Part of this is a tale of my two sisters and their families. Through some luck and some pluck, I managed to get myself out of the working class. I could miss a paycheck and still make the mortgage, got good healthcare for my family, a low rate mortgage, no other debt, decent schools, good grill, little patio, well, just about everything your upper middle class public servant family may want. We'll probably never vacation in Maui, see Machu Pichu or have his and her Lexuses, but we're pretty well off. My mother often told me, "the bank president's job is taken", well mom, maybe you're right. (why this didn't make me strike to become bank president is beyond me)
My sister on the Cape was recently laid off, she managed a family owned convenience store for eight years. Trustworthy to a fault, always there on time generally long before sunrise, never pilfered, balanced the register, didn't smoke or play lottery, the ideal convenience store manager. Alas the Cape economy has suffered, winter on the Rock has never been easy. But with the relatively warm weather laying off plow drivers and oil man, along with the unrelated building bubble bursting, the ramifications for restaurants and retail were great. The store closed. Her husband, another hard worker, manages a fish market and has been known to pick up cooking shifts to cover the cost of their health insurance for their family.
My other brother in law, who I've written about before, is due to leave the army in the fall. I've been helping him with his resume, which consists greatly of his military service in an attempt to get him a decent job in trucking or logistics that will help him to support his wife and two young children in mimicking the Greatest Generation's service to country followed by success in civilian life.
Perhaps both my siblings and brothers in law share a couple of common threads, they are all hard workers, but they also do not have college degrees. The college degree is what separates them and myself. It has anointed me with a certain level of economic success. But when the large majority of the adult population not possessing college degrees and the likelihood of those who are older and have families not obtaining college degrees, what lies in store for these folks?
The struggle of the working and lower middle class, is another ticking timebomb for America. The cost of healthcare, childcare and housing for these folks eats at a great deal of their paycheck, leaving little opportunity for retirement savings. As we throw huge tax cuts at the wealthy and crumbs to the working class to placate them rather than work on long term solutions.
The GOP has made itself very popular amongst the working class, using "niche" issues such as gay marriage, abortion and other social issues as well as the image of Democrat's as wimps, (would life have been different today if John Kerry smoked 'boro Reds, drank a couple shots of beam and went atv'ing instead of windsurfing) to get poor folks to vote against their own economic interest. The majority of Americans through 401K's, IRA's etc. are now members of the Investor class, so many of our financial interests have been intertwined with those of nine figure a year CEO's, even if it's only a couple hundred bucks a year. Does the fact that Citigroup is laying off thousands of workers, make me more comfortable as a small stockholder in the company, or does it bother me as an American that a successful company is shedding jobs?
How do we implore poor and working class folks to vote their own economic interest? And further more to encourage folks to encourage those in power to support their interests? I mean my sister isn't going to hire a team of K Street lawyers to help revitalize the Cape's economy and build the "Silicon Sandbar".
What has become dissipated is the American grand labor bargain since the end of the Depression. Workers will work hard, be the most productive and educable workers in the world in exchange for good pay, good benefits, and a respectful retirement. This bargain has broken down and where are our leaders to protect this legacy? For Democrats, how can "we" appreciate those who actually labor and engage them as voters. Organized labor is at it nadir in recent American history, and even those who are in unions are likely to be "Reagan Democrats", as likely to vote Republican as Democrat outside of government employee unions.
Democrats have become as enamored with identity politics and serving special interests as the Republicans have and frankly many of the special interests that the Republicans serve have much deeper and generous pockets. How can Democrats rebuild the relationship with those who work, those who are lower middle and middle class who we seemed to abandon in the years following the Vietnam War.
This is the opportunity for 2008, for the Democratic party to reunite itself with the working class.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
I Hear Politics are on the Interweb Now
Part of the fun of the Internet is that you can self-publish without ever even seeing the graduate student in Eastern Philosophy at your local Kinko's. Never have to ask about different bindings, four color offset versus black and white, etc. I can't imagine the folks at Darpa and the development of Arpanet and even Mosaic ever expected the primary uses to be porn, videos of people getting hit in the testes with footballs, fantasy sports, and instant messaging the next dorm room, more likely they were thinking of particle physics and the like. Television was supposed to replace teachers as well.
My usual genius post structure is pointing out the complete obvious, make an obscure reference and then make fun of something in popular culture. Which of course makes the Internet a perfect medium for me, or else I just watch C-Span and talk to my three month old daughter, my wife and I are pretty sure her first word will either be "dooshbag" or "jackass" due to the number of times both Becky and I use it in relation to politicians and mediawhores. But being able to "blog" is a chance for me to just free write and to chronicle my own descent into madness as I age into a cranky old man.
I just put "political blog" into Google and there were over 24 million possible entries, now of course this doesn't mean there are 24 Million political blogs but even all of these references are amazing for something that didn't even exist 10 years ago. This is the true evolution of retail politics. There are few bloggers who have a huge influence on opinions or sites for that matter outside of Drudge (not technically a science fiction blog but close and a necessary read) which has had a real influence on American politics or the rehashing of limbaugh, malkin, coulter or other denizens of idiot central.
So there is a great decentralization of ideas which often gets networked through forums or larger blogs that are determined usually by wear the politics lie on the spectrum. You are likely to find yourself anywhere from a Sparticist web log to a group of white supremacists. People who lie somewhere near the center are less likely to post, I guess we're too busy taking care of our golden retrievers or something or blogging about recipes.
I get a little too agitated when I read blogs, especially when they are related to my field of educational policy, not blogs about curriculum or pedagogy or anything but when people come up with simple solutions to very complicated problems, want to get rid of standards or something like that. I sometimes stop and wonder if this is just the voice of those that choose not to speak. Kind of like people who are wealthy, privileged children at colleges and universities who believe they are the revolutionary vanguard of working people. Likely not. Just people with time on their hands and the ability to keyboard.
I get irritated when I read things I know aren't true, and when people just run with the first thing that strikes their fancy, true or not, wishing so hard for it to be true that they convince themselves. Sources are shady and shaky, sometimes going to the point of intelligent people believing Snapple is owned by the KKK due to the Kosher K on it's label or Tommy Hilfiger doesn't want black folks wearing his clothes. When politics becomes urban legend.
The timing or money to buy a URL can be a plus. And now all the established political entities have blogs of some kind. However, the short attention span of activists cannot be held by a static news broadcast, print news paper or polite discourse. Which makes us have the thousands upon thousands of egocentric people like myself who just communicate in this didactic way to virtually no readers. It's alright for me though, I'm not the tip of the spear for any political revolution.
The new devalpatrick.com is a bus station full of this weirdness. It is a bizarre attempt at the much promised public engagement of the Patrick campaign. It is what passes for public engagement in the blogosphere. There is no real discourse or discussion, just a list of "ideas,"mostly having to do with one constituency or another getting screwed. (see the Populism post) Much of it has to do with funding one program or another and how more funds are needed or the converse, give me my money back, where's my tax rollback.
It's a perverse albeit fascinating look at what constitutes public engagement nowadays, no polite discourse, no discussion, no agreeing to disagree, usually a series of statements filled with self-serving logic, frequent misspellings and often inaccurate looks at public policy. The capability to "keyboard commando" has been enabled by the relatively cheap price of Internet access, the education, class and capacity to interact in positive manners has not.
My usual genius post structure is pointing out the complete obvious, make an obscure reference and then make fun of something in popular culture. Which of course makes the Internet a perfect medium for me, or else I just watch C-Span and talk to my three month old daughter, my wife and I are pretty sure her first word will either be "dooshbag" or "jackass" due to the number of times both Becky and I use it in relation to politicians and mediawhores. But being able to "blog" is a chance for me to just free write and to chronicle my own descent into madness as I age into a cranky old man.
I just put "political blog" into Google and there were over 24 million possible entries, now of course this doesn't mean there are 24 Million political blogs but even all of these references are amazing for something that didn't even exist 10 years ago. This is the true evolution of retail politics. There are few bloggers who have a huge influence on opinions or sites for that matter outside of Drudge (not technically a science fiction blog but close and a necessary read) which has had a real influence on American politics or the rehashing of limbaugh, malkin, coulter or other denizens of idiot central.
So there is a great decentralization of ideas which often gets networked through forums or larger blogs that are determined usually by wear the politics lie on the spectrum. You are likely to find yourself anywhere from a Sparticist web log to a group of white supremacists. People who lie somewhere near the center are less likely to post, I guess we're too busy taking care of our golden retrievers or something or blogging about recipes.
I get a little too agitated when I read blogs, especially when they are related to my field of educational policy, not blogs about curriculum or pedagogy or anything but when people come up with simple solutions to very complicated problems, want to get rid of standards or something like that. I sometimes stop and wonder if this is just the voice of those that choose not to speak. Kind of like people who are wealthy, privileged children at colleges and universities who believe they are the revolutionary vanguard of working people. Likely not. Just people with time on their hands and the ability to keyboard.
I get irritated when I read things I know aren't true, and when people just run with the first thing that strikes their fancy, true or not, wishing so hard for it to be true that they convince themselves. Sources are shady and shaky, sometimes going to the point of intelligent people believing Snapple is owned by the KKK due to the Kosher K on it's label or Tommy Hilfiger doesn't want black folks wearing his clothes. When politics becomes urban legend.
The timing or money to buy a URL can be a plus. And now all the established political entities have blogs of some kind. However, the short attention span of activists cannot be held by a static news broadcast, print news paper or polite discourse. Which makes us have the thousands upon thousands of egocentric people like myself who just communicate in this didactic way to virtually no readers. It's alright for me though, I'm not the tip of the spear for any political revolution.
The new devalpatrick.com is a bus station full of this weirdness. It is a bizarre attempt at the much promised public engagement of the Patrick campaign. It is what passes for public engagement in the blogosphere. There is no real discourse or discussion, just a list of "ideas,"mostly having to do with one constituency or another getting screwed. (see the Populism post) Much of it has to do with funding one program or another and how more funds are needed or the converse, give me my money back, where's my tax rollback.
It's a perverse albeit fascinating look at what constitutes public engagement nowadays, no polite discourse, no discussion, no agreeing to disagree, usually a series of statements filled with self-serving logic, frequent misspellings and often inaccurate looks at public policy. The capability to "keyboard commando" has been enabled by the relatively cheap price of Internet access, the education, class and capacity to interact in positive manners has not.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Keep the Family Out of It
When did the inane become a bigger issue than character or ability? Now I'm not as crazy to think that dirty campaigning is a new thing, I'm sure the Greek polis was filled with dirty politics, hell, why else would Diogenes being looking for an honest man. And I realize throughout American presidential campaigns, you were either born in a log cabin or the progeny of an illicit slave behind the woodpile relationship, an Irishman, a Catholic, a Slav or a Jew.
I suppose much of the dirtiness of the coverage of politics is due to the ease of covering gossip and people's schadenfreude or perhaps my favorite line of Clerks, I hope it feels so good to be right. There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? And the ease of the new media in covering it, in what Halperin call "the freak show". Anything on the DrudgeReport or DailyKos or through other right and left wing blogs can frequently take on a life of it's own, become part of the talk radio airwaves as fact and somehow filter down through my wife's relatives as the honest to God truth that Clinton is a rapist or less likely from them, GW is taking Air Force One to snort coke off the asses of 16 year old Moldovan prostitutes.
The right (as detailed well in Halperin's The Way to Win) plays this game a lot better than the left, who to me can't help but to get in the way of itself (a post for another day), watching the Democrats commit character assassination is like watching Greg Kite and Acie Earl in a three legged race or watching me and my friend Fred in a spelling bee. I don't think that it's because of a lack of moral turpitude of the right wing, especially when it is demonstrated so well by televangelists, but more the inability of Democratic politicians to have an understanding of this exploitation, not that I think that it's the right way to do things. Basically we lack the collective chutzpah to engage in character assassination and then have the huevos to deny it and accuse the otherside of trying to do the same thing. Which is a Republican masterpiece.
I guess the thing that's really been bothering me lately is when did family become such a political football? I mean the media is always going to look for their Billy Carter or Roger Clinton. You know the no-good, drunk, good old boy type, I mean not the crazy child molester or anything, just some guy the late night comics can recycle bad jokes about. For example the drunken antics of the Bush twins.
But lately there has been some real weirdness. Our own once venerated Boston Globe, which is trying to blend itself into tabloid culture as quickly as possible recently published information about Mitt Romney's family tree. (I believe it may have been AP but it was trumpeted front page in the Globe's attempt to sabotage the Romney 2008 campaign). In this article, apparently some of Mitt's ancestors took the pleasure of multiple wives. Honestly, I'm no huge Romney fan, but what is this supposed to mean? Will Williard be bring polygamy to the White House? Will the Lincoln bedroom become the Mrs. Romney II room? But this is the nature of modern politics.
The push polling in South Carolina in 2000 in the McCain v. Bush campaign may have led us to the worst president since Andrew Johnson, so it's not only that this kind of thing can be a total joke. It also probably indicates that it's not a bad idea to front load some of these primaries, so that a mild outbreak of kookiness and misinformation cannot metastasize as a complete triumph of idiocy like it did in 2000 and 2004.
Deval Patrick has become another smaller case of family involvement in politics. Now this isn't because of malfeasance but because of illness and frankly the luxury of wealth and being able to be treated for exhaustion, poor folks would just self medicate and move on and get sicker, but this is a much better way. Governor Patrick, who has had several small missteps out of the gate after coming in to office in a landslide, was faced with the fact that the first lady and the love of his life had become somewhat of a political football due to her illness. Now as Democrats who think we are smarter than everyone and have good policy ideas but can't campaign, cajole, or coerce ourselves out of a paper bag, of course came up with the worse possible answer after a slow start, "we'll be working a flexible schedule".
What kind of answer is that? Let me tell you how you gain ground when there is even the intimation that someone could talk about your wife. "This is my family, this is my business and I'd appreciate it, if you'd back the f#ck off". This is the right answer. This is the answer (in your own words, Governor) that would resonate with everyone in the Commonwealth that was starting to doubt you/already doubted you. Hell, the Herald cover would be a winner.
Suffice to say we will never have a candidate like FDR or Abe Lincoln walk through that door again. Too much media. A physical "cripple" and an emotional "cripple" with their finger on the button? Likely the philandering of JFK would have killed his campaign before he could buy off West Virginia. So we start to scrape bottom, Giuliani, Gingrich? Are you kidding me? Now the thinking is that you admit all your sins upfront, "honey, I know you have cancer but can you sign this paper?"
How do we get outside of mediocrity? So that youthful indiscretion/stupidity do not condemn a great leader from staying in business/nonprofits/non elected government instead of running for office. A leader that gets elected by ideas, his/her ability rather than his/her choice of recreation, prurient or otherwise. To think that this country was nearly paralyzed politically for two years by it's leader's adultery, which should be shameful to himself and to his family but not to the governing politic as a whole. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
I suppose much of the dirtiness of the coverage of politics is due to the ease of covering gossip and people's schadenfreude or perhaps my favorite line of Clerks, I hope it feels so good to be right. There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? And the ease of the new media in covering it, in what Halperin call "the freak show". Anything on the DrudgeReport or DailyKos or through other right and left wing blogs can frequently take on a life of it's own, become part of the talk radio airwaves as fact and somehow filter down through my wife's relatives as the honest to God truth that Clinton is a rapist or less likely from them, GW is taking Air Force One to snort coke off the asses of 16 year old Moldovan prostitutes.
The right (as detailed well in Halperin's The Way to Win) plays this game a lot better than the left, who to me can't help but to get in the way of itself (a post for another day), watching the Democrats commit character assassination is like watching Greg Kite and Acie Earl in a three legged race or watching me and my friend Fred in a spelling bee. I don't think that it's because of a lack of moral turpitude of the right wing, especially when it is demonstrated so well by televangelists, but more the inability of Democratic politicians to have an understanding of this exploitation, not that I think that it's the right way to do things. Basically we lack the collective chutzpah to engage in character assassination and then have the huevos to deny it and accuse the otherside of trying to do the same thing. Which is a Republican masterpiece.
I guess the thing that's really been bothering me lately is when did family become such a political football? I mean the media is always going to look for their Billy Carter or Roger Clinton. You know the no-good, drunk, good old boy type, I mean not the crazy child molester or anything, just some guy the late night comics can recycle bad jokes about. For example the drunken antics of the Bush twins.
But lately there has been some real weirdness. Our own once venerated Boston Globe, which is trying to blend itself into tabloid culture as quickly as possible recently published information about Mitt Romney's family tree. (I believe it may have been AP but it was trumpeted front page in the Globe's attempt to sabotage the Romney 2008 campaign). In this article, apparently some of Mitt's ancestors took the pleasure of multiple wives. Honestly, I'm no huge Romney fan, but what is this supposed to mean? Will Williard be bring polygamy to the White House? Will the Lincoln bedroom become the Mrs. Romney II room? But this is the nature of modern politics.
The push polling in South Carolina in 2000 in the McCain v. Bush campaign may have led us to the worst president since Andrew Johnson, so it's not only that this kind of thing can be a total joke. It also probably indicates that it's not a bad idea to front load some of these primaries, so that a mild outbreak of kookiness and misinformation cannot metastasize as a complete triumph of idiocy like it did in 2000 and 2004.
Deval Patrick has become another smaller case of family involvement in politics. Now this isn't because of malfeasance but because of illness and frankly the luxury of wealth and being able to be treated for exhaustion, poor folks would just self medicate and move on and get sicker, but this is a much better way. Governor Patrick, who has had several small missteps out of the gate after coming in to office in a landslide, was faced with the fact that the first lady and the love of his life had become somewhat of a political football due to her illness. Now as Democrats who think we are smarter than everyone and have good policy ideas but can't campaign, cajole, or coerce ourselves out of a paper bag, of course came up with the worse possible answer after a slow start, "we'll be working a flexible schedule".
What kind of answer is that? Let me tell you how you gain ground when there is even the intimation that someone could talk about your wife. "This is my family, this is my business and I'd appreciate it, if you'd back the f#ck off". This is the right answer. This is the answer (in your own words, Governor) that would resonate with everyone in the Commonwealth that was starting to doubt you/already doubted you. Hell, the Herald cover would be a winner.
Suffice to say we will never have a candidate like FDR or Abe Lincoln walk through that door again. Too much media. A physical "cripple" and an emotional "cripple" with their finger on the button? Likely the philandering of JFK would have killed his campaign before he could buy off West Virginia. So we start to scrape bottom, Giuliani, Gingrich? Are you kidding me? Now the thinking is that you admit all your sins upfront, "honey, I know you have cancer but can you sign this paper?"
How do we get outside of mediocrity? So that youthful indiscretion/stupidity do not condemn a great leader from staying in business/nonprofits/non elected government instead of running for office. A leader that gets elected by ideas, his/her ability rather than his/her choice of recreation, prurient or otherwise. To think that this country was nearly paralyzed politically for two years by it's leader's adultery, which should be shameful to himself and to his family but not to the governing politic as a whole. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Friday, March 16, 2007
On populism
Populism is an odd thing that that can be defined in many ways. In it's most evil sense, it can lead to the demagoguery of a leader of Adolf Hitler or in the more mundane sense of Lou Dobbs seeming disgust with everything that comes from the American elite, left or right. The irony of course of this post is in fact by my very nature, I'm a populist. We may all be populists.
Populism has reared it's head many times in America from early agrarian movements, the Whiskey Rebellion, Shays Rebellion to more recently Huey Long, the Progressive party of the turn of the 20th century, the Civil Rights Movement (to an extent),the Massive Resistance of the south, George Wallace, to the more mainstream and contemporary presidential run of Ross Perot. It can manifest itself in a fear of immigration, scapegoating of racial/ethnic groups or in a more positive way lead to the growth of groups that "brought us the weekend" and advocated for clean food, clean air and clean water.
Perhaps the definition that I would use outside of the ivory tower, smoke filled dorm room or lonely Idaho shack is that populism is really is a real or perceived collective movement of people who feel they are getting screwed (real or perceived). The irony being that many people think they can only make it if they screw someone else.
This movement can come from anywhere on the political spectrum. And every presidential candidate will claim some kind of populist credentials. Generally defined as protecting the little guy against some kind of elite, foreign or domestic. Their access to Ivy League education or the equivalent, they'll say is just a tribute to American meritocracy and the triumph of the individual spirit.
Hell, even George W. Bush (to paraphrase the Daily Show's seminal work, America) the son of a President, grandson of a senator, graduate of Andover, Yale and Harvard, erstwhile oilman, somehow passed himself off as anti-elite and a man of the people with an adopted Texan twang and shucks I don't know nothing attitude. John Forbes Kerry, of the brahmin Forbes, windsurfing off Nantucket, multizillionaire wife, swiss cheese and steak quickly built his populist cred while polling in the single figures and about ready to run off the radar screen by pulling in his friends from the fatigue wearing brown water navy, which ironically would later come back to destroy him at the end with the Swiftboating populist surge from the right wing.
Now I'm saving my campaign 2008 candidates' post for after the fourth of July (my prediction is Hagel announces at a 4th of July picnic in the heartland, to you guessed it, harness a potential populist surge) but suffice to say, the new leader of the free world will have to make great hay in the populist arena. That e being said, look for the reason that I don't think Giuliani should even be considered, check out Jonathan Alter's Newsweek article .
It would be hypocritical to attack this populist bent. For someone who is a great admirer of the man who, "felt our pain" and may sometimes struggle with the ivory tower it would be insane. Also the very nature of democracy revolves around populism, that is those who can get the most votes usually makes the rules.
There is however a fear I have, this fear of elitism can become a commitment to mediocrity. If we do not attend intellectual movies, watch well acted and written television and read books that are intellectually challenging, do we become implicit with a series of inane romantic and teenage comedies, more reality shows and American Idol and the literary stylings of US magazine?
Modern politics in a way have used populism as a weapon. The commodification of fear in the war on terror is a prime example. One might think if we spent a fraction as much on the "war on asthma" or "war on diabetes" or "war on illiteracy" we may be far better off. The idea that if you question the war, you question the mission, and may even question those brave men and women themselves. Patriotism and it's evil older brother extreme nationalism and ethnocentrism are closely related to populism, and somewhere in this spectrum fell the election of GW Bush in 2004. (not to excuse the poor campaign of one J.F. Kerry) The left wing of the Democratic Party pushes it's activists to "attack the corporatists" including those of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) who helped to draw up the diagram that elected the only Democratic president elected in my lifetime. (To me, James Earl Carter was an anomaly, elected by folks who were only searching for an honest man, whose hands were clean of Vietnam and Watergate, so I'm not counting the '76 election)
President Bush managed to take feigned (I hope) disengagement to a whole new level. Not knowing nothing about nothing and seeming to be proud of it. When one visits the G.W. Bush library in Midland, Texas someday, I wonder if it will be considered the "national magazine rack" His level of disengagement may have worked in the time where the world moved slow and multitasking may have been dinner with the owner of US Steel and the owner of Standard Oil, but today, where the world in twenty years is a world we can't imagine, this disengagement and apparent lack of understanding is criminal. (but not impeachable)
I wonder what will happen in the election of 2008. The election that may echo the election of 1860 or 1932 in importance, an election which will have the potential of drawing us back from economic and international relations brink. This brinkmanship is negotiated by those with great minds and communication skills. "A Team of Rivals", A Brain Trust"
Is an electable candidate, who can negotiate the various surges of populism on different issues, also going to have the intelligence and fortitude to select those minds that can help him or her to make the critical decisions? Will the American people have the intelligence to weigh the issues and vote on the candidates' critical thinking skills, intelligence and decision making rather than on a few selected code words or support for particular pet issues? The world is at a crossroads and I believe it is not arrogant to say that the future of the nation and perhaps even the world will be thrown into the hands of the American voter in some 20 months.
Populism has reared it's head many times in America from early agrarian movements, the Whiskey Rebellion, Shays Rebellion to more recently Huey Long, the Progressive party of the turn of the 20th century, the Civil Rights Movement (to an extent),the Massive Resistance of the south, George Wallace, to the more mainstream and contemporary presidential run of Ross Perot. It can manifest itself in a fear of immigration, scapegoating of racial/ethnic groups or in a more positive way lead to the growth of groups that "brought us the weekend" and advocated for clean food, clean air and clean water.
Perhaps the definition that I would use outside of the ivory tower, smoke filled dorm room or lonely Idaho shack is that populism is really is a real or perceived collective movement of people who feel they are getting screwed (real or perceived). The irony being that many people think they can only make it if they screw someone else.
This movement can come from anywhere on the political spectrum. And every presidential candidate will claim some kind of populist credentials. Generally defined as protecting the little guy against some kind of elite, foreign or domestic. Their access to Ivy League education or the equivalent, they'll say is just a tribute to American meritocracy and the triumph of the individual spirit.
Hell, even George W. Bush (to paraphrase the Daily Show's seminal work, America) the son of a President, grandson of a senator, graduate of Andover, Yale and Harvard, erstwhile oilman, somehow passed himself off as anti-elite and a man of the people with an adopted Texan twang and shucks I don't know nothing attitude. John Forbes Kerry, of the brahmin Forbes, windsurfing off Nantucket, multizillionaire wife, swiss cheese and steak quickly built his populist cred while polling in the single figures and about ready to run off the radar screen by pulling in his friends from the fatigue wearing brown water navy, which ironically would later come back to destroy him at the end with the Swiftboating populist surge from the right wing.
Now I'm saving my campaign 2008 candidates' post for after the fourth of July (my prediction is Hagel announces at a 4th of July picnic in the heartland, to you guessed it, harness a potential populist surge) but suffice to say, the new leader of the free world will have to make great hay in the populist arena. That e being said, look for the reason that I don't think Giuliani should even be considered, check out Jonathan Alter's Newsweek article .
It would be hypocritical to attack this populist bent. For someone who is a great admirer of the man who, "felt our pain" and may sometimes struggle with the ivory tower it would be insane. Also the very nature of democracy revolves around populism, that is those who can get the most votes usually makes the rules.
There is however a fear I have, this fear of elitism can become a commitment to mediocrity. If we do not attend intellectual movies, watch well acted and written television and read books that are intellectually challenging, do we become implicit with a series of inane romantic and teenage comedies, more reality shows and American Idol and the literary stylings of US magazine?
Modern politics in a way have used populism as a weapon. The commodification of fear in the war on terror is a prime example. One might think if we spent a fraction as much on the "war on asthma" or "war on diabetes" or "war on illiteracy" we may be far better off. The idea that if you question the war, you question the mission, and may even question those brave men and women themselves. Patriotism and it's evil older brother extreme nationalism and ethnocentrism are closely related to populism, and somewhere in this spectrum fell the election of GW Bush in 2004. (not to excuse the poor campaign of one J.F. Kerry) The left wing of the Democratic Party pushes it's activists to "attack the corporatists" including those of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) who helped to draw up the diagram that elected the only Democratic president elected in my lifetime. (To me, James Earl Carter was an anomaly, elected by folks who were only searching for an honest man, whose hands were clean of Vietnam and Watergate, so I'm not counting the '76 election)
President Bush managed to take feigned (I hope) disengagement to a whole new level. Not knowing nothing about nothing and seeming to be proud of it. When one visits the G.W. Bush library in Midland, Texas someday, I wonder if it will be considered the "national magazine rack" His level of disengagement may have worked in the time where the world moved slow and multitasking may have been dinner with the owner of US Steel and the owner of Standard Oil, but today, where the world in twenty years is a world we can't imagine, this disengagement and apparent lack of understanding is criminal. (but not impeachable)
I wonder what will happen in the election of 2008. The election that may echo the election of 1860 or 1932 in importance, an election which will have the potential of drawing us back from economic and international relations brink. This brinkmanship is negotiated by those with great minds and communication skills. "A Team of Rivals", A Brain Trust"
Is an electable candidate, who can negotiate the various surges of populism on different issues, also going to have the intelligence and fortitude to select those minds that can help him or her to make the critical decisions? Will the American people have the intelligence to weigh the issues and vote on the candidates' critical thinking skills, intelligence and decision making rather than on a few selected code words or support for particular pet issues? The world is at a crossroads and I believe it is not arrogant to say that the future of the nation and perhaps even the world will be thrown into the hands of the American voter in some 20 months.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Support the Troops
One Saturday in March, unknown number, came up on the caller ID. Unknown number means that it is either my sister calling from Germany or a telemarketer calling. Our family get the pleasure of telemarketers in Spanish and in English, but that's a story for a whole other time.
The call was my sister who had just finished her Thanksgiving dinner. Jim, my brother in law, was back on post on a 2 week rest and relaxation from service downrange in northern Iraq. When you're an Army family nowadays, Thanksgiving is as likely to include an NCAA basketball tournament game as it is the Dallas Cowboys on TV.
It's not often that I get to talk to my brother in law who has deployed three times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan in his 8 years of service in the Army. Jim is truly one of those people that you meet and say, "wow, what a nice guy", I'm especially partial as he married my sister and is the father to my 1 year old niece and two year old nephew.
He told me a story about finding an IED before he left, he was in the first humvee in a convoy behind the scout car, they saw the guy placing it, who scurried off before they could get to him, and initially thought in was a burlap bag full of trash. It actually contained two 155mm artillery shells rigged with some det cord, which would have been buried likely 5 minutes later.
So, what does it mean to support the troops? As some experienced veterans leave the army, counting the days at this point, until their service is over and their involvement in the conflict will be memories. Younger less experienced soldiers will take their place, soldier that may be described as "trigger happy" and will certainly lack the leadership skills and NCO's and junior officers that do most of the tactical leadership in the field. So is a protracted conflict with multiple deployments truly the way to support the troops and their families?
For most of us, support the troops may consist of the contemporary shallow expression of patriotism of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon on their car. I got nothing against the yellow ribbon per se, but really what does it mean. I mean we send cookies, letters, toiletries, etc. I imagine Iraq must be littered with baby wipes at this point. But do these small efforts, and our thoughts and prayers resonate with those mostly young folks who are risking everything?
Will the cost of caring for our veterans who are wounded, both those whose wounds are visible and those that may be hidden for decades become victims of budget cuts or a bureaucratic morass that benefits the drug dealers of big pharma more than those that have served us? Recently we've seen what this move to veteran's care can look like at Walter Reed, already a failure in leadership. Where was the chain of command here? How could someone, a general, a captain, a sergeant, a custodian possibly let this happen?
When other vets come home, those that will need to transition to civilian culture, will the support be there? For jobs, both public and private, for time, the understanding that it will take some of these guys time to transition to an America that has had a very small part of its population make an actual sacrifice, and even benefited from tax cuts during war time.
As my daughter is born during what has become an unpopular war, I think of myself being born during another unpopular was and the lifelong effect it had on my uncles returning and then thinking of Elena's uncle Jim. The politics and society of my childhood in retrospect appeared to be a reflection of the first generation of American warriors to come home in defeat, not at the fault of the warrior but of the politician. We must remember to honor and respect and reward the warrior, to repair the mistakes of a generation passed.
The call was my sister who had just finished her Thanksgiving dinner. Jim, my brother in law, was back on post on a 2 week rest and relaxation from service downrange in northern Iraq. When you're an Army family nowadays, Thanksgiving is as likely to include an NCAA basketball tournament game as it is the Dallas Cowboys on TV.
It's not often that I get to talk to my brother in law who has deployed three times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan in his 8 years of service in the Army. Jim is truly one of those people that you meet and say, "wow, what a nice guy", I'm especially partial as he married my sister and is the father to my 1 year old niece and two year old nephew.
He told me a story about finding an IED before he left, he was in the first humvee in a convoy behind the scout car, they saw the guy placing it, who scurried off before they could get to him, and initially thought in was a burlap bag full of trash. It actually contained two 155mm artillery shells rigged with some det cord, which would have been buried likely 5 minutes later.
So, what does it mean to support the troops? As some experienced veterans leave the army, counting the days at this point, until their service is over and their involvement in the conflict will be memories. Younger less experienced soldiers will take their place, soldier that may be described as "trigger happy" and will certainly lack the leadership skills and NCO's and junior officers that do most of the tactical leadership in the field. So is a protracted conflict with multiple deployments truly the way to support the troops and their families?
For most of us, support the troops may consist of the contemporary shallow expression of patriotism of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon on their car. I got nothing against the yellow ribbon per se, but really what does it mean. I mean we send cookies, letters, toiletries, etc. I imagine Iraq must be littered with baby wipes at this point. But do these small efforts, and our thoughts and prayers resonate with those mostly young folks who are risking everything?
Will the cost of caring for our veterans who are wounded, both those whose wounds are visible and those that may be hidden for decades become victims of budget cuts or a bureaucratic morass that benefits the drug dealers of big pharma more than those that have served us? Recently we've seen what this move to veteran's care can look like at Walter Reed, already a failure in leadership. Where was the chain of command here? How could someone, a general, a captain, a sergeant, a custodian possibly let this happen?
When other vets come home, those that will need to transition to civilian culture, will the support be there? For jobs, both public and private, for time, the understanding that it will take some of these guys time to transition to an America that has had a very small part of its population make an actual sacrifice, and even benefited from tax cuts during war time.
As my daughter is born during what has become an unpopular war, I think of myself being born during another unpopular was and the lifelong effect it had on my uncles returning and then thinking of Elena's uncle Jim. The politics and society of my childhood in retrospect appeared to be a reflection of the first generation of American warriors to come home in defeat, not at the fault of the warrior but of the politician. We must remember to honor and respect and reward the warrior, to repair the mistakes of a generation passed.
Monday, March 12, 2007
National Security: Beyond the Water's Edge
When the political objective is important, clearly defined and understood, when the risks are acceptable, and when the use of force can be effectively combined with diplomatic and economic policies, then clear and unambiguous objectives must be given to the armed forces. Gen. Colin Powell
Politics ends at the water’s edge. September 11th, 2001 defined a sea change in how America perceived the rest of the world. Not since Pearl Harbor had their been a large scale attack on American soil, but even that attack in 1941 happened in an area of the world that was not defined in the American psyche as American at that point. Hawaii of 1941 was perceived as a sleepy American territory used as a naval outpost and a dream vacation for those of means. New York City is the capital of the New World and this terrorist attack was an attack on a symbol that was known to every American. These images were burned into the minds and ire of all Americans, we looked not for explanation and understanding but for revenge and closure.
My mother saw the second tower fall. As a mother she was more concerned about us in Massachusetts than herself in lower Manhattan. This is the nature of parents, I didn't really get it until recently. When I look at my daughter, I wonder about the world she'll grow up in.
I think back to those tragic days of early fall 2001, those couple weeks to month of complete faith in our President to do the right thing. Those months where we struggled to figure out a response. And that response of course was a "no brainer" to attack the training facilities of the 19 that had attempted to bring the most powerful nation of the world to it's knees.
There perhaps has never been a moment in American history outside that bombing of Pearl Harbor where so many Americans were of the same mind and resolve. The use of superbly trained and effective special operations forces supported by air power and the Afghan Northern Alliance among others, made quick work of the Taliban who harbored Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. What happened next is what went wrong.
With the proverbial wind at our back swelled with international support against radical islamic terrorism, we fought the wrong war. Iraq suddenly became the enemy, despite the fact that under Saddam it would be virtually impossible for al-Qaeda to operate. Now don't get me wrong, Saddam was a complete bastard but a cascade of half truths and fear drove us quickly and unprepared into battle.
What was lost was support of our allies, suddenly the French and "old Europe" were celebrated as cowards that did not understand the new world order. Despite the fact that they supported the effort in Afghanistan and certainly would be willing allies in the "war on terror". In the Muslim world and on the "Arab Street" any support for US policy suddenly vanished in the shock and awe.
Playing the "shouldas" and "couldas" is a popular parlor game for many of us but it strikes me odd to think if so many of us in late winter 2003 could have predicted what was to happen in Iraq and the effect of Iraq on the rest of our international policy, why could those with access to the best intelligence and information make such poor decisions and have only excuses to show for it?
Will the President make the decision for a radical turn in foreign policy and international relations by taking a huge mea culpa for the actions of the past four years? Can he treat it as the most expensive mulligan of all time and beg for forgiveness from the rest of the world, blaming it on some sort of dry drunk psychosis?
Hopefully this work towards repairing the stature of the United States in the world will start immediately, the idea of America has always been at least as powerful as our economic and military might. Likely, however it will fall to our next President, and again much of the fate of the world falls into the hands of the American electorate.
Politics ends at the water’s edge. September 11th, 2001 defined a sea change in how America perceived the rest of the world. Not since Pearl Harbor had their been a large scale attack on American soil, but even that attack in 1941 happened in an area of the world that was not defined in the American psyche as American at that point. Hawaii of 1941 was perceived as a sleepy American territory used as a naval outpost and a dream vacation for those of means. New York City is the capital of the New World and this terrorist attack was an attack on a symbol that was known to every American. These images were burned into the minds and ire of all Americans, we looked not for explanation and understanding but for revenge and closure.
My mother saw the second tower fall. As a mother she was more concerned about us in Massachusetts than herself in lower Manhattan. This is the nature of parents, I didn't really get it until recently. When I look at my daughter, I wonder about the world she'll grow up in.
I think back to those tragic days of early fall 2001, those couple weeks to month of complete faith in our President to do the right thing. Those months where we struggled to figure out a response. And that response of course was a "no brainer" to attack the training facilities of the 19 that had attempted to bring the most powerful nation of the world to it's knees.
There perhaps has never been a moment in American history outside that bombing of Pearl Harbor where so many Americans were of the same mind and resolve. The use of superbly trained and effective special operations forces supported by air power and the Afghan Northern Alliance among others, made quick work of the Taliban who harbored Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. What happened next is what went wrong.
With the proverbial wind at our back swelled with international support against radical islamic terrorism, we fought the wrong war. Iraq suddenly became the enemy, despite the fact that under Saddam it would be virtually impossible for al-Qaeda to operate. Now don't get me wrong, Saddam was a complete bastard but a cascade of half truths and fear drove us quickly and unprepared into battle.
What was lost was support of our allies, suddenly the French and "old Europe" were celebrated as cowards that did not understand the new world order. Despite the fact that they supported the effort in Afghanistan and certainly would be willing allies in the "war on terror". In the Muslim world and on the "Arab Street" any support for US policy suddenly vanished in the shock and awe.
Playing the "shouldas" and "couldas" is a popular parlor game for many of us but it strikes me odd to think if so many of us in late winter 2003 could have predicted what was to happen in Iraq and the effect of Iraq on the rest of our international policy, why could those with access to the best intelligence and information make such poor decisions and have only excuses to show for it?
Will the President make the decision for a radical turn in foreign policy and international relations by taking a huge mea culpa for the actions of the past four years? Can he treat it as the most expensive mulligan of all time and beg for forgiveness from the rest of the world, blaming it on some sort of dry drunk psychosis?
Hopefully this work towards repairing the stature of the United States in the world will start immediately, the idea of America has always been at least as powerful as our economic and military might. Likely, however it will fall to our next President, and again much of the fate of the world falls into the hands of the American electorate.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
On Fiscal Responsibility
Supplemental budgets. Earmarks. Pork barrel. All the signs of a tax and spend Democratic legislature/congress/President out of control. How did they get us into this financial morass?
Wait a second. This is what the GOP has done to us. How did the "daddy" party become the party of the drunken frat brother at his best friend's bachelor party with a stolen credit card?
We are a nation at war, nearly 4 years in Iraq and over 5 and half in Afghanistan. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 we have dutifully "gone after" enemies, both real and imagined while continuing to cut taxes along the way. Supplemental budgets, needed to appropriately equip armies in the field have continued to be outside the ordinary budget process, not to include the so-called "black" budgets for intelligence operations that have the scrutiny of only a few, and in the case of "Duke" Cunningham sometimes corrupt congressman. All these numbers, add up to huge sums of money for national defense and offense, which we have delegated to be financed through Asian central banks and of course our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Other wars, especially World War II, have led to appropriate to near confiscatory levels of taxation, the understanding being that if you are in a conflict, there will be levels of taxation commensurate with the struggle you are in. Wars are expensive, both in blood and treasure, and sometimes can rip at the very soul of a nation. The topic of the "War on Terror" is for another time.
On top of what is not being paid for in the name of national defense are the burgeoning costs of the retirement and health care of the baby boomers. Perhaps the most spoiled generation outside the families of Caesar or that of the court of the Sun King, the fiscal costs of aging baby boomers are probably only equaled by the political power that this generation will have. The costs of social security and the costs of life-extending health care are a bomb ready to go off. The same generation that is now screaming for cuts in taxes, will be screaming for increases in the entitlements as elder citizens.
A program like Social Security which was intended for our elderly to be given the dignity to live their lives out of poverty was not intended to supplement a millionaire's lifestyle. Social Security is the so-called "third rail" of American politics. Generally if you state you "support the troops", wave a flag, kiss a baby, and support Social Security, you can be re-elected to the House of Representatives. There is grave, grave poor logic in not addressing the future of Social Security, anyone who has an even rudimentary knowledge of basic math can see that we are whistling past the graveyard when it comes to the future of US entitlements.
The fear of course, for our generally courage lacking leadership is that they will be painted as a.) not caring about the elderly, b.) a tax and spend liberal, c.) wanting to take money that I have put into the system, d.) other label invented by 5 focus groups and some dork in a conservative, think tank from Princeton who never had a date. One idea is private accounts, the idea that we can let Wall Street have something else to charge extraordinary fees on a current percentage of Social Security payroll taxes, if only we already had something like this, oh wait what's this in 401K of the Internal Revenue Code? This is a job for the synergy of greater minds than mine, and not something an economist from the Heritage foundation happened to mention to GW on Air Force One.
The costs of deficits in all area of government are yet to be borne. We have a generation that is to paraphrase Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, unwilling to pay the appropriate "price of civilization" or make the tough choices in expenditures. I believe the next President must have the fortitude and understanding that he/she is likely to be a one term president if he/she is to make the difficult choices. I anxiously await strong, independent leadership from the White House and Congress.
Wait a second. This is what the GOP has done to us. How did the "daddy" party become the party of the drunken frat brother at his best friend's bachelor party with a stolen credit card?
We are a nation at war, nearly 4 years in Iraq and over 5 and half in Afghanistan. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 we have dutifully "gone after" enemies, both real and imagined while continuing to cut taxes along the way. Supplemental budgets, needed to appropriately equip armies in the field have continued to be outside the ordinary budget process, not to include the so-called "black" budgets for intelligence operations that have the scrutiny of only a few, and in the case of "Duke" Cunningham sometimes corrupt congressman. All these numbers, add up to huge sums of money for national defense and offense, which we have delegated to be financed through Asian central banks and of course our grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Other wars, especially World War II, have led to appropriate to near confiscatory levels of taxation, the understanding being that if you are in a conflict, there will be levels of taxation commensurate with the struggle you are in. Wars are expensive, both in blood and treasure, and sometimes can rip at the very soul of a nation. The topic of the "War on Terror" is for another time.
On top of what is not being paid for in the name of national defense are the burgeoning costs of the retirement and health care of the baby boomers. Perhaps the most spoiled generation outside the families of Caesar or that of the court of the Sun King, the fiscal costs of aging baby boomers are probably only equaled by the political power that this generation will have. The costs of social security and the costs of life-extending health care are a bomb ready to go off. The same generation that is now screaming for cuts in taxes, will be screaming for increases in the entitlements as elder citizens.
A program like Social Security which was intended for our elderly to be given the dignity to live their lives out of poverty was not intended to supplement a millionaire's lifestyle. Social Security is the so-called "third rail" of American politics. Generally if you state you "support the troops", wave a flag, kiss a baby, and support Social Security, you can be re-elected to the House of Representatives. There is grave, grave poor logic in not addressing the future of Social Security, anyone who has an even rudimentary knowledge of basic math can see that we are whistling past the graveyard when it comes to the future of US entitlements.
The fear of course, for our generally courage lacking leadership is that they will be painted as a.) not caring about the elderly, b.) a tax and spend liberal, c.) wanting to take money that I have put into the system, d.) other label invented by 5 focus groups and some dork in a conservative, think tank from Princeton who never had a date. One idea is private accounts, the idea that we can let Wall Street have something else to charge extraordinary fees on a current percentage of Social Security payroll taxes, if only we already had something like this, oh wait what's this in 401K of the Internal Revenue Code? This is a job for the synergy of greater minds than mine, and not something an economist from the Heritage foundation happened to mention to GW on Air Force One.
The costs of deficits in all area of government are yet to be borne. We have a generation that is to paraphrase Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, unwilling to pay the appropriate "price of civilization" or make the tough choices in expenditures. I believe the next President must have the fortitude and understanding that he/she is likely to be a one term president if he/she is to make the difficult choices. I anxiously await strong, independent leadership from the White House and Congress.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Things I'm not that liberal about
I've often been accused by people that don't know me that well but know of my propensity to talk about social justice as being a bleeding heart liberal. Not liberal in the classical sense, but in the modern American connotation of liberal. It's funny, because I think I used to lean towards socialism, maybe even just being a "red". As I grow old, I change, especially now that I'm more invested in the capitalist system. As my wife says, "there's something really creepy about a young republican", it's the time to be liberal, hell even anarchistic.
I'm very liberal/progressive about many things, the subject of another post but here's a few things that I don't fall in line with many of my progressive brethern.
Education: I'm a strong proponent of charter schools, now I know there likely won't be enough to go around to serve everyone but as a supporter of public education, I believe they are a good tool as an incubator for experimental processes and as an alternative to schools that are failing children. However I think vouchers are stupid. I like the idea of states being able to award charters, and think they should be taken away equally as fast if the charter fails. I am also very pro-teacher but am concerned about unions that protect the weakest of teachers and don't promote what is best for children. I'm pro-standards based testing as well, it's the only way to hold schools, districts and the state accountable for all of the taxpayer's hard earned money we're spending. I think principals and superintendents of schools that are failing children and communities should have the ability to have control over hiring the best possible staff for their schools and should be accountable for their performance.
Guns: I'm pro-long weapon; shotguns, rifles, I believe that everyone should own a musket, imagine what would happen if every law abiding citizen had a musket. I also think that one should have to go through a mandated gun class if they want a license/FID. Assault weapons and handguns are a whole other thing, except for law enforcement and security. Ain't no point for those weapons, no one ever hunted a rabbit with an AK or started a revolution with a Glock.
Immigration: Like most Americans, I am pro-legal immigration. This country was built by immigrants, hell most Americans are immigrants or children of immigrants. I have nothing against non-documented folks, I've advocated for them as individuals, helped to educate them and believe that ALL children should get the best education possible in our public schools. However, there are just not enough entry level jobs to go around. I know that these good folks do a lot of work Americans don't want to do, figure out a way to legalize them. Even worse are the people who exploit them, paying subminimum wage, abusing foreign workers and keeping American unskilled workers from taking those jobs. Special work visas would be a great idea. I'm not sure how this can be controlled, a fence is just ridiculous. You think all these Asian and Brazilian undocumented folks are just crossing the Rio Grande? A fence? A fence? Crazy talk. Hell, even half my family came on a plane, not a boat or across a river. (okay it was an air force plane from an American protectorate but same thing)
Welfare: Able bodied people should work or be getting training to work. "Make work" programs under the New Deal inspired an entire generation of the tranformative power of labor. Of course, it is difficult to find placements for much of our population that is currently part of the social welfare system, many of these workers are unskilled, undermotivated and undereducated and frequently have child care or social/emotional issues. It must be a priority of our social welfare system to put people to work. Many of us will need assistance sometime in our lives but we must understand that this is a step up, not a step out.
Law and Order: Do the crime, do the time. Many of our drug laws are absurd and we lock a lot of people up for non-violent activities, they need to be reformed. But if you are involved in violence against anyone else, it is an attack on our entire community. Trafficking of crack cocaine and heroin is an attack on our entire community. Violence against women and children should have the harshest of penalties. And gun crimes of any kind should have a mandatory harsh sentence as well. I struggle with the death penalty, while you can release a prisoner after a mistake, you can give them their life back, but for treason or activities that threaten our very rule of law, such as the murder of a police officer, or court official, it is hard to make a case against capital punishment.
Capitalism: Nothing wrong with making money. Work hard, play by the rules, pay your fair share of taxes, give your part to charity, get rich. But remember how you got there. Without your contribution to the general welfare, you'd have nothing.
Yeah so that's enough to get my credentials pulled from the liberal of the month club.
I'm very liberal/progressive about many things, the subject of another post but here's a few things that I don't fall in line with many of my progressive brethern.
Education: I'm a strong proponent of charter schools, now I know there likely won't be enough to go around to serve everyone but as a supporter of public education, I believe they are a good tool as an incubator for experimental processes and as an alternative to schools that are failing children. However I think vouchers are stupid. I like the idea of states being able to award charters, and think they should be taken away equally as fast if the charter fails. I am also very pro-teacher but am concerned about unions that protect the weakest of teachers and don't promote what is best for children. I'm pro-standards based testing as well, it's the only way to hold schools, districts and the state accountable for all of the taxpayer's hard earned money we're spending. I think principals and superintendents of schools that are failing children and communities should have the ability to have control over hiring the best possible staff for their schools and should be accountable for their performance.
Guns: I'm pro-long weapon; shotguns, rifles, I believe that everyone should own a musket, imagine what would happen if every law abiding citizen had a musket. I also think that one should have to go through a mandated gun class if they want a license/FID. Assault weapons and handguns are a whole other thing, except for law enforcement and security. Ain't no point for those weapons, no one ever hunted a rabbit with an AK or started a revolution with a Glock.
Immigration: Like most Americans, I am pro-legal immigration. This country was built by immigrants, hell most Americans are immigrants or children of immigrants. I have nothing against non-documented folks, I've advocated for them as individuals, helped to educate them and believe that ALL children should get the best education possible in our public schools. However, there are just not enough entry level jobs to go around. I know that these good folks do a lot of work Americans don't want to do, figure out a way to legalize them. Even worse are the people who exploit them, paying subminimum wage, abusing foreign workers and keeping American unskilled workers from taking those jobs. Special work visas would be a great idea. I'm not sure how this can be controlled, a fence is just ridiculous. You think all these Asian and Brazilian undocumented folks are just crossing the Rio Grande? A fence? A fence? Crazy talk. Hell, even half my family came on a plane, not a boat or across a river. (okay it was an air force plane from an American protectorate but same thing)
Welfare: Able bodied people should work or be getting training to work. "Make work" programs under the New Deal inspired an entire generation of the tranformative power of labor. Of course, it is difficult to find placements for much of our population that is currently part of the social welfare system, many of these workers are unskilled, undermotivated and undereducated and frequently have child care or social/emotional issues. It must be a priority of our social welfare system to put people to work. Many of us will need assistance sometime in our lives but we must understand that this is a step up, not a step out.
Law and Order: Do the crime, do the time. Many of our drug laws are absurd and we lock a lot of people up for non-violent activities, they need to be reformed. But if you are involved in violence against anyone else, it is an attack on our entire community. Trafficking of crack cocaine and heroin is an attack on our entire community. Violence against women and children should have the harshest of penalties. And gun crimes of any kind should have a mandatory harsh sentence as well. I struggle with the death penalty, while you can release a prisoner after a mistake, you can give them their life back, but for treason or activities that threaten our very rule of law, such as the murder of a police officer, or court official, it is hard to make a case against capital punishment.
Capitalism: Nothing wrong with making money. Work hard, play by the rules, pay your fair share of taxes, give your part to charity, get rich. But remember how you got there. Without your contribution to the general welfare, you'd have nothing.
Yeah so that's enough to get my credentials pulled from the liberal of the month club.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Boston Massacre
237 years ago today, not far from where the old state house stands, the Boston Massacre occurred, along with the story of Evacuation Day, it's one of my more long winded stories I hope to tell my daughter and drag her around the Freedom trail with my less than willing nieces and nephews alongside. Well, except maybe Jeremy who may follow in his Uncle's dorky fascination with all that is American History.
The real story to me of the Boston Massacre, other than the effect of drunken Boston mobs and snowballs with rocks have on the history of the United States is John Adams, and more to the fact why I love to live in Massachusetts. That is the true meaning of this entry.
For political reasons, mostly to avoid moderates from being disaffected from the Patriot movement, Adams with others elected to defend the British soldiers accused in the "massacre" One of the things that makes me proud is that instead of rule of the mob and being tried in the media, these "lobsta backs" were tried in a fair court of law and received relatively light sentences for their actions. Apparently it is difficult to be a member of an occupation army where you are not wanted. Where the fog of war and confusion and an unabashed media can makes things difficult for an average soldier who is just trying to do his job and survive to the next day.
Which brings me to tonite's dinner. We were invited by an "older" couple from church to dinner at their home. (I'm defining older as anyone older than my mom) They invited another "older" couple as well. Jim, the owner of the home was a cop in Cambridge for 24 years, and like many of us at the church, a "recovering Catholic", his wife is a CPA, the other couple consisted of a IT headhunter who is a Vietnam veteran and his wife who is a pre school director. Jim is the guy who "brings the banana bread." A euphemism a Catholic friend came up with as parishioners at First Congregational Melrose will stop by new attendees houses with baked goods and a follow up visit after you first attend services. (we've been members of this church for a little over a year)
I had to admit, I was a little nervous at first, you never know when a conversation is going to get out of hand, where Amway is suddenly going to be brought up or a plan to blow up a family planning clinic may start. On the surface, the idea of meeting with a Vietnam vet and a ex-cop and their spouses on a Sunday evening after church may appear to be the beginning of Karl Rove's core constituency, but suffice to say, the rest of the evening is why I love Massachusetts.
Very progressive and thoughtful Christian people with hope for the future and their children and grandchildren. Folks who want to be educated and be engaged in a positive future.
Bill, the Vietnam vet, at one point talked about John Kerry, "hey no matter what you feel about the guy, he was saying what a lot of us were thinking when we got back from the war", and he got persecuted for it. He also said it wasn't enough being antiwar but quoted Mother Teresa, "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."
Four hours later, it was time for Elena, mom and papi to go to bed as papi has to get up at 4:30 to go to Worcester but the conversation moved from education to politics to the War in Iraq to the man in the White House. Our core values were part the idea of our shared Christian faith, where we are allowed to worship devoid of the driving hate, that has become the calling card of many evangelicals, our secular altar was cut in the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and others who have followed.
Massachusetts values are family values. The right wing needs to get over it.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Return of the Angry Middle
The original intent behind the Angry Middle was to create a book that talked about my politics, that is someone who values libertarianism but not at the expense of community. Someone who believes government can do great things, build infrastructure like health care, education, roads, and bridges and defend us from our enemies. While at the same time, staying out of American’s private lives and leave the opportunity for people to get rich and live the American dream. Someone that believes that my faith and my family is my business, I won’t mess with yours and you don’t mess with mine.
The idea that most people are content to be somewhere in the middle politically, but loudmouths and buffoons on the left and on the right seem to want to spend all their time and money forcing the issues to extremes when usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The idea that if I work hard, play by the rules, pay my fair share of taxes and generally am civic minded (hell, even if it’s just shoveling your damn sidewalk) that I can be successful, get to drink beers and eat ribs in the sun, retire, bounce some grandkids on my knee and die in a clean bed.
Yeah, a little bit Norman Rockwell, I guess or at least his poor Puerto Rican cousin from the nation’s capital. I think I feel the things a lot of Americans feel. I thought that I could write several chapters about national defense, economics, education, civil rights, workforce and business development and all that kind of stuff and write the policy wonk’s version of the great American novel. But you know, there are 162+ Red Sox games a year, at least 20 weeks of football and you know a family and work that are going to keep me from doing that so here I go.
I got inspired by work friends and colleagues to restart this thing. http://workingmomsblog.blogspot.com/ and http://generallybob.blogspot.com/ , both wicked smart people in their own ways and as a way to write stuff that is not in a few paragraphs of highly edited impenetrable, government, whatever the opposite of prose is.
So I’ll mix in stories about my now almost 10 week old daughter with certainly some bloviating about politics, the Red Sox, music, books, my house and garden, etc. And probably a lot of stories about bbq’s, beer and tomatoes now that spring will soon be upon us.
The idea that most people are content to be somewhere in the middle politically, but loudmouths and buffoons on the left and on the right seem to want to spend all their time and money forcing the issues to extremes when usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The idea that if I work hard, play by the rules, pay my fair share of taxes and generally am civic minded (hell, even if it’s just shoveling your damn sidewalk) that I can be successful, get to drink beers and eat ribs in the sun, retire, bounce some grandkids on my knee and die in a clean bed.
Yeah, a little bit Norman Rockwell, I guess or at least his poor Puerto Rican cousin from the nation’s capital. I think I feel the things a lot of Americans feel. I thought that I could write several chapters about national defense, economics, education, civil rights, workforce and business development and all that kind of stuff and write the policy wonk’s version of the great American novel. But you know, there are 162+ Red Sox games a year, at least 20 weeks of football and you know a family and work that are going to keep me from doing that so here I go.
I got inspired by work friends and colleagues to restart this thing. http://workingmomsblog.blogspot.com/ and http://generallybob.blogspot.com/ , both wicked smart people in their own ways and as a way to write stuff that is not in a few paragraphs of highly edited impenetrable, government, whatever the opposite of prose is.
So I’ll mix in stories about my now almost 10 week old daughter with certainly some bloviating about politics, the Red Sox, music, books, my house and garden, etc. And probably a lot of stories about bbq’s, beer and tomatoes now that spring will soon be upon us.
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