The Limits of Populism

Populism as a political entity has existed in the base and in the grassroots of both major parties for well over a century. For example, at the close of the Nineteenth Century, Populism was a movement spearheaded by William Jennings Bryan and championed by those who wished to switch to a bimetallic currency system. In the 1896 Presidential Election, Jennings rode his charismatic rhetoric and advancement of silver coinage to supplement the Gold Standard into the Democratic Party's nomination. Though Bryan ultimately lost a close race, the roots of this brand of egalitarian Populism would influence liberal political discourse for years to come and, provided enough perspective, one can see its impact even now. However, the problem with Populism is that while it does champion the common person and does provide feel-good empowerment rhetoric designed as a broad call to action, populism by itself has rarely accomplished most of its broadly expansive goals. Much of its prior failings failed to take into account that the problems facing us are rarely as simple as rich versus poor or high born versus low born. Though framing the debate in these terms is always good for a round of applause and choir practice, it doesn't really provide an accurate picture of the complexities that shade and color every substantive issue.

To cite another example, in 1935, Huey P. Long, then Governor of Louisiana, later to be Senator, famously proposed his "Share Our Wealth" program as means to pull Progressive support away from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many of its planks, if proposed today, would draw fire from a wide variety of political corners. Three-quarters of a century after it was formulated, the same charges of radical, destructive, socialistic, and dangerous that we hear today on different matters would be voiced anew. Long's wealth redistribution program must have been what Joe the Plumber was referring to when he criticized Candidate Obama for stating that the Illinois senator was in favor of "spreading the wealth around". Joe must have been a few decades off.

Share Our Wealth proposed, in part:

No person would be allowed to accumulate a personal net worth of more than 100 to 300 times the average family fortune, which would limit personal assets to between $1.5 million and $5 million. Income taxes would be levied to ensure this. Annual capital levy taxes would be assessed on all persons with a net worth exceeding $1 million.

Every family was to be furnished with a homestead allowance of not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country. Every family was to be guaranteed an annual family income of at least $2,000 to $2,500, or not less than one-third of the average annual family income in the United States. Yearly income, however, cannot exceed more than 100 to 300 times the size of the average family income.

Education and training for all children to be equal in opportunity in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions for training in the professions and vocations of life.

The raising of revenue and taxes for the support of this program was to come from the reduction of swollen fortunes from the top, as well as for the support of public works to give employment whenever there may be any slackening necessary in private enterprise.

Much of this sounds desirous and sensible to our ears even today, particularly those of us with a more Socialistic allegiance. Long floated this proposal as a way to shore up his loyal base of voters in an overwhelmingly poor, agrarian state where the disparities between the rich and poor had always been vast. What we sometimes forget in this day and age is that even the rural Southern voter once considered Socialism a potential solution in a time of great crisis. The Great Depression was a catastrophe for every American to a degree which we cannot even begin to grasp in our day. For those unfortunate enough to live through it, the Depression was a ruinous pestilence to both working men and working women alike, but especially so in the Southern states. To cite a personal example from my own life, both sets of Grandparents lost every penny of their savings and both my mother's mother and mother father's lamented to the day they died that The Depression prevented them from having the needed money to be able to go to college.

In contemplating Long's life, I can't help but hear in his proposals some of the very same things we out here in the netroots have been pushing for months. In the beginning, the Kingfish supported Franklin D. Roosevelt for President in his successful 1932 run against Herbert Hoover. The country having been mired in awful economic times for three solid years with ineffectual Federal Government leadership, the only sensible thing to do for most Americans was to vote for Roosevelt and his promised New Deal. Later, however, Long took a different track altogether.

After Roosevelt's election, Long soon broke with the new President. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention to radically redistribute the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis. Long sometimes supported Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, saying that "[W]henever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it." He opposed the National Recovery Act, calling it a sellout to big business. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass-Steagall Banking Act.

Though it would have never been phrased in such terms at the time, Long became a darling of certain segments of the liberal base. Making Roosevelt a bitter rival and setting himself up as champion of the Left, Long was transparently positioning himself to run for President in 1936. Long never expected to beat the popular Roosevelt, but was instead intending to run as a third party challenger, hoping to siphon off enough votes from the incumbent to split the Democratic vote in two and in so doing throw the election to the Republican challenger. Long then intended to run four years later in 1940 against the seated Republican president, after, of course, having secured the Democratic nomination for himself. Before this could happen, Long was either assassinated or accidentally killed by his overzealous body guards in the middle of an assassination attempt while inside the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. For this reason frequently discredited, highly unfounded, but nonetheless pervasive conspiracy theories still charge that FDR was somehow behind Long's assassination.

While an assassination plot is far-fetched and unlikely, what is true is that

Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue. The president privately said of Long that along with General Douglas MacArthur, "[H]e was one of the two most dangerous men in America."

Roosevelt later compared Long's meteoric rise in popularity to that of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut Long out of consultation on the distribution of federal funds or patronage in Louisiana. Roosevelt also supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was charged with election fraud and voter intimidation; however, the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated.

To discredit Long and damage his support base, in 1934 Roosevelt had Long’s finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service. Though they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of Long’s lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion, but only one had been convicted by the time of Long’s death.

The lesson to be learned from this is not that we should expect failure when we push for our concerns to be heard. Nor is the lesson that the only way to make our case is to affix it to a politician whose will use our indignation and hopes of a better way to build his/her own power base. Bryan's failure was that he didn't draw wealthier, middle class voters into his fold. Bryan was also outsmarted by eventual President William McKinley's right-hand-man, Mark Hannah, whose ease at raising millions of dollars from terrified corporations afraid of losing their economic power and genius public relations barrage of pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and stump speakers was both ahead of its time and tremendously effective. By the time Bryan's campaign realized the effectiveness of the Republican PR machine, it was too late to counteract the charges. By contrast, Long's failure was that his uncompromising attitude and unilateral style of governing brought him many enemies and frequent charges of ruling Louisiana as a de facto dictator. It should be noted that these charges hold much merit.

Some have proposed that we in the base ought to have our own well-connected mouthpiece to make sure our concerns are not being passed over or ignored in the media. Well and good, but we would be wise to do our research and investigate who ought to bear the mantle of the progressive grassroots. We would also be wise to realize that, in government, working within the existing framework is often a more successful strategy than attempting to force our way into the halls of power. Once, not all that long ago, comparatively speaking, even the South was more inclined to our party's philosophy and our point of view. Part of the switch was an inevitable shift that began the instant that Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Yet, the roots of this right ward drift that is present not just in one region of our country, but in the entire country as a whole began well before that. Part of it was the fault of those who hitched their wagon to demagoguery, not realizing that they were being used for political purposes in the process. Part of it was the fact that these voters placed full trust behind a charismatic orator, not recognizing that money and power will always push back hard against direct democracy. This is our past, but it is also our present. Unless we act responsibly and with a collective purpose despite factionalism and despite needless isolating differences, it will be our future as well.

Saturday Video

With Malice Towards None, With Charity For All

Editor's Note:

Half of this was recycled from yesterday's post, because I wanted to make a greater spiritual point that I couldn't do in a strictly political context.

Thanks for your patience,

Ed.
______________

Listening to President Obama's speech two nights ago, I have to say that I complete concur with his decision to frame the health care debate in terms of morality, ethics, and common decency to one's fellow person. Policy matters, nuts and bolts wonkery, and smear debunking are important and necessary things, but what cuts beyond ideological gridlock is the common humanity inherent in caring for those of us who do not have the material advantages we often take for granted. My hope is, as it always is, that the elected representatives whose job it is to provide basic health services for those in dire need of it will not forget that their greater purpose goes beyond polling data, popularity contests, and leapfrogging over others in order to achieve greater influence within the Congress.

I can't help thinking about those now-ancient days of seven months ago or more. Many Progressives thought they were getting Lincoln 2.0 based on a combination of Obama's eloquence and his desire to shape an inner circle and cabinet of disparate, sometimes discordant voices. What we neglected to understand is that if, in fact, our new President was cut from the same Lincoln cloth, then we would have him for both the high points and low points of a term. Had there been such things as Gallup polls and approval ratings then, I daresay Lincoln would have been subject at times to several dips and sharply declining numbers, particularly when the Union lost key battles in succession and war seemed inclined to drag on ceaselessly. One musn't forget that the first two years of the Civil War were full of one demoralizing Union defeat after another, only remedied when the President finally found a general willing to engage the Confederacy directly in battle, rather then resorting to a harm-reduction timidity that characterized the military strategy of a score of previous commanders.

In President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, the war very now nearly won, though the outcome still largely uncertain, he made light of a passage of scripture from the Gospel of Matthew. I have chosen to present it in more modern day language so that its fullest meaning would not be misunderstood. Specifically, the verse is is Matthew 18:7.

How terrible it will be for the world due to its temptations to sin! Temptations to sin are bound to happen, but how terrible it will be for that person who causes someone to sin!

But if we expand outward and look deeper into Matthew 18, we can observe Jesus making an even more important point. As the chapter begins, the disciples have been pettily quibbling about precisely who is going to be the most powerful and influential in the coming Kingdom of Heaven. Exasperated, I imagine, Jesus calls to him a small child and informs the disciples that no one will reach the Kingdom unless he/she becomes like a child in the process. This request is sometimes misunderstood. The behavior Jesus demands from us is not childish, which is what has characterized the attitudes and opinions of many people over the course of this debate, but rather childlike, which requires open-hearts, sincerity, contrition, and humility.

How easy it is for us to become so preoccupied with the organization of our earthly Kingdom. In so doing, we lose sight of its divine purpose, which is well beyond us and well beyond our short lives. We lose perspective very quickly and begin squabbling for power and promotions within the Kingdom. At that point, we are no longer able to identify with the "little children"---the weak and the dependent who have little to no status, nor much influence. We are warned tersely that if we lead these little children astray by corrupting them with temptation, neglecting them and demeaning them, and teaching them false doctrine, we will be punished harshly. Thus, God's love is for everyone and our focus ought to be on our unselfish mission to serve others rather than our selfish concerns. Jesus meant this message to apply to laypeople, religious leaders, churchgoers, politicians, and everyone.

Still referring to Matthew 18:17, Lincoln qualifies the passage in the context of a war being fought over the original sin of slavery.

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

Woe be unto us if we lose our faith in the midst of the struggle. Any struggle this full of acrimony, bitterness, and strife is bound to drive us apart and test our faith, not just in God, not just in human nature, but also in government. Though the ultimate resolution of this health care debate is still some ways away, let us seek to learn from the lesson of Lincoln and not allow matters this important to cause us to lose our faith. In the unceasing back and forth it is easy to become just as jaded as we were before the past Presidential election. No cause worth fighting for is easy or simple or even often reaches a satisfactory conclusion, but knowing even that, we should not allow the reality of the situation to compromise our dreams and hopes. Too often we treat our own faith as an insurance policy, to be turned to only in periods of crisis. Our faith ought to sustain us in good times, as well as trying times. We have heard the call to action. We know well the identity of those who oppose us. Let us renew our faith for now and for forever.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The entire Beatles catalog was re-released earlier in the week, but the news got overshadowed by other developments. Here's a v-blog in which I talk about the group's overall impact.

South Carolina Politicians Behaving Badly

Before South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson's interruption of President Obama's address on Health Care Reform, there was South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks, who beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner senseless with a cane on the floor of the Senate. Brooks didn't like the tone of the speech, which, in truth, was fairly incendiary and resorted to some unfortunate personal attacks. Brooks later resigned from the House but became a hero in the South, receiving canes by the dozen from supporters. In the North, however, he was seen as a cowardly barbarian. Regardless of what side one supported, by this point, slavery had gotten personal. Very personal.

Keep the Faith. Above All, Keep the Faith

President Obama's speech last night was full of intelligence and wisdom, but probably the wisest, most impassioned section of all was its soaring conclusion, which portrayed health care reform in sharply moral terms. To call the address it a "defense of liberalism", in the words of a commentator for whom I have much regard, is a bit of an oversimplification. Social justice and ethical conduct have no partisan or otherwise ideological identity in and of themselves, though some have, for their own selfish purposes, defined an emphasis on improving health and well-being for everyone in terms of one side pitted against another.

The pundits and prognosticators have weighed in long before I write this and so any analysis I might add specifically in response to the Health Care Address at this hour would likely be the unfortunate product of overlap and redundancy. What I do wish to point out, by means of contrast, is how our President's words match up against those of Presidents prior. It is instructive at times to view the words uttered in similar instances by previous leaders in prior ages, particularly in circumstances where much was on the line and a fiercely fought struggle was underway.

The conclusion of Obama's speech, in part, noted previous reform efforts and gave reminder of the criticism of those who had opposed them at the time. He then pointed out that despite the smears and fears that there was ultimately beneficial, measurable evidence that these programs upon enactment made a positive impact upon everyone.

That large-heartedness - that concern and regard for the plight of others - is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

This has always been the history of our progress. In 1933, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism. But the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it. In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, did not back down. They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.

President Obama is not a knife fighter, nor is he a person inclined to make unnecessary enemies unless he must. For those of us who wish otherwise, we can often and easily be frustrated when Obama still seeks to find some degree of bipartisan support for his legislative agenda. Perhaps he is finally realizing, as many have noted before---enemies are sometimes necessary things in politics. In great contrast, I refer to President Truman's Democratic National Convention acceptance speech given in July of 1948. In surveying this speech, what makes an immediate impact upon me is not the 10% of the speech that has dated with the passage of sixty-one years, but the 90% of it which is still, incredibly, applicable to the current day.

This convention met to express the will and reaffirm the beliefs of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion, and that is the democratic way. Those differences have been settled by a majority vote, as they should be.

Now it is time for us to get together and beat the common enemy. And that is up to you.

We have been working together for victory in a great cause. Victory has become a habit in our party. It has been elected four times in succession, and I am convinced it will be elected a fifth time in November.

The reason is that the people know that the Democratic Party is the people's party, and the Republican party is the party of special interest, and it always has been and always will be.

And, later in the speech, a familiar refrain.

I have repeatedly asked the Congress to pass a health program. The Nation suffers from lack of medical care. That situation can be remedied any time the Congress wants to act upon it.

Truman favored a single-payer system, one that was ultimately defeated by the American Medical Association, who capitalized on baseless fears and in so doing, invoked socialism in the process. This sounds somehow familiar.

And another one.

The Republican platform is for extending and increasing social security benefits. Think of that! Increasing social security benefits! Yet when they had the opportunity, they took 750,000 off the social security rolls!

And still another one.

At the same time I shall ask them to act upon other vitally needed measures such as aid to education, which they say they are for; a national health program; civil rights legislation, which they say they are for; an increase in the minimum wage, which I doubt very much they are for; extension of social security coverage and increased benefits, which they say they are for; funds for projects needed in our program to provide public power and cheap electricity. By indirection, this 80th Congress has tried to sabotage the power policies the United States has pursued for 14 years. That power lobby is as bad as the real estate lobby, which is sitting on the housing bill.

Truman was in many ways the Anti-Obama. Plain-spoken to an almost childish degree compared to the unyielding eloquence of Obama, indebted to short, blunt, to-the-point sentences rather than the heavily stylized flowing prose of Obama's rhetoric, eager to pursue unceasing, direct attacks on his opponents, and possessed of a kind of scrappy boxer's nature, Truman had no qualms about going directly for the jugular. Though many phrases, some of them so vulgar a sailor would blush were heard in Truman's close company, "bipartisan" was certainly not among them.

When one considers Presidential comparisons, I can't help thinking about those now-ancient days of seven months ago or more. Many Progressives thought they were getting Lincoln 2.0 based on a combination of Obama's eloquence and his desire to shape an inner circle and cabinet of disparate, sometimes discordant voices. What we neglected to understand is that if, in fact, our new President was cut from the same Lincoln cloth, then we would have him for both the high points and low points of a term. Had there been such things as Gallup polls and approval ratings then, I daresay Lincoln would have been subject at times to several dips and sharply declining numbers, particularly when the Union lost key battles in succession and war seemed inclined to drag on ceaselessly. One musn't forget that the first two years of the Civil War were full of one demoralizing Union defeat after another, only remedied when the President finally found a general willing to engage the Confederacy directly in battle, rather then resorting to a harm-reduction timidity that characterized the military strategy of a score of previous commanders.

In his Second Inaugural Address, the war very now nearly won, though the outcome still largely uncertain, Lincoln made light of a passage of scripture from the Gospel of Matthew. I have chosen to present it in more modern day language so that its fullest meaning would not be misunderstood.

How horrible it will be for the world because it causes people to lose their faith. Situations that cause people to lose their faith will arise. How horrible it will be for the person who causes someone to lose his faith!

In Lincoln's context, "it", means a war, but "it", in a broader context could mean any struggle full of acrimony, bitterness, and strife. Though the ultimate resolution of this health care debate is still some ways away, let us seek to learn from the lesson of Lincoln and not allow matters this important to cause us to lose our faith. In the unceasing back and forth it is easy to become just as jaded as we were before the past Presidential election. No cause worth fighting for is easy or simple or even often reaches a satisfactory conclusion, but knowing even that, we should not allow the reality of the situation to compromise our dreams and hopes. Too often we treat our own faith as an insurance policy, to be turned to only in periods of crisis. Our faith ought to sustain us in good times, as well as trying times. We have heard the call to action. We know well the identity of those who oppose us. Let us renew our faith for now and for forever. We will not be stopped.

Beyond the Fringe

The latest batch of polls and displays of popular opinion seem to show that people more eagerly identify as liberal when a conservative government is in power and people more eagerly identity as conservative when a liberal conservative is in power. Based on that data, it would appear that we only band together with any degree of solidarity in the face of a mutually perceived common enemy. Said enemy being dispensed with, we scatter like pieces of paper on a windy day, feeling largely satisfied with how we are being governed. The same activists who will always be out in the streets or signing innumerable petitions no matter what will keep up the good work no matter what the climate might be, but when the rank and file can only be counted on to jump on the bandwagon in the face of grave danger---the conclusion to be drawn from this inaction is not the most inspirational of hard truths.

One of the most overused qualifiers ever used to roughly define the political sensibilities of the American people is the phrase "center-right". When a recent Gallup poll reveals that popular perception insists that the makeup of the Supreme Court is too liberal rather than too conservative, even when its true balance is probably as close to evenly matched as it has been in years, then here we see the phenomenon in action. Attempts to define Americans in broad terms never provide satisfying answers because there is no such thing as "America". Regional differences, class distinction, income disparities, racial identities, and other factors prevent us from having a truly uniform sense of ourselves, though this pervasive rallying cry of American patriotism is a particularly potent myth that many conservatives like to pull out at every opportunity to justify their own positions.

I'm reminded of a particular skit that was performed by the 1960's UK comedy revue Beyond the Fringe, a favorite of President Kennedy. In the excerpt below, the group pokes fun at American racism.

Alan Bennett: I think there is a danger though of seeing the colour problem simply in terms of black and white.

Peter Cook: It's a lot more complicated than that.

Dudley Moore: I gather the Negroes are sweeping the country.

Jonathan Miller: They are. It's one of the few jobs they can get.

Many Americans like to perceive of themselves either as centrists or as moderates. However, if we wrote out our own personal beliefs and charted them, we'd find that, unless we were zealots, they pulled somewhat unevenly from both liberal and conservative philosophy. "Centrist" might then be a catch-all term that leaves one indebted to no side, nor to any party. But the problem with centrism is that once a controversial single issue like health care reform heats up, everyone suddenly takes on a forceful opinion which is either strongly conservative or strongly liberal in orientation. One might then be able to infer that we are far more partisan than we often bill ourselves or that self-identifying as moderate is a way for us to minimize potential conflict within ourselves or with other people.

This recognition shows the sharp limitations of polling data and the convoluted, unsatisfying reality of a strict two-party identification scheme. It simplifies matters considerably to look at every issue up for debate as in terms of us versus them or Democrat versus Republican, but doing so vastly and unduly oversimplifies something as influential, complex, and asymmetric as personal conviction. For example, during last year's Democratic primary season, we were often implored to look at the two remaining candidates we had in front of us in terms of male versus female. If we learned anything from that frequently heated and contentious fight (as I hope we did), it's that viewing gender in terms of binary doesn't provide a satisfying, nor especially conclusive means to determine much of anything especially relevant to the discourse.

One needs only to learn from the ignoble legacy of No Child Left Behind to observe that quantitative analysis and statistics can be modified to buttress any position. Numbers are finite. Basic math problems draw neat conclusions using set formulas and established rules that provide irrefutable answers once they are solved. Perfection might not be possible in the material world, but in the world of elementary, not theoretical mathematics, perfection is not just possible, it is imperative. Our Founding Fathers were products of the Age of Enlightenment, and as such this sort of ideal was desired, emulated, and anticipated. Their idealism brought this nation together and laid the groundwork for the country in which we live today, but they were also men of their time who did not recognize that the challenges of neither politics, nor life, can always be met and solved by the application of reason. If people were always rational or, for that matter, driven by rational leadership, we'd have had health care reform or a variety of other reforms long before now.

Being that flawed humanity is what we have to work with, we would do well to modify our strategies accordingly. This does not mean we should expect only a minority of our convictions to find their way into established precedent or that we need always compromise rather than stand firm in our demands, but merely that we ought to challenge ourselves to always look at the bigger picture before we advance any and every position worth fighting to achieve. Humans are too contradictory and too paradoxical for us to ever formulate any grand unifying theory that can be followed to the letter of the law like a battle plan. At times we forget that our battles these days are increasingly fought within the hemispheres of our brains and the brain hemispheres of those who oppose us, not by the violent brutality of hand to hand combat that was present in a different, more barbaric age than our own.

Everybody's Talking

How Not to Condone America's Double Standard

The manufactured fervor over President Obama's speech in front of our country's schoolchildren today as is very telling. What is also telling is the administration's subsequent acquiescence to individual school districts by allowing them the ability to opt out of even showing the talk at all. Both responses prove that conservative points of view frequently demand no room for any other philosophy other than their own. The Left compromises and graciously or grudgingly entertains the latest conservative controversy in a desire to at least give the pretense of appearing fair and balanced while the Right never even considers the same compulsion to return the favor. So-called liberal-driven controversies are normally treated with an air of ostentatious condescension by the conservative media, or, if covered at all, are funneled off to be discussed by the talking heads, who point to them as proof that the liberal agenda is dangerous, damaging, or both. This is proof of a double standard of the worst kind. It's not just unfair, it's deeply discriminatory in the identical manner as all of those -isms that we wish to eliminate altogether. We live in a country supposedly based on an egalitarian ideal, but we aren't exactly the best at practicing what we preach.

The sorry truth of the matter is that this country tolerates and sympathizes with the viewpoints of the far right much more than it ever supports those of the far left. We'll give the benefit of the doubt to the Alan Keyes' of the world or to the Bible-quoting, incoherent manifesto writer but if someone dares espouse that there might have been more to 11 September then what we were originally led to believe or that socialism might be a plausible solution to fix our problems, then many of us are fast to throw them under the bus and not without a second to spare. In these bizarre days in which at times I swear I'm living in an alternate universe, Republican legislators have, with a straight face, proposed that our President might not be an actual U.S. citizen and have advanced rumor in place of fact in documented instance after documented instance. One has no need to post them on YouTube as evidence of ulterior motive concealed. They are public domain.

What is our response? A mild sense of moral indignation, and then only in certain quarters. If, however, someone dares to state a far-left point of view, everyone's hackles are up instantly and phrases like "Un-American", "traitor", "Communist", and worse are heard from almost every corner.

Recent political history does factor into our response a bit, though the truth is that we've always been a country where conservative concerns held a kind of power and veracity in the American mindset that liberal ones did not. For example, the 1929 Cecil B. DeMille picture The Godless Girl addresses the atheist groups that sprouted up in high school and colleges over the country during the Roaring Twenties. This, a part of our nation's history scarcely discussed these days, drew a reactionary response was predictably harsh, highly unjustified, and disproportionately punitive. In the film, a daughter of an atheist starts a group in her high school entitled "The Godless Society". Threatened by its very presence, a young man and leader of a competing Christian group incites fellow students to attack the atheists, raising such a degree of hatred that a riot breaks out in the process. During the atheist meeting the police stage a raid, a staircase collapses in the resulting melee, and, tragically, a young girl is killed in the process. Arrested, charged, and found guilty for being directly liable for the young woman's death, both the Christian man and the Atheist woman are sent to reform school, where they suffer degrading and torturous abuse at the hands of their sadistic jailers. Quite predictably, by the last reel of the film their shared horrible experience has driven the previous rivals together into a romantic relationship, and, also predictably, now both of them have complete and unyielding faith in God and in Providence.

A particularly pertinent bit of film criticism sheds additional light on the film and how it reflects American society, then as well as now.

The film’s high school “Godless Society” was partly inspired by a controversy that broke out at Hollywood High School in 1927 when American Association for the Advancement of Atheism flyers were found in student lockers. The ringleader of the Godless Society, played by Lina Basquette, was loosely based on Queen Silver, a precocious agitator from Los Angeles, who at the age of 12 wrote a pamphlet on evolution that came to national attention during the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” For the reformatory story line, DeMille’s research team obtained affidavits from reform school inmates who testified to a variety of abuses, including whippings, water torture, and the use of straightjackets and shackles during solitary confinement. DeMille’s faithful scenario writer Jeanie Macpherson subsequently cobbled these elements together and fashioned a lurid script. However, with its penchant for spectacle and its exclamatory tone, the film undermined DeMille’s stab at realism. As DeMille historian Robert S. Birchard has noted, the film’s larger-than-life treatment of atheism and reform school is allegorical rather than realistic.

As much as we'd like to believe that the struggles of our time are nothing like those in our past, I have often found that digging a bit deeper than normal will reveal a multitude of instances in which the past reflects the present. These need not all be matters of deep profundity. They can also be more prosaic truisms as well.

Returning once more to to the film criticism,

Lina Basquette, the film’s star, credited the movie’s poor reception to its brutal subject matter. “[THE] GODLESS GIRL” she recalled in 1992, “came out just when people were getting used to the fluffy musicals Hollywood was pumping out. The American public didn’t want to look at reformatory schools, kids rioting, atheism, godlessness and the whole bit.”

Embedding social issues and social consciousness into films has frequently been a risky endeavor for movie makers. Whether upon intitial release a film is successful or a complete flop like The Godless Girl is all too often a matter of timing and luck. The Zeitgeist is the common thread which captures the collective spirit of the times, but it is often difficult to correctly discern. When we as a people are ready to be self-critical and ready to ask ourselves probing questions, then such films are unqualified successes. If we are not, then usually the picture flops. The film Network, for example, arrived at a time in the late seventies when a sense of deep pessimism and uncertainty typified the American consciousness and as a result it struck a powerful chord, becoming a box office success in the process. But for every unqualified success there are many films completely ahead of their time like 1921's The Ace of Hearts, which concerns a secret society of nattily dressed men whose stated agenda is to kill the capitalist of their choosing. A female member of the group offers her hand in marriage to any man who, having been dealt the Ace of Hearts from a deck of playing cards, eagerly accepts the responsibility demanded of him by nature of drawing that particular card, and successfully carries out his designated mission. Though its plot was transparently written to reflect the cultural fears and anxieties of the First Red Scare, which existed immediately following World War I, this film was out of step with the conventional tastes of its time and fared poorly in front of audiences. A country weary of war, weary of idealistic rhetoric, and weary of fearful uncertainty wanted fluff and guilty pleasures instead of social commentary.

To return to how I began this post, much of what spurs conservatives to be up in arms in vocal opposition to President Obama's speech is, in fact, purely a case of projection and sore loserism. Their own nagging concerns with themselves drive them to seek fault in every decision and to parse every word our President says in the hopes that it will provide some damning evidence of a secret agenda. One almost has to hand it to them. They've gotten pretty creative over the past several months building straw men and splitting hairs. I seem to recall that when we were out of power, not all that long ago, we were known at times to overreach and occasionally read more into what former President Bush had to say. At times we sometimes over-analyzed and speculated as to what lay underneath the surface, beyond our own knowledge. It must be said, however, that in many ways our response was completely justified. The Bush Administration's abuses, as we know now more than ever, were so numerous and predicated on such chillingly efficient manipulation that we certainly weren't splitting hairs or reading too much into everything when we raised our own objections. Recent revelations made by Bush cronies have proved that most of our criticism was legitimate all along and almost entirely based in fact rather than baseless griping. After all, sometimes things are what they appear to be and again, so many Bush Administration abuses were flaunted in front of us, as if to dare us to stop them. I do not, thank God, see that in Obama's Administration. If anything, I see the reverse---a reluctance to state too firm a position on any matter for fear of offending anyone else's sensibilities. This is its own problem, but at least I don't have to worry that I'll soon be living in a police state like I used to do.

What I also can't help but notice is that it seems like eight years of President Bush hasn't just left a lasting reputation among liberals, it has also deeply influenced conservative discourse and reaction. Nothing feeds conspiracy theories or encourages the belief that government is run by a secret, insular group of elite, highly influential people rather than a collective, Democratic effort of different voices more than the realization that for eight solid years, we were! If there is anything like logic which governs what the Right believes these days, it is partially reflected in the leftist arguments which many still hold that the 2000 Presidential election was stolen out from under Al Gore. The root conclusion of both vantage points is the same: a President obtained his office by means of a vast behind-the-scenes effort that falsified the truth and left the average person completely out of the process. When conservatives are in full out hissy fit mode that President Obama is going to brainwash American children into believing in Godless liberalism (which is, in fact, an exact argument I recently discovered on a web forum) I recall how President Bush used Christianity and his own warped faith to justify many of the decisions he made, the decision to go to war with Iraq being only one of them. I might be advancing too specious a comparative argument here, but it needs to be noted that Presidents and their agenda often reflect the popular opinion of their supporters, though not always. And to conclude: we might be wise to ask ourselves--To what degree does President Obama's policy influence us? Or, to what degree does our policy influence him?

Reaching Past Redundancy's Echo Chamber

While the issues we debate are important and quite pertinent to the health of our nation and the direction in which it is headed, I think we've beaten several horses to death over the past few weeks. Though every creative, thinking person can manage to find some new permutations to bring up for discussion, I find that it is becoming harder and harder to manage a brand new take on the same issue as spin and weariness begins to replace substantive discourse. I myself am having a difficult time knowing what to add to the collective discussion when we seem to have analyzed matters from almost every point of view imaginable. What I wish for more than anything is a desire for us to be able to see the forest for the trees.

Blue Gal's post of yesterday nails it perfectly. In it she discusses in no uncertain terms what she does not want to write about anymore (and what she does). In so doing, she cuts to the heart of the matter. Blue Gal periodically rewards worthy bloggers who push past conventional lines of discourse to seek the truth underneath. Those who do receive personal mention on her site and the always richly deserved "Don't Sugarcoat It" Award. In this instance, she might as well pin the distinction on herself.

I want to write about Life. The very same culture of life that so many say we're lacking in this country. Are we willing to believe and promulgate the belief that safety is in carrying a gun so that the Black president will not euthanize your mother?

The culture of life? Really. And we as a nation have this huge generation facing retirement and aging and they have health insurance but all you have to do is say "death panel" and "grandma" and "abortion" and the collective freak out from these people is ridiculous. I just want to scream to them, you are MORTAL and your time on this earth is ticking away and you scream about it but what you really truly want is for a white leader to tell you you don't have to worry about sickness and death forever because he will keep you safe to the point of starting fake wars and torturing the brown people and paying off the insurance people with your money, and the white guy is, guess what, not Jesus Christ. Jesus was born to an unwed mother in Egypt. He didn't have a birth certificate. And his skin? You'd grab your gun if Jesus knocked on your door, asshole.

Amen. What else really is there to add to that? People are often very short sighted and if they honestly recognized that diversity enriches us instead of weakens us, then we might be getting somewhere as a race of sentient beings. I've read study after which states quite persuasively that women and men benefit from the strengths that both genders bring to the table. I've read study after study which states persuasively that a pluralistic, racially balanced society creates a wealth of alternative perspectives that no one group would have ever managed in isolation. And one can, of course, expand this line of thinking to include every possible combination of different identity groups that influence each of us either directly or indirectly. I hardly think the point of such contrast was for us to self-isolate and throw rocks at those we deem "not like us". One would have to be a petty, pessimistic person to believe that the whole design of human existence was for us to be thrown together, separate but unequal, and surrounded by mortal enemies. The real enemies, I often discover, are inside the heads of the people who create them.

Yet, I do acknowledge the numerous challenges multiculturalism and cultural plurality presents. Arriving at the negotiating table requires an ability to propose and advance a mutually agreed upon set of rules of conduct, and it is this very same problem that creates so much friction. An attitude that asserts, what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable is what has gotten us to this crossroads. I'm not an idealistic dreamer who thinks that the power of positive thinking alone is sufficient or even particularly plausible. Yet, even so, we must, in my opinion, find new theories and new ideas to fix the problems of our time. New times call for new solutions and I've watched as we've committed much brain power to explaining the flaws in our opponents' arguments and in so doing sensibly advancing our own cause, but the problem is that many of those who have drawn a line in the sane in front of us are simply unwilling to listen.

It would seem then that we ought to consider changing tactics. I wish to discover or even contribute to the next big paradigm shift and the brand new innovative theory upon which we try to find ways to live together rather than living in the hell of perpetual conflict. As our planet grows every larger with each passing day, I really do not believe that growing more entrenched and isolated will do us much good at all. In times past, if one considers the historical record, fragmentation and division has been ultimately harmful and poisonous. As Blue Gal herself points out in the post I've cited above, we are mortal beings. Eventually all of us will die and as such our time here is finite and of a very short duration. We are certainly allowed to waste our time with trivialities and surface banalities but then again we can also use our brain power and our compassion to seek to open up channels of communication, knowing full well that the established players and the power brokers will attempt to throw monkey wrench after monkey wrench into the gears. But if I understand it, no worthy cause comes without a degree of discomfort and toil, and though we might be our own worst nightmare, we are also just as capable of being our own salvation, too. That with which we currently struggle will always require constant forward motion and that simply is not possible without our will and energy.

V-Blog for Labor Day

In other related news, Blue Gal pointed out in her post yesterday all of the things we shouldn't be talking about and I have to say I couldn't agree more.

Quote of the Week

I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).- Paul Theroux

There is No Righteousness in Our Darkest Moment

I must admit I am deeply saddened to see so much division among Americans regarding the multitude of important issues which could quite literally either save us or sink us. Most of these often nasty, petty, and childish attacks are based almost exclusively on selfish motives, baseless attacks, and hardened hearts. When I survey the hand-made signs, the sarcastic rhetoric, the mean-spirited propaganda, and the frequently misspelled rants posted on the internet, a theme emerges. It's not a particularly inspiring one.

Collectively, it reads something along the lines of, (and I've toned this down a bit for the sake of propriety) "Screw you! I'm all right Jack!"

Urban Dictionary defines the term this way:

It describes the bitter dismay of sailors ("jacks") returning home after wartime in the Navy to find themselves not treated as patriots or heroes, but ignored / sneered at by a selfish, complacent, get-ahead society - phrase was subsequently toned down for acceptable general use.
Attitude of "every man for himself, survival of the fittest, devil take the hindmost", ... but also, that all the possible advantages (however gained), success (however won) and satisfaction (whatever the cost to others) belong to me first!" Narrow-focus, narrow-gauge pseudo-Darwinian selfishness glorified as a sensible philosophy of society and life.

Not very often have I ever seen any of these self-important protesters responding to the ways in which health care reform or an Obama proposal will make a potential negative impact on the lives of their neighbors or their fellow citizens. Instead, I have seen instance after instance where neurotic anxiety and self-centered concern lead many to conclude that they'll soon be losing something felt to be a basic entitlement. Some of them don't even know quite what it is they're going to be without, but that doesn't stop them from resolutely proclaiming that, "By God, no one's going to play me for a fool!" While I suppose I could I could attempt to show them that nothing they or any of us are fortunate enough to have belongs purely to them, or I could try to make them recognize that in reality everything belongs to God; as such he shares it with us out of unconditional love, but forgive me for often believing that doing so would be a pointless task.

The riot girrl group Sleater-Kinney recorded a song entitled "Sympathy". Here are the two most devastating lyrics of a devastating song.

There is no righteousness in your darkest moment
We’re all equal in the face of what we’re most afraid of

When we make an assumption based almost exclusively on a projection of our own fears and anxieties, then we end up drawing some pretty outlandish conclusion. One need only look at the last e-mail smears, contrived controversies, and outlandish conspiracy theories to be aware of that. My continued hope is that, with time, we will evolve as a race of beings to the point that we can think more with logic than with pure emotion alone, which in an unrestrained, unchallenged state leads to all sorts of terrible consequences among which are physical violence, civil disorder, and war. Casting this much anger and negativity into the world beyond feeds upon itself and swells with each hostile, antagonistic voice. We are creatures who look to avoid danger to preserve our own lives and we are hardwired to always be on the lookout. What we often don't take the time to recognize is that even one human can create ripple effects that influence other people both for good and for bad. History proves that enough of these ripples echoed, mirrored, and in so doing, combined can and do eventually create destructive events the likes of which none of us should ever be proud.

Though I may be stating the obvious, I acknowledge that sometimes the solution is as plainly obvious as the nose on our face. What this society needs, now more than ever, is the wholesale application of the Golden Rule. Conservatives will point to this deficiency and make a case that once upon a time such things were taught in schools or in churches, but were summarily wiped away by an liberal emphasis on secularism. I would argue that the Golden Rule has permutations that go beyond a strictly Biblical interpretation and might end up falling under the category titled common sense. If more of our detractors practiced it, I might be more inclined to take them seriously. Many supposed followers of Jesus have become Pharisees and Sadducees over the years, but this is hardly an affliction that only infects the Right. Some of us have even become Zealots, clamoring for blood and taking our passion (in moderation a highly necessary quality) to the point that we forget our primary devotion is to God's cause, not our own.

Shortly before he was crucified, Jesus brilliantly commented on this subject. A religious teacher, impressed by Jesus' deft answer to yet another question designed purely to provide any justification whatsoever to excuse the young rabbi's eventual murder, asked Jesus which of the commandments was the most important.

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

What we believe on the inside is far more important than whatever we ascribe to or perform on the outside. Or, to put it another way, "obedience is better than sacrifice." Good attitudes and pure intentions within ourselves speak far greater than any outward display of piety. The Jewish leaders of the time added layer upon layer of senseless rules for fellow believers to follow, so much so that only the top echelon of society were fully versed in how to properly adhere to and correctly observe each one. There were divisions within each subgroup of Jewish political society, each of which argued as to which laws were more powerful compared to other laws and also bickered about which laws need be subordinate to other laws. Jesus cut through all of this needless complication and reduced the whole of religious belief to two simple, easy-to-understand principals which are as applicable now as they were then.

The Epistle to Titus concludes,

...Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You know that people like this are corrupt. They are sinners condemned by their own actions.

The problem with so many of our more conservative opponents is that their conception of morality, faith, and ethical conduct is tightly tethered to a theory that we are living in the End Times and exist in a fallen world. Why reform a world that is already eaten up with sin? Their justification for resisting and in so doing refusing to compromise on even the most modestly controversial matter is a belief that those who oppose them are obviously motivated by Satan or at least the collected evil of humanity. They see themselves not so much as the chosen people, but as the true believers focused more on their own righteousness and in so doing, they believe they are preparing their path for the Second Coming. Though the Right has as many Doubting Thomases and lukewarm believers as the Left, and though the religious underpinnings once held by some conservatives might fall aside under scrutiny and individual skepticism, it is difficult to completely renounce the mentality into which one is born.

I pray constantly for some kind of mutual understanding and common decency in which each of us might be liberated. What I return to, time and time again, is the understanding that in my life, if I take care to respond, even to those who oppose me, as the best Quaker I can be-- deliberately advancing love and tact, even when I would be completely justified in being upset or enraged, then I have done my part in de-escalating the situation. I never forget that I am one person and I am always aware that I have a very limited impact on any grand scale, but if through my deeds, words, and actions I am able to decrease the stridency factor a little or perhaps even turn the volume down a few notches, then I know I have succeeded. What I am not seeking necessarily is to change anyone's minds, but what I am hoping to attain is to facilitate civility and calm at all cost.

To return to the Sleater-Kinney song I referenced earlier, which, it must be noted, is written from the perspective of a woman who has given birth to a premature child, here are a few more lines that summarize how I have felt many times in my own life. Indeed, I write this post very much in the same spirit.

I know I come to you only when in need
I’m not the best believer, not the most deserving

but all I have, all I am, all I can… for him
I’d beg you on bended knees for him

Saturday Video

Changing Times Call for Changing Tactics

Case in point.

Ben Smith's blog on Politico takes into account the case of high profile White House official Van Jones and the nature of the right-wing criticism that forced him recently to apologize for recent public statements he had made. Unsurprisingly, none of them are particularly unfounded nor especially unusual in and of themselves, though must I note had he been less earthy and bit more polished in the delivery this might not have been an issue at all. A role as a surrogate or high ranking Presidential assistant does require a certain amount of conscious filtering and with it the awareness that whatever one says can and will be used against your boss. That might not be fair (or balanced), but that's how it works.

Since Fox News is responsible for setting into motion many of these conservative righteous indignation nontroversies, of which Jones is only one example, I think it would be energy well spent to examine the Modus operandi of the conservative mainstream media. Here a proposal for those brave souls willing to take me up on it. Rest assured you will be handsomely compensated for your effort. Watch Fox News with the sound down for ten full minutes. First, you may notice that, regarding anchors and reporters of a female persuasion, they are almost always heavily made up and physically attractive. This is, as you might have guessed, not a coincidence. Based on this initial observation, if one didn't know any better, one might believe that the point of the network was to peddle celebrity gossip or soft news. Next, watch the banner headlines shown at the bottom of the screen meant to emphasize the current story being presented, focus on the scrolling news banner, or look at both of them simultaneously. What you'll find displayed are alarmist, smarmy, inflammatory, or otherwise sensationalist phrases dripping with such partisan bile that they seem designed to purely enrage rather than to inform. Indeed, if one didn't know any better, one would think the whole network was designed to propagate and facilitate the kind of faceless e-mail smears that famously told the unsuspecting world that Barack Obama was an A-rab Muslim Terrorist and, more recently, that he was out to brainwash our schoolchildren with his socialist propaganda.

In an ongoing trial of the court of popular opinion, a wise judge would surely note in this instant that the prosecuting attorney was leading the witness. Not just leading the witness, but aiming to reduce the witness from a rational human being to an emotional wreck or screaming mess. Forgive me for saying this (I know you won't mind), but if I were a conservative, I'd find it hard to take the messenger seriously. An entire network supposedly devoted to providing "Fair and Balanced" coverage instead presents its information in the format of a childhood taunt. Forgive me for stating the obvious here. Until it lives up to its stated objective and aims to at least give the semblance of impartial coverage, then it ought not to be viewed as some alternative counter-weight, especially when it creates yet another controversy out of thin air and then uses it to hammer progressives, who are, by in large, eager to be open-minded and to at least entertain opposite points of view. The rhetorical fallacy of the straw man comes to mind and Fox News is the king of the straw man argument. The Fox News brand of conservative discourse seems to want everything on its own terms, which, in so doing, breeds resentment and a kind of consternation not merely with liberals but with other networks who are forced to at least give a cursory note to the latest muck that Fox has raked up today. Whatever impact Fox might have on popular opinion, one would think could be easily dismissed by its ridiculous combination of supposition, conjecture, theatrics, and abnormally pretty people. Even so, people honestly believe that it is the last refuge of Mom, God, and apple pie. I'm afraid I just don't get it.

I see a similar, and to our credit, heavily scrutinized reaction of acquiescing to the demands of the right even when it is entirely unnecessary when I observe the actions and words of our President. Still, I honestly believe that President Obama means well and I never doubt that he is a person whose heart is truly in the right place. This conviction of mine was one of the major reasons why I volunteered for his campaign early on, particularly when I secretly thought he had no chance in hell of winning, and it's the reason why I still support him with every fiber of my being. At this particularly crucial period not just in the Obama Presidency, but also in our own lives, I recall a passage from one of the first well-written, well-researched biographies of the man. Entitled Obama: From Promise to Power, written by Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell, it was my first real introduction to what at that time was a still largely unknown challenger. As I'm sure most of you who have read it yourselves are aware, most of the book is very sympathetic, but there are a few passages which are gently, though nonetheless justifiably critical. In particular, Mendell makes light of the fact that when it comes down to what motivates the man's desire to improve society as a whole, Obama is a dreamer. Dreams and dreamers are not necessarily a bad thing, but when it comes down to courting and wooing the Right, I think dreams need to be set aside for gritty realities. The biography also notes that Obama can be occasionally thin-skinned, sensitive to criticism, and sometimes unduly driven by the stirrings of his own ego. The author notes this, I presume, as a bit of a cautionary message to Obama himself, imploring him to recognize that while the office of President of the United States is the most influential job in the world, along with the power and the glory comes a correspondingly immense bulls-eye which never goes away until one leaves office.

My hope is that through all of this turmoil, uncertainty, frustration, and stalemate with health care reform and with each worthy cause to which we devote our energies and our eloquence, that we take care to acknowledge our own successes as well as our own shortcomings. Then and only then can we learn from them and in so doing make our subsequent efforts less contentious and convoluted. We have undertaken, at the behest of our leader a grand experiment called bipartisanship and from it we have learned, Fox News being an excellent example, that we cannot extend a hand to our opponents when they are not willing to play by our rules or to grasp our hand back on anything other than their own terms. Bitterness, as expressed by Van Jones above---will do us far more harm than good in the end. Not giving our opponents ammunition ought to be the first lesson we learn and the next might be the realization that nothing rips the Majority Party asunder more than counter-productive scrapping with the Unloyal Opposition. The Republican Party is in a state of free fall, and in those circumstances, the only play in their playbook left is to oppose us on every front. A virtuous siege mentality plays well with their base and it's a safe strategy because they have absolutely nothing to lose. In future, let's ignore them when we can and go about our business. Let's face it, attention only encourages them and gives validity to their protests.

The Recession is the Biggest Union Buster of All

An event as big as an economic recession blankets this country and the world and in so doing, affects everyone in a modicum of ways. Since economic motive influences everything, it proves anew the old saying that money makes the world go round. The media knows that seeking novelty and different permutations of any massive story are in its best interest to cover, because with that comes the attention and interest of the public. When often our its attention grows focused on a relatively narrow band of current events that then get analyzed and spun dry, you'd think it'd be more driven to find a different take or a brand new story. We'd then be able to get a much richer picture of day-to-day life. One of the things I love about the internet is that I routinely find seemingly ordinary stories that slip through the cracks. Frequently, these are the most fascinating of all.

Here my own submission. The local Atlanta chapter of Communication Workers of America (CWA 3204), of whom I was a member and frequently gave my free time to support, recently reached a state of frustrating stalemate in negotiating with the employer currently known as AT&T. Current arbitration and grievances involves the employer's reduction of benefits, increased paycheck deductions to cover health care insurance, and the ever-popular (and ancient) trick of hiring additional workers for less money and in so doing dividing job responsibilities and cutting hours once solely delegated to workers bringing home a higher rate of pay. The corporation calls it necessary expense reduction, and the union cries foul. One hardly needs to guess where my sympathies lay, but in these awful economic times, the biggest strike breaker of all is a factor called high unemployment.

A general strike would have been called weeks ago, but upon reflection the union is being forced to be practical. Strike pay can only last so long and since health care is provided through the employer, it could easily be terminated out of spite. Not only that, in a job market teeming full of out of work or underemployed workers, it would not take long at all for AT&T to fill the slots vacated by its unionized labor force and in so doing, also terminate the employment of its striking workers. These are the unfortunate realities and the reason why the union cannot afford to leave the negotiating table. Years of anti-union legislation started by Ronald Reagan have already severely weakened its bargaining power and when one factors in a horrific recession, one can clearly, shockingly observe what minimal power it has remaining. The romanticized notion of union solidarity and a good versus evil struggle many liberals hold is decades out of date.

I can't help but note the ironies. Some of this fight with no end is over benefits and, in particular, health care benefits, but the union, because it has no other option, continues to cling to negotiation even when at this rate it will probably be at the table for the rest of the year or longer. Forgive me for finding parallels between this scenario and what has passed for legislative strategy in attempting to hammer out a decent health care reform bill. In this example, Republican legislators could well represent union negotiators, since they cannot affect the debate aside from winning a few table-scrap, largely worthless concessions from the majority party who one would think hold most of the chips. They have no choice but to stay at the diplomatic table, since if they pulled away from it, they would look even weaker than they actually are and what's more, they might even find themselves out of a job by the end.

Conservative Americans strangely love a scrappy, outgunned underdog who takes a defiant stand against superior forces and whether he or she wins is often beside the point. If you need confirmation of this, I encourage you to look at George Wallace and count how many states he carried in his run for President in 1968. Moreover, the state where Wallace was paralyzed and effectively removed from the 1972 Presidential race by assassin's bullets was solidly Democratic Maryland, not his home state of Alabama. Nine years after his stand in the schoolhouse door, Wallace had renounced segregation and was polling well. Until the shooting, the Governor was thought to be a serious challenger for eventual nominee, George McGovern. Even from his hospital bed, Wallace won four primaries that year, which included both Michigan and Maryland.

Returning to the notion of unions versus companies, I'm reminded of the the Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie. In particular, I reflect upon the character of George W. Hurstwood, who in a depressing reverse American Dream descends from relative wealth to complete poverty. By the end he is so desperate for money to even feed himself that he takes a dangerous job as a scab, where he is paid to run a Brooklyn streetcar during a general strike. The money he receives as he crosses picket lines and takes his place behind the controls of the car is, he quickly finds, not worth the abuse and omnipresent threat of physical violence that greets him as he arrives at each new street. Though I never wish for physical or emotional violence ever as a punitive response, I do understand the attitudes of these turn-of-the-century working class wage earners who were understandably enraged at the lengths by which the company would resort to undercut their basic rights. At this point in American history, the only people willing to take on thankless, potentially even fatal occupations like this were those with nothing to lose, likely seeking first to feed themselves one more day--- alcoholics, the homeless, the mentally ill, and those of the direst poverty imaginable.

Nowadays, so many of us are unemployed and seeking work that the conventional models and programs regarding unemployment assistance and the established channels for attaining a job have been completely invalidated. With unemployment as high as 23% in some states, when one factors in workers who have left the workforce and haven't filed for unemployment compensation or are underemployed seeking full-time employment, one begins to understand the titanic scope of the problem. High unemployment effectively trumped the collective bargaining of the union I cited and unemployment has left government in a precarious, uncharted state where theories have to suffice for the tried-and-true. Republicans are receiving conflicting and mixed messages from their constituents as a result and, hoping to keep their own jobs, all they know to do is to fight for something, anything, even if it's completely illogical and wrong. I am glad that we have called them out for their gross inaccuracies and distortions, but I know there will be more of them to refute the closer we get to the 2010 congressional elections.

As for the unemployment that has thrown a spanner in the works of our entire societal framework, that's a much trickier issue. In time, I believe that it will reach more acceptable levels, but recessions begin slowly, snowball with time, then begin to melt away as slowly as they arrive. Returning to whatever we consider to be "normal" might take a year or more from now. Even so, I would at least hope that we'd take this present opportunity to make the changes that we've kept putting off before now because to be fair, no one's eyes were closed to the harsh realities. The reforms now being exhaustively discussed were guaranteed to create factions, tensions, and decrease political approval ratings in the process. No one can predict the future with any certainty, but along with health care reform and other worthy reforms what we honestly need most is a better way to adapt and quickly respond to the inevitable periods of boom and bust that typify any modern capitalistic system.

I recognize that the best minds are hard at work at this very task, but intellectuals alone can't solve problems like these. We have a responsibility to our fellow person as well as ourselves and no amount of regulation works as it could without a peoples' desire to watch the store and even be the whistle blower when the situation demands it. In a nation of at least 300 million people, there is no way government can do it alone. Even when we were much smaller in population and much less ethnically diverse, Washington, D.C. could not attend to every need it by itself. A relatively small amount of professional politicians can do an adequate job in power only if we assist them in their duties, bring to light injustices as they arise, and hold them accountable for their own actions. What gets me about people who yell and leave profanity-laden tirades on web boards about government-takeovers, or government running their daily lives, or government being too big and too intrusive is that they're giving government way too much credit. Not only that, they're not actively contributing to its improvement--instead, they're just complaining. My response to them now, as it always will be is this: Weak government means a weak economy, means a weak dollar, means high unemployment, means a hit in your own pocketbook. When it comes your time to sit at the eternal bargaining table, if it were me, I'd make sure I had the strongest hand possible.

Look Beyond Polls, Look Beyond Wars, Look Beyond Yourself

I hope you'll pardon me for stating the obvious. No matter whether you consult the data of a well-respected firm like Gallup or examine any smaller poll whose information collection methods are questionable at best, our President's numbers are steadily dropping. Still, as some media outlets are wisely qualifying, no worthy policy fight has ever come easily, or without shedding some overall popularity in the process. The politically safe route would be to never state a contentious position or to undertake a massive endeavor bound to shed potential voters in the process. One has to give Obama credit where credit is due. He is risking a tremendous amount by pushing health care reform, including his ability to be re-elected as well as his party's firm control over both sides of the legislative branch.

The frustration many of us here in the Democratic wing of the Democratic party feel also needs no poll numbers to confirm. Thus far, President Obama has proven to be far more centrist than some of us (myself included) were hoping. When many of us would have wanted a staunch, unapologetic Dennis Kucinich liberal we received a pragmatist still attempting to at least entertain Republican points of view. Even so, I think there is some degree of bet-hedging and damage control influencing White House strategy these days, particularly when one contemplates the numerous mistakes and strategic blunders that doomed Lyndon Johnson. Johnson's attempt to push both guns and butter eventually forced him to forgo running for his second full term in office and tarnished his legacy among liberals who still appreciate his Civil Rights and Medicare/Medicaid reforms but have never forgiven him for escalating the War in Vietnam.

Wars put every leader in a bind. They are almost uniformly popular in the beginning, boost economic strength by pumping dollars and jobs into manufacturing the tools of the trade, give a short-term booster shot of unity and mutual purpose between people who ordinarily hold major differences with each other in the form of a common enemy, but before long grow unpopular the very instant fighting men and women begin coming home by the scores in body bags. That we as humans want it both ways simultaneously is a matter for some contemplation and if it were up to me, we'd set war behind us as an outdated relic of brutality and unsound practice, along with the Spanish Inquisition and the torture chamber. In my mind, any petard that front-loaded, demoralizing, fickle, and unsustainable in the human psyche would be best never hoist. Even if we win, we lose.

When I examine the wars we have fought in this country, only the triumphs of American Revolution and both World Wars overshadow the tragedies. Nevertheless, by their conclusions, the population was weary, exhausted, impoverished, and eager for them to end. Nowadays, twenty-first century warfare has proven to be nothing like these epic struggles with clearly distinguished enemies and mutually agreed upon rules of engagement. The wars of our age have no easily discernible focal point, have no easily discernible enemy, and have no easily discernible designation of beginning, middle, and end. In this latest Iraq War, for example, people fully expected to read about momentous victories romanticized by the press and utilized by the military as rallying cries. Some seemed to ask, Where is our Iowa Jima or Gettysburg or Yorktown?. There were none and increasingly there will be none. We will not see this in Afghanistan, either. One could easily argue that the possibility that protracted combat is utterly futile in modern times with modern warfare should be a concept any world leader would take care to contemplate for himself or herself before committing troops into harm's way.

Health care reform, however, or for that matter any kind of social compact that facilitates and increases human health rather than destroying it on the battlefield works on the reverse principle. Unpopular and contentious among many in the beginning, the cost benefit and quality of life improvement to be reaped when people live healthy, productive, thriving lives swells and steadily grows with time, and eventually it is observable to everyone. But before we take false hope and assume that our President, provided he signs a suitable bill, will in so doing resuscitate his legacy with all and be vindicated in the process, we also need to be realistic. Often the results of any massive undertaking in social justice are only discernible years after the fact and often purely in hindsight. We all yearn for immediate or at least timely responses to our hard work and in exceptionally complex and frequently confusing undertakings like health care, we mustn't underestimate the length of that often-invoked moral arc that bends towards justice. Indeed, it forces us to live for the future rather than for the present.

President Eisenhower invoked this idea in his Farewell Address. Though the speech is best known for providing first mention of the Military-Industrial Complex, Eisenhower takes into account the biggest picture of them all.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Civil Rights, Womens' Rights, and LGBT Rights are a bit different, and more like a cross between war and health care reform. That we fight our battles with words and not with fists or guns I take to be a massive positive sign that we as a human race are making evolutionary progress. Yet, as for these worthy causes, they are tremendously popular with certain segments of the population and with other segments they are horrifically unpopular. Some people embrace change and some dig in their heels and resist. There are no major battles. Instead, there are small skirmishes which eventually add up with time. Quite unlike war as we like to think of it, there is no decisive battle at which one can separate winner from loser. Winning hearts and minds is a case by case matter which evolves with time and at its own pace. We can set things in force and continue to apply pressure, but once begun, we need to understand that no matter what we might desire, we cannot set an effective date of conclusion. As a person of faith, I believe that the decision is entirely God's, but I certainly respect those who believe otherwise. No matter what you believe, it is imperative that we continue to fight, but know that unlike a shooting war, a war for mindsets, opinions, moral imperatives, conflicting priorities, and cultural differences never concludes when the other side surrenders. The war we fight is often the one within ourselves.

Individual Intolerance Directly Feeds Mainstream Propaganda

I find it curious that most of our progressive ire these days is focused almost exclusively upon conservative white wingnuts, talking heads, or radio entertainers like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, or Lou Dobbs. While speaking out against their hatred and divisive talk is important and needs to continue, I'd hope we'd continue to make an effort to locate the wide swath of discordant, worrisome voices that greatly contribute to the volume and amplification of the biggest names. By the time we've criticized Limbaugh, for example, it is often too late. He's said it, his followers have absorbed it, the media's covered it, and for better or for worse we have to deal with the consequences. With the internet, comes a ready-made bully pulpit for all sort of agents of intolerance and I'm for a proactive approach to cease or at least blunt the impact and information exchange that feeds these fevered egos.

The mainstream media's approach has been to not call attention to these people for fear of growing their power base, but if no one speaks out, then their behavior inevitably gets funneled to the larger players. We all function a bit on the principle of an echo chamber and when enough people are moved and inspired by an idea, then they continue to forward that idea with their own observations. The impact grows and grows and grows with every successive person who advances it. After all, did not much of the misinformation circulating as fact against health care reform started with some unknown person with an internet connection? I know there's no way to stop it all and I know the task is an exhaustive one, but I know it to be a satisfying endeavor in the end.

So it is that African-American Pastor James David Manning has been a minor presence on our radar screens for years and only came to much light at all when, during the primary season, he compared Barack Obama to both a mack daddy and a pimp in a nearly ten minute long tirade videotaped and internet-posted rant that was as mean-spirited and packed full of personal attacks as it was uninformed. Manning drew a tremendous amount of heat for that display of unqualified hatred and the result chastened him a little while. Though he has toned down his comments in the past several months, he continues to propagate a deviously novel doctrine against conventional liberalism, racial equality, affirmative action, religious intolerance, and the like in a manner that would seem fitting for any number of white Republican males. I wonder why Fox News hasn't used him as a regular talking head, particularly because they could easily designate him to be "the conservative black voice" when an incident of genuine racism between whites and blacks crops up in the national media.

Some have designated him as "the Self-Loathing Black Male", finding it difficult to understand why an African-American would mimic the kind of naïve logic and the oversimplified universal explanations for complex issues that find its way into the living rooms of the new generation of Archie Bunkers currently on their way from the den to the Health Care Town Hall nearest them. In great contrast to other people of color, Pastor Manning openly supported John McCain for President during the election season and in so doing registered complaint after complaint about then-Candidate Obama from the very beginning of his run. Much like several Republican politicians, Manning continues to refer to President Obama by his full name, conspicuously and unsurprisingly placing emphasis on "Hussein" at the expense of his first and last. Though his reliance upon cheap theatrics has evolved to a more orthodox kind of right-wing griping, the fact remains that Manning's skin color and resultant perspective when combined with his GOP talking points make for a particularly perplexing and bizarre display.

Mannings' latest tirades have involved comparing President Obama to George Wallace and in a talk to the National Press Club this past December, Manning dismissed Obama as little more than the greatest con-man to ever take the Oath of Office. A cursory view of his theories, proposals, and theological underpinnings, available here on Wikipedia, easily could be classified as "crackpot", but so too could the rantings of Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, or Dobbs. That these sorts of people have been set up in front of a microphone instead of being relegated to handing out leaflets in front of busy big city thoroughfares ought to give us all reason to wonder where our priorities are nowadays. Manning's sermons, preached at the Harlem-based ATLAH World Missionary Church, are frequently heavy on the politics and light on the theology. As a result, he has drawn fire with those who advocate for the separation between church and state, rightly crying foul that his organization is classified as a non-profit. But what I also note is that there are any number of predominately white churches led by white ministers who can and do get away with this sort of thing on a regular basis.

Right now, the Republican Party is so scattered, so fragmented, and so nebulously defined that the power vacuum created by its own self-inflicted damage has created no coherent and unified message. This is why the mainstream media consults Rush Limbaugh and his like on a regular basis. It never used to have any need to do so. But the great danger in this attitude, as noted by many, is that Limbaugh gets treated as though he's the party standard bearer. The implication, in addition, among those who seek to divine the Republican position for any and all contentious issues is that Limbaugh's agenda closely resembles that of individual conservatives and listeners, when often the other way round is the case. Strident voices like his are always good to get our righteous indignation going and though it always feels satisfying to vent our identical frustrations with a sympathetic audience, I wish we'd take as much time to cutting off the supply of misinformation as we do in attacking the messenger.

Manning's latest video, as posted below, doesn't just contain the same old political banter, it also shows the Pastor's dangerous messianic streak. If we were to be completely honest, we would acknowledge that, to some degree, a messianic complex drives Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and Lou Dobbs. They might not directly articulate it, but when one becomes drunk on power it is very easy to believe that one has the solution, all the answers, and is the singular authority on every topic. With every complimentary e-mail, phone message, or blog citation that complex grows and grows. If Manning was as much of a man of God as he says he is, he would be wise to note a particularly applicable passage of scripture, Luke 6:26, which states,

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets

Another translation of the same passage states,

And what sadness is ahead for those praised by the crowds--for false prophets have always been praised.

Those who chase after the approval of the crowd will always be disappointed. Popularity is fickle. If our ambition rests otherwise, then we need never worry about such things.