Archive for politics

Wealth is not Worth: Response to NYT

March 7, 2009 · Filed under economy, politics, war and peace

This morning seeking new viewpoints, I went to the conservatives–conservative Democrats like Evan Bayh (a wonderful governor and senator with whom I probably agree about the spending bill) and a Wall Street Journal opinionist whose argument against Mr. Obama’s approach includes these comments:

” . . . he’s proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 — a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit. Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest . . .”

When I saw that, I realized there is a baseline difference in perspective at work here, one that has less to do with taxes and spending than with class. The phrase in bold indicates that money is the proof of productivity–much as it once was of divine favor. Depite the obvious fact that those who got us into this economic mess were making obscene profits while those doing what I would call very pointedly “honest” work have lost thousands of dollars that represent large percentages of their net and gross worth. To top it off, those CEOs, CFOs and brokers retain most of what they “earned;” the big stick aimed at them consists mostly in denying them access to future use of perks like planes and luxury conferences, not in jailing or fining them for their obvious misdeeds.

Hell, from what I can figure out most still have their jobs while millions of Americans–8.1 % of those who want to work and are registered (leaving out those, like my own daughter, who are not)–have lost their jobs, may lose their homes and are terrified about the future.

I don’t pretend to know the right answers here, but I refuse to listen to anyone whose arguments are predicated on the theory that income correlates one to one with productivity. Consider the poor, legal immigrant woman working 2 jobs so her children can go to college. Consider the teacher working for considerably less than 100,000 dollars each year, whose students, nonetheless, excel. Consider police, fire fighters, artists, musicians, construction workers. Then tell me the two five-storey buildings outside my office window are not as “productive” as the airy palaces of greed that swallowed our nation’s true productivity while shipping millions of those truly productive jobs (in the sense that something is produced) overseas.

This kind of attitude is past my contempt and pushes me from attempts to “understand” the other point of view to sheer fury. The more I consider it; the angrier I become.

I suppose the response would be that the author is using “productivity” in some arcane, economic sense. That would still mean, however, that productivity is identical to amount of money generated. And that, I submit, is the enormous error this country has made and the key to our current difficulties. Because money is both power and purchasing potential, its reflection and the status accrued by spending it–whether one has it or not–seduced the majority of Americans into reckless spending. And that includes our government. The desire to increase political power by increasing purchasing power infected not only those on Wall Street and in its tributary enclaves around the globe but also politicians–who demonstrate their effectiveness by bringing home the bacon. And those presiding over this consumer culture which is foundering now on its own addiction to deficit spending have sailed on in their yachts and will reappear with greed intact to prey on us again if we don’t get our priorities straight.

Money may be power, but power, as the suddenly much-praised Canadian government and culture seem to comprehend, is not necessarily healthy. Less craving for both money and power, more attention to values and to each other’s needs, would cause a vast improvement in America’s health: financial, political, and, yes, spiritual as well.

Progressives as well as conservatives must take note. Conservatives must realize that to conflate wealth and worth distorts reality in highly destructive ways. Progressives must recognize that our own lists of must-haves–from high speed rail to solar arrays–may have to undergo the same scrutiny and deferment that we bring to the examination of defense spending. We’re in a huge mess and the fact that we “won” cannot be our governing mantra.

But here’s my final point: as power and wealth are conflated–and have been since time immemorial, military might symbolizes power and is among the most difficult icons to let go. But, again looking at Canada, there is a quiet and persisten prosperity of another sort available to those who tend their own gardens and foster no ambitions to rule the world. I’m not talking about protectionism or isolationism. I’m talking about humility and common sense.

All of us want our country to be “the best.” Americans particularly suffer from this because our so-called experiment seems to us self-evidently proof that our system is superior, our citizens superlative and our right to dictate therefore obvious. But our so-called “enemies” do not acknowledge that superiority and their ascendancy suggests that, as with all dominance, it has passed. This may not be a repudiation of our system. It is a sign that other systems, however flawed they may seem to us, may triumph or at least persist; it is a sign that our system–which has so transformed the world–is severely flawed when seen from an outsider’s (and many insiders’) point of view.

One approach to hostility is to expend all one has on the tools and symbols of power and to attempt to beat down the opposition. All signs point to “no” in that regard. Our global opposition has more people than we, rapidly increasing wealth and technological prowess, and little sense of obligation to us. If we would lead, it must be by example. If we want peace, that example should be pacifistic.

Reduced defense spending may not seem an obvious conclusion to the syllogism that begins with wealth is not worth. But military spending, as I said before, protects and also represents wealth. We are attached to our guns both because we think they protect us and because we think they convey our power and value to the world. But just as the wildly “successful” financial wizards in fact have destroyed nearly 75% of the stock markets’ value in the last two years. While the auto worker and the farmer, in spite of dismal prospects and returns continue to produce machines and food. The benefits of military might–and investment–seem vastly over stated. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan far from making us safer have sapped our coffers, destroyed many lives–most of them non-American–and left an unstable mess. Worth is not wealth. Wealth can promote worth only by investing in what has true value. True value begins with mutual respect based not on consumption or income but on our common plight and infinite potential–when we work together.

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Red Shirts

February 24, 2009 · Filed under politics, war and peace

Wear a red shirt Friday and support our troops. It’s a sign an email says that you love this country, appreciate what the military is doing to protect your way of life, are one of the majority of Americans. Oh, and believe in God.

The people who don’t wear red shirts? Well, they don’t support the troops–or didn’t get the email–or forgot. Maybe they thought that one could support the troops even better by voting for better health care for vets or against revolving door deployments.

Here’s my problem: I do support the troops. I admire men and women willing to risk their lives and grieve for the loss when their sacrifice is total. I know that most believe–naively in most cases–that the United States is always God’s country so what it sends them to do is God’s work. In some cases, I can even conceive (concede?) that wars have been necessary or at least in the last event unavoidable (World War 2 comes to mind, possibly the Civil War? Argue with me peaceniks: I want to be convinced they’re all wrong!)

But I can’t subscribe to the sub-text of this email–that the troops currently deployed are fighting necessary wars to protect the United States of America. And those who disagree by extension repudiate God, country and, of course, troops.

In fact, I am (almost) completely convinced that the war in Afghanistan was unnecessary, justifiable vengeful though we may have been post 9/11. And the argument for Saddam’s demise was trumped up so that I can hardly believe anyone still argues its justification.

The only service troops in Iraq are performing regarding the safety of American’s way of life is in service of our bottomless thirst for oil, our persistent illusion that we are “better,” “stronger,” and more important than other nations and should, therefore, have veto power over their choices of government and friends. In the case of Iraq, we want oil–and “democracy,” if that means we have control. There is no nobility in either the duplicity of those who convinced us to proffer our half-hearted support or in the

So, OK. That’s my point of view and most everyone has heard it before. If you listen to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, you’ve somehow convinced yourself that I’m a soldier-hating nincompoop who has no comprehension of the dangers imposed by . . . well whatever it is you think the dangers were in Iraq. Or, you draw yourself up straight and declare that I don’t care about the thousands of Iraqi’s who died at Saddam’s hands–while conveniently neglecting to mention those now dead who wouldn’t be if we hadn’t invaded and managing to blame the deaths of the American troops on Al Qaeda or that Baathists.

I may just wear a red shirt this Friday–mostly to make the point that I CAN support military families and enlisted folks without supporting the entire military bureaucracy and aparatus which chews them up and spits them out with too little healthcare.

The email (representative of our entire culture) links support of the troops to a plethora of reliable touch points: patriotism, might equals right, religion. If they really wanted people to support the troops, it would just be about that. Because the fact is that just about everyone does.

And the question then should be what do the troops need and how often should we put these brave, willing, patriotic fellow citizens in harm’s way just to serve our rampant gluttonies?

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Palin’s Daughter and Abstinence Only

September 6, 2008 · Filed under politics · Tagged

Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant. Democratic candidates have declared hands-off and Republicans are waiting by that mouse hole to pounce should any candidate veer even close to casting aspersions on the various “choices” involved in the situation.

I have no interest in the young woman herself. I expect adolescents to live through difficulties—minor, major and even epic. I really have one point and will make it here. After the next paragraph, you’ll have that main idea and can cruise on over to Ebay. Here goes:

Whatever else comes of this election and whatever (if any) effect personal and family circumstances have on your vote, remember this pregnancy when Sarah Palin’s right wing supporters try to cut funding for sex education—or promote sex education based on “abstinence only.” The Palin girl and her mate are poster children for the failure of that method. If we really don’t want youngsters (and others) to experience unplanned and / or unwanted pregnancies, we must inform them of the range of options available—including but by NO means limited to abstinence and with no aspersions cast on birth control or non-coital methods of stimulation. And they need to see or at least hear the consequences. Some may decide the consequences aren’t so bad: they can have kids, their parents will support them and, being only thirtysomething when their children are grown—and less when their children are old enough for school—they can look into education and more prosperous careers down the road. There are even arguments FOR such a choice in the case of education. As a college educator, I have seen that students over twenty-five are generally better focused, responsible than their fresh from high school counterparts, and, so they tend to be quite successful.

Second, if you don’t want kids pregnant out of wedlock or, in the liberal formulation, before they’re mature enough, you need a climate where premarital sex is discouraged and pregnancy is not in some sense a reward. Society in general has to decide what it thinks about premarital sex and pregnancy. The fact is that the stigma for violating this taboo has almost vanished. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing, just a fact.

A pregnancy these days is much less disgraceful, devastating, tragic, etc. etc. than it was, say, when I was an adolescent. Girls then went to homes for wayward girls or left the state. They were treated like misbehaving nuns: removed from society and prepared for a difficult future. I’m not a good person to ask because at the time I naively assumed that everyone still abided by the biblical injunction against sex out of wedlock. But I know of at least one young woman at my high school whose girth increased dramatically and who later received solicitous comments whenever a baby or child appeared on the scene. She had a child, no one was supposed to know and it was not a happy outcome. My mother-in-law championed abortion rights because she had watched young girls’ lives ruined by a catastrophic consequence of passion. In her day, they weren’t even allowed back into schools and might end up abandoned by angry families as well.

I guess the children of those choices were mostly adopted—unless of course they were the children of poor mothers, in which case they simply became poorer and received the castigations and disdain of society at large. After 1930, they were eligible for A.F.D.C. a.k.a. Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or welfare. My mother, a social worker, also fought for abortion rights because she had seen pregnancy after pregnancy snuff the aspirations and potential of young women in poverty who might otherwise have been able to work themselves into the middle class.

These days in evangelical Christian communities, the stigma of pregnancy can be transformed into stigmata—painful but blessed. At Christmas, devotional videos regularly compare the Virgin Mary to a young pregnant woman of the present. Sure, the message is supposed to be “think how hard that would have been.” But the subtext is, “a pregnant girl is like Mary and a young man who stands by her, essentially, just like Joseph.” I’ve seen this at work in my daughter’s best friend’s life. The family’s energy poured into helping the couple to cope and the outcome has been happy—if a little baffling to me. While my daughter has recently finished graduate school, her friend at not quite thirty has three children, the eldest now himself an adolescent. It’s an approach to life that I have trouble understanding, but it has not been unhappy, let alone tragic.

Meanwhile, of course, there are the famous—and probably not so famous—cases of women having children with no thought of a husband—and lesbians seeking insemination so they can raise children together. No matter how thoroughly liberals pooh-poohed the example of Murphy Brown, that pregnancy—and Madonna’s and others—serve to normalize that version of procreation and the family structure it entails and to suggest it can be positive. Studies that show the benefits of having two parents—two heterosexual parents notwithstanding, Americans are adjusting to the prospect of a number of other arrangements. And, to make up for two parents, perhaps the proverbial “village” will actually materialize to provide the balance and mixed perspective as well as the role models so that children of all gender and sexual identities have some idea of how to model their futures.

Those children will NOT be dissuaded from pregnancy out of wedlock by the forces currently at work. I believe that kids with strong interests and ambitions have stronger resistance to temptation. But as long as society says, “we can’t criticize or sanction a poor child or her family” there will be little deterrent to an activity that brings such consummate pleasure and release.

Maybe that’s a good thing. I think it’s the real reason we don’t want to “go there” with this daughter of a vice-presidential candidate. We don’t really see this as much of a failure, just a difficult moment—probably less difficult than discovering your child is an addict or a spree killer. If, indeed, none of us really see pregnancy out of marriage and /or under twenty as problematic, then we should stop pretending otherwise. Hands-off the Palin pregnancy by all means, but hands off the others, too. If it’s fine for Sarah Palin’s daughter it ought to be fine for all the girls in the poor neighborhoods of the world who have many fewer choices and much less opportunity to rise above the consequences to put the “mistake” behind them.

And if you’re inclined to call Ms. Palin a poor little girl while ringing down hellfire and brimstone on the “welfare queen,” ask yourself what the difference is? What choice do you want that “queen” to make that Ms. Palin made differently? Do you want her to abstain? Then why not Ms. Palin? Do you want her to use birth control? Then why not Ms. Palin?

I call for us all to examine this because as in so many of our great moral stands, Americans are behaving hypocritically. And a fairly large dose of that hypocrisy reflects an very ugly classist and racist undercurrent.

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why gas prices should stay high

August 9, 2008 · Filed under politics · Tagged , , ,

Gas prices are down. Great news. Most people are thrilled. Truckers will be able to stay on the road. Moms won’t have to exchange their Suburbans for Volvos. Ford and Chevy can abandon production of hybrids and electric vehicles. Pressure to increase the CAFE standards will slacken. And life in McDonald’s land will return to its artificial veneer of optimism. Phew! It was all just a blip on the screen. A hoax, some will say, a conspiracy to deny us all the energy and other resources we can consume. Those doom sayers (among whom I proudly count myself) were just huffing and puffing: there’s no real crisis, plenty of oil, no need to turn one’s attention from the latest Olympic victory. And meanwhile, let’s blame it all on the Chinese–look at that pollution! (I can’t recall: was as much made of this when the games were in L.A.?)

The sad truth is Americans will not conserve energy unless it costs them money to do otherwise. So, in true doom sayer style I am in mourning for the demise of the four dollar gallon.

I know this because I’m old enough to remember the first oil crisis.

It hit thirty years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties. Gas cost 29 cents a gallon or thereabouts. We watched it climb to 59 and gradually to a dollar fifty. In response, Honda introduced the Accord, which got over 30 mpg. The national speed limit came down to 55 mph–a move intended to save gas and heartily opposed by the trucking association. I’m not sure how effective it was. But it was an effort. That’s when the strategic oil reserve was established as well. Meanwhile, people lowered their thermostats and bought long underwear. Wood stoves became incredibly popular and the homeowners experimented with passive and active solar power for their houses.

At the time, two atmospheric catastrophes loomed large: one, the hole in the ozone layer, later subsided as the simple cause–CFCs–was removed from the market. Easily done as there was a ready and equally effective replacement (I don’t know what but it’s in my car and yours and propels the aerosols in your cooking spray and bug killer.) Global warming–greenhouse gases–also made the news back then. But discussion of that faded with the oil crisis. Prices fell a bit and leveled off at about a dollar where they stayed for the next 25 years. Instead of continuing to conserve and seek alternatives, Americans basked in the pool of cheap petroleum that irresponsible Congresses continued to promote. Congress refused to raise taxes or CAFE standards. Detroit, realizing that consumers were paying for oil about what they had paid in 1960–long before the oil crisis raised consciousness for six months–arranged with Congress to call great big heavy cars “trucks” so they were excused from the CAFE standards that were in place. People loved it. Or hated it. But the “can’t beat so join” mentality prevailed–there was no counter-balance to stop car buyers from concluding that when surrounded by enormous vehicles that block your view, the best counter-measure is to purchase a taller and heavier one yourself. Plus, you could get one with TV and other features that turned the gigantic gas-guzzlers into mini-RVs. You could drive your hypnotized children down 8-lane interstates, stop for fast food, go to the bank, even, in some cases, go to church all with the engine running. The American love affair with the automobile reached its narcissistic zenith–or nadir if you’re a doomsayer type.

And this pattern of consumption continued right up until gas finally topped 3 bucks a gallon. Then, issuing an enormous cry of “Foul!” the American public finally took notice and began to conserve. But, it was after all, only a beginning.

Even with all this, Congress has remained more interested in drilling for oil than in promoting conservation (by far the easiest and cheapest way to save money on petroleum) or rewarding the use of alternative fuels. There is precious little interest (except among the already converted) in alternative energies. This summer it was a huge struggle just to preserve tax incentives for solar energy. Sure, the Green Planet channel is on–but practically no one watches it regularly (please, prove me wrong!! please!) Instead, we’re adding ethanol–an admittedly renewable but almost equally polluting substance that demands absolutely no sacrifice of American greed and gluttony and no change in our lifestyle and habits. I’m blaming Congress but I know that they are simply doing their jobs: listening to their constituents who are convinced (erroneously but with typical American reluctance to sacrifice) that drilling for oil now will instantly lower gas prices. In fact, now that they’re down, Republicans in Congress are claiming that just “talking” about drilling caused the prices to go down (at least according to Paul Krugman).

And the public will believe them because it’s easier to do so. Prices will come down. Plans to buy a smaller car, to try the bus, to reduce one’s footprint will fade. I know this as well as I know what’s happened for the last 30 years.

Tom Friedman is right, our children and grandchildren will hate us. But by then it will be too late: the ice caps will be gone and along with them the polar bears. Insurance rates will be sky higher than they are now. But gas will be cheap and we’ll just keep guzzling it. Because that’s what we do in America.

And the only thing that can come effectively between us and our jones for oil is the price.

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Urgent: Militarism Threatens Democracy

July 1, 2008 · Filed under politics

Generally, I write these posts in MS Word and edit before I post. Given the lack of traffic here, it seems a little silly to change that pattern, but this feels urgent–and it is time-sensitive. The article that triggered the thoughts will be archived soon. The moment will pass. And the issue is crucial.

So if it’s the week of July 1, go to this link
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/washington/01gitmo.html?th&emc=th

If it’s not that week, read on; I’ll summarize a bit.

The article concerns Guantanamo and an appeals court decision that a particular prisoner was held on scant real evidence. In fact, the government’s basis for holding this particular Chinese Muslim was that it had three documents that all declared him–without citing any hard evidence–to be connected to various terrorist or terrorist sympathizing groups.

The court, according to the article, rightly compared this to a situation in Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark” where a speaker declares, “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

The court’s ruling that just saying so does not constitute grounds for detaining a human being for six years of his life–or any length of time for that matter elicited this response from Glenn M. Sulmasy, “a national security fellow at Harvard,

“This case displays the inadequacies of having civilian courts inject themselves into military decision-making,” said Mr. Sulmasy, who is also “a law professor at the Coast Guard Academy”.

The military, in other words, should get to decide whom it imprisons and for how long entirely on its own.

Of course, the article doesn’t clue us in to the intricacies of Mr. Sulmasy’s thinking. We only get the conclusion. But that conclusion raises serious concerns about our nation’s division of powers. Of course, there are 3 branches of our governments: legislative, judicial and executive. The first 2 determine what is legal, that last enforces those laws and conducts the country’s business. In the federal government, the business includes making war, so the military is linked to the executive by way of a civilian commander in chief and the Secretary of Defense whom he appoints. This arrangement helps create a balance of power.

Thus, while the military may most often go its own way–and has managed to convince a majority of Congress as well, apparently, as a majority of the populace to go along most of the time–it is in fact ultimately beholden to the president and he, with the permission of Congress, decides which wars to fight.

Without this crucial safeguard, the military could decide to go to war on its own. Generals would exercise much greater power over our fates. Often, at least when I was in government and American history classes, I was told that the idea of civilian leadership of the military was enlightened–a kind of trigger-lock on the whole apparatus of warfare.

But Mr. Sulmasy’s statement suggests that the military should oversee its own activities and be allowed to reach judgments by a different standard, according to its own perceptions and determinations and quite apart from civilian oversight. This, I submit, is a dangerous position.

I reallize that Mr. Sulmasy is not talking about the president’s power to initiate warfare or the Congressional power to declare and provide funds for war. But the civilian commander in chief is a synechdoche of military structure and control. As the president leads the entire military when it comes to making war, so the civilian justice system should have some say about how the military (part of our government and thus reflective of our values) conducts its affairs–particularly when those affairs involve civilians–regardless of nationality. Remember, the Declaration of Independence, speaks of rights for all humans, under which, in the particular instance of our nation, we gained the right to establish a government for ourselves in order to secure “inalienable” rights of “men” (not just Americans).

Of course, like Mr. Sulmasy, the military power-structure assumes that detainees at Guantanamo are not civilians but “enemy combatants.” And we are in a so-called war on terrorism that, mimicking our global economy, defies the notion of national boundaries and identity. This detainee from China was found in Afghanistan and, maybe, had friends or associates connected to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Terrorists don’t wear uniforms, so their guilt is by association–unless they are caught red-handed.

And that, it seems, seldom happens.

Perhaps, then, we need a revised strategy for finding and prosecuting–or combating–these “enemies. The counter-argument generally asserts that suspension of habeas corpus is a temporary casualty, instituted sparingly and only when someone has a really good reason. But even detention of Japanese citizens of the U.S. (which was pretty awful and for which the government has had to apologize) did not last 6 years. World War 2 as not six years long. Moreover, we have been promised a War on Terror with no end in sight. So presumably rather than 6 years, an innocent person could spend life in prison simply because the Pentagon said three times that he or she was dangerous. Or might be.

So this is my urgency–we need above all not to sacrifice our values in the pursuit of security. This deviation from principle is not an aberration and is unlikely to be temporary. We cannot afford to turn over not only 40% of our federal budget but also the power to decide who is an enemy and what to do about it to people in military uniforms. In an age of volunteer armies, this becomes especially important. I mean no disrespect to our military citizens. I admire their courage and dedication. I do not take lightly their willingness to die for us, for me. Nevertheless, a volunteer army means everyone in the army, navy, air force marines, is willing to go to war–may even expect to. There is no civilian restraint in such a system. No poor schmuck gets caught up by fate in a war in which he or she has no stake or interest and sent off, terrified, to risk life on a battlefield. So now more than ever we need civilian oversight of military activities. We need a president who acknowledges other options than war, a populace vigilant about the expense, in all ways, of maintaining the military as our first choice against our adversaries. And a populace devoted enough to the values of its society that it will not abandon those principles just to be safe.

Many military people cite willingness to die for one’s values as a sign of true virtue. If you won’t die for them, the argument goes, it doesn’t count. Well, I’m just holding the rest of us to that same standard. I don’t call for us to go into battle. In fact, I believe we should have fewer battles and resolve conflicts by other means. The danger I invite us to enter is hypothetical: maybe if we release people we feel might be dangerous, maybe if we never even detain them, some will go on to commit heinous acts of agression. And maybe they won’t.

We need civilian courts to protect those fingered by the military without probable cause or evidence. It’s easy to give up six years of a poor Chinese man’s life, but if guilt by association remains grounds for arrest, those six–or eight or ten or twenty–years could be your next door neighbor’s

Or your own.

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Richardson and the crazy primary schedule

January 11, 2008 · Filed under politics

Bill Richardson bowed out, today. I got an email thanking his supporters. It made me feel guilty because though he interested me I never sent any money. But I hadn’t decided. Still haven’t. Now, another choice has been eliminated before I have the chance.

The email was so gracious about the rest of the field. Someone–either Richardson or some campaign writer–worked hard to express something positive about each of the other candidates and their contribution to the overall effort to define the issues, select a nominee and elect, we hope and pray, a good person to lead our country for the next 4 or 8 years.  Altogether the descriptions formed a pretty good list of the supposed principles, values and priorities of the Democratic party: passion, intelligence, speaking for the downtrodden, equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity, education for al . . .

In the world of polls and campaign funding, of mass media dominance we don’t have time to think much about values and positions. In facct, following the media’s lead, we spend most of our time considering candidates like horses: which one is most likely to go the distance and win the race. We don’t feel safe voting on principles or issues. If we do that, we might lose. (As I type I realize how often this complaint has been repeated. But I can’t stop myself and I don’t know what to do except keep saying it). It’s this maelstrom, whirlwind, the fast-lane on a short track that leads to decision-making based on a single teary-eyed moment or a single speech that gives us goose-pimples. It’s the cardboard cut-out images–flat screen and flat page, paper dolls–that can be changed by a quick symbol. I’ve read cynical interpretations of Hillary’s choke-up as staged. It doesn’t matter. The fact that staged or unstaged it may have determined the outcome of a presidential election shows that whatever image we had of Hillary was incomplete. It shows that support for Barack Obama was of the same paper thin sort, easily shifter. It shows that 2 primaries–or 1 primary and 1 set of caucuses–should not determine the nominee for either party.

I note the NYT agrees. In an editorial today it says it’s good both parties’ nominations remain open. And I guess that is good news. Too bad the candidates are dropping themselves because there isn’t enough money.

When I told my husband I’d decided that far too much emphasis has been placed on New Hampshire and Iowa, he burst out laughing. What’s so funny? I asked. Well, he said, I just can’t believe it took you so long to notice. I always wondered why those 2 little states got so much attention.

Who knows why it took so long, but suddenly I’m thinking that 2 states with a total number of electoral votes about 1/4 of our own state, Florida, have led to the elimination of 2 Democratic candidates. It makes me sad. Both Biden and Richardson have a great deal to offer this country. And, no doubt, being smart and determined they’ll offer something yet. Meanwhile, however, two men with foreign policy expertise, years of valuable experience and considerable grace under pressure are no longer available for us to choose.

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Hillary is Female

January 9, 2008 · Filed under politics

As we prepare to celebrate Barack Obama’s victory in New Hampshire, many commentators note that he is the first African-American to pursue a successful, mainstream campaign for president. That’s true. As is poor Joe Biden’s hapless observation that Obama is the first to have a demeanor acceptable to our majority white communities. (That’s not how Biden put it but that, in a nutshell is what he meant). Obama lacks the distinctive cultural flavor we white people associate with African-Americans.

This is a triumph. It is proof that white people can rise above skin color and hair type. If the person of color behaves in accordance with white cultural values, we can ignore–even forget– his so-called race. That’s a step in the right direction. It is important. It is historic. It is cause to rejoice. We might hope that eventually other kinds of personas, maybe even some with a little hint of  jazz and gospel will also pass that particular muster, but this man’s success–his proving that blackness has more than one flavor–moves us forward.

Another candidate in this race has so successfully transcended her position in a historically oppressed class of humans that we seem to have all but forgotten she is a woman. Hillary Clinton, like Obama, is the first of her “kind” to mount a credible, conceivably successful campaign for president. Geraldine Ferraro’s vice-presidential aspirations were thrilling but she was minimally impressive as a potential chief executive. Shirley Chisholm, both female and black, was spunky, clever and absolutely NOT going to win the office. I’m trying to think of others, but I can’t. Like Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton owes her success in part to her ability not to seem very much of her category. She’s frequently accused of not being “soft” or “warm” enough, not, that is, feminine enough. We can imagine her commanding the military, and she herself repudiated (to her eternal shame) cookie baking. Unlike Ms. Pelosi, Ms. Clinton seems, often, contrary to type. And that is a large part of her success.

HIllary Clinton is strong, bright, knowledgeable, hard-working, a lawyer, a mother, a senator . . . but most of what we say about her concerns her husband’s coat tails, the failure of her message, etc. etc. None of that is wrong, perhaps, but this afternoon, reading an account of a gathering for her in Iowa, I realized: she is a woman and she could be president and that is huge. That is historic. That is, at the very least, pausing to notice and celebrate.

Here’s to you, Hillary. Thank you for advancing the cause of women’s equality. Thank you for combining compassion and strength. Thank you for taking the chance and going for it.

Whatever happens after New Hampshire, you have made history–just as whatever happens Barack Obama has made history. Whatever happens future African-American candidates, future female candidates, future African-American female candidates will seem even less exotic, less surprising. And more possible. Both these extraordinary people move us beyond simplistic binaries and invite us to a future where we really judge by the content of people’s characters–assuming, of course, that in that future the system of money-grubbing, jockeying for power among special interests, media executives and others can be brought into the service of the people’s need–and right–to the facts and a chance to evaluate them.

But that’s a subject for another post.

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Waging Peace

January 7, 2008 · Filed under politics, religion and spirituality

Remember all those hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Soldiers of Christ?” A few years ago the Methodist hymnal committee wanted to remove them from the hymnal because they seemed to espouse violence in the pursuit of God’s “kingdom.” I agreed. After 5th grade I really didn’t like to march in time to the booming quadrameter. Growing older, I felt similarly about “Victory in Jesus,” (a song that, as it happens, I did not grow up on). I didn’t want the “king eternal” to lead me on “the day of march.” I wanted Christianity to follow Ghandi and Martin Luther King, to become pacifist or to be pacifist as it always was.

Actually, I’ve never been a true pacifist. Until now. I always thought “there might be a war–like World War 2, that excellent example–we “have” to fight, a situation that, if not addressed, could end the world as we know it, leave us subject to despots, bereft of freedom, comfort and security.

The war in Iraq, along with some reading on the history of warfare, has changed my mind. I now believe that we must at long last find a way to wage peace.

Jimmy Carter’s center and a few other quixotic initiatives on the planet are exploring the possibility. And many experts have called them foolish or time-wasters. After all, 10,000 years of civilization have always included war–many might say REQUIRED. As soon as Jericho built a wall, someone came to storm it and knock it down. According to some experts, agriculture made organized warfare necessary. Plenty of food meant more leisure and more leisure meant more horny men getting themselves into trouble. In any case, war has been around a long time, so it must be–the theory goes–in keeping with human nature.

Then, there are enemies. Everywhere. The Taliban are our enemies. Al Qaeda is our enemy. Cuba and Hugo Chavez are enemies. According to the Republican candidates for president, Mexicans crossing the borders are our enemies–or could easily become them. We may not attack all these groups, but we must be prepared to fight them. Moreover, deterrence works. The U.S.S.R disintegrated into Russia and the “former Soviet Republics” because we waged a “cold” war. Just last week I watched a documentary that asserted that definitely Truman’s initiation of that wanton expenditure was “worth it” because of that result.

A worse problem I think is practical. What’s to become of all the soldiers? They come from military families. They believe (if it’s a volunteer army like ours) that their cause it just and righteous. Their employment gives thousands of young men and women employment. And, even worse, the generals and colonels. On top of that and still more dire, we add the defense industries, which employ even more thousands of workers. America’s defense contractors, as you may have heard, arm military activities all over the globe–both those of legitimate countries like Israel and the Soviet Union and insurgencies, terrorists and others. But to eliminate the industry you have to eliminate the jobs, or so it seems.

We don’t really know how to think peace. On its surface, it seems boring and / or impossible. We have so little faith in it that churches say “Peace on Earth good will to all” is really about inner peace.

Why so cynical? Well because the world is, in many ways, a terrible place for a lot of people. Not only are greed and selfishness rampant, they seem to be innate. Power corrupts and our complex civilizations require complex, hierarchical power structures. Or so it seems. The likelihood that humans will revert to hunting and gathering is slim. So we must find some other way to deal with the consequences of abused power: with poverty, with bitterness, with loneliness and frustration, with envy and desperation and hate.

To cut to the chase, the punchline, the point: I’d like to consider waging peace. Through this (I’m imagining) we can use the military and its industry to address some of these crises, we can upend the tedious compacency of “mere” peace–I’m not sure how right now. I just know it’s possible.

The Bible calls it “beat[ing] swords into ploughshares.” As that verb “beat” sounds, it will be hard work, energetic work. But it can happen. Really.

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