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.

Is That A Gong I Hear In The Distance?

With gas prices skyrocketing, jobs disappearing, recession looming, wars raging, and concern about America's direction spreading like California wildfires, any attempt to pump up interest in China is, at this time, a hard sell. Soberingly, China may play the largest role of any nation, outside our own, in this litany of converging nightmares. In making a sale, timing counts. Even Americans who dismiss China as no more than a far off dictatorship purveying cheap products will soon be watching a nightly NBC program from Beijing. The Olympics will bring the reality of China's progress into sharp contrast with our own national decline in ways that may touch the previously unimpressed. 

Why should Americans, with no shortage of their own problems, begin to pay attention to a country that, until 30 years ago, was populated by a billion peasants and a handful of autocrats? This page of the newspaper lacks the space to list all the reasons, but here are a handful worthy of attention: 

1. By negotiating away America's advantages in international trade deals, Presidents Clinton and Bush ceded China the right to a $256 billion trade surplus in 2007, now growing at $1 billion per day; 

2. By resorting to Chinese financing for the Iraq war, America has increased its debt from nearly $6 trillion in 2000 to nearly $10 trillion today; 

3. General Motors, which often seems to have lost its hunger for pre-eminence, sold more Buicks in China last year than in the United States;

4. China is successfully carrying out a national strategy of coöpting Africa's natural resources to promote China's growth and, in the process, shoving aside all would-be competitors; 

5. The number of Chinese drivers continues to increase by 30% annually (that doubles the base every 2.5 years) while China is aggressively pursuing a policy of replacing the U.S. as the world's largest auto producer.

If we didn't have to leave America to our kids and grandchildren perhaps we could ignore Thomas Jefferson's conclusion on the meaning of our current situation vis-a-vis China: I place...public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We need to sell ourselves and our leaders on the urgency of dealing with China in a way that protects our most vital national interests. We have recently been reminded that in a democracy nothing constructive happens unless we citizens push for it.