Newspaper Ecology

6-29-08           

In order to save space (column inches) in the editorial section, all newspapers should immediately cease publishing conservatives’ explanations of their positions on political issues. Instead, simply list their concerns without elaboration. How could that be fair? Conservatives’ positions on important issues need no longer be written down because they are unanimous, invariable, and widely known by all newspaper readers. Guns? Nothing better. Abortion? Evil personified. Change of any kind? Mankind’s curse. Separation of church and state? Obviously the founding fathers experienced a senior moment. Therapeutic stem cell research? God is opposed. Capital punishment? The Old Testament approves so what else do you need to know. Wars? If you don’t kill bad guys, the world will never understand how peace loving we are. The economy? The free market solves all problems, except maybe $4 per gallon gasoline and housing crises and environmental devastation. I could go on, but you probably see my point by now.

A recent letter – running to 15.5 column inches - from a conservative argued that America’s enemies do not deserve Constitutional protection. This argument might hold a little water if we had used our pea-sized brains to pinpoint who those enemies are. Of the 13,000 prisoners randomly thrown into Abu Ghraib at its peak, 10% are believed to have harmed America’s interests in some way. That means 90% were incarcerated out of ignorance or laziness, or simply because our troops were too rushed to check them out. Of that 90% who meant us no harm, a number are now committed jihadists as a result of their unlawful and abusive detention.

If the 775 Guantanamo detainees are the offspring of a late-night union between Beelzebub and the bogeyman as our government would have us believe, why have 420 (54%) been released without charge? Given this proven proclivity to lock up the guiltless, why is our government apoplectic about the Supreme Court’s verdict requiring adherence to the Constitutional requirement for habeas corpus? Is there a possibility that the evidence doesn’t support our President’s oft-repeated assertion that these are the worst of the worst? But even if they are, only our reverence for the rule of law protects us from the savagery with which governments of previous centuries (and some still) treated their citizens and enemies as well. Perhaps we should, out of self-interest, honor and trust the Constitution that made this debate possible.

Conservatives are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but since we already know in detail what those opinions are, why use valuable space to print the same thing again and again? Lest I be accused of unbalanced views, this opinion applies equally to left-wing liberal writings exhibiting little or no thought. Opinions deserve a hearing only if there is an obvious application of at least one ounce of brain power to their formation.

Privileged Information

America has a dirty little secret, and it forms one of the pillars of our democracy: Many in our voting population – perhaps a majority - are so distracted or so ill-informed that they can often be persuaded to support candidates opposed to the voters’ own interests. Politicians wishing to exploit this large group need only aggregate lists of voters who rely on mysticism to guide their lives, stay in touch with the 60% of Americans who can’t find Iraq on a world map, maintain that dissent and disloyalty are synonymous, promote tax breaks for the rich as a means of helping the poor, and ferret out those who lay claim to political conviction but whose attention span seldom lasts through a complete news cycle.  By appealing to the misconceptions of this multitude in ways that evoke nostalgia, machismo, and unquestioning obedience to authority, exploitative politicians can persuade them to ignore evidence when it shows their representatives acting in politically abusive ways.

Pity the poor Democrats.  They not only don’t know about these political victims, they mistakenly believe that any voter can be persuaded, by reason, logic, facts, and evidence, to support his own self-interests. More reality-based political parties see in these folk a rich vein of political ore that can be mined time and time again to achieve electoral gains.

While marveling at the self-destructive nature of our policies in recent years, both foreign and domestic, the rest of the world seems to have discovered our dirty little secret before we became aware of it ourselves.

No Longer in Denial

Hosni Mubarak has acceded to the wishes of 80 million of his countrymen, or "children", as he calls them, and taken up residence in Sharm El Sheikh, where the $40 to $70 billion he looted during the past three decades should keep him comfortable  for the foreseeable future. At the lower number, he paid himself, annually, 2500 times as much as the President of the United States. He was accumulating wealth almost at the same rate as Bernie Madow, and with only slightly more ethical slippage. If his job performance was that stellar, you'd think his fellow Egyptians would have had fewer complaints.

Egypt has stood up and nominated herself for great nation status. By the nature of her revolution she seems to have earned it.  Let's hope that by this time next year the deal will be consummated. Like America, success will be measured in jobs created. It's rumored that unlike America, Egypt will not provide tax incentives to businessmen for creating employment in low-wage countries.

Defending Our Defenders

At last. A complex issue that even those who paint the world in black and white can understand. USA Today (Feb. 10, 2011) reported that 16% of homeless people are veterans. Since veterans make up only 10% of the adult population, this ratio far exceeds expectations. More than 136,00 veterans spent at least one night in a homeless shelter last year, a number which fails to tally those living exclusively on the streets.

Those whose extol the virtues of war and pound their chests over their professed support for the military are caught, it seems to me, on the horns of a philosophical dilemma. The stereotypes we hold of the needy don’t jibe with our notion of the character of our troops.  Yet the numbers tell a story of people who need a hand and whom, in an earlier life, all of us would have applauded. What’s going on here?

There are, it would appear, real problems that can’t be solved by issuing more guns, excluding aliens, or giving further tax breaks to the rich. People who served this country, and who once made it on their own, are in need of a hand to help them get their lives back on track.  Will private industry extend that hand? Not likely with 14 million unemployed workers and no clear self-interest at stake. Will churches or charities provide anything more than a meal or a cot? Most can’t afford to.  Will state governments fill the breach?  Not with the current stampede to trim down every aspect of their budgets that involve any form of benevolence.

That leaves only (gasp!) the Federal Government to provide job retraining, healthcare, counseling, and whatever else is needed to help these veterans regain some modest level of prosperity.  Yes, you got yours because you are so smart and self-motivated. Some of us just caught a lucky break. But wouldn’t we all be better off if we lived in a country where there is a pathway to renewal for all those who choose to walk it? 

There are a million gut wrenching stories out there.  Many are complex and deserve a hearing and perhaps even a helping hand.  Those who instinctively turn their backs on the needy suffer from a kind of moral bankruptcy that far exceeds the poverty of those sleeping under bridges.  Worse, they are uncaring or ignorant of the innumerable instances where intervention has elevated a life or an entire family.  When distributed rationally, the $10 trillion national income pie is big enough for all of us to enjoy a generous slice, especially those who fell on hard times after, or perhaps as a result of, defending America.

Now Which Piece Was Dialectical? 6-28-2008

With all due respect to Mr. John Brock (a moralizing columnist for the Waccamaw Times, an extension of the local church bulletin), I believe rumors of our moral demise are greatly exaggerated. While devoid of any understanding of what dialectical materialism is or means, Mr. Brock is at least clever enough to use the adult surrogate for the bogeyman, Karl Marx, to panic us into shunning ‘change’ in all its nefarious disguises.  Prohibit change, the conservative Brock  tell us, and we can begin to turn back the clock to those halcyon days of yore when all was right with the world.  He and his nostalgic (mostly) male collaborators suggest that all important decisions on all important issues were made before the year 1800, and the really big ones long before that. If you concur, then while re-winding your grandfather’s clock, smack yourself soundly on the head to erase the knowledge that those were the days when powerful institutions controlled nearly all of the life and death forces that determined our well being on earth and beyond.  Tighten your blindfold to avoid exposure to the fact that suppressing the minds and circumscribing the rights and activities of women were the primary tool for inhibiting change.  Struggle to ignore the reality that without change, a significant portion of Americans would still qualify as the “property” of another American.  Do all this, and you too can be numbered among those conservatives with minds like steel traps that, to our sorrow, snapped shut when they were 17 and have not been pried loose since.

Change is not a liberal plot. It is a fundamental process of reality that envelopes us when science begins to dominate our intellectual processes, when superstition and fear begin to loosen their grip on our lives, and when well meaning men and women work arm in arm to make what improvements they can  to a flawed world. To those unpersuaded by these arguments and still lusting for a return to yesteryear, please check ticket prices to Iran or Saudi Arabia. If you promise to take Rush Limbaugh with you, and not return, I will send a check for both your tickets.

Tea Party Tidbit

Is there a way to understand how people who deny the relevance of facts, history and the importance of knowledge have become a power base for a major political party?

The Germ of an Idea - 9-29-09

The phrase ‘Death Panels’, a fevered figment of Betsy McCaughey’s fertile imagination, was adopted by Sarah Palin to bludgeon Democrats. Ironically, it may contain the germ of an idea worth discussing. The end-of-life scenario in which God alone writes the plot is, far too often, excruciating,  impoverishing, and inhumane for both the sufferer and surviving loved ones. Thoughtful people cope with end-of-life issues with living wills, but far too many neglect this option until it is too late for a self-directed outcome.  After a heart attack, my neighbor and Congressional representative, for example, lay in a coma for nearly eight years with no hope of recovery while her loved ones agonized and the family’s reserves disappeared.  In Florida, legal battles raged and politicians paraded their piety to their base while a woman declared brain dead by doctors was displayed over and over on television. Dying with dignity, it seems, is no easy achievement.

But a legally established panel of ethicists, medical professionals, and other qualified and compassionate parties without agendas (no preachers, priests,  or politicians, please) could, at least in part,  restore the most important individual right routinely denied millions – the right to depart this life on one’s own terms.  Since 2.5 million people die each year in America, this issue is of current concern to a vast number of citizens, and eventually to all but a fortunate few. In cases of terminal illnesses where recovery is impossible and there is no quality of life, physician-assisted suicide should be available. It is used responsibly, respectfully, and effectively by a small number of people in Oregon and should be an option for all who consciously choose it. This concept offends only those who believe they should control your choices.

For better or for worse we are all mortal. No one among us sees ourselves as a conduit for constant pain in circumstances that are humiliating and costly, but many of us arrive there with no way out.  Death Panels, a lie designed to deceive people about their end-of-life planning responsibilities, might be turned to a more noble purpose, Death with Dignity Panels.

Anyone who believes that our national wealth is infinite, that it’s appropriate to spend  vast amounts of that wealth on lives devoid of sentience, and that people get the suffering they deserve should feel at liberty to disagree with the opinions expressed, as should anyone wed to the notion that compulsion is to be preferred over compassion.

Cursed Complexity

Curse you, complexity! Half of America reviles you more than the tax collector.  Between denying your existence and refusing to come to grips with the reality that you rule, they solve the problems you create with slogans: My country right or wrong; If you hate the war, you hate the troops; Right to life;  the ‘real’ America; lock and load; Guns don't kill;  Let's take back our country; You’re either with us or you’re against us. If only this level of simplicity had ever solved a single problem in the course of history, what a wonderful life this would be. But “nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could,” as Julie Andrews, who apparently understands complexity, musically revealed.

Our country is not, at the most fundamental level, divided by racism, nor by intellectual barriers, or even by class hatred.  What keeps us on different pages of the American hymnal is that half of us refuse to acknowledge that our planet is a complex place to live a life.  This is not a matter of degrees.  My brother-in-law the truck driver, whose formal education ended at high school, holds sophisticated views on politics and is well informed on a variety of important topics.  He deals with complex personal issues with a wisdom beyond the reach of most of us. Above all, he meets the only requirement our world lays down for those wishing to lead a meaningful existence – he keeps his mind open until the facts are in, and then he acts appropriately.

Open mindedness is a door to adulthood.  It’s a simple attitude that captures the spirit of all the complex ideas the founding fathers used to invent a democratic form of government. It is a mindset that certifies its possessor  as a grown-up who believes in his ability to make a difference.  But when absent from people’s approach to the world,  it disqualifies them from being taken seriously about anything they think or write or say.

Infinite Wealth - 10-26-08

Much of importance has been mysteriously missing from the national dialogue in recent years.  To me, the most critical element is the lack of a cost-benefits analysis addressing our national priorities. Boring but absolutely essential. Even the wealthiest nation in world history faces financial constraints. To fight a war is to postpone bridge building and child health care. To bail out investment bankers is to cut back on elements of the War on Terror. To purchase a multi-billion dollar fleet of air-to-air refueling tankers may mean delaying steel reinforcement of Humvees. To build up the strategic oil reserve could delay implementation of alternative fuel strategies.  None of this is a judgment on the merits of one choice over another.  It is merely a statement of the obvious – a choice, national or personal, once made and funded, inevitably affects the range of other choices that can be considered.

For some years now, we have seemed to be operating on an assumption that America’s wealth is infinite. America, of course, has no wealth other than that it collects from taxpayers and what it borrows in the hope that taxpayers will repay the debt.  To date I’ve not met a single taxpayer who regards his ability to respond to the needs of the IRS as infinite – thus the requirement for a dialogue.  

Left to their own devices, politicians may or may not make choices responsive to the wishes of the citizenry. Ideology and political expediency seem to be trumping recognized national needs more and more often. Therefore, citizens must explore ways to make their priorities known and felt in Congress and the White House

Never before in history has this been possible in any realistic sense. Now, with the Internet as a tool of information exchange, we are positioned to tell government how we think and feel on all the issues that directly affect us. All that is missing is the government’s desire to hear our voices, and the relatively simple computer program that would collect, tabulate and forward our opinions to Congress and the President. Is there anyone inside the Beltway who believes in participatory democracy enough to listen?

Columbia's Corridor of Shame -3-11-09

The “Corridor of Shame” is not, as we once thought, a cluster of schools in rural South Carolina.  Instead, it meanders through the heart of  an imposing building at the corner of Gervais and Assembly Streets in Columbia.  In his drive to take the helm of a party that makes the Know Nothings look like the National Science Foundation, Governor Sanford is willing to personally promote the educational mediocrity for which our state is so deservedly famous. After all, what’s the value of political power and a good education if you can’t use them to deny the same to others?

Thanks to the courageous efforts of Congressman Jim Clyburn, Sanford is in position to misdirect less than ten percent of the federal dollars the stimulus package will provide to our state. But $700 million for roads, schools, and unemployment is not chicken feed.  In the most blatant act of unhinged self-indulgence since Bernie Madoff, Sanford will prove his dedication to fiscal responsibility by obstructing payments he asserts would prove “harmful” to South Carolina.

As a left-of-center moderate who until recently believed Republicans had constructive ideas to offer,  it distresses me to see our governor compete with Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Joe Wurzelbacher, and other stunningly mediocre talents for leadership of a party about to be removed from life support.  But apparently this is the field of battle on which he feels most comfortable – the few, the brave, the clueless. And let us not forget - as a man of principle, he walks the corridors of power serving shamelessly the people who put him where he is.