Just around the corner

I just visited an old friend who is a collector of odd things. On a shelf in his kitchen he has two boxes of Millennios, a commemorative version of Cheerios put out in 1999 for the popular millennium (As opposed to the calendar millennium, 2001, or the true millennium, 1997. I don’t want to get into it right now.). On the side panel of the box there is a set of fill-in-the-blanks predictions.

A brief selection:

By the year ____, scientists will have developed special suits that will allow people to fly.

The Boston Red Sox will win the World Series in ____.

We will be able to teleport people and objects in the year ____.

It was interesting to see that in 1999 the Red Sox winning the Series was as improbable as flying suits or Star Trek style teleportation. Five years later, on October 27, 2004, the Sox did it in a four game sweep against the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Monday, Ian Paisley, the hard-line leader of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, sat down with former IRA member Martin McGuinness to begin working out the details of power sharing in Northern Ireland between Sinn Fein and the DUP. Even a few years ago, who would have thought that “No surrender” Paisley would have a cordial face to face meeting with one of his sworn enemies? After much struggle and many setbacks, it looks as if Northern Ireland might have a lasting peace.

It reminds me of my visit to Berlin, both East and West, in 1988. I went from Austria to West Berlin through East Germany, watching machine gun toting guards patrolling around the train when it stopped. My friends and I went through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin for the day. It was a 40-year time warp from modern concrete, stainless and glass buildings to brick walls still showing bullet pockmarks and buildings left bombed out. An East German we met said goodbye some 300 yards from the wall, for fear of being shot if he strayed closer. It seemed as if the wall would be there for the next hundred years. It fell within a year.

I write about these events because I sense despair around me. George Bush looks impeachment-proof. The occupation of Iraq drags on and the death toll rises, while the Democrats put up a generally feeble opposition. The White House uses our constitution like so much toilet paper. Global warming inexorably advances as SUV’s drive past the brightly lit McMansions. And so on, and so on, with no letup.

Well, imagine being an East Berliner in 1988, a resident of Omagh in Northern Ireland in 1998, or a citizen of Red Sox Nation in 2003. That could be where we are in 2007. Chin up. Keep going.

Small town, big issue

I live in a small town in Vermont. Last night I went to Town Meeting, a yearly institution around here when all those interested voters show up at the town hall (or school gym, or wherever) to discuss and vote on the town budget, zoning rules, and other local business. Last night’s meeting was a special one – there was an item on the agenda to take all money issues out of town meeting and put them on the ballot. The advocates of this change insisted that it the ballot is more democratic that the meeting, because people can vote more easily than they can attend. Opponents objected that it would eliminate meaningful debate and our ability to adjust our policies. (This two sentence summary is an injustice to the actual debate.)

I should interject, for those of you who do not live in Vermont, that you have never seen a town meeting on TV, even though a journalist, elected official, or candidate may have called it that. I have seen the expression “national town meeting” used, which is as silly as the expression “national town.” A town meeting is not a candidate listening to random people expressing their opinions. It is the residents of an actual town assembling to discuss issues and make legally binding decisions about the policy, laws, and finances of the town.

I should also note that I recently drove across a wide swath of America, about 2,000 miles, stopping in several major cities across the southeast. The contrast with Vermont was startling. It wasn’t just the absence of real town centers, or the staggering traffic jams, or even the blight of strip mall sprawl. It was the anonymity, the isolation, and the selfish behavior. People drove like rats fighting over the last scrap of food. People blocked out the world with tinted windows and earphones. Nobody seemed to give a damn.

Last night the town hall was packed and overheated. Some people greeted each other with smiles and laughter, while others spoke solemnly and quietly to each other. There was pent up emotion showing in many faces. I was expecting a verbal death match.

The issue that precipitated both the high attendance and the proposed change was our annual donation to the regional library. The library is located in the largest town in the area and serves a handful of towns around it as well. The library people ask for money based proportionally on how many books are checked out by the residents of each town. These requests had been ramping up sharply along with library activity. I missed last year’s meeting, but in a fit of generosity, those attending voted extra money on top of the already increased amount. This fiscal extravagance tipped the scales and brought out the Australian ballot advocates.

In the end, after drawn out and passionate debate, town meeting survived by a two to one margin. Several spending items were then axed, and the library got less than it asked for. Given the emotional levels, people were remarkably polite and patient, even when people rambled on or wandered from the subject. Most speakers were steady, although some choked up, some had nervous and wavering voices, and others were loud and angry. The discussion was punctuated with occasional side comments and laughter.

That sets the scene, but what I am really interested in is something that Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed and wrote about during his travels in 19th century America. That is our sense of community. The word community is one of those sacred words in American culture, but one that has had its meaning twisted and drained over the years. I saw evidence of both its strength and its decline in that sweaty town hall last night.

Community. People need it the way we need carbohydrates and protein. We respect it. We use the word reverently. More and more, we seem to prefer the concept to the actuality. We don’t want to work for it and we don’t want to pay for it. Maybe it is prosperity and mobility. Maybe it is declining prosperity and diminishing free time. Maybe it is the toxic myth of absolute individualism, the narcissistic lullaby that oozes soothingly from our media.

Over and over last night I heard people say things such as “I use the library all the time,” or, “I never use the library.” A couple spoke movingly in support of funding for the local home health service – it had helped them when the husband’s mother was dying. For many people it seemed as if their opinion depended on whether a service helped them personally.

I have no children, and it is extremely doubtful I ever will. Roughly two thirds of my local tax bill pays for schools. Even so, I am not going to ask that only townspeople with children foot the bill. I suppose I could make a pragmatic argument that if Johnny can’t read or Jane can’t do math, then someday they will be a drag on the local economy and social services. I won’t. I pay my school taxes, if not with a smile, then with a sense of satisfaction. Why? Because a community takes care of its children.

We voted money for the local home health agency. My parents live in another part of the state. They will never need home health care around here. I may or may not need it myself someday. That’s not the point. A community takes care of its old people.

I check out a few books from the library now and then. Some people use it daily, some never. This is irrelevant. A library is one of the building blocks of a community, just like the roads, the schools, the fire station, and the water mains. Our pipes need to hold water, but so do our ideas.

We don’t each live alone on a desert island that happens to be part of a town. We are as connected and contiguous as our parcels of land. Even more so, because our lives overlap. Last night I saw that connection in the sometimes-strained civility of an impassioned debate. I saw it in the good humored conversations afterward between those who “won” and those who “lost.” I saw it in the town officials who work what amounts to an extra part time job for almost no pay. I also saw it seeping away in the selfish assumptions of people’s arguments and the occasional knowing manipulation of emotion or process. I saw our community wounded by people’s need to identify themselves not only by name but also by years of residency, either proudly or apologetically, as if that had moral weight. I heard the code words of class distinctions and political factions.

We can discuss and define and redefine the boundary between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community. That discussion, however, establishes that the community exists and has rights and needs of its own, beyond the rights of the individuals within it. Newcomer. Old-timer. White collar, blue collar, no collar. Ultra-conservative to radical. Aging bachelor, young couple, large family. We need each other.

“I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow citizens; my present purpose is to point out the general rule that enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book II, Chapter 8

Something we left behind

I have been thinking about lack of eloquence of the people we elect to represent us, or, in the case of G.W. Bush, the people we almost elect, but not quite. When I listen to the news on the radio, I wince when one figure or another reels out a prepared statement so obviously crafted and repeated that I can visualize the wear marks on the diphthongs. These people pile euphemism on cliché and dip it in pabulum before daring to present it to the public. There is nothing a politician’s handlers fear more than the opportunity or necessity for spontaneous speech.

I should note that there are a number of clever high school students in debate teams who could embarrass our congressional leaders in a true academic confrontation. By debate I mean the establishment of a proposition, the presentation of arguments for and against it, and the rebuttal of opposing points. The alternating recitation of stump speech fragments is not a debate, even if the networks call it so.

This is not just a matter of my taste for true debate. The lack of substantive debate in the public eye allows sloppy thinkers with sloppy ideas to ascend to high office. They never have to deeply understand what they are talking about. They know that their opponents will be delivering entirely predictable statements in predictable venues, and that they will have time to prepare their carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying, entirely irrelevant responses.

Something we left behind when we parted company with the British Crown 230 years ago was the custom of Question Time. At first only written questions were submitted to the government, but by the late 19th century, the Prime Minister and the ministers in charge of his departments had to face direct verbal questioning.

From a fact sheet published by the British Parliament:

“Procedure at Question Time
Question Time currently takes place in the House of Commons at about 2.35pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 11.35am on Wednesdays and 10.35am on Thursdays, after Prayers. In practice, the question period lasts about an hour on each of these days. Oral questions are not taken on Fridays.
The Speaker sets the process in motion by calling the Member whose question is first on the printed Order of Business. The Member stands up and says, "Number one, Mister Speaker". As the text of the question is set out on the Order of Business it is not necessary for the Member to read it out. To follow the proceedings clearly it is necessary to have a copy to hand. The Minister then answers the question. When the larger Departments, such as the Home Office or Trade and Industry, answer questions, the Secretary of State will be accompanied by several junior Ministers who will share the task of responding to Members.
Supplementaries
From that point further exchanges are unscripted. The Member who asked the original question is normally the first to be called to ask a follow-up question, or supplementary, on the same subject. When that supplementary has been answered by the Minister, the Speaker may call other Members to put supplementaries, usually alternating between the Government and Opposition sides of the House. Quite often, Members will rise from their seats in order to attract the Speaker’s attention. This is known as “catching the Speaker’s eye”.”

Watch the following video clip and try to visualize George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or any senior U.S. politician avoiding utter humiliation in this exchange:

David Cameron, Conservative Party leader, questioning Prime Minister Tony Blair on the National Health Service

GW standing in for Tony Blair? It is beyond the power of my imagination.

This kind of debate, repeated four times a week, would filter out the human tape recorders that dominate our government. It would also make CSPAN a contender with Comedy Central. In order to survive an exchange like this a politician has to actually have an understanding of the issue at hand. Agree or disagree with Blair as you like, but you have to admit that he has significant mental firepower compared to our own leaders. With this kind of performance as a job requirement, low wattage bulbs like George wouldn’t even be considered as candidates, much less elected. Think of Question Time as a form of intellectual, if not ideological, quality control. Perhaps it isn’t too late to import the custom.

Cheney Under Oath?

My worst call of last year was allowing hope to cloud my reason and believe that Karl Rove was about to do the perp walk over the exposure of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. A satisfying thought, but, alas, only Lewis “Scooter” Libby is on the hook, for perjury and obstruction of justice.

But wait, it seems that there is no honor among thieves. Libby’s lawyer has testified that Libby was concerned about being a scapegoat.

"They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling Libby's end of the conversation. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected." I just have to quote that again: "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected." Doesn’t it give you a thrill? Rove hasn’t been indicted, but nevertheless, this resembles what is called a “cutthroat defense,” with two defendants accusing each other and claiming innocence. Wells also mentioned a note from Dick Cheney about the setup: "Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder."

The list of probable witnesses includes an array of reporters, White House staffers, present and former CIA officials, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and even Dick Cheney. The concept of our Vice President, under oath, being questioned by Patrick Fitzgerald is enough to give me a warm, cozy feeling. I have discussed the prosecutor with a former NSA legal staffer who informed me that Fitzgerald takes perjury very personally and pursues perjurers with precision and intensity. Deadeye Dick will have to walk a very straight line with Mr. Fitzgerald. His testimony could expose a number of highly placed people to some unwanted public and prosecutorial attention.

Perhaps I was right all along, but just had bad timing? I can imagine Patrick Fitzgerald realizing that he didn’t have enough on Rove, but that getting Cheney and others on the stand under oath in the Libby case would give him enough material for another indictment. Right now this is only wishful thinking.

No matter. The Libby case will open a window on the internal workings of the White House in general and the Vice President’s office in particular. This won’t increase anyone’s respect for the morally challenged individuals therein. If this could stiffen the spines of congressional Democrats and distract the White House from attacking Iran or escalating in Iraq, I’m all for it.

Team of Rivals

I just finished reading “Team of Rivals,” subtitled, “The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” written by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I highly recommend it. While reading it I kept thinking of our present politics.

The title refers to the fact that Lincoln appointed to his cabinet a number of the men who opposed him, and each other, in the race for the Republican nomination. Many people at the time considered it an act of folly. Lincoln’s political genius had not publicly manifested itself at the beginning and most observers though he would be overshadowed. Also, these were men who had schemed against him in the backroom politics of the day. Lincoln held no grudges. He recognized both the talents of his rivals and his need for the support of their constituencies. His political shrewdness in this was multifaceted. He had the services of the most intelligent and hardworking men that the political system could offer. He could satisfy the factions in his party by letting them spout off without committing himself. His cabinet members got blamed by opposing factions for Lincoln’s policies. They were all ambitious and suspicious of each other, so they each tended to ally with him against the others. In the end, he gained their respect and loyalty.

Contrast this to the monolithic gang of yes-men (and women) that surround modern presidents.

The Republican party of the 1850’s sprang mostly from the disintegrating Whig party. There were radical abolitionist Whigs, moderate “Free Soil” Whigs, and conservative anti-immigrant Whigs. Some present-day commentators have noted that a political party is in trouble when people have to ask, “Ok, but what kind of (insert name of party) are you?” This fragmentation and lack of definition afflicts both parties.

Both the Free Soil and anti-immigrant movements of the mid-19th century remind me of the immigration debate today. The Free Soilers looked at the economy of the south and realized that a free man could not earn a living in a state where others could be forced to do the same work for inadequate food and shelter, plus beatings. They opposed the extension of slavery to the new western territories. The so-called “Know Nothing” nativists were motivated by a mixture of xenophobia, religious intolerance, and an aversion to the competition from an immigrant labor force. The wealthy southern Democrats relied on slave labor and used the myth of racial superiority to enlist poor southern whites in supporting the slavery that kept them poor. Sound familiar? Today we have wealthy corporate interests enlisting blue-collar conservatives in opposing “amnesty” for undocumented Mexican workers. This amnesty would place the Mexicans under the protection of minimum wage and workplace safety laws, thus improving conditions for American blue-collar workers.

The globalization debate covers the same issues, with Americans buried under a hail of propaganda. Apparently, competing with 30-cent-an-hour workers in China is somehow inescapable, necessary and beneficial to our economy. Note to the historically impaired: The abolitionists and Free Soil movement eventually won.

Another striking thing that Goodwin points out about the years preceding the Civil War is the deterioration of public regard for the institutions of government and the commonalties that bound the nation, as well as the growing violence and incivility of the debate. The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision in 1857 denied the possibility of citizenship to blacks and extended the possibility of slave ownership to the new western territories. It was widely regarded as a partisan political decision favoring the southern Democrats. People in northern states were enraged and debated whether they should obey the ruling. The reputation of the court didn’t recover for a generation. It brings to mind Bush v. Gore in 2000. Then as now, a highly partisan, conflicted Supreme Court abandoned its traditions and its adherence to precedent to deliver a desired political result.

The electoral process was widely seen as corrupt, with plenty of backroom deals and unelected power brokers throwing cash around. The extreme ends of the political spectrum utterly distrusted the government.

The attack bloggers and shock jocks spraying spittle across the electronic media are disappointingly reminiscent of the ultra-partisan slander sheets of that era. The goal of objective journalism was not in wide circulation in the mid-19th century, and vilifying one’s political opposites as lunatics, mental defectives, traitors, perverts, and criminals was ordinary press coverage. Congress was no more civil. The conflict occasionally spilled over into physical violence. At least our vice-president limited himself to an isolated obscenity.

Slavery was the wedge issue of the day, in the same way that abortion, gun control, or the Iraq war would be today. Just as today, many politicians sacrificed principle in favor of party unity, and watched their party fracture anyway. The country eventually split along this seam. As with many emotionally charged issues today, the opposing sides could find no common ground on which to debate, merely exchanging ritualized insults. Will there be a new fault line?

After reading Team of Rivals I wonder what kind of earthquake we will experience in 21st century American politics. The Republicans are fragmented between neocons, religious fundamentalists, old-line fiscal conservatives, and moderates, with splits on abortion, immigration, and the Iraq war. The Democrats are lined up for a split between economic populists and the big money DLC wing. Much of our press coverage has devolved into either stenography or character assassination. We have what is essentially a mixed slave/free economy in the U.S., the slaves being a combination of undocumented immigrant labor, overseas sweat labor (actual slave labor in some places), and fossil fuel energy. This last element may be a surprising thought to many people, but consider that most human energy inputs into our economy have been replaced by this uncomplaining, never tiring, underpaid black servant. (Every kilowatt-hour you buy for a few pennies is equivalent to a day of hard human labor.) As with the exploited human labor, there are serious moral issues bound up with the use of oil, coal and natural gas, as well as uranium.

We could use a Lincoln.