in a world where the population of diverse believers has grown to nearly incomprehensible levels.
The same could be said of secular issues as well, in fact even more so. After all, fundamental theological or philosophical beliefs are based on axioms which are ultimately subjective or personal, while secular issues deal more with the nuts and bolts affecting everyday living…of everybody. The issues might include things like safety or education, but mostly they have to do with economics or, in other words, survival in this world, rather than the next. For people, or more importantly politicians, to take immovable positions on issues based on their fundamental economic beliefs (taxes bad, growth good, rich bad, equality good, etc) creates an inability to deal with dynamic changes and begs for common ground. So why do I find myself in such disagreement with President Obama’s recent pronouncement of a negotiated “compromise” with the Republican caucus?
The President angrily (angry for him anyway) derided his fellow Democrat critics for not understanding the importance of compromise. Although Obama’s agreement may at first blush appeared inconsistent with his pronouncements both as a candidate and President, for anyone who read The Audacity of Hope he did what one might have expected him to do. Obama essentially declared in his treatise that the supreme value of leadership is when it breaks down intractable competition and in doing so moves the ball forward. His pragmatic approach to the Presidency (with congressional majorities) has been painfully consistent with his book. I believe, unfortunately, he got it backwards. Leadership that seeks to and ultimately unifies has value only after the fact, after it's got the job done...not before. It is the old Neville Chamberlain predicament…what sounds like a duck isn’t necessarily a duck. I suspect a few clever Republicans read Obama’s book and put two and two together.
The divisiveness of the Obama compromise was immediately apparent and I feel de facto evidence of failure to meet his proclaimed goal of moving the ball forward. The Democrats in Congress have been as fractured in their approach to governing over the last four years as the Republicans have been eerily solidified. Reacting as they did made them appear like a colony of meerkats all popping up and suddenly looking in the same direction with equal surprise. That doesn’t happen often for Democrats. Are they wrong? Am I wrong in agreeing with them? Just what is wrong with this compromise?
Don’t believe for a second that the Republican line-in-the-sand on taxation of the wealthy was anything other than political. The sound bite which says returning the top bracket to Clinton era levels would adversely affect employment (which was woefully embraced by the conservative uninformed) boarders on lunacy. There is virtually no evidence (nor educated speculation) that such would be the case. Democrats suggested raising the threshold to a million dollars which the Republican leadership immediately rejected. It could have been raised to a billion dollars of taxable income (which actually only effects a handful of people) and the Republicans wouldn’t have budged, even if every affected billionaire lined up in support of the tax. The so-called fiscally responsible Republican conservatives, whose number one stated goal is to make Obama a one-term President, wanted tax increases tagged to the Obama Administration..period. It was win-win for the Republicans as far as they were concerned, “compromise” or not. If the plan goes through as agreed upon Obama will have to campaign as a President who, if elected, will spearhead tax increases. Christmas came early for the GOP.
Obama’s real choice was also a real opportunity to salvage his Presidency, which I have reluctantly come to believe needs salvaging. He had the opportunity to tell the truth. A position does not fall under the general heading of fundamentalism when there is universal agreement. We don’t know specifically what the consequences of running continuous and mountainous deficits and compiling astronomical debt will be. However, we can all agree that they will be very bad and we as a nation will regret that we didn’t do anything about it. As such Obama was in a unique position to earn his Nobel Prize by risking his Presidency and telling the nation (and therefore the world) that it has to spend less and it has to pay currently, through taxes, for what it is spending (on everything including entitlements and wars of every kind). He should have embraced the termination of the Bush tax cuts, not just for the rich, but for everyone. That’s what a unifying President would have done, instead of arguing that the goodies we got are equal to the goodies they got. The published fears that the short term result would have stalled the “recovery” were speculative at best and not worthy of compromising the truth. I don’t believe it at all. By opposing both Republicans and Democrats on taxation and spending and demanding an era of national responsibility he had the prospect of being the unifier he truly wants to be. Instead, he has become an instrument of continued divisiveness.
The most important thing I took out of my studies as an Economics major in college was that Economics is a social science, not an exact science. Because it is merely an accounting of human behavior the ability of Government to affect it directly is very limited. What this economy needs more than anything else is to regain predictability. That will probably happen when the housing market stabilizes, if the national debt doesn’t do us in first. Predictability is always enhanced by the truth. The near-term economy will not be significantly improved or worsened by increased taxation or reduced spending. Consumer Confidence is the index that trumps them both. However, the long term health of our Economy will be significantly affected by how we apply both taxes and spending. The fights and compromises regarding social support or the widening gap between the haves and have-nots could have waited. For this round it was Economic Fundamentalism 1, Truth 0.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Mannequin Candidate
I wondered recently what would be born of combining the suspense thriller The Manchurian Candidate with the Old Navy commercials featuring the “talking” mannequins. The story The Manchurian Candidate, made famous by a bestselling Cold War novel in 1959 by Richard Condon and later into a 1962 John Frankenheimer movie (with a 2004 re-make), combines the ruthless ambitions of a politician and his wife with their brainwashed son in a plot to catapult themselves to national political power. The Old Navy commercials, on the other hand (which I hope you’ve seen), allow dummies to engage in pithy conversation without any moving parts (each time I’m unfortunate enough to see one I’m compelled to grumble – Go Army!). Merging those two concepts together, however, I was awakened to something which is far more real than the sum of its fictional parts, namely: the yet again candidacy of Eric Cantor.
Cantor has climbed the ladder of political power almost entirely unnoticed, even by the constituents in his own Virginia 7th Congressional District (which happens to be mine as well). Like Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate, Cantor was picked, planted, and pruned for a specific purpose. In Eric's case it was advancement in the Republican Party. He has succeeded by happily remaining in the shadows, displaying unswerving loyalty, and not adding a ripple to a Congressional sea beset by frequent political maelstroms. He has risen nose cleaning to an art form.
In his nearly 10 years in Congress he has individually sponsored only 39 harmless and non-descript bills, 5 were taken semi-seriously and made it out of Committee, and only 2 became law. What were those laws? One was allowing the use of the Capitol Rotunda as part of a Holocaust commemoration; the second was having a Richmond, VA Post Office building named after his retired benefactor Rep Tom Bliley. That’s about as close as you can get to an Old Navy commercial in the US House of Representatives.
It now appears, however, that he may be ready to make his move, and not simply by looking over John Boehner’s shoulder during some “Hell NO” soliloquy. He has made the bold move of trying to distance himself from the Republican establishment, that establishment which is under fire by a hodgepodge of extreme positions by Christian Conservatives and Libertarian wannabes. He and a couple of Congressional supporters have labeled themselves the Young Guns in an attempt to be the bridge that crosses the murky sludge of the Bush Administration linking the land of Ronald Reagan with a Krispy Kreme Republican future – all puffy and sweet. If he succeeds and overthrows the establishment Boehner, he could end up Speaker of the House and be just two heart beats away from the White House. Only in America.
It is altogether appropriate that Eric Cantor chose to name his “gang” the Young Guns. At age 47 he more or less qualifies for the “young” part of the title, especially if you place him next to Mitch McConnell for example. It’s the “Guns” part I find intriguing…and revealing.
I can almost see Cantor bursting into the House of Representatives, followed by Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) walking abreast, all three sporting black leather motorcycle jackets with the arched name YOUNG GUNS emblazoned on the back…maybe beneath it a picture of teacup filled with bullets and the phrase Death To Taxes. They march down to the front of the assembly, pull out their paintball pistols and announce that the People can no longer wait to be heard. In seconds the opposition is left cowering in a pool of Republican red paint and the Young Guns stride away to quickly check their poll numbers.
I have lived in Virginia’s solidly Conservative and Republican 7th Congressional District for 29 years and therefore have been witness to the evolution of a politician who epitomizes the absence of substance in today’s political environment. Eric Cantor has worked his entire adult life in politics with the single aim of personal advancement. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, as long as his constituents know that’s all they’re electing – public service be damned.
As an undergraduate student in college his family connections got him the job as intern and later as driver for his predecessor’s (Thomas J Bliley, Jr.) during Bliley’s second campaign for Congress in our district. Immediately after Cantor’s extensive schooling (one undergraduate and two graduate degrees) he began his first campaign running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, with the help of his mentor Bliley (by then a popular Congressman), at the age of 28. There he was tucked away until Bliley’s announced retirement and the official anointing of Cantor.
Cantor was easily elected to the House in 2000 and entered Congress pre-ordained. Roy Blunt (R-MO) made the new younger gun Chief Deputy Republican Whip in only his second year, a laurel almost unheard of in a rookie’s career and for no particular reason, except perhaps that young Cantor was sufficiently dashing and by 2002 was the only Jewish Republican in Congress (a fact that persists still).
He has spent the decade successfully working the Republican establishment like a Roman column, providing a lot of internal support even while his presence was inert. It’s doubtful he could have done it any other way since despite his American Dad smile, tanned features, and artful coiffure he’s a terrible speaker. The grooming of Eric Cantor has worked flawlessly…provided he didn’t open his mouth. Unfortunately his delivery sounds a lot like a whiny car salesman, the hearing impaired reading closed captioning of his interviews are probably far more impressed.
So, establishment Republicans, like John Boehner, are in a bit of a sticky situation. On one side they have allowed in grizzly bears (mama and otherwise) who appear content to eat red meat as well as blue, and on the other side they face competition within their own family, from those like Eric Cantor et al, who have concluded that the only real winners in the French Revolution were those who didn’t get their heads chopped off.
Alas, Eric Cantor is no Napoleon Bonaparte, except perhaps like the one that resides in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Like the evil politician in The Manchurian Candidate, who is eventually foiled by his nutso son, it is unlikely that Cantor will rise to national prominence, but it likely will be by his own inanimate doing.
In the opening chapter of his recent book Young Guns Cantor writes (with his two underlings) a verbatim recollection of a conversation the three of them had over “diet cokes and bottled water” in the commissary specifically on March 11, 2010 (I guess they always have the tapes rolling). In it Cantor says; “I think enough members finally realized that the level of frustration among the public is at a fever pitch right now that we had no choice. We had to say enough is enough.” They talk about “…corruption in the Republican Party when we had the majority”, and “We have to declare our principles (which) are the Nation’s founding principles”, a prophetic “We have new blood coming in here”, and (of course) Greek mythology. It could all be howling good copy for a John Stewart skit, but I see it more as a painfully extended Old Navy commercial with perhaps Eric’s last line being “...oh and Kevin, I just love the elephants on your tie.” It’s just too bad that the people of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District have to keep rerunning it every two years.
Cantor has climbed the ladder of political power almost entirely unnoticed, even by the constituents in his own Virginia 7th Congressional District (which happens to be mine as well). Like Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate, Cantor was picked, planted, and pruned for a specific purpose. In Eric's case it was advancement in the Republican Party. He has succeeded by happily remaining in the shadows, displaying unswerving loyalty, and not adding a ripple to a Congressional sea beset by frequent political maelstroms. He has risen nose cleaning to an art form.
In his nearly 10 years in Congress he has individually sponsored only 39 harmless and non-descript bills, 5 were taken semi-seriously and made it out of Committee, and only 2 became law. What were those laws? One was allowing the use of the Capitol Rotunda as part of a Holocaust commemoration; the second was having a Richmond, VA Post Office building named after his retired benefactor Rep Tom Bliley. That’s about as close as you can get to an Old Navy commercial in the US House of Representatives.
It now appears, however, that he may be ready to make his move, and not simply by looking over John Boehner’s shoulder during some “Hell NO” soliloquy. He has made the bold move of trying to distance himself from the Republican establishment, that establishment which is under fire by a hodgepodge of extreme positions by Christian Conservatives and Libertarian wannabes. He and a couple of Congressional supporters have labeled themselves the Young Guns in an attempt to be the bridge that crosses the murky sludge of the Bush Administration linking the land of Ronald Reagan with a Krispy Kreme Republican future – all puffy and sweet. If he succeeds and overthrows the establishment Boehner, he could end up Speaker of the House and be just two heart beats away from the White House. Only in America.
It is altogether appropriate that Eric Cantor chose to name his “gang” the Young Guns. At age 47 he more or less qualifies for the “young” part of the title, especially if you place him next to Mitch McConnell for example. It’s the “Guns” part I find intriguing…and revealing.
I can almost see Cantor bursting into the House of Representatives, followed by Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) walking abreast, all three sporting black leather motorcycle jackets with the arched name YOUNG GUNS emblazoned on the back…maybe beneath it a picture of teacup filled with bullets and the phrase Death To Taxes. They march down to the front of the assembly, pull out their paintball pistols and announce that the People can no longer wait to be heard. In seconds the opposition is left cowering in a pool of Republican red paint and the Young Guns stride away to quickly check their poll numbers.
I have lived in Virginia’s solidly Conservative and Republican 7th Congressional District for 29 years and therefore have been witness to the evolution of a politician who epitomizes the absence of substance in today’s political environment. Eric Cantor has worked his entire adult life in politics with the single aim of personal advancement. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, as long as his constituents know that’s all they’re electing – public service be damned.
As an undergraduate student in college his family connections got him the job as intern and later as driver for his predecessor’s (Thomas J Bliley, Jr.) during Bliley’s second campaign for Congress in our district. Immediately after Cantor’s extensive schooling (one undergraduate and two graduate degrees) he began his first campaign running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, with the help of his mentor Bliley (by then a popular Congressman), at the age of 28. There he was tucked away until Bliley’s announced retirement and the official anointing of Cantor.
Cantor was easily elected to the House in 2000 and entered Congress pre-ordained. Roy Blunt (R-MO) made the new younger gun Chief Deputy Republican Whip in only his second year, a laurel almost unheard of in a rookie’s career and for no particular reason, except perhaps that young Cantor was sufficiently dashing and by 2002 was the only Jewish Republican in Congress (a fact that persists still).
He has spent the decade successfully working the Republican establishment like a Roman column, providing a lot of internal support even while his presence was inert. It’s doubtful he could have done it any other way since despite his American Dad smile, tanned features, and artful coiffure he’s a terrible speaker. The grooming of Eric Cantor has worked flawlessly…provided he didn’t open his mouth. Unfortunately his delivery sounds a lot like a whiny car salesman, the hearing impaired reading closed captioning of his interviews are probably far more impressed.
So, establishment Republicans, like John Boehner, are in a bit of a sticky situation. On one side they have allowed in grizzly bears (mama and otherwise) who appear content to eat red meat as well as blue, and on the other side they face competition within their own family, from those like Eric Cantor et al, who have concluded that the only real winners in the French Revolution were those who didn’t get their heads chopped off.
Alas, Eric Cantor is no Napoleon Bonaparte, except perhaps like the one that resides in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Like the evil politician in The Manchurian Candidate, who is eventually foiled by his nutso son, it is unlikely that Cantor will rise to national prominence, but it likely will be by his own inanimate doing.
In the opening chapter of his recent book Young Guns Cantor writes (with his two underlings) a verbatim recollection of a conversation the three of them had over “diet cokes and bottled water” in the commissary specifically on March 11, 2010 (I guess they always have the tapes rolling). In it Cantor says; “I think enough members finally realized that the level of frustration among the public is at a fever pitch right now that we had no choice. We had to say enough is enough.” They talk about “…corruption in the Republican Party when we had the majority”, and “We have to declare our principles (which) are the Nation’s founding principles”, a prophetic “We have new blood coming in here”, and (of course) Greek mythology. It could all be howling good copy for a John Stewart skit, but I see it more as a painfully extended Old Navy commercial with perhaps Eric’s last line being “...oh and Kevin, I just love the elephants on your tie.” It’s just too bad that the people of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District have to keep rerunning it every two years.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Der Fuhrer Obama?
My 88 year old mother believes Obama is this century’s Hitler. I don’t argue the point with her…well, that’s not exactly correct. I have attempted to take issue with her conclusion but very quickly realized I was hurling jello at concrete. However, I did ask and she was quite willing to tell me why Barack and Adolf are kindred spirits. She only gave me one reason, but she claims to back that reason up with first hand validation, as she lived in Germany until 1937, leaving just before she turned 16:
“I heard Hitler speak.”
“Yes, and so?”
“Obama speaks too well, he’s too smooth…just like Hitler”.
Funny, but in old newsreels I don’t recall Hitler’s style looking like something one might call smooth. Regardless, he was obviously an effective communicator and from that standpoint I suppose commonalities might be found. Still, to mom it appears content doesn’t carry much weight. Maybe something else is going on. Perhaps when she looks back she feels duped. Isn't that the result of listening to smooth people?
When she made the comment that “Hitler wasn’t all bad” I began to think she was struggling with the history. Well, she left Germany in 1937 at a time when Hitler was immensely popular with the great majority of the German people. He had been Fuhrer for almost 4 years. She mentioned such things as trains running on time, full employment, mandatory sports, and his frequently quoting the Bible (something I wasn't aware of) among others. There was a new, generally pervasive feel-good factor that replaced the Depression (both economic and mental) which had plagued the German people since WWI and new enemies in their midst. That was most of what she remembered as a young girl. Still, hindsight is 20-20 and I can’t see the badness of a larger than life malevolence such as Hitler charted out like some kind of bell curve. But I didn’t live it either. Still, the bad stuff, the phantom enemies, had started long before she left and I wondered just how it could have remained so transparent.
There are things people have difficulty seeing when they’re living in the middle of it. Most of us know this, but it appears the knowing doesn’t help much. Those situations or attitudes that might seem logical now can appear like a collective insanity when reviewed historically. In most cases it involves the desire to protect and preserve identity. No one today disputes that the Communist panic of the late 40s and early 50s, which ruined careers, lives, and resulted in some unattractive executions (both public and private) was a bit of collective insanity…but not so at the time. Communists were seen as a direct threat to how Americans viewed themselves and their way of life…but that threat didn’t exist. Now take the recent simple event where an Islamic organization wants to build a community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center tragedy. What is insane and what isn’t?
When I first heard about a local city official protesting the construction I thought why the hell is that guy getting any press? His point seemed petty. Now it is a national and political controversy, and fodder for 20 million blogs such as this one. A televised poll has (supposedly) 67% of all Americans opposed to the proposed construction. Harry Reid, the dynamic and swashbuckling titular head of the Senate majority, came out against it without giving much reason, hoping to nudge himself slightly to the right no doubt, and Sarah Palin blamed it on Muslim insensitivities (Reid & Palin - strange bedfellows). Newt Gingrich pointed out a Neo-Nazi cannot hang a swastika outside the holocaust museum, making an obvious comparison. Conservative talk show celebrities are viewing this controversy like Homer Simpson views doughnuts. None that I’m aware of have publically commented on similar public efforts to thwart the construction of Muslim mosques and other buildings around the country over the past few years, which has been the case.
To tie the controversy to the World Trade Center tragedy and its many direct victims is a travesty all by itself. The political and economic powers that have used the World Trade Center attack as a reason to wage “war” have, by necessity, created an enemy to enact policy, perpetuate power, and extract profit. Were the policies that have resulted in the deaths of 4000 US soldiers in Iraq, 106,000 Iraqi civilians, 1900 coalition troops in Afghanistan, and 28,000 Afghan civilians (with many, many more injured) really all about just Al Qaida? Much of our leadership, which so stealthfully draws a distinction between a good faith and a bad faith serves up that insanity like it was health food. I shouldn't wonder that the number of people in our beloved, free democracy who would gleefully pack up every person of Islamic faith in the country and ship them off to the Middle East is probably in the tens of millions…or perhaps frighteningly more.
Even Obama has taken a stand, making an eloquent speech during a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan where he supported the Islam center, but he rests his position on the heritage and constitutionality of religious freedom in America. Religious freedom has nothing to do with the issue. Those tens of millions of good Christians who are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder against the Islamic horde carry no animosity toward Muslims practicing their faith. They believe they’re all going to hell anyway. Rather they simply perceive Muslim people as a threat to the sanctity and security of their Christian/American identities. They have taken the motives and actions of a few terrorists, extrapolated that rationale to Islamic extremists, and then finally applied Islamic extremism to every one of the Muslim faith…baddest, badder, and just plain bad. The tragic irony is, of course, that is precisely what the Al Qaida terrorists were hoping to accomplish.
Sorry mom, Obama is no Hitler, but no matter. The powers that guide public policy and private opinion don’t need a Hitler. They can extend fear and hatred so skillfully that even something as innocuous as building a religiously sponsored civic center can rally the troops nationwide. Perhaps it can’t be seen now, but I somehow think we’re in for a world of feeling duped in a couple of decades or less.
I wonder, what would happen to the terrorists if we collectively refused to be terrorized? Perhaps feeling good about a new civic center in lower Manhattan would be a small step in the right direction.
“I heard Hitler speak.”
“Yes, and so?”
“Obama speaks too well, he’s too smooth…just like Hitler”.
Funny, but in old newsreels I don’t recall Hitler’s style looking like something one might call smooth. Regardless, he was obviously an effective communicator and from that standpoint I suppose commonalities might be found. Still, to mom it appears content doesn’t carry much weight. Maybe something else is going on. Perhaps when she looks back she feels duped. Isn't that the result of listening to smooth people?
When she made the comment that “Hitler wasn’t all bad” I began to think she was struggling with the history. Well, she left Germany in 1937 at a time when Hitler was immensely popular with the great majority of the German people. He had been Fuhrer for almost 4 years. She mentioned such things as trains running on time, full employment, mandatory sports, and his frequently quoting the Bible (something I wasn't aware of) among others. There was a new, generally pervasive feel-good factor that replaced the Depression (both economic and mental) which had plagued the German people since WWI and new enemies in their midst. That was most of what she remembered as a young girl. Still, hindsight is 20-20 and I can’t see the badness of a larger than life malevolence such as Hitler charted out like some kind of bell curve. But I didn’t live it either. Still, the bad stuff, the phantom enemies, had started long before she left and I wondered just how it could have remained so transparent.
There are things people have difficulty seeing when they’re living in the middle of it. Most of us know this, but it appears the knowing doesn’t help much. Those situations or attitudes that might seem logical now can appear like a collective insanity when reviewed historically. In most cases it involves the desire to protect and preserve identity. No one today disputes that the Communist panic of the late 40s and early 50s, which ruined careers, lives, and resulted in some unattractive executions (both public and private) was a bit of collective insanity…but not so at the time. Communists were seen as a direct threat to how Americans viewed themselves and their way of life…but that threat didn’t exist. Now take the recent simple event where an Islamic organization wants to build a community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center tragedy. What is insane and what isn’t?
When I first heard about a local city official protesting the construction I thought why the hell is that guy getting any press? His point seemed petty. Now it is a national and political controversy, and fodder for 20 million blogs such as this one. A televised poll has (supposedly) 67% of all Americans opposed to the proposed construction. Harry Reid, the dynamic and swashbuckling titular head of the Senate majority, came out against it without giving much reason, hoping to nudge himself slightly to the right no doubt, and Sarah Palin blamed it on Muslim insensitivities (Reid & Palin - strange bedfellows). Newt Gingrich pointed out a Neo-Nazi cannot hang a swastika outside the holocaust museum, making an obvious comparison. Conservative talk show celebrities are viewing this controversy like Homer Simpson views doughnuts. None that I’m aware of have publically commented on similar public efforts to thwart the construction of Muslim mosques and other buildings around the country over the past few years, which has been the case.
To tie the controversy to the World Trade Center tragedy and its many direct victims is a travesty all by itself. The political and economic powers that have used the World Trade Center attack as a reason to wage “war” have, by necessity, created an enemy to enact policy, perpetuate power, and extract profit. Were the policies that have resulted in the deaths of 4000 US soldiers in Iraq, 106,000 Iraqi civilians, 1900 coalition troops in Afghanistan, and 28,000 Afghan civilians (with many, many more injured) really all about just Al Qaida? Much of our leadership, which so stealthfully draws a distinction between a good faith and a bad faith serves up that insanity like it was health food. I shouldn't wonder that the number of people in our beloved, free democracy who would gleefully pack up every person of Islamic faith in the country and ship them off to the Middle East is probably in the tens of millions…or perhaps frighteningly more.
Even Obama has taken a stand, making an eloquent speech during a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan where he supported the Islam center, but he rests his position on the heritage and constitutionality of religious freedom in America. Religious freedom has nothing to do with the issue. Those tens of millions of good Christians who are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder against the Islamic horde carry no animosity toward Muslims practicing their faith. They believe they’re all going to hell anyway. Rather they simply perceive Muslim people as a threat to the sanctity and security of their Christian/American identities. They have taken the motives and actions of a few terrorists, extrapolated that rationale to Islamic extremists, and then finally applied Islamic extremism to every one of the Muslim faith…baddest, badder, and just plain bad. The tragic irony is, of course, that is precisely what the Al Qaida terrorists were hoping to accomplish.
Sorry mom, Obama is no Hitler, but no matter. The powers that guide public policy and private opinion don’t need a Hitler. They can extend fear and hatred so skillfully that even something as innocuous as building a religiously sponsored civic center can rally the troops nationwide. Perhaps it can’t be seen now, but I somehow think we’re in for a world of feeling duped in a couple of decades or less.
I wonder, what would happen to the terrorists if we collectively refused to be terrorized? Perhaps feeling good about a new civic center in lower Manhattan would be a small step in the right direction.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Education Be Damned
For several years, starting perhaps after 1998, I began having problems sleeping. It wasn’t so much a problem of getting to sleep. Rather it was waking up, sometimes quite early in the evening, and not being able to get back to it. Not a particularly uncommon malady. I found my best answer to this problem was the radio. I would plug a single earphone in and listen to talk stations. Often within an hour or so I’d be back to sawing logs.
The difficulty with my solution was that our radio market in Richmond, VA had no FM talk shows in the evening, or anytime that I’m aware of. Further, AM reception was so bad that my radio could only pick up two AM stations; the local major ultra-Conservative talk/news station and a sports network. Well…it was what it was. Not being sports savvy I’d listen to Conservative commentary earlier in the evening and talk about space aliens and Bigfoot if I awoke in the wee hours. I mean, what the hell, the object was to get to sleep, right?
It was sometime around then that I started listening to this guy named Glenn Beck. He did me no favors toward my goal of slumber. I’d actually started paying attention to his mostly run-on commentary. I would find myself participating in a phantom dialogue with Mr. Beck trying to get him to explain any of the outrageous pronouncements that flowed unceasingly from his microphone. That was not good in the quest for rest. I was literally amazed that this guy was on the radio at all and thought he was possibly just the opening act to discussions about animal mutilations and crop circles that would air soon after his signoff. I had heard Rush Limbaugh during the daytime, again because he was the only (talk radio) act in town, and felt that Beck was much like Limbaugh, minus the crude but clever humor. Cancel out Limbaugh’s humor and you’d might as well be listening to captured conversations down at the bus station.
As my sleep problem improved I more or less lost touch with Glenn Beck, although I’d hear his name from time to time. It’s only been in the last two years that I’ve been forced to become aware that Beck has joined Limbaugh as the preeminent spokespersons for Conservatives in the US today. I found that awareness mind-boggling and not a little disturbing. How could it be? His commentary, as I recalled it, was unintelligible regardless of the content. His presentations made any Dr. Seuss book read like a Harvard doctoral dissertation in Sociology. Beck now lives in a $5 million mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut, has his own TV show and churns out bestselling books and other publications like he was Isaac Asimov. Who is this guy?
There is a serious problem in our country which I have commented on in previous postings (see The Most Evil Man in America 3/4/10). It is part of the current landscape so rooted that few can escape its effect. It’s so socially disabling that I’m waiting for the term “war” to be applied to it (which is America’s best solution to the seemingly unsolvable). It is the Conservative verses Liberal social debate, although I view it more accurately as the Conservative verses Non-Conservative social conflict. The point of this posting, however, is not to engage in the debate, rather to examine its de facto leaders and ask the question: why is education considered by Christian Conservatives to be socially debilitating? It occurred to me, as I considered Glenn Beck, to examine the leaders of ideological commentary and see if there is something to be gained to answering that question.
Beck and Limbaugh are arguably the current standard bearers for Christian Conservative commentary (Sarah Palin is coming on strong). Limbaugh has been for years and Beck the most recent messiah. It is the huge We Love Glen Beck posters that one sees at the Tea Party gatherings. I don’t think it is the least bit coincidental that the debut of the Glenn Beck TV program took place the day before Obama’s inauguration. There are two “liberal” media commentators that have been the most frequent targets of Conservative ire, and also labeled as the prime examples of mindless left-wing counter rhetoric by some considered moderates. They are Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow. Let’s take a look at these folks.
Rush Limbaugh barely graduated from high school, his mother describing him as “flunking everything”. After two semesters at Southeast Missouri State University, he dropped out to pursue a career in radio, eventually making himself one of the richest men in America. Glenn Beck also barely graduated from high school, did not attempt college, choosing to work in radio even before he finished high school. A self-confessed abuser of alcohol and drugs till he was in his mid 30s, he struggled to survive until he found “salvation”, first from AA, then in the Mormon Church. Both men proudly proclaim themselves as self-educated, which is something to be proud of in most cases.
Keith Olbermann, unlike Limbaugh who came from a well-to-do family, was the son of a pre-school teacher and commercial architect. He was accepted into Cornell University at the age of 16. Graduating with a degree in Communication Arts and Journalism he began his career as a sportscaster in radio, given his love for baseball, and later evolved into political commentary. Rachael Maddow came from a middle-class military family and attended Stanford University. She was made a Rhodes Scholar and eventually received a PhD in Political Philosophy from Oxford University. From there she went into radio. Are we seeing a contrast here?
It isn’t necessarily the education, and arguably cerebral fire-power, that Olbermann and Maddow represent that make them better than Limbaugh and Beck. In truth, Limbaugh and Beck are better at the business they're in. What bugs me is the Conservative argument that such education makes them (Maddow and Olbermann) incapable of understanding the purity of the Conservative message and, in fact, essentially makes them (and those like them) subversive. It is the same ethereal argument leveled universally by Conservatives against college and university faculty across the country. Glenn Beck is not a plumber or insurance salesman. The reality that Conservatives will not even consider is that all these people, including Beck, are in the business of selling ideas, and when it comes to determining the quality of an idea education counts. It doesn’t count to sell an idea though, no matter how inane, as one uneducated, army corporal named Adolf could have attested.
The reason Beck and Limbaugh are so much better than their counterparts is that education gets in the way of certitudes. It is so much easier to argue with Tarzanian certainty “Government bad…Freedom good” than to get into the nitty-gritty of how to make things better, which carries with it a plethora of uncertainties. Maddow spends almost all her commentary debunking absurd generalizations by Conservative leaders or commentators. It doesn’t resonate…it doesn’t sell, and eventually it gets boring. Too many people want to hear from John Boehner that “we have the best healthcare in the world” instead of getting bogged down in those nasty “subversive” facts to the contrary.
Education has become a paradox in the Christian Conservative marketplace. They want their children to obtain education, however they really don’t want them to be educated. You could possibly trace this problem back to ancient Greece and the conflict between the city states of Athens and Sparta. One proclaimed the purity of ideas, the other the idea of purity. Sparta won by the way. Education be damned.
I still have problems sleeping on rare occasions. Now, however, I just turn to the sports station and listen to them talk about all these players, coaches and teams I hardly know. Glenn never could drop any sand in my eyes anyway. I suppose that’s a good thing.
The difficulty with my solution was that our radio market in Richmond, VA had no FM talk shows in the evening, or anytime that I’m aware of. Further, AM reception was so bad that my radio could only pick up two AM stations; the local major ultra-Conservative talk/news station and a sports network. Well…it was what it was. Not being sports savvy I’d listen to Conservative commentary earlier in the evening and talk about space aliens and Bigfoot if I awoke in the wee hours. I mean, what the hell, the object was to get to sleep, right?
It was sometime around then that I started listening to this guy named Glenn Beck. He did me no favors toward my goal of slumber. I’d actually started paying attention to his mostly run-on commentary. I would find myself participating in a phantom dialogue with Mr. Beck trying to get him to explain any of the outrageous pronouncements that flowed unceasingly from his microphone. That was not good in the quest for rest. I was literally amazed that this guy was on the radio at all and thought he was possibly just the opening act to discussions about animal mutilations and crop circles that would air soon after his signoff. I had heard Rush Limbaugh during the daytime, again because he was the only (talk radio) act in town, and felt that Beck was much like Limbaugh, minus the crude but clever humor. Cancel out Limbaugh’s humor and you’d might as well be listening to captured conversations down at the bus station.
As my sleep problem improved I more or less lost touch with Glenn Beck, although I’d hear his name from time to time. It’s only been in the last two years that I’ve been forced to become aware that Beck has joined Limbaugh as the preeminent spokespersons for Conservatives in the US today. I found that awareness mind-boggling and not a little disturbing. How could it be? His commentary, as I recalled it, was unintelligible regardless of the content. His presentations made any Dr. Seuss book read like a Harvard doctoral dissertation in Sociology. Beck now lives in a $5 million mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut, has his own TV show and churns out bestselling books and other publications like he was Isaac Asimov. Who is this guy?
There is a serious problem in our country which I have commented on in previous postings (see The Most Evil Man in America 3/4/10). It is part of the current landscape so rooted that few can escape its effect. It’s so socially disabling that I’m waiting for the term “war” to be applied to it (which is America’s best solution to the seemingly unsolvable). It is the Conservative verses Liberal social debate, although I view it more accurately as the Conservative verses Non-Conservative social conflict. The point of this posting, however, is not to engage in the debate, rather to examine its de facto leaders and ask the question: why is education considered by Christian Conservatives to be socially debilitating? It occurred to me, as I considered Glenn Beck, to examine the leaders of ideological commentary and see if there is something to be gained to answering that question.
Beck and Limbaugh are arguably the current standard bearers for Christian Conservative commentary (Sarah Palin is coming on strong). Limbaugh has been for years and Beck the most recent messiah. It is the huge We Love Glen Beck posters that one sees at the Tea Party gatherings. I don’t think it is the least bit coincidental that the debut of the Glenn Beck TV program took place the day before Obama’s inauguration. There are two “liberal” media commentators that have been the most frequent targets of Conservative ire, and also labeled as the prime examples of mindless left-wing counter rhetoric by some considered moderates. They are Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow. Let’s take a look at these folks.
Rush Limbaugh barely graduated from high school, his mother describing him as “flunking everything”. After two semesters at Southeast Missouri State University, he dropped out to pursue a career in radio, eventually making himself one of the richest men in America. Glenn Beck also barely graduated from high school, did not attempt college, choosing to work in radio even before he finished high school. A self-confessed abuser of alcohol and drugs till he was in his mid 30s, he struggled to survive until he found “salvation”, first from AA, then in the Mormon Church. Both men proudly proclaim themselves as self-educated, which is something to be proud of in most cases.
Keith Olbermann, unlike Limbaugh who came from a well-to-do family, was the son of a pre-school teacher and commercial architect. He was accepted into Cornell University at the age of 16. Graduating with a degree in Communication Arts and Journalism he began his career as a sportscaster in radio, given his love for baseball, and later evolved into political commentary. Rachael Maddow came from a middle-class military family and attended Stanford University. She was made a Rhodes Scholar and eventually received a PhD in Political Philosophy from Oxford University. From there she went into radio. Are we seeing a contrast here?
It isn’t necessarily the education, and arguably cerebral fire-power, that Olbermann and Maddow represent that make them better than Limbaugh and Beck. In truth, Limbaugh and Beck are better at the business they're in. What bugs me is the Conservative argument that such education makes them (Maddow and Olbermann) incapable of understanding the purity of the Conservative message and, in fact, essentially makes them (and those like them) subversive. It is the same ethereal argument leveled universally by Conservatives against college and university faculty across the country. Glenn Beck is not a plumber or insurance salesman. The reality that Conservatives will not even consider is that all these people, including Beck, are in the business of selling ideas, and when it comes to determining the quality of an idea education counts. It doesn’t count to sell an idea though, no matter how inane, as one uneducated, army corporal named Adolf could have attested.
The reason Beck and Limbaugh are so much better than their counterparts is that education gets in the way of certitudes. It is so much easier to argue with Tarzanian certainty “Government bad…Freedom good” than to get into the nitty-gritty of how to make things better, which carries with it a plethora of uncertainties. Maddow spends almost all her commentary debunking absurd generalizations by Conservative leaders or commentators. It doesn’t resonate…it doesn’t sell, and eventually it gets boring. Too many people want to hear from John Boehner that “we have the best healthcare in the world” instead of getting bogged down in those nasty “subversive” facts to the contrary.
Education has become a paradox in the Christian Conservative marketplace. They want their children to obtain education, however they really don’t want them to be educated. You could possibly trace this problem back to ancient Greece and the conflict between the city states of Athens and Sparta. One proclaimed the purity of ideas, the other the idea of purity. Sparta won by the way. Education be damned.
I still have problems sleeping on rare occasions. Now, however, I just turn to the sports station and listen to them talk about all these players, coaches and teams I hardly know. Glenn never could drop any sand in my eyes anyway. I suppose that’s a good thing.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Crabgrass in the Sand
I’ve been deep into a war to protect and defend green grass for more years than I can recall, or want to recall. My use of the term “war” is cynical, of course. The term “war” in post WWII America seems to be applied to practically every endeavor where the path to success is illusive or unknown, and yet success is deemed inevitable. To relate it to my lawn seems reasonable, right? However, it occurred to me today while I was out on the front lawn fighting forces that seek to attack my grass that my efforts may relate more closely to war than I previously thought.
I discovered a few things over the years on how to grow and maintain a decent looking lawn, the full disclosure not worth repeating here. One thing I learned though is that a thick healthy lawn will protect itself fairly well without much input from me. It essentially crowds out its enemies. I also learned that by simply attacking botanical invaders as they pop up does a nice job of keeping them at bay. This worked particularly well with dandelions since I started a strategy of reaching down as I walked or mowed and pulling off their little yellow heads (that the mower didn’t get) before they could go to seed. Granted, I could have used a strong herbicide, but I’m just not into weapons of mass destruction (environmental sensitivities and so forth). Even without chemicals my lawn has been nearly free of that particular springtime weed for several years.
Now it is summer and the enemy isn’t weeds, but fellow members of the grass family. The first year crabgrass invaded my lawn it basically took it over in a few weeks. I chose to let the whole mess die under the summer sun, the crabgrass being the last to go. The second year was a repeat of the first, but this time I used a lawn fork to pull up the crabgrass. I was left with huge sprawling patches of naked dirt, looking like the battlefield it was. Then, over the past few years, I decided to employ Operation Dandelion to the insidious crabgrass infiltration. To my pleasure I discovered that it works…sort of.
You see, the dandelion method worked well on dandelions because it occurred in the spring, when rain is normally plentiful and the grass healthy. The crabgrass chooses its time to invade when the grass is stressed and weakened during the heat and dryness of summer. So I began to spend a few minutes each day walking about, reaching down and pulling new stalks of crabgrass from the lawn at an early stage in their development. The result was that the overall appearance of my lawn looked good…but I realized one thing. Unlike the dandelions, the crabgrass couldn’t be beaten, not entirely. It became so pervasive and entrenched in some outlying areas that it just wasn’t worth the effort to try and eliminate it completely…and so I haven’t.
It occurred to me that this country (you and me) has been conducting the War in Afghanistan in much the same way. The War was initiated, of course, as a reaction to the September 11th terrorist attack, with the legitimate goal of eradicating the precipitators, Al Qaida. Failing that, it became a war to build a government and support a social order in Afghanistan that would act as natural barrier to the ousted Taliban, and what they represent. Moreover, it is about winning - to be able to gaze upon something and call it “healthy”.
Our policy and/or strategy in Afghanistan is to walk about the country, at great expense and sacrifice, pluck out pockets of Taliban influence, and then wait for the indigenous population to grow and root deeply in freedom and democracy. What? The fact of the matter is that the Taliban will not go away, no matter how many are uprooted from this place or that, nor are there any seeds of democracy remotely close to germinating. The Taliban, radical Islamics, and endless sects of Jihadists remain covering the mountains that are part of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their seeds will continue to be carried west. They (the Taliban) were never the “enemy” in the first place. By our standards they were a socially repressive regime and international outcasts, but they weren’t our regime. The reality is that we are incapable of creating a fertile enough base by which the Afghan people will grow and flourish in our image, nor should they.
Our country is perfectly capable of obtaining the knowledge and taking proactive initiatives to attack assembled terrorist encampments as existed in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We knew of the Al Qaida camps that were maintained in Afghanistan, but chose not to militarily enter a sovereign nation for reasons part political and part relating to international law. Given what occurred, that reluctance is not likely to happen again. There is no need, nor should we expect that a nation must be an ally of the United States in order to aggressively address sheltered terrorists. You might as well commit to clearing crabgrass from the entire neighborhood.
Obama, in an attempt to be consistent with his campaign positioning and with his debilitating pragmatism, has adopted the failed Bush strategy of nation building as the primary bulwark against terrorism (dare I say it – the War on Terrorism). The rest of the world that joined in the initial hunt for Al Qaida and Bin Laden is quickly accepting the failure of that strategy and pulling out. Obama’s participation to advance this “War” is the only Administration policy that has received unqualified support from the Republican Party. Why wouldn’t they? It’s the only Obama policy that has nothing but downside to it politically. Continued on the same course it will, in my opinion, be the only issue that will turn a decisive Obama victory in 2012 into a narrow defeat. Republicans may deride Michael Steele for his comments now, but come 2012 they will all be calling it Obama’s War.
We somehow feel the Afghan front yard should look like our front yard. We like nice tall fescue, or maybe cut short and dense…like on a putting green. Shouldn’t everybody? John Boehner would say “HELL YES”! Actually, I don’t think God or Nature singled out tall fescue as a blessed plant to contrast with an evil and sinfully hardy crabgrass. It is our growing and tragic legacy at the beginning of this century that we sacrifice our honor, our treasure, and a select group of lives in the misguided attempt to cultivate our landscape in foreign fields.
I also know that if I stop watering the lawn and stop yanking the crabgrass it will likely take over. Undoubtedly other things would begin to grow as well, crowding out some of the crabgrass, or simply living contentedly with it. I kind of like my grassy lawn, but I don’t mind the crabgrass that grows in pockets on the periphery; after all it’s still green. Sure I continue to fight back against the creeping crabgrass, but the lawn is mine, not my neighbor’s. If crabgrass grows well in distant sands…so it is. We would do better to maintain our own lawns and let the grass itself cast its seeds to the wind.
I discovered a few things over the years on how to grow and maintain a decent looking lawn, the full disclosure not worth repeating here. One thing I learned though is that a thick healthy lawn will protect itself fairly well without much input from me. It essentially crowds out its enemies. I also learned that by simply attacking botanical invaders as they pop up does a nice job of keeping them at bay. This worked particularly well with dandelions since I started a strategy of reaching down as I walked or mowed and pulling off their little yellow heads (that the mower didn’t get) before they could go to seed. Granted, I could have used a strong herbicide, but I’m just not into weapons of mass destruction (environmental sensitivities and so forth). Even without chemicals my lawn has been nearly free of that particular springtime weed for several years.
Now it is summer and the enemy isn’t weeds, but fellow members of the grass family. The first year crabgrass invaded my lawn it basically took it over in a few weeks. I chose to let the whole mess die under the summer sun, the crabgrass being the last to go. The second year was a repeat of the first, but this time I used a lawn fork to pull up the crabgrass. I was left with huge sprawling patches of naked dirt, looking like the battlefield it was. Then, over the past few years, I decided to employ Operation Dandelion to the insidious crabgrass infiltration. To my pleasure I discovered that it works…sort of.
You see, the dandelion method worked well on dandelions because it occurred in the spring, when rain is normally plentiful and the grass healthy. The crabgrass chooses its time to invade when the grass is stressed and weakened during the heat and dryness of summer. So I began to spend a few minutes each day walking about, reaching down and pulling new stalks of crabgrass from the lawn at an early stage in their development. The result was that the overall appearance of my lawn looked good…but I realized one thing. Unlike the dandelions, the crabgrass couldn’t be beaten, not entirely. It became so pervasive and entrenched in some outlying areas that it just wasn’t worth the effort to try and eliminate it completely…and so I haven’t.
It occurred to me that this country (you and me) has been conducting the War in Afghanistan in much the same way. The War was initiated, of course, as a reaction to the September 11th terrorist attack, with the legitimate goal of eradicating the precipitators, Al Qaida. Failing that, it became a war to build a government and support a social order in Afghanistan that would act as natural barrier to the ousted Taliban, and what they represent. Moreover, it is about winning - to be able to gaze upon something and call it “healthy”.
Our policy and/or strategy in Afghanistan is to walk about the country, at great expense and sacrifice, pluck out pockets of Taliban influence, and then wait for the indigenous population to grow and root deeply in freedom and democracy. What? The fact of the matter is that the Taliban will not go away, no matter how many are uprooted from this place or that, nor are there any seeds of democracy remotely close to germinating. The Taliban, radical Islamics, and endless sects of Jihadists remain covering the mountains that are part of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their seeds will continue to be carried west. They (the Taliban) were never the “enemy” in the first place. By our standards they were a socially repressive regime and international outcasts, but they weren’t our regime. The reality is that we are incapable of creating a fertile enough base by which the Afghan people will grow and flourish in our image, nor should they.
Our country is perfectly capable of obtaining the knowledge and taking proactive initiatives to attack assembled terrorist encampments as existed in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We knew of the Al Qaida camps that were maintained in Afghanistan, but chose not to militarily enter a sovereign nation for reasons part political and part relating to international law. Given what occurred, that reluctance is not likely to happen again. There is no need, nor should we expect that a nation must be an ally of the United States in order to aggressively address sheltered terrorists. You might as well commit to clearing crabgrass from the entire neighborhood.
Obama, in an attempt to be consistent with his campaign positioning and with his debilitating pragmatism, has adopted the failed Bush strategy of nation building as the primary bulwark against terrorism (dare I say it – the War on Terrorism). The rest of the world that joined in the initial hunt for Al Qaida and Bin Laden is quickly accepting the failure of that strategy and pulling out. Obama’s participation to advance this “War” is the only Administration policy that has received unqualified support from the Republican Party. Why wouldn’t they? It’s the only Obama policy that has nothing but downside to it politically. Continued on the same course it will, in my opinion, be the only issue that will turn a decisive Obama victory in 2012 into a narrow defeat. Republicans may deride Michael Steele for his comments now, but come 2012 they will all be calling it Obama’s War.
We somehow feel the Afghan front yard should look like our front yard. We like nice tall fescue, or maybe cut short and dense…like on a putting green. Shouldn’t everybody? John Boehner would say “HELL YES”! Actually, I don’t think God or Nature singled out tall fescue as a blessed plant to contrast with an evil and sinfully hardy crabgrass. It is our growing and tragic legacy at the beginning of this century that we sacrifice our honor, our treasure, and a select group of lives in the misguided attempt to cultivate our landscape in foreign fields.
I also know that if I stop watering the lawn and stop yanking the crabgrass it will likely take over. Undoubtedly other things would begin to grow as well, crowding out some of the crabgrass, or simply living contentedly with it. I kind of like my grassy lawn, but I don’t mind the crabgrass that grows in pockets on the periphery; after all it’s still green. Sure I continue to fight back against the creeping crabgrass, but the lawn is mine, not my neighbor’s. If crabgrass grows well in distant sands…so it is. We would do better to maintain our own lawns and let the grass itself cast its seeds to the wind.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Just Another Shot in the Foot
I worked in the Tax field for 17 years, mostly managing a staff of tax accountants and their support. During that period I either completed, reviewed, researched, or had responsibility for the preparation of about 74,000 tax returns. These included returns for individuals, trusts (lots of those), estates, partnerships, private foundations, and occasionally, small corporations. Although I ended my participation in taxation almost 16 years ago some things stuck with me, things about the nature of taxation in the United States.
Like many in that field, once my expertise had been elevated to the level of being humble, I arrived at a conclusion contrary to popular opinion. I concluded that the massive body of law known as the Federal Tax Code (which includes Tax Regulations) is generally logical. There are actually a manageable number of themes that form the basis for the Federal Tax Code (the Code) from which most all tax law (fine tuned by the Courts) run consistent. State and local tax codes are less so, but most take their lead from los Federales. Once you have a grasp of the basics, when faced with a specific tax issue you can usually reach an accurate conclusion, even before you research case law (Court interpretations).
Opponents to the Code, moreover opponents to taxes generally, hold copies of the Code above their heads like dumbbells (no pun intended) shouting "look at this massive intrusion into our lives". However, for the vast majority of the American population the Code is relatively simplistic, even for businesses. I would venture a percentage of…say…95% are affected in a way that should be perfectly understandable by your average middle school student. Admittedly, inconsistencies are more prevalent on the State and local levels.
Our Federal tax system is mostly complicated (especially in volume) by use of the Code for social engineering and providing benefits to those who have the legislative clout to tweak it. Instead of just giving money to special interests, the Code is used as the vehicle for distribution - which provides a stealth element to the transfer. How easy would it be for a Congressman to hide behind a vote setting up a multi-billion dollar trust fund for oil companies? Credits and deductions are way easier. Arguably, many such laws in the code have positive intentions and outcomes. However, the inequitable or equitable use of the Code, which is really about appropriations, is not my theme here. It has to do with who is paying the bills and who doesn’t want to.
There is a huge faction in the US, mostly Conservative and frequently of limited income and wealth, who have been brainwashed and programmed to believe taxation, by definition, is evil. Although they may understand the collective requirements of funding a country, their emotional response to taxation is more closely aligned with the Roman tax collectors found in the New Testament. Taxing is the 2nd most prevalent target of the Tea Party set, right after Obama and right before Government, period. They have been successfully led (by whom?) to believe that the answer to the national fiscal quagmire is the elimination of Federal taxes combined with the elimination of Federal government spending, or as close as you can get to both. Even informed, educated Conservatives will respond in a similar fashion, which is both fascinating and frightening. What they fail to understand is, along with the vote, taxation is one of the few tools, weapons really, that the general population has to defend itself. These Conservatives are taking their beloved pistols in hand and emptying the barrel into their tootsies.
The evidence of wealth concentration in the United States is undeniable and has reached levels without precedent, in both extent of wealth and concentration. Personally I believe the primary facilitator of this lack of precedent is the demographics of population growth, which is also without precedent. Edward N. Wolff, a PhD at New York University and noted authority on the accumulation of wealth, calculates that 38% of all wealth in this country is owned by 1% of American households. If you take individual home ownership out of the definition of “wealth”, then the ownership of the top 1% increases to 50% of all asset value (property, stocks, bonds, cash, businesses, other real estate, commodities etc. etc.). Anecdotally, you just need to compare the net worth of Tiger Woods to Jack Nicklaus, or the level of Bernie Madoff’s larceny. The bottom 20% of households (about 60 million people) own nothing, their debts exceed their assets or they have no calculable assets at all (yard sales don’t count). My guess is that there are quite a few of those bottom 20% folks holding up signs at Tea Party conventions.
In order to eliminate our deficits, Wolff suggests substituting an annual tax on wealth (Property or Asset tax) instead of a tax on income (as income is an inaccurate representative of net worth). By starting at a level of $250,000 (eliminating 80% of the population from the tax entirely) and applying a progressive tax starting at 0.2% and rising to a maximum of 0.8% (for the numerically challenged: that’s eight-tenths of one percent, or 80 cents for every $100 of value) he believes we would be out of the red, all other things being equal. The very wealthy would bear the majority of the tax, but just how onerous would a tax be that diminished one’s multi-million or multi-billion dollar wealth by less than one percent annually? Could this happen in this country? Not likely.
Who would be hurt by such a system and who is helped? Answer that and you’re befuddled why such a method of taxation never even rises to the level of a discussion, while regressive taxes such as the “flat tax” or “value-added” tax are bounced around regularly. The streets outside the US capital are not filled with protesting multi-billionaires holding signs showing a Hitler mustached Obama and slogans about creeping socialism. They don’t have to. They have convinced their Conservative surrogates in the tens of millions that taxation, along with Government and Obama, is in direct opposition to their own well being. They know the general population has a gun in its hand, but the powers of wealth are chuckling mightily. With Pavlovian certainty, they know it has been trained to only shoot straight down.
Like many in that field, once my expertise had been elevated to the level of being humble, I arrived at a conclusion contrary to popular opinion. I concluded that the massive body of law known as the Federal Tax Code (which includes Tax Regulations) is generally logical. There are actually a manageable number of themes that form the basis for the Federal Tax Code (the Code) from which most all tax law (fine tuned by the Courts) run consistent. State and local tax codes are less so, but most take their lead from los Federales. Once you have a grasp of the basics, when faced with a specific tax issue you can usually reach an accurate conclusion, even before you research case law (Court interpretations).
Opponents to the Code, moreover opponents to taxes generally, hold copies of the Code above their heads like dumbbells (no pun intended) shouting "look at this massive intrusion into our lives". However, for the vast majority of the American population the Code is relatively simplistic, even for businesses. I would venture a percentage of…say…95% are affected in a way that should be perfectly understandable by your average middle school student. Admittedly, inconsistencies are more prevalent on the State and local levels.
Our Federal tax system is mostly complicated (especially in volume) by use of the Code for social engineering and providing benefits to those who have the legislative clout to tweak it. Instead of just giving money to special interests, the Code is used as the vehicle for distribution - which provides a stealth element to the transfer. How easy would it be for a Congressman to hide behind a vote setting up a multi-billion dollar trust fund for oil companies? Credits and deductions are way easier. Arguably, many such laws in the code have positive intentions and outcomes. However, the inequitable or equitable use of the Code, which is really about appropriations, is not my theme here. It has to do with who is paying the bills and who doesn’t want to.
There is a huge faction in the US, mostly Conservative and frequently of limited income and wealth, who have been brainwashed and programmed to believe taxation, by definition, is evil. Although they may understand the collective requirements of funding a country, their emotional response to taxation is more closely aligned with the Roman tax collectors found in the New Testament. Taxing is the 2nd most prevalent target of the Tea Party set, right after Obama and right before Government, period. They have been successfully led (by whom?) to believe that the answer to the national fiscal quagmire is the elimination of Federal taxes combined with the elimination of Federal government spending, or as close as you can get to both. Even informed, educated Conservatives will respond in a similar fashion, which is both fascinating and frightening. What they fail to understand is, along with the vote, taxation is one of the few tools, weapons really, that the general population has to defend itself. These Conservatives are taking their beloved pistols in hand and emptying the barrel into their tootsies.
The evidence of wealth concentration in the United States is undeniable and has reached levels without precedent, in both extent of wealth and concentration. Personally I believe the primary facilitator of this lack of precedent is the demographics of population growth, which is also without precedent. Edward N. Wolff, a PhD at New York University and noted authority on the accumulation of wealth, calculates that 38% of all wealth in this country is owned by 1% of American households. If you take individual home ownership out of the definition of “wealth”, then the ownership of the top 1% increases to 50% of all asset value (property, stocks, bonds, cash, businesses, other real estate, commodities etc. etc.). Anecdotally, you just need to compare the net worth of Tiger Woods to Jack Nicklaus, or the level of Bernie Madoff’s larceny. The bottom 20% of households (about 60 million people) own nothing, their debts exceed their assets or they have no calculable assets at all (yard sales don’t count). My guess is that there are quite a few of those bottom 20% folks holding up signs at Tea Party conventions.
In order to eliminate our deficits, Wolff suggests substituting an annual tax on wealth (Property or Asset tax) instead of a tax on income (as income is an inaccurate representative of net worth). By starting at a level of $250,000 (eliminating 80% of the population from the tax entirely) and applying a progressive tax starting at 0.2% and rising to a maximum of 0.8% (for the numerically challenged: that’s eight-tenths of one percent, or 80 cents for every $100 of value) he believes we would be out of the red, all other things being equal. The very wealthy would bear the majority of the tax, but just how onerous would a tax be that diminished one’s multi-million or multi-billion dollar wealth by less than one percent annually? Could this happen in this country? Not likely.
Who would be hurt by such a system and who is helped? Answer that and you’re befuddled why such a method of taxation never even rises to the level of a discussion, while regressive taxes such as the “flat tax” or “value-added” tax are bounced around regularly. The streets outside the US capital are not filled with protesting multi-billionaires holding signs showing a Hitler mustached Obama and slogans about creeping socialism. They don’t have to. They have convinced their Conservative surrogates in the tens of millions that taxation, along with Government and Obama, is in direct opposition to their own well being. They know the general population has a gun in its hand, but the powers of wealth are chuckling mightily. With Pavlovian certainty, they know it has been trained to only shoot straight down.
Friday, June 18, 2010
In My Face
I have written only 24 pieces for this blog over a two year period. Not particularly prolific. Yet even with this small accounting I have applied, in part or in whole, a disproportionate amount of my monologue to Sarah Palin. Now here I go again. However, this time I’m more interested in trying to figure out why this woman continues to be “in my face”, what it says about this American culture, and what it means to me.
Certainly the lady continues to generate press. The choices made by the media are the result of what they believe mirrors the interests of their audience – simplistic, but basically true. The importance of a chosen story, and therefore its coverage, is of course relative. If 9/11 happened today instead of 9 years ago, the oil spill in the Gulf would be page 3 news. That’s where part of my problem begins – why does the story of Sarah Palin surface above so many other things that are happening in the world, or even in this country? I think her activities (and those of Todd, Bristol, Trig, and Levi et al) trumps popular coverage of our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers are still dying by the dozens monthly. It makes no sense to me, but almost by definition it must make sense to a lot of other people.
Sarah was the topic of a recent Newsweek cover story. Given it was Newsweek and given the description on the cover I expected it to be another critical review of her inept presentations, if not an out and out bashing. I was surprised to read that it viewed her in a rather favorable light. The focus of the article was why Palin is so revered by so many Christian Conservatives, in particular Conservative Christian women. The article points out how she has attained a can-do-no-wrong status. Combine that with the superstar curiosity she generates and one can understand why she is such a huge draw wherever she goes. In a recent star studded commercial event in Richmond she had top billing over such heavy weights as Colin Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, and Terry Bradshaw (to name a few) and she only had to attend by satellite feed instead of carting her kiester down there like the others. She undoubtedly made more money than the rest as well.
She recently stumped for Carly Fiorina in Carly’s California Senate bid to oust Barbara Boxer. As Fiorina (former CEO) probably wouldn’t have given Palin a job at Hewlett-Packard above Assistant VP in charge of Inuit Marketing, one can only imagine what was going on in Fiorina’s head as she stood in the shadows behind Palin. Yet it brought out the faithful in large numbers. Whether it did Fiorina any good is another question all together.
The Newsweek article attributed her popularity primarily to the single issue of abortion and her pro-life stand. Her credibility is solid gold as she often sports Trig around on her hip, a living testimony that no man (emphasis on the word “man”) can refute. In a post-election Stephanopoulos interview, however, she was asked the question “what would you have told Bristol if she (Bristol) had come to you and said she was getting an abortion”. Palin responded that she would have counseled her daughter hoping that she would make the right decision to keep the child. Of course, that is the pro-choice position in the debate, but no one appeared to notice the inconsistency. Titling the Newsweek article Saint Sarah was not an exaggeration.
So what does this adulation say about our culture and why does it seem to disturb me to the point where I’d prefer…no, wish Palin to fade into Alaskan obscurity?
Palin only brings up the abortion issue like the gas engine in a hybrid car recharges the batteries. The perceived truth of that one issue affords her the credibility on almost anything conservative, allowing her to go miles and miles on the most outrageous positions and proclamations. A Christian Conservative (man) I know who is thoughtful and well-read described her to me as “refreshing”. I tried to get from him what that meant, but he neither had a answer nor wanted to delve into the specifics of why I thought she was the political equivalent of a carnival barker. What I think he was saying was: I like her…and I don’t care why.
I believe too many of us have reached a point where we have surrendered the search for our own identities to simplistic themes and to those who present them. Ignorance has always been the primary fuel for fear and intolerance. It is most identifiable in the presence of certitudes. Young children are the most certain of their environment because their knowledge is so limited. They are also fearful of what is unknown to them and naturally intolerant. It can take a lifetime for one of us to grow into an acceptance of uncertainty and diversity. Unfortunately, in many of us it never happens at all. When that’s the case, a person will often gravitate toward that which they intuitively feel will alleviate their fears and justify their intolerance. How many historical events could one attribute to that dynamic? So many it is history itself. Perhaps this culture is becoming the victim of its increasing inability to find comfort with the unknown as our numbers increase and our systems become more complex. Then, almost mysteriously, the Sarah Palins of the world pop up like mushrooms on a damp lawn.
For me, I find myself becoming more tolerant of Sarah Palin. She’s simply a saleswoman and she’s only meeting the demand. Instead of complaining about the mushrooms on the lawn, perhaps I should be grateful that they’re able to tell me that things have gotten a bit wet.
Certainly the lady continues to generate press. The choices made by the media are the result of what they believe mirrors the interests of their audience – simplistic, but basically true. The importance of a chosen story, and therefore its coverage, is of course relative. If 9/11 happened today instead of 9 years ago, the oil spill in the Gulf would be page 3 news. That’s where part of my problem begins – why does the story of Sarah Palin surface above so many other things that are happening in the world, or even in this country? I think her activities (and those of Todd, Bristol, Trig, and Levi et al) trumps popular coverage of our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers are still dying by the dozens monthly. It makes no sense to me, but almost by definition it must make sense to a lot of other people.
Sarah was the topic of a recent Newsweek cover story. Given it was Newsweek and given the description on the cover I expected it to be another critical review of her inept presentations, if not an out and out bashing. I was surprised to read that it viewed her in a rather favorable light. The focus of the article was why Palin is so revered by so many Christian Conservatives, in particular Conservative Christian women. The article points out how she has attained a can-do-no-wrong status. Combine that with the superstar curiosity she generates and one can understand why she is such a huge draw wherever she goes. In a recent star studded commercial event in Richmond she had top billing over such heavy weights as Colin Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, and Terry Bradshaw (to name a few) and she only had to attend by satellite feed instead of carting her kiester down there like the others. She undoubtedly made more money than the rest as well.
She recently stumped for Carly Fiorina in Carly’s California Senate bid to oust Barbara Boxer. As Fiorina (former CEO) probably wouldn’t have given Palin a job at Hewlett-Packard above Assistant VP in charge of Inuit Marketing, one can only imagine what was going on in Fiorina’s head as she stood in the shadows behind Palin. Yet it brought out the faithful in large numbers. Whether it did Fiorina any good is another question all together.
The Newsweek article attributed her popularity primarily to the single issue of abortion and her pro-life stand. Her credibility is solid gold as she often sports Trig around on her hip, a living testimony that no man (emphasis on the word “man”) can refute. In a post-election Stephanopoulos interview, however, she was asked the question “what would you have told Bristol if she (Bristol) had come to you and said she was getting an abortion”. Palin responded that she would have counseled her daughter hoping that she would make the right decision to keep the child. Of course, that is the pro-choice position in the debate, but no one appeared to notice the inconsistency. Titling the Newsweek article Saint Sarah was not an exaggeration.
So what does this adulation say about our culture and why does it seem to disturb me to the point where I’d prefer…no, wish Palin to fade into Alaskan obscurity?
Palin only brings up the abortion issue like the gas engine in a hybrid car recharges the batteries. The perceived truth of that one issue affords her the credibility on almost anything conservative, allowing her to go miles and miles on the most outrageous positions and proclamations. A Christian Conservative (man) I know who is thoughtful and well-read described her to me as “refreshing”. I tried to get from him what that meant, but he neither had a answer nor wanted to delve into the specifics of why I thought she was the political equivalent of a carnival barker. What I think he was saying was: I like her…and I don’t care why.
I believe too many of us have reached a point where we have surrendered the search for our own identities to simplistic themes and to those who present them. Ignorance has always been the primary fuel for fear and intolerance. It is most identifiable in the presence of certitudes. Young children are the most certain of their environment because their knowledge is so limited. They are also fearful of what is unknown to them and naturally intolerant. It can take a lifetime for one of us to grow into an acceptance of uncertainty and diversity. Unfortunately, in many of us it never happens at all. When that’s the case, a person will often gravitate toward that which they intuitively feel will alleviate their fears and justify their intolerance. How many historical events could one attribute to that dynamic? So many it is history itself. Perhaps this culture is becoming the victim of its increasing inability to find comfort with the unknown as our numbers increase and our systems become more complex. Then, almost mysteriously, the Sarah Palins of the world pop up like mushrooms on a damp lawn.
For me, I find myself becoming more tolerant of Sarah Palin. She’s simply a saleswoman and she’s only meeting the demand. Instead of complaining about the mushrooms on the lawn, perhaps I should be grateful that they’re able to tell me that things have gotten a bit wet.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Let's Call Him Rand
Let me admit up front that I have not followed the life or career of Ron Paul closely. In fact, I know virtually nothing of his personal life. My knowledge is limited to listening to him, to a respectable degree, during the Republican Presidential nominating process in 2008, and reading some commentary about his ideas. I found him, or really his rhetoric, compelling when contrasted to the other politicians vying for the nomination. I think it was the clarity of his arguments and his commitment to them that set him apart from the rest, who engaged in the usual political pragmatism of jockeying back and forth to maximize appeal. Paul’s semi-Libertarian position reminded me of my youth; the way an odd change in weather will make one recall a place in the past.
As I said, I know nothing of Ron Paul’s history, but I strongly suspect that he named his son “Rand” (born 1963) because to name him “Ayn” (pronounced Anne) wouldn’t work (for obvious reasons).
During the last two years of college I was an energetic adherent of something called Objectivism, sticking to me for a brief period. It was coined by author/philosopher Ayn Rand (O’Connor), 1905-1982, a successful novelist who became in the 1960s the guru of an intellectual form of Individualism. She applied basic principles of philosophy (defining human behavior) to explain both the reasons for prosperity within a Capitalist society and other reasons why a broader success for Capitalism has remained elusive. Her use of logic, as with Ron Paul to a degree, was a major part of what made her writings so persuasive. She attracted a large, college age baby boomer crowd and some heavy hitters (Alan Greenspan, for example, was one of her co-writers on essay compilations).
Her thoughts and writings, however, never went main stream…not really. Although her near worship of the “individual” certainly resonated with the American patriotic psyche (Ronald Reagan was a confessed admirer), I would suggest that she failed to appeal to the general American populous primarily because of the only commonality she had with Karl Marx – that religion was the opiate of the People (Marx’s words). Ayn Rand was hard on established religion, especially Christianity, and afforded no compromises, as I recall. She exalted reason as the only valid epistemology (the acquisition of knowledge) and that egoism (self-interest) was the sole course for human salvation. I’m afraid that just wasn’t going to cut it with your basic Christian Conservative. Oh but what strange bedfellows the clouds of dissent create, especially when they perceive a common enemy.
Rand Paul is, by any reasonable gauge, the first bona fide (Republican) Tea Party candidate. Like his father he is an articulate, thoughtful, and accomplished overachiever. Apart from his father, however, he now carries with his candidacy a new level of Libertarianism that is more closely allied with his (I assume) namesake. That’s not to say that even a decent sub-set of Tea Partiers have any knowledge of Objectivism, let alone an understanding of it. It does suggest that the anti “collective”, anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-controls, throw the bums out movement has at least some of its roots in a philosophy which would make a Baptist congregation howl to the rafters. Such a violation of intrinsic spirituality would have little meaning to the Tea Party crowd however, no matter how it was explained, as long as their leaders remain focused on the devil before them – Obama.
Rand Paul was recently interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and asked questions regarding (Paul’s) statements relating to Civil Rights laws. Paul did not answer the question. Like a good politician he evaded the question by simply stating he’s never advocated any change to existing law. He chose not to defend his published line of reasoning to a wider audience (you sometimes wonder why politicians even bother to accept interviews).
I understand his line of reasoning, of which he would not comment. It is Objectivist 101; if you allow people the freedom to make individual choices with private funds, ultimately and eventually practical self-interest will have them do what is most beneficial for the society as a whole. For example: if the owner of a private restaurant doesn’t want to serve African-Americans…no, let’s say blue-eyed people, then his loss of business will ultimately force him to change as he would realize he was acting against his own best interest. The stupid anti-blue-eyed restaurants would eventually go out of business. It’s logical, makes sense…sort of. It did to me in 1972. However, if you substitute African-American for blue-eyed, something doesn’t pass the sniff test.
There were legitimate concerns with the new year of 2009. The Bush Administration with the support of a Democratic Congress had completed the first TARP spending bill, but without adequate restriction on how the Bush Administration was going to spend it, and began work on a second bill at the end of 2008. The addition of massive debt to the out of control spending and revenue reductions in the Bush years was breath taking. There was every justification for overt protest, if nothing else but to provide adequate explanation and accountability.
The Tea Party protests, however, specifically focused on President Obama as, supposedly, the agent for what they saw happening. They began in earnest February 2009, less than a month after Obama’s inauguration, obviously in the works earlier. President Obama hadn’t even completed his cabinet let alone instituted policy or signed major legislation at that point. He was nearly a year away from presenting his first budget. It was the election itself that sparked the organizing that led to the first “protest”. Nothing would have defused it; not instant prosperity, not cheap health care, not budget surpluses, not the Taliban converting to Christianity, not the second coming of Christ…nothing - except the election of John McCain. The real reason for the movement was the fear of lost identity, that the external identity of being “independent”, white, Christian, and American was perceived as being gravely threatened. The awareness of their own humanity was and is currently not on the radar.
Rand Paul has found himself a leader in a movement for which logic holds little weight. His leadership is nearly an oxymoron. It is a movement which exemplifies the very reason why Objectivism lost much of its appeal to its early, now aging, educated followers. People just aren’t the chemical, cause and effect androids that compliment the logic one finds in such variant philosophies as Ayn Rand’s or Karl Marx. Without regard to positive ideas that exist in both viewpoints, people are vulnerable to the weakness of their own egos. It is the reason we have laws. As Rand Paul runs for Congress and tries, as his father, to articulate some logical Libertarian viewpoint, he’ll discover that it will hardly garner the support of those not at the Tea Party, nor those swimming in orange-pekoe. Ultimately, if he thinks he can win with a right-wing plurality, he’ll have to do just one thing – bash Obama. No logic necessary.
As I said, I know nothing of Ron Paul’s history, but I strongly suspect that he named his son “Rand” (born 1963) because to name him “Ayn” (pronounced Anne) wouldn’t work (for obvious reasons).
During the last two years of college I was an energetic adherent of something called Objectivism, sticking to me for a brief period. It was coined by author/philosopher Ayn Rand (O’Connor), 1905-1982, a successful novelist who became in the 1960s the guru of an intellectual form of Individualism. She applied basic principles of philosophy (defining human behavior) to explain both the reasons for prosperity within a Capitalist society and other reasons why a broader success for Capitalism has remained elusive. Her use of logic, as with Ron Paul to a degree, was a major part of what made her writings so persuasive. She attracted a large, college age baby boomer crowd and some heavy hitters (Alan Greenspan, for example, was one of her co-writers on essay compilations).
Her thoughts and writings, however, never went main stream…not really. Although her near worship of the “individual” certainly resonated with the American patriotic psyche (Ronald Reagan was a confessed admirer), I would suggest that she failed to appeal to the general American populous primarily because of the only commonality she had with Karl Marx – that religion was the opiate of the People (Marx’s words). Ayn Rand was hard on established religion, especially Christianity, and afforded no compromises, as I recall. She exalted reason as the only valid epistemology (the acquisition of knowledge) and that egoism (self-interest) was the sole course for human salvation. I’m afraid that just wasn’t going to cut it with your basic Christian Conservative. Oh but what strange bedfellows the clouds of dissent create, especially when they perceive a common enemy.
Rand Paul is, by any reasonable gauge, the first bona fide (Republican) Tea Party candidate. Like his father he is an articulate, thoughtful, and accomplished overachiever. Apart from his father, however, he now carries with his candidacy a new level of Libertarianism that is more closely allied with his (I assume) namesake. That’s not to say that even a decent sub-set of Tea Partiers have any knowledge of Objectivism, let alone an understanding of it. It does suggest that the anti “collective”, anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-controls, throw the bums out movement has at least some of its roots in a philosophy which would make a Baptist congregation howl to the rafters. Such a violation of intrinsic spirituality would have little meaning to the Tea Party crowd however, no matter how it was explained, as long as their leaders remain focused on the devil before them – Obama.
Rand Paul was recently interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and asked questions regarding (Paul’s) statements relating to Civil Rights laws. Paul did not answer the question. Like a good politician he evaded the question by simply stating he’s never advocated any change to existing law. He chose not to defend his published line of reasoning to a wider audience (you sometimes wonder why politicians even bother to accept interviews).
I understand his line of reasoning, of which he would not comment. It is Objectivist 101; if you allow people the freedom to make individual choices with private funds, ultimately and eventually practical self-interest will have them do what is most beneficial for the society as a whole. For example: if the owner of a private restaurant doesn’t want to serve African-Americans…no, let’s say blue-eyed people, then his loss of business will ultimately force him to change as he would realize he was acting against his own best interest. The stupid anti-blue-eyed restaurants would eventually go out of business. It’s logical, makes sense…sort of. It did to me in 1972. However, if you substitute African-American for blue-eyed, something doesn’t pass the sniff test.
There were legitimate concerns with the new year of 2009. The Bush Administration with the support of a Democratic Congress had completed the first TARP spending bill, but without adequate restriction on how the Bush Administration was going to spend it, and began work on a second bill at the end of 2008. The addition of massive debt to the out of control spending and revenue reductions in the Bush years was breath taking. There was every justification for overt protest, if nothing else but to provide adequate explanation and accountability.
The Tea Party protests, however, specifically focused on President Obama as, supposedly, the agent for what they saw happening. They began in earnest February 2009, less than a month after Obama’s inauguration, obviously in the works earlier. President Obama hadn’t even completed his cabinet let alone instituted policy or signed major legislation at that point. He was nearly a year away from presenting his first budget. It was the election itself that sparked the organizing that led to the first “protest”. Nothing would have defused it; not instant prosperity, not cheap health care, not budget surpluses, not the Taliban converting to Christianity, not the second coming of Christ…nothing - except the election of John McCain. The real reason for the movement was the fear of lost identity, that the external identity of being “independent”, white, Christian, and American was perceived as being gravely threatened. The awareness of their own humanity was and is currently not on the radar.
Rand Paul has found himself a leader in a movement for which logic holds little weight. His leadership is nearly an oxymoron. It is a movement which exemplifies the very reason why Objectivism lost much of its appeal to its early, now aging, educated followers. People just aren’t the chemical, cause and effect androids that compliment the logic one finds in such variant philosophies as Ayn Rand’s or Karl Marx. Without regard to positive ideas that exist in both viewpoints, people are vulnerable to the weakness of their own egos. It is the reason we have laws. As Rand Paul runs for Congress and tries, as his father, to articulate some logical Libertarian viewpoint, he’ll discover that it will hardly garner the support of those not at the Tea Party, nor those swimming in orange-pekoe. Ultimately, if he thinks he can win with a right-wing plurality, he’ll have to do just one thing – bash Obama. No logic necessary.
Friday, April 30, 2010
If I Were King - Proclamation I
Preamble
There are two things that are initially repelling to most who would read the title If I Were King. First is the egotistic nature of the statement. Well…this is a blog, and any expression; spoken, written, drawn, sculpted, spray painted on cinderblock, tattooed over pectoral muscles, or whatever inextricably includes the ego - can’t help that.
The second disturbing aspect is the King thing. In our national desire to raise the concept of Democracy to that of a theology we have come to look suspiciously at other means of social order as heretical, which is a little odd considering the comedy our representative Democracy stages for us almost daily. The fact is, a generationally determined Monarchy is potentially a better, more efficient, more responsive form of government, and less blind to inequities. It just has that one pesky problem of getting really bad monarchs, which may happen more often than not. There’s not much to be done about a squirrely succession.
So, would I make a good king? No, I’d probably make a lousy king. But occasionally I believe I have a good or fun idea, and how I wish I could make it happen by proclamation instead of the perhaps greater fantasy of it coming to pass within the context of a society that believes it can be run by consensus.
Therefore, as your Sovereign, I hereby proclaim that:
I - All prescription drug advertisements shall be banned from television and radio. Doesn’t that sound good? We don’t need the information, the doctors do. All it does is raise drug costs and a bunch of other nasty stuff (see www.CAPDA.blogspot.com ).
II - All new cars sold in this country will not have analogue speedometers reading above 100mph. Speedometer inflation is both absurd and insulting - and probably promotes speeding. My little 4 cylinder Elantra’s speedometer reads up to 140mph! It couldn’t go that fast if I drove it off a cliff. Do they really believe I feel more powerful with a number like that?
III – That every male in the country upon reaching the age of 18 be required to do 2 years of “service”. Although you’ve heard that before, this service would only necessitate that they live for those two years in the house of a family who has just sent their own 18 year old son off. However, that family would have to be of an ethnic origin (European American, African American, Latin American, or Native American) different than their own. During those two years they would either work and/or attend a community college. Women could participate on a voluntary basis, because when it comes to social acceptance, quite frankly, today’s young women have their shit together and men don’t.
IV – There will, once again, be a national speed limit of 55mph. Jimmy Carter was right. 55 because no one is willing to drive the speed limit and cars hit their maximum aerodynamic efficiency somewhere between 60 and 65mph. The savings in national fuel consumption would be astronomical. The loss of 67 minutes on a drive between Richmond and New York can easily be made up by the elimination of one mindless reality program and/or the healthy consumption of Metamucil. The decline in highway fatalities would be just a bonus.
V - Social Security will simply become taxable income (instead of partially, as it is now). Furthermore, at gross incomes exceeding $80,000 Social Security will be taxed at a progressively higher rate than other income, so when a person’s total income reaches $140,000 Social Security will be taxed at 100%, i.e., those individuals will receive no Social Security. It is beyond reason that our current form of social welfare for the elderly and disabled is routinely paid out to wealthy individuals. The illusion that this is some kind of paid-in annuity strikes at the heart of why we are the largest debtor nation in the history of mankind.
VI - All push lawn mowers with grass catchers shall be banned. Only mulching mowers will be sold. This decree is intended to give psychological help to those unfortunates who believe that the few minutes of momentary bliss they receive from a spotless lawn is worth the weighted down mower, the endless stopping and dumping of the bags, the pilings of grass clippings in the backyard (or worse - plastic bags), the green fingernails, and the higher original cost.
VII – All television stations and networks shall not sell more than 20 minutes of commercial airtime advertising one political candidate over that sold to another (in any given market). It wouldn’t matter who buys the ad, but the candidates campaign would have right of first refusal. A candidate would be defined as one who is currently projected to receive at least 25% of the popular vote. Further, all commercial airtime purchased by political candidates must be a minimum of 2 minutes in duration for Presidential and Senatorial candidates and 1 minute for all others. The net result would be that there would be equal exposure or a popular minority candidate could stop the use of television commercials – a medium where 15 second political sound bites appeal to that part of the brain which handles such activities as nose picking and making imitation fart sounds. Maybe we would actually learn something from what was broadcast or find better means of learning about all the candidates. Hell, in Britain they don’t allow political TV ads at all, which errs on the side of common sense.
VIII – That 5% of all gross television ad revenues be paid over to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Call it a tax if you’d like, but for a society not to fund a media source, especially news, which is free from a corporate profit interest, is like a theft of understanding. Further, having funding within a government budget can allow politicians the same kind of leverage. Upper management and the board of the CPB would be replaced if average viewer/listenership fell below a pre-determined level for 3 successive quarters – letting the people vote on the content with their TV remotes.
IX – There will be a Value Added Tax on oil to gasoline intended to bring the price up to at least $4 per gallon. This would both reduce debt and find a strike price which will curb consumption and stimulate innovation. If consumption does not flatten or decline, the rate of tax will increase. There would be no VAT on diesel fuel, which would reduce the impact on the trucking business. One half of revenues would be applied to transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges etc), which would be mostly transferred to the States. There will be an annual windfall profits tax on energy companies. All new roads and fuel efficient cars will be named after me.
X – That all cable, satellite, and fiber optic television companies shall provide a new Sarah Palin Channel. This channel will broadcast nothing but Sarah Palin interviews and speeches in an endless loop. I hope by doing such, devoted fans will actually begin to see what this woman is saying. Every two hours there will be 10 minutes of an old 1950s Howdy-Doody broadcast inserted. The channel shall remain in effect until it is determined that polled Republican viewers can finally no longer tell the difference between Palin and Buffalo Bob.
There are two things that are initially repelling to most who would read the title If I Were King. First is the egotistic nature of the statement. Well…this is a blog, and any expression; spoken, written, drawn, sculpted, spray painted on cinderblock, tattooed over pectoral muscles, or whatever inextricably includes the ego - can’t help that.
The second disturbing aspect is the King thing. In our national desire to raise the concept of Democracy to that of a theology we have come to look suspiciously at other means of social order as heretical, which is a little odd considering the comedy our representative Democracy stages for us almost daily. The fact is, a generationally determined Monarchy is potentially a better, more efficient, more responsive form of government, and less blind to inequities. It just has that one pesky problem of getting really bad monarchs, which may happen more often than not. There’s not much to be done about a squirrely succession.
So, would I make a good king? No, I’d probably make a lousy king. But occasionally I believe I have a good or fun idea, and how I wish I could make it happen by proclamation instead of the perhaps greater fantasy of it coming to pass within the context of a society that believes it can be run by consensus.
Therefore, as your Sovereign, I hereby proclaim that:
I - All prescription drug advertisements shall be banned from television and radio. Doesn’t that sound good? We don’t need the information, the doctors do. All it does is raise drug costs and a bunch of other nasty stuff (see www.CAPDA.blogspot.com ).
II - All new cars sold in this country will not have analogue speedometers reading above 100mph. Speedometer inflation is both absurd and insulting - and probably promotes speeding. My little 4 cylinder Elantra’s speedometer reads up to 140mph! It couldn’t go that fast if I drove it off a cliff. Do they really believe I feel more powerful with a number like that?
III – That every male in the country upon reaching the age of 18 be required to do 2 years of “service”. Although you’ve heard that before, this service would only necessitate that they live for those two years in the house of a family who has just sent their own 18 year old son off. However, that family would have to be of an ethnic origin (European American, African American, Latin American, or Native American) different than their own. During those two years they would either work and/or attend a community college. Women could participate on a voluntary basis, because when it comes to social acceptance, quite frankly, today’s young women have their shit together and men don’t.
IV – There will, once again, be a national speed limit of 55mph. Jimmy Carter was right. 55 because no one is willing to drive the speed limit and cars hit their maximum aerodynamic efficiency somewhere between 60 and 65mph. The savings in national fuel consumption would be astronomical. The loss of 67 minutes on a drive between Richmond and New York can easily be made up by the elimination of one mindless reality program and/or the healthy consumption of Metamucil. The decline in highway fatalities would be just a bonus.
V - Social Security will simply become taxable income (instead of partially, as it is now). Furthermore, at gross incomes exceeding $80,000 Social Security will be taxed at a progressively higher rate than other income, so when a person’s total income reaches $140,000 Social Security will be taxed at 100%, i.e., those individuals will receive no Social Security. It is beyond reason that our current form of social welfare for the elderly and disabled is routinely paid out to wealthy individuals. The illusion that this is some kind of paid-in annuity strikes at the heart of why we are the largest debtor nation in the history of mankind.
VI - All push lawn mowers with grass catchers shall be banned. Only mulching mowers will be sold. This decree is intended to give psychological help to those unfortunates who believe that the few minutes of momentary bliss they receive from a spotless lawn is worth the weighted down mower, the endless stopping and dumping of the bags, the pilings of grass clippings in the backyard (or worse - plastic bags), the green fingernails, and the higher original cost.
VII – All television stations and networks shall not sell more than 20 minutes of commercial airtime advertising one political candidate over that sold to another (in any given market). It wouldn’t matter who buys the ad, but the candidates campaign would have right of first refusal. A candidate would be defined as one who is currently projected to receive at least 25% of the popular vote. Further, all commercial airtime purchased by political candidates must be a minimum of 2 minutes in duration for Presidential and Senatorial candidates and 1 minute for all others. The net result would be that there would be equal exposure or a popular minority candidate could stop the use of television commercials – a medium where 15 second political sound bites appeal to that part of the brain which handles such activities as nose picking and making imitation fart sounds. Maybe we would actually learn something from what was broadcast or find better means of learning about all the candidates. Hell, in Britain they don’t allow political TV ads at all, which errs on the side of common sense.
VIII – That 5% of all gross television ad revenues be paid over to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Call it a tax if you’d like, but for a society not to fund a media source, especially news, which is free from a corporate profit interest, is like a theft of understanding. Further, having funding within a government budget can allow politicians the same kind of leverage. Upper management and the board of the CPB would be replaced if average viewer/listenership fell below a pre-determined level for 3 successive quarters – letting the people vote on the content with their TV remotes.
IX – There will be a Value Added Tax on oil to gasoline intended to bring the price up to at least $4 per gallon. This would both reduce debt and find a strike price which will curb consumption and stimulate innovation. If consumption does not flatten or decline, the rate of tax will increase. There would be no VAT on diesel fuel, which would reduce the impact on the trucking business. One half of revenues would be applied to transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges etc), which would be mostly transferred to the States. There will be an annual windfall profits tax on energy companies. All new roads and fuel efficient cars will be named after me.
X – That all cable, satellite, and fiber optic television companies shall provide a new Sarah Palin Channel. This channel will broadcast nothing but Sarah Palin interviews and speeches in an endless loop. I hope by doing such, devoted fans will actually begin to see what this woman is saying. Every two hours there will be 10 minutes of an old 1950s Howdy-Doody broadcast inserted. The channel shall remain in effect until it is determined that polled Republican viewers can finally no longer tell the difference between Palin and Buffalo Bob.
Friday, April 23, 2010
My Enemy...My Friend
This morning I watched my wife Jan go to the cupboard and take out her daily vitamin and calcium pills from their bottles, as she does each morning. I, who had snagged from CVS freebie plastic pill containers with seven handy little compartments, asked her why she doesn’t use one of them. “That way you’d only have to take your pill bottles out once a week instead of once a day”. She looked at me incredulously and said: “…why would I want to do that? I’m perfectly fine and content with doing it the way I’m doing it.” I grumbled something about efficiency and cleverly omitted the fact that I use the container to help remind me to take my damned pills – something for which her methodical abilities require no assistance.
Of course, she was right. What is the point of making a change when no change is necessary? It made me wonder if my almost evangelistic belief that there is always a better way of doing things (if one just looks hard enough) may be self-defeating. One might suggest such is the origin of the phrase don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The desire for change, in and of itself, has no explicit value. Only the value of the actual proposed change can be judged. To those who might disagree, pointing out the individuals who have championed or actually developed the many technological advancements we enjoy, I would suggest that it was dissatisfaction with the status quo that was probably the greater motivator…and doubtless money as well.
Still, I wonder. Is a desire for change per se a necessary attribute allowing us to successfully adapt? Perhaps so. There is change swirling about us continually - tied to events, tied to time, or tied to mystery for example. How do we react when what makes us content doesn’t seem consistent with the environment that surrounds us? Isn’t it a common reaction to blame “the world” or one of its many components as the cause of why this or that just isn’t the same? In spending a career working with “seniors” (say 70 and up) I noticed that those who most acutely felt the stresses of age were those to whom felt their lives abandoned. They felt they had lived a lifetime only to find that what was comfortable, what was dependable, and what had shaped trust was not clearly identifiable in the world around them. The anguish that assumption creates is a tragic consequence for individuals in the last period of their lives.
Maybe there is contentment itself in recognizing and appreciating the impermanence of all things? Some years ago I developed an infection in my sinuses and ears. For unfortunate reasons I was unable to get to a doctor, so I stuck out the illness. For about three days I lost most of my hearing. I got a kick out of driving my old pickup truck, as the low murmur of its normally ruckus engine sounded like a Mercedes-Benz E Class. When my hearing came back it also brought an unwelcomed enemy – tinnitus or ringing in the ears. I have it to this day.
At first I tried to read whatever I could about tinnitus. I wasn’t encourage to see that one, there was no cure for it, and two, some people are driven half (or entirely) mad by the condition. To consider a noise over which you have no control one could understand such a reaction. Mine is primarily in my left ear and frequently when it is quiet outside (as in the evening) or if that ear is covered the noise can sound like a relentless high-pitched car horn. However, I did find some good information, although I had to modify it for my own purposes. I found I could conquer the ringing, not by trying to overcome it, but rather by listening to it...and accepting it. This change that had taken place in my life was okay…in fact it was better than okay. It helped me to step out of the possible chains inflexibility can cause in any of us. Now at night when I lay with the left side of my head on the pillow I attentively marvel at the volume of the ringing, but when I’m through listening it essentially goes away. It has become my friend and I'm better for it. If I didn’t have the desire to embrace change could I have done this, or would I be pounding my head against a wall? I’m not sure.
I read from the internet an explanation about the baby/bath water saying. It suggested that the origin was from centuries before when an entire family would take their weekly or monthly bath in the same bath water. The baby, it said, was normally the last to be bathed and by that time you could just imagine what the water looked like. It was joked (back then) that the mother could lose the baby in the muck. I like the explanation, true or not. But it does make me think that unless we can adapt, we may be cleaning with the same water too long and lose that which is dear. Maybe a love of change helps.
Of course, she was right. What is the point of making a change when no change is necessary? It made me wonder if my almost evangelistic belief that there is always a better way of doing things (if one just looks hard enough) may be self-defeating. One might suggest such is the origin of the phrase don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The desire for change, in and of itself, has no explicit value. Only the value of the actual proposed change can be judged. To those who might disagree, pointing out the individuals who have championed or actually developed the many technological advancements we enjoy, I would suggest that it was dissatisfaction with the status quo that was probably the greater motivator…and doubtless money as well.
Still, I wonder. Is a desire for change per se a necessary attribute allowing us to successfully adapt? Perhaps so. There is change swirling about us continually - tied to events, tied to time, or tied to mystery for example. How do we react when what makes us content doesn’t seem consistent with the environment that surrounds us? Isn’t it a common reaction to blame “the world” or one of its many components as the cause of why this or that just isn’t the same? In spending a career working with “seniors” (say 70 and up) I noticed that those who most acutely felt the stresses of age were those to whom felt their lives abandoned. They felt they had lived a lifetime only to find that what was comfortable, what was dependable, and what had shaped trust was not clearly identifiable in the world around them. The anguish that assumption creates is a tragic consequence for individuals in the last period of their lives.
Maybe there is contentment itself in recognizing and appreciating the impermanence of all things? Some years ago I developed an infection in my sinuses and ears. For unfortunate reasons I was unable to get to a doctor, so I stuck out the illness. For about three days I lost most of my hearing. I got a kick out of driving my old pickup truck, as the low murmur of its normally ruckus engine sounded like a Mercedes-Benz E Class. When my hearing came back it also brought an unwelcomed enemy – tinnitus or ringing in the ears. I have it to this day.
At first I tried to read whatever I could about tinnitus. I wasn’t encourage to see that one, there was no cure for it, and two, some people are driven half (or entirely) mad by the condition. To consider a noise over which you have no control one could understand such a reaction. Mine is primarily in my left ear and frequently when it is quiet outside (as in the evening) or if that ear is covered the noise can sound like a relentless high-pitched car horn. However, I did find some good information, although I had to modify it for my own purposes. I found I could conquer the ringing, not by trying to overcome it, but rather by listening to it...and accepting it. This change that had taken place in my life was okay…in fact it was better than okay. It helped me to step out of the possible chains inflexibility can cause in any of us. Now at night when I lay with the left side of my head on the pillow I attentively marvel at the volume of the ringing, but when I’m through listening it essentially goes away. It has become my friend and I'm better for it. If I didn’t have the desire to embrace change could I have done this, or would I be pounding my head against a wall? I’m not sure.
I read from the internet an explanation about the baby/bath water saying. It suggested that the origin was from centuries before when an entire family would take their weekly or monthly bath in the same bath water. The baby, it said, was normally the last to be bathed and by that time you could just imagine what the water looked like. It was joked (back then) that the mother could lose the baby in the muck. I like the explanation, true or not. But it does make me think that unless we can adapt, we may be cleaning with the same water too long and lose that which is dear. Maybe a love of change helps.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The New Racism?
One afternoon recently I asked a thoughtful friend, a self-proclaimed Conservative, sympathetic with the “Tea Party” events and energetically opposed to the recent Health Reform Law, if he thought racism played a part in the “spirited” opposition to the Obama Administration. He reflected that pockets of racism will likely always exist, but he emphatically believed it was not part of the current vocal Conservative activism. Further, he felt for sure that (I paraphrase) claims of racism were merely a way for Liberal big government types to undermine the issues addressed by the “Tea Party” and similar Obama opponents. I’m confident his view is typical.
The possibility of racism as a motivation for popular political or social action is difficult to swallow. It cuts at the very heart of a trend over the past 60 years where “Jim Crow” laws were not only eliminated from the books, but overtly discounted as socially acceptable. A byproduct of the election of Obama seemed to be putting a period at the end of that chapter of Americana, suggesting we had turned a new page. Here I’m not wondering that an old chapter has probably ended, but rather what exactly is the new chapter beginning?
Aside from the lunatic fringe of the Christian Conservative Right (a fringe I might add that is notably large and uncomfortably armed), one doesn’t see blatant demonstrations of racism surfacing in public by mainstream Conservative activists, regardless of their own racial uniformity. I haven’t seen it at any rate, and I would accept that for most, like my friend, it doesn’t manifest in private as well. Still, the possibility of prejudice is ever so slightly alluded to by official Administration supporters, a bit like TV weather reporters trying to suggest that a 10% chance of rain is something to be concerned about, and on the street, well… many anti-Tea Party types and African-Americans uniformly see racism as a staple of Conservative protest.
Is it not possible that these Obama Administration supporters in their zeal to discount the issues raised by Conservative activists hang onto the actions of the lunatic fringe (name calling, spitting, voicemail threats & so on) and extrapolate it out to include all Conservatives? After all, the issues raised are real by any centrist (or liberal) standard, primarily focused on the fiscal irresponsibility of lawmakers. It’s hard to see how racism is a motivation in the opposition of red ink.
Still, simple observation makes me irresistibly feel something else is going on. The issues raised by Conservative activists are hardly new to this decade. Sure, given his rhetorical skills, George W. Bush’s elections in 2000 and 2004 were like full employment acts for comedians everywhere (he got his lumps), but the massive literal and shadow debt produced by his reductions of income and unbridled expenses (much of it without Congressional oversight) didn’t spark even an ember of protest from Conservatives. Further, although he and his Lord Vader (Cheney) may have been despised by those few who actually felt the sacrifice of their foreign adventures, Bush was not that I recall vilified in the way Obama has been. An 88 year old grandmother I know, who occasionally can be confused as to the days of the week, is convinced that Obama is the new Hitler, because he “speaks so well”. She reflects the banners that show up everywhere at Conservative rallies. Another otherwise ordinary, college educated public employee shared with me his real suspicions that Obama is the Anti-Christ. I don’t believe these views are atypical.
Where has this come from? Obama’s political pragmatism has been a major disappointment to many of his supporters who had shouted yes we can in 2008 to fiscal and political change, but it should have reverberated as a relief to Conservatives, or at least dampened their vitriolic enthusiasm. Just the opposite seems to have occurred. Not even the renewed stature Obama has brought America internationally (a source of pride for me) has explicitly resonated an iota with Conservatives. The almost junkyard dog attacks on what was essentially a health care insurance reform bill, with an intended benefit for almost everyone except those wealthy enough to be self-insured, was like a beacon shinning on something perhaps new and different.
Isn’t it also possible that Obama by his stature, his position, and his race has touched on something that is difficult for a large portion of white America to accept at a gut level? As human beings we have the challenge of recognizing our humanity while simultaneously engaged in establishing our identities…and mostly we fail. We fail because our identities are usually false, based on constructs that are superficial or illusionary. They include such things as possessions, physical appearance, organizations, intelligence, nationalities, relationships, handicaps, religions, and (oh yeah) race - to name just a few. The need to want or be right as to any of these is a powerful motivator. Identifying with race is a problem for both blacks and whites. It’s almost silly to think that it doesn’t play a role here. However, is it racism as we have known it?
White Americans prior to the middle of the 20th century were comfortable with that aspect of their identities as “white” (which they never thought of as “white”) because historically non-whites were considered inferior by a variety of external standards (including laws). That concept was debunked in the last 60 years, but perhaps only intellectually and legally. Now, however, something new, something undeniably tangible has occurred much sooner than almost anyone might have predicted. Too many white Americans are negatively faced with a realization that a black man is not only more intelligent, more refined, and of higher station than they are, but is also their leader and superior. That reality cannot be rationalized away as it might for any other non-white. It undermines the core of the construct of how they view themselves, even though being white really has nothing to do with who they are or that being black has anything to do with who Obama is. If Obama were just seen as man, not as a black man, it’s hard for me to believe that the rancorous attacks would be the same. It is not that those individuals would necessarily be in agreement with the Obama Administration, they just simply would not feel so personally threatened.
This may not be racism by traditional definitions, but a cancer is a cancer whether the symptoms are obvious or not. I’d call it selfism (for lack of something cleverer) since it exists on a plain where laws or ethics cannot govern, and of which the individual is frankly unaware.
The possibility of racism as a motivation for popular political or social action is difficult to swallow. It cuts at the very heart of a trend over the past 60 years where “Jim Crow” laws were not only eliminated from the books, but overtly discounted as socially acceptable. A byproduct of the election of Obama seemed to be putting a period at the end of that chapter of Americana, suggesting we had turned a new page. Here I’m not wondering that an old chapter has probably ended, but rather what exactly is the new chapter beginning?
Aside from the lunatic fringe of the Christian Conservative Right (a fringe I might add that is notably large and uncomfortably armed), one doesn’t see blatant demonstrations of racism surfacing in public by mainstream Conservative activists, regardless of their own racial uniformity. I haven’t seen it at any rate, and I would accept that for most, like my friend, it doesn’t manifest in private as well. Still, the possibility of prejudice is ever so slightly alluded to by official Administration supporters, a bit like TV weather reporters trying to suggest that a 10% chance of rain is something to be concerned about, and on the street, well… many anti-Tea Party types and African-Americans uniformly see racism as a staple of Conservative protest.
Is it not possible that these Obama Administration supporters in their zeal to discount the issues raised by Conservative activists hang onto the actions of the lunatic fringe (name calling, spitting, voicemail threats & so on) and extrapolate it out to include all Conservatives? After all, the issues raised are real by any centrist (or liberal) standard, primarily focused on the fiscal irresponsibility of lawmakers. It’s hard to see how racism is a motivation in the opposition of red ink.
Still, simple observation makes me irresistibly feel something else is going on. The issues raised by Conservative activists are hardly new to this decade. Sure, given his rhetorical skills, George W. Bush’s elections in 2000 and 2004 were like full employment acts for comedians everywhere (he got his lumps), but the massive literal and shadow debt produced by his reductions of income and unbridled expenses (much of it without Congressional oversight) didn’t spark even an ember of protest from Conservatives. Further, although he and his Lord Vader (Cheney) may have been despised by those few who actually felt the sacrifice of their foreign adventures, Bush was not that I recall vilified in the way Obama has been. An 88 year old grandmother I know, who occasionally can be confused as to the days of the week, is convinced that Obama is the new Hitler, because he “speaks so well”. She reflects the banners that show up everywhere at Conservative rallies. Another otherwise ordinary, college educated public employee shared with me his real suspicions that Obama is the Anti-Christ. I don’t believe these views are atypical.
Where has this come from? Obama’s political pragmatism has been a major disappointment to many of his supporters who had shouted yes we can in 2008 to fiscal and political change, but it should have reverberated as a relief to Conservatives, or at least dampened their vitriolic enthusiasm. Just the opposite seems to have occurred. Not even the renewed stature Obama has brought America internationally (a source of pride for me) has explicitly resonated an iota with Conservatives. The almost junkyard dog attacks on what was essentially a health care insurance reform bill, with an intended benefit for almost everyone except those wealthy enough to be self-insured, was like a beacon shinning on something perhaps new and different.
Isn’t it also possible that Obama by his stature, his position, and his race has touched on something that is difficult for a large portion of white America to accept at a gut level? As human beings we have the challenge of recognizing our humanity while simultaneously engaged in establishing our identities…and mostly we fail. We fail because our identities are usually false, based on constructs that are superficial or illusionary. They include such things as possessions, physical appearance, organizations, intelligence, nationalities, relationships, handicaps, religions, and (oh yeah) race - to name just a few. The need to want or be right as to any of these is a powerful motivator. Identifying with race is a problem for both blacks and whites. It’s almost silly to think that it doesn’t play a role here. However, is it racism as we have known it?
White Americans prior to the middle of the 20th century were comfortable with that aspect of their identities as “white” (which they never thought of as “white”) because historically non-whites were considered inferior by a variety of external standards (including laws). That concept was debunked in the last 60 years, but perhaps only intellectually and legally. Now, however, something new, something undeniably tangible has occurred much sooner than almost anyone might have predicted. Too many white Americans are negatively faced with a realization that a black man is not only more intelligent, more refined, and of higher station than they are, but is also their leader and superior. That reality cannot be rationalized away as it might for any other non-white. It undermines the core of the construct of how they view themselves, even though being white really has nothing to do with who they are or that being black has anything to do with who Obama is. If Obama were just seen as man, not as a black man, it’s hard for me to believe that the rancorous attacks would be the same. It is not that those individuals would necessarily be in agreement with the Obama Administration, they just simply would not feel so personally threatened.
This may not be racism by traditional definitions, but a cancer is a cancer whether the symptoms are obvious or not. I’d call it selfism (for lack of something cleverer) since it exists on a plain where laws or ethics cannot govern, and of which the individual is frankly unaware.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Larry King's Tea Party
As I grumbled over the protracted news coverage of Larry King’s latest divorce, one gram of information sparked my interest. It was reported that King’s current contract with CNN was worth $50 million. Here is a competent interviewer in the very twilight of his career, who (in my opinion) is on cruise mode when compared to the dynamics of his industry, and still he can command an income the equivalent of a lotto bonanza to a middle class American. It’s not that Larry is an icon for humanity, his desire to be cryogenically preserved upon death speaks volumes as to his character, not to mention his eight divorces (one pending). Sure, it’s all show business, but when two hours of Larry King’s often rambling conversation is the equivalent of a provider for a family of four, working full time at a wage above the poverty line... for about 43 years…it gets me thinking.
What is it about the disparity of wealth in our country that the general population doesn’t get? In formal Economics wealth is more simply defined as the claim on resources, or what an individual (or wealth holder generally) can demand from society as a whole. It relates closely to power over other individuals. Inequality of such demand has always, and undoubtedly will always be the case to some degreee. What’s interesting is the trends that have taken place, especially here in the US.
With the founding of the country and the expansion of free enterprise (combined with universal education and representative government) the lack of parity between financial classes (if you will) went on a steady decline, with some minor exceptions, for about 200 years. It is only in the last 30 years, thereabouts, that such class structure did an about face and began to widen dramatically. The reasons are varied and complex, some simply due to demographic changes like massive population increases, many intentionally created. The point of this analysis is not to point fingers necessarily, but rather to look at the results of such disparity and how we as a nation react to it.
POTUS radio has done several man in the street interview sessions at “Tea Party” rallies in various locations. I was impressed that the producers made an honest attempt to circumvent the wacko Theodore Kaczynski types (of which there are many – including those who think writing checks out to Sarah Palin is patriotic) to interview thoughtful individuals who have attempted to reason out their activism. These Tea Party warriors have points which are often grounded in solid dirt, expounding, for example, on the long term consequences of huge budget deficits, incomprehensible national debt, the role of government in business ownership to name a few. However, one theme kept creeping back into the conversations, like the recognition of the boogie man that lives under the bed – taxation. The very concept of taxation is poison in the tea cups of these “activists”, ergo the actual name of the group based on the Colonial tax protest of 1773 (which BTW had nothing to do with assessing tax, rather representation in deciding the use of that tax).
Now let’s not be too confused with their Boston “Indian” counterparts. These 21st century “patriots” love their massive national defense bureaucracy, they like quality universal education, hurricane clean ups, filled potholes, Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid (at least for their moms – bless their hearts), food subsidies, suspension bridges, intelligence agencies, crime fighters of every description, 911, attractive roadsides, national parks and on and on. They just don’t want to be taxed - plain and simple. One well thinking person I know put it this way: “I just don’t trust Government” period. Where did this thinking come from, that the funding of our government (which is effectively funding ourselves) wasn’t just a question of the efficient use of accumulated wealth, but an inherent evil or, at best, the propagation of evil. How many of such middle class Tea Party people could honestly identify how their lives were literally less meaningful due to the taxes they have paid. The contradictions are so obvious and pervasive that it nearly defies understanding.
In 2001 George Bush’s first order of business as President presiding over a Republican Congress was to enact enormous tax cuts, followed again in 2003. The CBO projected at that time that such cuts would add $1.2 trillion to the National Debt over the following 10 years (which has come to pass – further they are currently projecting an additional $1.8 trillion deficit if the cuts are extended). This was done before Bush went on a $1.2 trillion (or more) spending spree in the Middle East. The rank and file Tea Partiers don’t have a problem with any of that. Their conclusions remain unchanged, that out of control spending is the culprit (unless it's for something worth while - like killing Saddam Hussain) and that any tax cut is a good cut. But who did these tax cuts go to and who has the interest to leave them in place?
The tax cuts were spread primarily from the middleclass up. However, those who make little income have little to gain by an income based tax cut. The benefit (or lack thereof) to the poor is obvious. In the case of the Bush tax cuts, the more income the more fun at the party. The middle 20% of middle class taxpayers received 8.9% of the cut. That would be 8.9% distributed among about 50 million people. The top 0.2% of income earners received 15.3% of the benefit. The nation’s 257,000 millionaires (at that time - based on income) received an initial $30 billion in benefits. This disparity between the haves and the have-nots just doesn’t resonate with the have-nots (even the have-nots who rally at Tea Party conventions shouting rage at efforts to reverse these disparities as “Obama Socialism” pounding on their doors). Why has this complacency with those of wealth and power, never more obvious since post WWII America, been so inherent in Conservative ethics?
There’s nothing unique about Larry King. He is only one of several million individuals who by fate, ingenuity, or cunning have found themselves economically separated from mainstream America. There is a further gap between our middle class and those who struggle at the bottom of claims on resources (which may include a disproportionate portion of our next generation). The “Contract with America” Conservatism that drives the Republican caucus, the Tea Partiers, the Palins, the Limbaughs, and others has a vitriolic subtext which contains the frightening ability to get people to energetically act against their own self interest. The fight over the recent health care law couldn’t have proved it better. The benefits from such Conservatism has yielded enormous tangible benefits for those seek to retain their claim to resources and illusionary benefits for those who shout on public malls.
The musical 1776 (the life’s passion of composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards to accurately put the struggle of the founding of this country to music) has a song in it called Cool, Cool Considerate Men. It was originally entitled “Cool, Cool Conservative Men” but the producers forced the change so as not to turn away a segment of possible patrons. The song recounts what was occurring both in the Continental Congress of 1776 and the Colonies as a whole – the fight between those who advocated independence and those who wanted reconciliation with Britain. It is sung in the form of a minuet by those who felt reconciliation would protect their wealth and lifestyle. Near the end of the minuet John Rutledge, the Conservative representative from South Carolina, stops the song and asks John Hancock why he supports John Adams in Adam’s quest for independence, since he (Hancock) was “one of us” - a man of property. Hancock says “…fortunately there aren’t enough men of property in America to dictate policy”. Rutledge responds by saying “…but don’t forget that most men would rather protect the possibility of being rich than face the reality of being poor…so they will follow us.”
One could argue that Rutledge’s belief was wrong in his assessment that control over an effort to exact a common good was vested in a select group of people. After all, the Revolution proceeded. Then again, maybe the only thing wrong with the prediction…was his timing.
What is it about the disparity of wealth in our country that the general population doesn’t get? In formal Economics wealth is more simply defined as the claim on resources, or what an individual (or wealth holder generally) can demand from society as a whole. It relates closely to power over other individuals. Inequality of such demand has always, and undoubtedly will always be the case to some degreee. What’s interesting is the trends that have taken place, especially here in the US.
With the founding of the country and the expansion of free enterprise (combined with universal education and representative government) the lack of parity between financial classes (if you will) went on a steady decline, with some minor exceptions, for about 200 years. It is only in the last 30 years, thereabouts, that such class structure did an about face and began to widen dramatically. The reasons are varied and complex, some simply due to demographic changes like massive population increases, many intentionally created. The point of this analysis is not to point fingers necessarily, but rather to look at the results of such disparity and how we as a nation react to it.
POTUS radio has done several man in the street interview sessions at “Tea Party” rallies in various locations. I was impressed that the producers made an honest attempt to circumvent the wacko Theodore Kaczynski types (of which there are many – including those who think writing checks out to Sarah Palin is patriotic) to interview thoughtful individuals who have attempted to reason out their activism. These Tea Party warriors have points which are often grounded in solid dirt, expounding, for example, on the long term consequences of huge budget deficits, incomprehensible national debt, the role of government in business ownership to name a few. However, one theme kept creeping back into the conversations, like the recognition of the boogie man that lives under the bed – taxation. The very concept of taxation is poison in the tea cups of these “activists”, ergo the actual name of the group based on the Colonial tax protest of 1773 (which BTW had nothing to do with assessing tax, rather representation in deciding the use of that tax).
Now let’s not be too confused with their Boston “Indian” counterparts. These 21st century “patriots” love their massive national defense bureaucracy, they like quality universal education, hurricane clean ups, filled potholes, Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid (at least for their moms – bless their hearts), food subsidies, suspension bridges, intelligence agencies, crime fighters of every description, 911, attractive roadsides, national parks and on and on. They just don’t want to be taxed - plain and simple. One well thinking person I know put it this way: “I just don’t trust Government” period. Where did this thinking come from, that the funding of our government (which is effectively funding ourselves) wasn’t just a question of the efficient use of accumulated wealth, but an inherent evil or, at best, the propagation of evil. How many of such middle class Tea Party people could honestly identify how their lives were literally less meaningful due to the taxes they have paid. The contradictions are so obvious and pervasive that it nearly defies understanding.
In 2001 George Bush’s first order of business as President presiding over a Republican Congress was to enact enormous tax cuts, followed again in 2003. The CBO projected at that time that such cuts would add $1.2 trillion to the National Debt over the following 10 years (which has come to pass – further they are currently projecting an additional $1.8 trillion deficit if the cuts are extended). This was done before Bush went on a $1.2 trillion (or more) spending spree in the Middle East. The rank and file Tea Partiers don’t have a problem with any of that. Their conclusions remain unchanged, that out of control spending is the culprit (unless it's for something worth while - like killing Saddam Hussain) and that any tax cut is a good cut. But who did these tax cuts go to and who has the interest to leave them in place?
The tax cuts were spread primarily from the middleclass up. However, those who make little income have little to gain by an income based tax cut. The benefit (or lack thereof) to the poor is obvious. In the case of the Bush tax cuts, the more income the more fun at the party. The middle 20% of middle class taxpayers received 8.9% of the cut. That would be 8.9% distributed among about 50 million people. The top 0.2% of income earners received 15.3% of the benefit. The nation’s 257,000 millionaires (at that time - based on income) received an initial $30 billion in benefits. This disparity between the haves and the have-nots just doesn’t resonate with the have-nots (even the have-nots who rally at Tea Party conventions shouting rage at efforts to reverse these disparities as “Obama Socialism” pounding on their doors). Why has this complacency with those of wealth and power, never more obvious since post WWII America, been so inherent in Conservative ethics?
There’s nothing unique about Larry King. He is only one of several million individuals who by fate, ingenuity, or cunning have found themselves economically separated from mainstream America. There is a further gap between our middle class and those who struggle at the bottom of claims on resources (which may include a disproportionate portion of our next generation). The “Contract with America” Conservatism that drives the Republican caucus, the Tea Partiers, the Palins, the Limbaughs, and others has a vitriolic subtext which contains the frightening ability to get people to energetically act against their own self interest. The fight over the recent health care law couldn’t have proved it better. The benefits from such Conservatism has yielded enormous tangible benefits for those seek to retain their claim to resources and illusionary benefits for those who shout on public malls.
The musical 1776 (the life’s passion of composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards to accurately put the struggle of the founding of this country to music) has a song in it called Cool, Cool Considerate Men. It was originally entitled “Cool, Cool Conservative Men” but the producers forced the change so as not to turn away a segment of possible patrons. The song recounts what was occurring both in the Continental Congress of 1776 and the Colonies as a whole – the fight between those who advocated independence and those who wanted reconciliation with Britain. It is sung in the form of a minuet by those who felt reconciliation would protect their wealth and lifestyle. Near the end of the minuet John Rutledge, the Conservative representative from South Carolina, stops the song and asks John Hancock why he supports John Adams in Adam’s quest for independence, since he (Hancock) was “one of us” - a man of property. Hancock says “…fortunately there aren’t enough men of property in America to dictate policy”. Rutledge responds by saying “…but don’t forget that most men would rather protect the possibility of being rich than face the reality of being poor…so they will follow us.”
One could argue that Rutledge’s belief was wrong in his assessment that control over an effort to exact a common good was vested in a select group of people. After all, the Revolution proceeded. Then again, maybe the only thing wrong with the prediction…was his timing.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Genie is Out of the Bottle
On Sunday night I was one of the many millions of people doing something rarely done, watching our Congress in action, live, during and just prior to the House vote on health care. In the course of the “debate” portion (an absurd misnomer for sure), one of the Republican speakers (I don’t recall which) used a 1964 quote from Ronald Reagan, which I found interesting. He used the quote both to inject the name Ronald Reagan, which has deity status with the Conservative Right, and to argue that even in 1964 Reagan was shooting bull’s-eyes on the subject of health care. What Reagan was attacking at that time with his predictions of lost freedom and lost liberty was Medicare. It was Reagan’s first political issue delivered on a national stage which he began to preach in 1961, the same year he was dropped as spokesman for General Electric and changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. In fact, he did little else during those years other than campaign against Medicare, ending with his famous keynote speech at the nomination of Barry Goldwater.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many Republicans in last Sunday's “debate” would openly demonstrate their devotion to Reagan’s “insight” by advocating the dismantling of Medicare (& Medicaid) along with stopping any attempt to make health care realistically available to the general population. John Boehner, the House minority leader and a champion of the if you say a lie with enough conviction and repetition it’s as good as true philosophy, screamed how shameful the House was in not carrying out the “will of the people”. Perhaps he felt the specter of Ronald Reagan behind him breathing sweet sound bites in his ears since Medicare never polled anything close to a 51% majority prior to its adoption into law. Nah…because the fact of the matter is that Reagan ended up as most Republicans are today, as stalwart defenders of Medicare, at least in any public setting.
The true opposition to the newly passed Health Care Reform bill (which is really more accurately a health care insurance reform bill) had little to do with health care. Every politically ambitious Republican I’ve seen interviewed since the passing of the bill is now putting emphasis on the righteousness of Health care reform and the injustice of their plans not being included (the 200 plus Republican articles contained not withstanding). The fact that the Republicans had control of the House for 15 of the past 23 years and never introduced any comprehensive health reform (but did manage to kill reform during 2 of the years they were out of power) makes their postulating a comedy, albeit a dark one. Why would they? They would never never never originate health reform because it would be contrary to the interests of their constituents. Not the duped tea party crowd I assure you, rather those powerful interests that are on the nipple end of our $1.7 trillion transfer of wealth: funds transferred from the health care consumers, taxpayers, and debtors to the for-profit health care industry. Whether you believe it or not, it’s the only thing that makes any sense.
The stark evidence of this could be seen in the days and hours before the vote. With Republican leaders holding signs from the Capital porticos egging protestors below to amplify their rage; protestors who held pictures of Obama portrayed as Hitler (as if fascism played a role?), signs with guns portrayed as a solution to meddling proponents, “activists” hurling homophobic slurs at Congressman Frank, and “patriotic” Americans outside and in the halls of the Capitol Building spitting on and calling out “nigger” to distinguished black Congressmen, including Congressman Lewis. The lunatic fringe that performed such acts may have been only the tip of an iceberg, but it was all the same iceberg. It is the sad result of unleashed profiteering zealots like Limbaugh and Beck, and political leaders like Boehner and Cantor, totally focused on their political ambitions, who have mastered the use of such meaningless generalizations as “government takeover”, “will destroy America”, “Socialism”, “rob you of your freedom”, “enslave your children”, “lose your job”, “lose your coverage”, and this Limbaugh predictive threat (which I think says it all): “lose your right to fish”!! None of it had anything to do with health care reform, let alone health care insurance reform. It only prays on ignorance and it undermines the moral integrity of a nation for the benefit of a small minority.
Ronald Reagan used the following phrase as a mantra in his election and re-election: government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem. It resonated because it was combined with a conservative axiom that taxation is fundamentally evil, even if it’s necessary. The Reagan administration and the two Bush Administration then began to dismantle government regulations even as they expanded government and government debt exponentially (note that debt is just deferred taxation). Only in the Clinton “pay as you go” administration was debt accumulation temporarily paused. Republicans will now argue that “government” is the cause of all health care short comings, that “government” (currently with a distorted likeness of Obama) is poised to rob you of your wealth and happiness, and “government” can only be contained by, as Limbaugh announced yesterday, “ridding ourselves of those bastards”. They'll claim this even as they claw and scratch to be elected to (dare I say it)...government.
But on this one the genie is out of the bottle. They can’t go back, any more than they could on Medicare. The greater question is whether those who just succeeded can continue to turn an imperfect but necessary beginning into a workable future, in spite of the distortion and self interest.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many Republicans in last Sunday's “debate” would openly demonstrate their devotion to Reagan’s “insight” by advocating the dismantling of Medicare (& Medicaid) along with stopping any attempt to make health care realistically available to the general population. John Boehner, the House minority leader and a champion of the if you say a lie with enough conviction and repetition it’s as good as true philosophy, screamed how shameful the House was in not carrying out the “will of the people”. Perhaps he felt the specter of Ronald Reagan behind him breathing sweet sound bites in his ears since Medicare never polled anything close to a 51% majority prior to its adoption into law. Nah…because the fact of the matter is that Reagan ended up as most Republicans are today, as stalwart defenders of Medicare, at least in any public setting.
The true opposition to the newly passed Health Care Reform bill (which is really more accurately a health care insurance reform bill) had little to do with health care. Every politically ambitious Republican I’ve seen interviewed since the passing of the bill is now putting emphasis on the righteousness of Health care reform and the injustice of their plans not being included (the 200 plus Republican articles contained not withstanding). The fact that the Republicans had control of the House for 15 of the past 23 years and never introduced any comprehensive health reform (but did manage to kill reform during 2 of the years they were out of power) makes their postulating a comedy, albeit a dark one. Why would they? They would never never never originate health reform because it would be contrary to the interests of their constituents. Not the duped tea party crowd I assure you, rather those powerful interests that are on the nipple end of our $1.7 trillion transfer of wealth: funds transferred from the health care consumers, taxpayers, and debtors to the for-profit health care industry. Whether you believe it or not, it’s the only thing that makes any sense.
The stark evidence of this could be seen in the days and hours before the vote. With Republican leaders holding signs from the Capital porticos egging protestors below to amplify their rage; protestors who held pictures of Obama portrayed as Hitler (as if fascism played a role?), signs with guns portrayed as a solution to meddling proponents, “activists” hurling homophobic slurs at Congressman Frank, and “patriotic” Americans outside and in the halls of the Capitol Building spitting on and calling out “nigger” to distinguished black Congressmen, including Congressman Lewis. The lunatic fringe that performed such acts may have been only the tip of an iceberg, but it was all the same iceberg. It is the sad result of unleashed profiteering zealots like Limbaugh and Beck, and political leaders like Boehner and Cantor, totally focused on their political ambitions, who have mastered the use of such meaningless generalizations as “government takeover”, “will destroy America”, “Socialism”, “rob you of your freedom”, “enslave your children”, “lose your job”, “lose your coverage”, and this Limbaugh predictive threat (which I think says it all): “lose your right to fish”!! None of it had anything to do with health care reform, let alone health care insurance reform. It only prays on ignorance and it undermines the moral integrity of a nation for the benefit of a small minority.
Ronald Reagan used the following phrase as a mantra in his election and re-election: government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem. It resonated because it was combined with a conservative axiom that taxation is fundamentally evil, even if it’s necessary. The Reagan administration and the two Bush Administration then began to dismantle government regulations even as they expanded government and government debt exponentially (note that debt is just deferred taxation). Only in the Clinton “pay as you go” administration was debt accumulation temporarily paused. Republicans will now argue that “government” is the cause of all health care short comings, that “government” (currently with a distorted likeness of Obama) is poised to rob you of your wealth and happiness, and “government” can only be contained by, as Limbaugh announced yesterday, “ridding ourselves of those bastards”. They'll claim this even as they claw and scratch to be elected to (dare I say it)...government.
But on this one the genie is out of the bottle. They can’t go back, any more than they could on Medicare. The greater question is whether those who just succeeded can continue to turn an imperfect but necessary beginning into a workable future, in spite of the distortion and self interest.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
What is So Special About People Over 65?
One of the great ironies attached to our national health care debate is the avid support that individuals over the age of 65 (seniors) have for the status quo. I don’t mean to suggest that all seniors think alike, even on national issues, but as a group they fall pretty solidly with the Conservative message on health care - that things are better left unchanged instead of embarking onto something as demonic as Government supported health care. Anecdotally, it has been my experience in talking with many seniors that the vast majority do abhor the idea of change, even as many criticize their personal experience within our current system (interestingly, they don’t necessarily fault the System; rather they’re more likely to blame the insensitivities of subsequent generations). The irony, of course, is that they are already active and satisfied recipients of what they argue so vehemently against expanding– Medicare.
Why should they support change? I can’t think of any good reason - even the truth - as long as self interest prevails. They are one of two sets of beneficiaries in our flawed system (the other beneficiaries are those on the receiving end of the $1.7 trillion transfer that takes place every year in the United States). How did this happen? What makes Americans over 65 so special, that their health and well being is somehow more important than say children 16 and under, or pregnant women, or perhaps young adults with multiple sclerosis? Like most things, you have to go back to the beginning:
What we fondly and simply know as Social Security began as our nation was just rising in 1935 out of the first major dip in the Great Depression. After experiencing the inhumanity caused by failed financial systems, the concept was simple; provide a base line of income to a class of citizens who, as a result of age, no longer had the capacity to earn income. Like insurance, the cost would be borne by all working people in order to contain cost, but unlike free market insurance (as with annuities) participation could not be an option. However, in order to pass the legislation with the votes of those who raised the specter of Socialism, the taxes and benefits would be restricted to working Americans. Of course, as it gained in popularity and, therefore, became politically attractive, it began to grow in complexity and benefits. Even as the projected benefits began to outweigh the projected “assets”, and even as the “assets” were in the form of purchased US Debt (Treasuries) during periods of overall deficits (a bit like an individual who puts $1 into savings for every $3 he puts on his credit card), the reality of Social Security became sacrosanct to Conservative politicians (Republican or Democrat). None…I repeat none would openly argue against it today. Why? Because, even with it's flaws, the nation sees it's value. Enter Medicare.
The Social Security Act of 1965 was the first (and really the last) attempt in dealing with the problem of health care in the US. Other major laws since, such as the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 which included Medicare Advantage, or the Medicare Prescription Drug (et al) Act of 2006 were attempts at fine tuning (often for votes) and whose primary beneficiaries ended up being the Medical Insurance Industry and the Pharmaceutical Industry. The idea of the Medicare law of 1965 (which included state controlled Medicaid for the indigent) was to address the growing need to provide nationally guaranteed health care beginning with those most vulnerable to the costs (those with fixed incomes), and it had a vehicle to use – the Social Security System. It was fought vigorously by Conservatives. Ronald Reagan claimed it would rob us of our freedom, George H.W. Bush, while running for the Senate in 1964, echoed it as “Socialized Medicine”. Those who supported it openly saw it as a first step toward bringing health care to the US in line with what had already happened throughout the world.
In the post WW2 years, the developed democracies, other than the US, figured out that in a new free world, where there was a desperate overall need for health care by people rising from devastation, the overall cost had to be borne by everyone in order to make it work. Universal Health Care, or as often described now as a Single Payer System, either through direct payment or manditory public insurance, became the law of the land in these democracies. This was especially (and interestingly) true of the two nations for which the United States took the primary role in rebuilding, namely Japan and Germany. Only Canada, the other major Western ally whose homeland was physically untouched by war, did not adopt a true single payer system, but they offered public health insurance immediately after the War, which evolved into full universal coverage in 1984. The United States, the great engine of free enterprise, alone chose the road of a for-profit health care system, a system that now costs multiples of what the rest of the world pays and is rife with gross and tragic inequities, discouraging patients and medical providers alike.
Even so, going back to the beginning of that post-war period, such “radical liberals” as Harry Truman saw the need to create the means by which all citizens could have access to health care and that the key to access was cost. They and others understood the obvious, that health care is a commodity that does not fit ordinary economic models. In economic terms, the demand is inelastic; it does not decline when the price increases. Therefore, in the absence of a system which includes everyone, and with an exponentially rising population, they saw that the Government (Federal, State, and Local) would become the de facto payer of last resort, and there was absolutely nothing to restrain costs from rising by those benefiting from that revenue.
The need for Universal Health Coverage was advocated during the Roosevelt administration, but attempting to create law really started during the Truman administration. Truman, for his efforts, was given the honor to sign up as the first participant in the new Medicare program in 1965. The widespread belief at that time was that an expanded version of Medicare provided to the entire American populous was only a matter of time. Of course, few foresaw the huge industry that would balloon as a result of stratospheric revenues, and how that industry would fight to keep that cash flowing. It was aided by tax law which allowed companies providing health insurance benefits to bury the costs (borne by their employees) out of their worker’s sight.
Still, Medicare/Medicaid made it under the wire, and although it is an imperfect public insurance program it pretty much accomplishes what the supporters wanted – universal health coverage for the participants funded through general payroll taxation. What it never did nor could ever do was impact general health care costs, because it controlled less than 15% of all Americans (albeit a larger percentage of cost). Which is why Medicare is now essentially funded through debt. The participants don’t care, they’re not paying, and all in all they’ve been pretty happy with the result; ergo you won’t hear a Republican advocate the dissolution of Medicare - even as they deride the idea of Medicare expanded to the rest of the population as socialistic mania.
There is nothing special about the 36 million Americans over age 65 (74 million by 2050), at least not when it comes to health care. In less than 5 years I will be 65 and be invited under that protective umbrella. If the Republicans, Conservative Democrats, and the financial recipients of the largest transfer of wealth any nation has ever seen succeed in thwarting any changes, then I will be forced to watch my children and grandchildren suffer under this system, even as I benefit. I can’t call that a benefit.
My gut winces a little each time I hear a Republican or Conservative Democratic politician announce that we have “the best health care (system) in the world” as I heard Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently said at the March 2010 “Health Summit”, shrouding his obstructionism in patriotism. I feel that way because I know many believe him, just as they believe the rhetorical lie that describes attempts to reform health care as a “government takeover”.
We do not have the best health care system in the world, or even the best health care for that matter (by published international standards), although we pay many times what everyone else does. If we just reduced our per capital spending on health care to that of Germany’s, the second most expensive nation, we would save enough money in ONE YEAR to pay the current health care costs for the 3 billion people in China, India, Russia, and Indonesia for the NEXT FIVE YEARS!!! We do not have the best health care system in the world, but we may have the worst. Why? Because it is a system in which the above statement on cost does not resonate at all with those who, contrary to their own best interest, have been manipulated to oppose health reform, including those contented senior beneficiaries who already enjoy guaranteed health care. In a world where access is inextricably and inversely depended on cost, what kind of vile system is that?
Why should they support change? I can’t think of any good reason - even the truth - as long as self interest prevails. They are one of two sets of beneficiaries in our flawed system (the other beneficiaries are those on the receiving end of the $1.7 trillion transfer that takes place every year in the United States). How did this happen? What makes Americans over 65 so special, that their health and well being is somehow more important than say children 16 and under, or pregnant women, or perhaps young adults with multiple sclerosis? Like most things, you have to go back to the beginning:
What we fondly and simply know as Social Security began as our nation was just rising in 1935 out of the first major dip in the Great Depression. After experiencing the inhumanity caused by failed financial systems, the concept was simple; provide a base line of income to a class of citizens who, as a result of age, no longer had the capacity to earn income. Like insurance, the cost would be borne by all working people in order to contain cost, but unlike free market insurance (as with annuities) participation could not be an option. However, in order to pass the legislation with the votes of those who raised the specter of Socialism, the taxes and benefits would be restricted to working Americans. Of course, as it gained in popularity and, therefore, became politically attractive, it began to grow in complexity and benefits. Even as the projected benefits began to outweigh the projected “assets”, and even as the “assets” were in the form of purchased US Debt (Treasuries) during periods of overall deficits (a bit like an individual who puts $1 into savings for every $3 he puts on his credit card), the reality of Social Security became sacrosanct to Conservative politicians (Republican or Democrat). None…I repeat none would openly argue against it today. Why? Because, even with it's flaws, the nation sees it's value. Enter Medicare.
The Social Security Act of 1965 was the first (and really the last) attempt in dealing with the problem of health care in the US. Other major laws since, such as the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 which included Medicare Advantage, or the Medicare Prescription Drug (et al) Act of 2006 were attempts at fine tuning (often for votes) and whose primary beneficiaries ended up being the Medical Insurance Industry and the Pharmaceutical Industry. The idea of the Medicare law of 1965 (which included state controlled Medicaid for the indigent) was to address the growing need to provide nationally guaranteed health care beginning with those most vulnerable to the costs (those with fixed incomes), and it had a vehicle to use – the Social Security System. It was fought vigorously by Conservatives. Ronald Reagan claimed it would rob us of our freedom, George H.W. Bush, while running for the Senate in 1964, echoed it as “Socialized Medicine”. Those who supported it openly saw it as a first step toward bringing health care to the US in line with what had already happened throughout the world.
In the post WW2 years, the developed democracies, other than the US, figured out that in a new free world, where there was a desperate overall need for health care by people rising from devastation, the overall cost had to be borne by everyone in order to make it work. Universal Health Care, or as often described now as a Single Payer System, either through direct payment or manditory public insurance, became the law of the land in these democracies. This was especially (and interestingly) true of the two nations for which the United States took the primary role in rebuilding, namely Japan and Germany. Only Canada, the other major Western ally whose homeland was physically untouched by war, did not adopt a true single payer system, but they offered public health insurance immediately after the War, which evolved into full universal coverage in 1984. The United States, the great engine of free enterprise, alone chose the road of a for-profit health care system, a system that now costs multiples of what the rest of the world pays and is rife with gross and tragic inequities, discouraging patients and medical providers alike.
Even so, going back to the beginning of that post-war period, such “radical liberals” as Harry Truman saw the need to create the means by which all citizens could have access to health care and that the key to access was cost. They and others understood the obvious, that health care is a commodity that does not fit ordinary economic models. In economic terms, the demand is inelastic; it does not decline when the price increases. Therefore, in the absence of a system which includes everyone, and with an exponentially rising population, they saw that the Government (Federal, State, and Local) would become the de facto payer of last resort, and there was absolutely nothing to restrain costs from rising by those benefiting from that revenue.
The need for Universal Health Coverage was advocated during the Roosevelt administration, but attempting to create law really started during the Truman administration. Truman, for his efforts, was given the honor to sign up as the first participant in the new Medicare program in 1965. The widespread belief at that time was that an expanded version of Medicare provided to the entire American populous was only a matter of time. Of course, few foresaw the huge industry that would balloon as a result of stratospheric revenues, and how that industry would fight to keep that cash flowing. It was aided by tax law which allowed companies providing health insurance benefits to bury the costs (borne by their employees) out of their worker’s sight.
Still, Medicare/Medicaid made it under the wire, and although it is an imperfect public insurance program it pretty much accomplishes what the supporters wanted – universal health coverage for the participants funded through general payroll taxation. What it never did nor could ever do was impact general health care costs, because it controlled less than 15% of all Americans (albeit a larger percentage of cost). Which is why Medicare is now essentially funded through debt. The participants don’t care, they’re not paying, and all in all they’ve been pretty happy with the result; ergo you won’t hear a Republican advocate the dissolution of Medicare - even as they deride the idea of Medicare expanded to the rest of the population as socialistic mania.
There is nothing special about the 36 million Americans over age 65 (74 million by 2050), at least not when it comes to health care. In less than 5 years I will be 65 and be invited under that protective umbrella. If the Republicans, Conservative Democrats, and the financial recipients of the largest transfer of wealth any nation has ever seen succeed in thwarting any changes, then I will be forced to watch my children and grandchildren suffer under this system, even as I benefit. I can’t call that a benefit.
My gut winces a little each time I hear a Republican or Conservative Democratic politician announce that we have “the best health care (system) in the world” as I heard Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently said at the March 2010 “Health Summit”, shrouding his obstructionism in patriotism. I feel that way because I know many believe him, just as they believe the rhetorical lie that describes attempts to reform health care as a “government takeover”.
We do not have the best health care system in the world, or even the best health care for that matter (by published international standards), although we pay many times what everyone else does. If we just reduced our per capital spending on health care to that of Germany’s, the second most expensive nation, we would save enough money in ONE YEAR to pay the current health care costs for the 3 billion people in China, India, Russia, and Indonesia for the NEXT FIVE YEARS!!! We do not have the best health care system in the world, but we may have the worst. Why? Because it is a system in which the above statement on cost does not resonate at all with those who, contrary to their own best interest, have been manipulated to oppose health reform, including those contented senior beneficiaries who already enjoy guaranteed health care. In a world where access is inextricably and inversely depended on cost, what kind of vile system is that?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Most Evil Man in America
I know I know…I write a title like that and most everyone can conjure up a quick image of the individual they believe fits the bill - and then may read on with curiosity to see why their choice isn’t the same as mine. Besides, the word evil itself is more closely aligned with comics or soap operas than real life. If I were to let my first image surface it would, of course, be Dick Cheney, the Darth Vader of American politics. With the news of Cheney’s most recent coronary I had an immediate picture in my head of Lucifer sitting in his fiery office, leaning back in a smoking overstuffed desk chair, and on the phone saying “…okay Dick, this is the fifth one I’ve bailed you out on. Now you either start a new war or I’ll be out of town when the Man hits you with the sixth.” But to really determine who most exemplifies the personification of villainy in America one must really define what evil is.
If evil were merely a relative concept, then for those who see Dick Cheney as a John Wayne understudy, he is hardly evil. They are right…but then, is anyone wrong? Despite the distain I harbor for Cheney (by the boatload), I actually think he is no more evil than most anyone else’s oxen you feel deserves to be gored. That’s because evil is not relative. Cheney participates in our national drama through his own self interest and lust for recognition in a manner which reflects his constituency. If he wasn’t feeding off public attitude Cheney would fall off our collective radar like a bronze medal winner. But is that evil? I think not. Maybe one might find what he does appalling, perhaps maniacal, or maybe even criminal…but not evil. He really doesn’t create opinion, he merely uses it.
Evil should not be misconstrued with its fruit. When one is told to think of an apple tree they naturally envision the apple itself and not the nature or description of the tree which bears it. There is a pervasive evil which has been growing in our country for long enough now that I, for one, have to concentrate back a while to realize that it didn’t always exist in my lifetime. It is an imbalance in the collective identity of our nation, which has permitted us to hate ourselves.
So who do I believe is the most evil man in America, and why? I give that honor to Rush Limbaugh III. Seriously…I consider the master of Conservative talk radio to be the dean, the linchpin, the standard by which a considerable handful of mostly conservative and some liberal commentators/entertainers/writers have watered the tree of divisiveness in our country, without which its fruit might not have found itself on practically every kitchen table in America. His influence has been extraordinary, or even greater than extraordinary based on Limbaugh’s own swagger. You have to go back to when it started, which some might find was not so long ago.
To say Limbaugh is smart would be a debate unto itself. I for one give the word “smart” a colloquial meaning which includes positive ethics. However, there is no doubt that Limbaugh has innate abilities that make him uniquely qualified for the roll he fell upon. His intelligence is validated by his pedigree. Father, siblings, grandfather, uncle, cousins are all jurists of note. A giggle of irony escapes me when I think that they are now all known primarily as the relative of Rush the radio guy. Rush III was an anomaly to the group. He was a bad student, his mother quoted to say “he flunked everything”. He managed his way into a lesser know state university in time to drop out almost immediately. He had to have been a black spot on the family refrigerator.
To his credit he focused early on a career in radio working a standard circuit of DJ jobs around the country and apparently, along the way, discovered his talent for glibness. I suspect that Limbaugh, a man with an ego the size of Montana, also discovered that in his chosen venue he could compete with his accomplished and certified family members at their own conservative game. Good luck, Rush. I’d guess that ultimately all his money, his influence, and his buffoonery never allowed him into the inner circle of Conservative lawyers and judges that is his family tree - just a guess, consistent with prescription drug abuse, and lawyers generally.
By the late 80’s his style of commentary had hit a cord. Freed by the repeal of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (after being law for 38 years) he was one of the first to exploit bias as a form of entertainment. However, the use of a target as a means of gathering listenership had not yet gelled. During the administration of George HW Bush the Republicans had their problems even as they still rode the Reagan tsunami. His attraction was more his style and comedy which he intermixed with home spun commentary, a counter to the likes of Howard Stern. Although his reach through the number of participating stations was significant, his market was still not that large and actually pulled from a wider political segment which enjoyed his antics and clowning.
It was the election of Bill Clinton that changed everything. It was the 9/11 for Rush and the true beginning of his crafting the vilification of anyone not Conservative. As his listeners, comprised primarily of disappointed Conservative Republicans, began to expand exponentially, he saw the writing on the wall (and bank statement). The tone of his commentary notably changed. He was now selling fear wrapped in patriotism and he sold it well. So well in fact that for many today he has made the Clinton years of prosperity, surpluses, growth, and security a time of national shame, and the Bush years of preemptive war, terror, lost civil rights, political stagnation, colossal deficits, and near economic collapse a period of national pride. Can it get any more bizarre?
In the process of making himself a household name he also made a couple hundred million dollars, by some accounts. He certainly became in less than 15 years one of the richest men in America, simply by talking on a microphone. Incredibly, polling after the last presidential election also had him named as the Conservative Republican standard bearer, over everyone else…in America!!
His financial and influential success did not go unnoticed by others in the field. Such “commentators” as Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity jumped aboard the H&F (Hate & Fear) Gravy Train. They saw that by making “Liberals” the true enemies of “patriotic” America they could tap the kind of enthusiasm usually engendered by invasions. No wonder Sarah Palin recently got on board. Mark Levin, who renamed Liberals “Statists” because he thought the word “liberal” sounded too much like “liberty”, wrote the following in his best selling ($$) book Liberty and Tyranny:
"The Conservative must accept that the Statist does not share his passion for liberty and all the good that flows from it. The Statist does not acknowledge the tremendous benefits to society from the individual pursuits of tens of millions of others. The Statist rejects the Founder's idea of the dignity of the individual, who can flourish through ordered liberty, for one rooted in unpredictability, irrationality and, ultimately, tyranny." pp15
That kind of wholesale categorizing of people is the kind of dehumanization that can be found in Hitler’s Mein Kampf and his description of the Jews. That was a best seller too.
So just what is the Evil that I associate so closely with Rush Limbaugh and his disciples? It is what now pervades our nation, but more importantly our individual neighborhoods and even families. It is the new distain that we have for each other without the necessity of recognizing our humanity.
I remember hearing a Catholic priest once say in a lecture that if Satin could do only one thing to solidify his malevolence throughout mankind he would make us hate our bodies. He was suggesting that self deprecation of that which is the most basic and natural to us in this life was the surest way to abandon that which we revere in God. Rush has given this a socialogical twist.
As a nation and a society we have, since inception, had ideological conflict which has manifested itself into periods of tragedy and suffering. Students of the Civil War could successfully argue that period as the most obvious and poignant. At each such time there has been an imbalance caused by the demands of ideology requiring a dehumanization of those who don’t agree, essentially managing to get us to hate ourselves. Within the current health care debate there is so much hate that people virtually cannot see the problem to the point that they will actively work against their own self interest. Could anything make the devil smile more?
We are experiencing a civil war right now…and it is obvious. It began with people like Rush Limbaugh and has spread to the far left end of the spectrum in a vain attempt to create balance. It is aggravated by the nature of our political system which has currently become a manic struggle for power without substance and job security for its participants. This chapter in our history was made possible by a new age of communication, a new message of hate and fear, and was brought to you by the embodiment of the most evil man in America – Rush Limbaugh.
If evil were merely a relative concept, then for those who see Dick Cheney as a John Wayne understudy, he is hardly evil. They are right…but then, is anyone wrong? Despite the distain I harbor for Cheney (by the boatload), I actually think he is no more evil than most anyone else’s oxen you feel deserves to be gored. That’s because evil is not relative. Cheney participates in our national drama through his own self interest and lust for recognition in a manner which reflects his constituency. If he wasn’t feeding off public attitude Cheney would fall off our collective radar like a bronze medal winner. But is that evil? I think not. Maybe one might find what he does appalling, perhaps maniacal, or maybe even criminal…but not evil. He really doesn’t create opinion, he merely uses it.
Evil should not be misconstrued with its fruit. When one is told to think of an apple tree they naturally envision the apple itself and not the nature or description of the tree which bears it. There is a pervasive evil which has been growing in our country for long enough now that I, for one, have to concentrate back a while to realize that it didn’t always exist in my lifetime. It is an imbalance in the collective identity of our nation, which has permitted us to hate ourselves.
So who do I believe is the most evil man in America, and why? I give that honor to Rush Limbaugh III. Seriously…I consider the master of Conservative talk radio to be the dean, the linchpin, the standard by which a considerable handful of mostly conservative and some liberal commentators/entertainers/writers have watered the tree of divisiveness in our country, without which its fruit might not have found itself on practically every kitchen table in America. His influence has been extraordinary, or even greater than extraordinary based on Limbaugh’s own swagger. You have to go back to when it started, which some might find was not so long ago.
To say Limbaugh is smart would be a debate unto itself. I for one give the word “smart” a colloquial meaning which includes positive ethics. However, there is no doubt that Limbaugh has innate abilities that make him uniquely qualified for the roll he fell upon. His intelligence is validated by his pedigree. Father, siblings, grandfather, uncle, cousins are all jurists of note. A giggle of irony escapes me when I think that they are now all known primarily as the relative of Rush the radio guy. Rush III was an anomaly to the group. He was a bad student, his mother quoted to say “he flunked everything”. He managed his way into a lesser know state university in time to drop out almost immediately. He had to have been a black spot on the family refrigerator.
To his credit he focused early on a career in radio working a standard circuit of DJ jobs around the country and apparently, along the way, discovered his talent for glibness. I suspect that Limbaugh, a man with an ego the size of Montana, also discovered that in his chosen venue he could compete with his accomplished and certified family members at their own conservative game. Good luck, Rush. I’d guess that ultimately all his money, his influence, and his buffoonery never allowed him into the inner circle of Conservative lawyers and judges that is his family tree - just a guess, consistent with prescription drug abuse, and lawyers generally.
By the late 80’s his style of commentary had hit a cord. Freed by the repeal of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (after being law for 38 years) he was one of the first to exploit bias as a form of entertainment. However, the use of a target as a means of gathering listenership had not yet gelled. During the administration of George HW Bush the Republicans had their problems even as they still rode the Reagan tsunami. His attraction was more his style and comedy which he intermixed with home spun commentary, a counter to the likes of Howard Stern. Although his reach through the number of participating stations was significant, his market was still not that large and actually pulled from a wider political segment which enjoyed his antics and clowning.
It was the election of Bill Clinton that changed everything. It was the 9/11 for Rush and the true beginning of his crafting the vilification of anyone not Conservative. As his listeners, comprised primarily of disappointed Conservative Republicans, began to expand exponentially, he saw the writing on the wall (and bank statement). The tone of his commentary notably changed. He was now selling fear wrapped in patriotism and he sold it well. So well in fact that for many today he has made the Clinton years of prosperity, surpluses, growth, and security a time of national shame, and the Bush years of preemptive war, terror, lost civil rights, political stagnation, colossal deficits, and near economic collapse a period of national pride. Can it get any more bizarre?
In the process of making himself a household name he also made a couple hundred million dollars, by some accounts. He certainly became in less than 15 years one of the richest men in America, simply by talking on a microphone. Incredibly, polling after the last presidential election also had him named as the Conservative Republican standard bearer, over everyone else…in America!!
His financial and influential success did not go unnoticed by others in the field. Such “commentators” as Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity jumped aboard the H&F (Hate & Fear) Gravy Train. They saw that by making “Liberals” the true enemies of “patriotic” America they could tap the kind of enthusiasm usually engendered by invasions. No wonder Sarah Palin recently got on board. Mark Levin, who renamed Liberals “Statists” because he thought the word “liberal” sounded too much like “liberty”, wrote the following in his best selling ($$) book Liberty and Tyranny:
"The Conservative must accept that the Statist does not share his passion for liberty and all the good that flows from it. The Statist does not acknowledge the tremendous benefits to society from the individual pursuits of tens of millions of others. The Statist rejects the Founder's idea of the dignity of the individual, who can flourish through ordered liberty, for one rooted in unpredictability, irrationality and, ultimately, tyranny." pp15
That kind of wholesale categorizing of people is the kind of dehumanization that can be found in Hitler’s Mein Kampf and his description of the Jews. That was a best seller too.
So just what is the Evil that I associate so closely with Rush Limbaugh and his disciples? It is what now pervades our nation, but more importantly our individual neighborhoods and even families. It is the new distain that we have for each other without the necessity of recognizing our humanity.
I remember hearing a Catholic priest once say in a lecture that if Satin could do only one thing to solidify his malevolence throughout mankind he would make us hate our bodies. He was suggesting that self deprecation of that which is the most basic and natural to us in this life was the surest way to abandon that which we revere in God. Rush has given this a socialogical twist.
As a nation and a society we have, since inception, had ideological conflict which has manifested itself into periods of tragedy and suffering. Students of the Civil War could successfully argue that period as the most obvious and poignant. At each such time there has been an imbalance caused by the demands of ideology requiring a dehumanization of those who don’t agree, essentially managing to get us to hate ourselves. Within the current health care debate there is so much hate that people virtually cannot see the problem to the point that they will actively work against their own self interest. Could anything make the devil smile more?
We are experiencing a civil war right now…and it is obvious. It began with people like Rush Limbaugh and has spread to the far left end of the spectrum in a vain attempt to create balance. It is aggravated by the nature of our political system which has currently become a manic struggle for power without substance and job security for its participants. This chapter in our history was made possible by a new age of communication, a new message of hate and fear, and was brought to you by the embodiment of the most evil man in America – Rush Limbaugh.
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