Common Courier

Schneider

2012-03-08T13:57:00.001-06:00

MoveOn PAC mailed a flyer to voters in Illinois' 10th District saying that Brad Schneider, who is running in the upcoming Democratic congressional primary, is really a Republican. They cite as proof Federal Election Commission reports showing that Schneider repeatedly contributed to Republicans both in the district he is running in and across the country. His contributions totaled thousands of dollars. The flyer also pointed out that official voting records show that Schneider voted in Republican primaries in two recent elections.

Schneider admits that he contributed to all the Republicans and that he voted in one Republican primary. He says the official voting record is wrong about the other primary. He says, however, that he is not a Republican, and he is saying that people are spreading lies.

It should be noted that Schneider's opponents haven't gone as far as MoveOn PAC has by saying that Schneider is a Republican. None of his opponents has done anything other than point out the facts of Schneider's contributions and primary voting record.

The question, therefore, is whether MoveOn PAC, in saying Schneider is a Republican, was expressing an opinion or was making a statement of fact. If MoveOn PAC was giving its opinion, it wasn't lying. An opinion is just a belief. A lie is an intentional misstatement of fact.

Schneider's assertion that MoveOn PAC is lying seems to be based on the notion that MoveOn PAC is not entitled to have an opinion about whether he is a Republican, and that only he can answer that question.

In one sense, Schneider is correct. He can consider himself to be a Democrat even if he votes for Republicans, contributes to them, and votes in Republican primaries. But that would be like someone considering himself to be Jewish even if he goes to mass and takes communion every Sunday in a Christian church.

Of course, Schneider can think he is acting like a Democrat. But other people are entitled to their opinions, too. Schneider, for example, brands Bob Dold as a Tea Party Republican even though Dold has never said that is what he is. If Schneider is justified in judging Dold based on Dold's voting record, MoveOn PAC can just as legitimately judge Schneider based on how he has behaved.

The biggest clue about whether Democratic voters should believe that Schneider is a Democrat is that Schneider doesn't seem to understand why Democrats are upset that he has been voting for and contributing to Republicans. If he had any real involvement in Democratic campaigns, if he really identified as a Democrat, if he had been supporting Democrats instead of Republicans, he'd know.

Used God Salesmen

2012-03-06T10:58:00.001-06:00

I have met a number of clergy representing a range of faiths as I pursue the cause of reducing the violence in our world. It has been a wonderful experience. The clergy I have talked with are great listeners, they are concerned about people, they have great depth of experience, and they are refreshingly candid about what they and their congregants are able and willing to do.

I should not be surprised. These are people who, I am sure, went into their line of work because of their feelings for people and their desire to be helpful, and they prepared for their work through study and mentoring.

But the public's opinion of clergy is not at a particularly high point. There have been clergy financial and sex scandals, and clergy who have sought to elevate themselves by appropriating their religions for political advantage. And then there are the clergy whose outlandish and offensive pronouncements degrade the image of clergy.

Just yesterday, one nationally recognized preacher said that the tornadoes that just injured and killed people across a wide expanse of the U.S. wouldn't have happened if people had prayed more. There may be a valid theological basis for his view, but it was phrased in such an insensitive way that many people will think he was saying that God sent tornadoes to punish people whose religious practices were insufficient. That is exactly the way the statements were reported in the news. This blaming of the victims for their own suffering will not be well received by people who heard on the news that one of the victims was a year-old baby. Was the child not praying enough?

Over the years, lawyers, insurance salesmen, used car salesmen, and others have all had to contend with poor public perception. It isn't fair to the majority of honest practitioners in these professions, but there isn't much they can do about it. There will always be bad apples whose misdeeds will spoil the reputations of others. Some people will try to avoid having to use a lawyer or buy a used car or insurance, out of fear of being victimized by unscrupulous practitioners, but most people will just try to find the good ones to deal with.

Probably a lot of people will react the same way and try to avoid unsavory clergy. But some people will decide not to have anything to do with clergy at all, because the reputation of their calling has deteriorated. There is plenty of evidence that a lot of people have already taken this step, including declining membership and attendance at many churches. There are many reasons participation in religious institutions has gone down, but whatever the reason, to the extent that it results in people having less contact with clergy, people stand to lose something precious. I don't mean to suggest that everyone needs to subscribe to a religion, but I can't think of any other institution in our society which provides comparable spiritual guidance.

Clergy are keenly aware that their popularity is not what it once was, and yet I haven't noticed them trying to defend their own reputations. I think it is because they just aren't oriented that way. Their concern is for the welfare of others, and their respect for other people's religious beliefs makes them extremely reluctant to criticize even the most outrageous of their colleagues. It could also be that they are embarrassed by what some of their fellow clergy have been doing and they just don't want to talk about it.

Perhaps the biggest reason, though, that so many clergy simply go about their work without protesting the damage to their profession is that they are people of faith. They believe that if they do what is expected of them, things will turn out all right. It may seem like a naïve outlook in this harsh world, but it is an outlook that reflects well the teachings that they are trying to impart.

Overturn The Table

2012-03-05T08:34:00.001-06:00

When asked whether the U.S. will attack Iran, President Obama says that he is leaving all options on the table. It is exactly what President Bush said before he ordered the attack on Iraq.

Obama is not alone. Virtually every U.S. politician who has been asked about attacking Iran has said the same thing. Apparently, none of them learned anything from our disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are ready to start another war, and once again, it would be a mistake.

Before the first shot was fired on Iraq, we were told that we should attack Iraq because it had weapons of mass destruction. Then we were told that Iraq was developing the weapons. Then we were told that we shouldn't wait for Iraq to develop the weapons, because it had the capability of developing them. Then we were told that we shouldn't wait for Iraq to develop the capability to develop the weapons. Then we just attacked.

This time the rhetoric has taken the same course. Once again, we are pre-positioning troops and war material. Once again, we are being told that Israel is threatened. Once again, we are being told that we could launch a precision strike, with little or no risk to civilians. Once again, we are told it has nothing to do with oil. Once again, we are being lied to.

There are differences. When we launched the previous wars, our economy was in good shape and our government had surpluses. The wars were started in part to eliminate those surpluses, so that our government would be forced to cut back on non-military social programs that the Republicans didn't like. This time, our economy is weak, and our government has deficits and debt. We haven't even started paying for the last two wars, which were financed with borrowed money, so it is hard to see how we would pay for yet another war.

Last time, hundreds of thousands of Americans protested in the streets. Bush said he wouldn't listen to them. This time the number of protesters is much smaller. People have given up on the notion that their government will listen to them.

A Republican president started the last two wars. A Democratic president is threatening to start the next war. Both times, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and countless others weapons makers could be counted on to do whatever was needed to move the politicians into a war that would make the arms merchants billions of dollars.

Even though an election is not far off, there are no alternatives for the voters. There isn't a credible candidate in either the Republican or Democratic party who has expressed any hesitation about attacking Iran, and there is no viable third party option.

The situation is grim. We need leaders with the courage and wisdom to take certain options off the table. All we have now is politicians who are so thrilled to be able to sit at the table that they are willing to play the rigged hands they are being dealt and listen to the shills who are whispering in their ears. Time to overturn the tables. There is precedent for it.

On The West Side

2012-02-28T21:58:00.001-06:00

This evening I walked about two miles along Chicago Avenue on the west side of Chicago with CeaseFire, an anti-violence group that has become known because it is featured in the movie The Interrupters. We chanted, “Put down the bullets, pick up a book” and other messages that make a lot of sense in the neighborhoods we were marching in, but which would seem odd in the suburb where I live. It isn't unusual for people to get shot on the west side for no discernible reason.

It seemed safe enough for all of us to be marching along the sidewalk, but it probably always seems safe until the shooting starts. I was surprised that there were no police to be seen. At other demonstrations I have been at in Chicago, there is always some police presence to help the marchers across the street, direct traffic, keep the peace, or just keep an eye on people. But this time, I didn't even see a squad car drive by.

When the march was over, I had to walk back to the beginning of the march route, where I had left my car. I thought about hailing a taxi, but I realized that cabs were another thing I didn't see the entire time I was on the west side.

The folks I marched with were friendly. Protesters usually are. I was the only white person in the march. I'm sure people noticed, although no one said anything.

It is hard to tell what impact the march had. A couple of TV crews were there. I didn't get home in time to see if we made it onto the news. Some of the folks we passed on the march were curious, but mostly they seemed to know why we were there. Some of them chanted along with us as we passed. A few motorists honked their horns as they drove by, to show their support.

The neighborhood we marched through is a short drive or El ride from the Loop. It is a prime location, although the neighborhood doesn't look it. It is hard to believe that people who live there have to worry about being shot every day. One teenager on the march told me she usually stays inside to be safe.

The weather was beautiful. The marchers had a strong, hopeful spirit about them, as is usually the case when people get together to try to make things better. I enjoyed being there, but it was also so, so, sad.

Why Own Guns?

2012-02-24T13:52:00.002-06:00

Gunnies, as gun lovers like to call themselves, list four major reasons for owning guns: hunting, target shooting, self-defense, and gun collecting. Let's take a look at all four.

Hunting. Due to the demographics of our country, hunting is in rapid decline. It has almost no appeal to young people, women, or immigrants. There aren't enough ducks or other wildlife left to shoot, there aren't enough people who like killing defenseless animals, there are fewer and fewer people who have emotional attachments to guns because they grew up hunting, and there aren't that many people who have enough spare time to sustain hunting as a popular sport. Hunting is an outdoors experience with very little cache for people who live in cities and suburbs, and our country continues to be more and more urbanized.

Target shooting. Same situation. It will soon be as popular as archery.

Self-defense. Some people have guns at home so that they can shoot burglars. If a gun is stored safely in a locked vault to prevent people from accidentally shooting themselves or other members of their households, it takes a few moments to get the gun out. Most burglars would be more quickly scared off if you just turned on the lights or shouted, “go away.”

But assuming you are confronted by an unusually bold, determined burglar, could you shoot that person? A high percentage of trained soldiers can't bring themselves to shoot the enemy. However, if you did shoot, would you hit the burglar? At distances beyond a few feet, most people have difficulty hitting any moving target, so you probably would miss.

Even if you were one of very few people who is ever burglarized while you are at home, if you tried to shoot the burglar, you would create a bigger problem for yourself, because the burglar might shoot back. Burglars who carry guns have told researchers that, overwhelmingly, they don't plan on shooting or hurting anyone – they just carry guns to scare people into complying with their requests to turn over their money, or to protect themselves from armed homeowners. You may think your gun protects you, but it actually increases the likelihood that you will get shot.

Some people think that they will use their guns to protect themselves against violence on the street. They read about drive-by gang-related shootings and imagine that they would be able to shoot an attacker who was speeding around a corner in a car. These people watch too many movies. Reacting fast enough and shooting accurately enough to hit the driver of a fleeing car and not hit innocent bystanders on the street is far beyond the abilities of almost every gun owner, including most cops.

Some people want to have guns to protect themselves from being robbed. They relish stories of convenience store robbers being shot by cops who happened to have stopped for a cup of coffee. They don't talk so much about the security guards, clerks, and customers who get shot when they pull guns and try to stop a robber from stealing some cigarettes or a little cash from the store's register. The banks, where the real money is, know better. They train their tellers to give the robbers the money. It's not nearly as important as someone's life, and it's insured, just like all the stuff in people's houses.

Some people think they will use their guns to fight off an invading army or to shoot at their local police, National Guard, or the U.S. military if these forces ever decide to stage a coup and take over our country. These people haven't noticed the weapons in our armories, including armored vehicles, artillery, and drone aircraft. This weaponry is why people in Iraq and Afghanistan use roadside bombs to resist invaders. Guns won't do the job – they'll just get you killed.

Gun Collecting. I'm pretty sure that if gun owners didn't also have their guns for hunting, target shooting, or defense, there wouldn't be any more people collecting guns than there are people who collect antique typewriters or cameras, which are much more complex mechanical wonders than guns.

It is pretty clear that the ostensible reasons that people give for owning guns are based on fiction, not facts. It is hard to believe that gun owners are ignorant of all of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of studies of guns that have been done over the past several decades by academics, law enforcement agencies, and independent researchers, which show that guns make people less safe, not more safe. It is disturbing to think that gun owners are delusional and incapable of reconciling their fantasies with reality. Perhaps gun owners just have other reasons which they aren't talking about for wanting their guns. That will be a topic for another day.

Role Models

2012-02-21T22:11:00.001-06:00

Countless times we have heard that having Obama in the White House gives hope to other blacks, particularly black children. They can see that it is possible for a black person to reach the highest levels of success in America. He is the Role Model in Chief.

What we are seeing in the Republican presidential primaries is that Obama is also the supreme irritant to some white people who can no longer find comfort in the fact that no matter how bad their lives are, they are still doing better than black people. Every time they see Obama sauntering around in his custom-tailored suits, ushered into and out of chauffeur-driven limousines, helicopters, and airplanes that are just for him, and having doors held open for him by whites, they are reminded that their children can no longer count on having a built-in advantage in life.

Not all Republicans are acting out of such racist motivations. But we are hearing and reading things said about Obama that are similar to what we heard in the days when George Wallace was cheerleading a rebuttal to the ideal of inter-racial progress. So similar, it is hard to deny that racism is part of what is motivating some people to back some of the Republican candidates who are still, amazingly, considered viable.

In recent months, we have seen the re-emergence of the welfare queen stereotype, as regressives rail against entitlement programs. We are hearing once again about people who depend on government benefits but who possess luxuries – these days the luxuries are cell-phones, computers, and flat-screen televisions. The historical racist roots of these complaints is so clear that it is laughable that the people who are doing the complaining deny that they have any racial prejudices. If these folks aren't racist, they sure are ignorant.

The fact that Obama is not typical of black people in the U.S. doesn't appease the racists. They don't look at the statistics that show that the disparity between the incomes of blacks and whites is increasing. They don't look at the continuing inferiority in the education, housing, and health care experienced by blacks as a group. No, they focus on one man in the White House, just as blacks who are looking for hope focus on that same man and see what they are expecting to see.

This is not to say that all of these people will vote Republican in the general election. Some of them may actually vote for Obama if they have a reason to. If, for example, the Democrats are supporting veterans' benefits and the Republicans are promising to cut those benefits because they are entitlements, some racist white veterans may vote for Obama.

If Obama wins, these people won't give up their hatred of him, because he will still be a successful black person. They will be angry at the Republicans for not giving them a choice. And they will be angry at people who say that they are racist, because, in their minds, they aren't. They will say that they are just being honest about things. And in one sense they are right. The day after the election, they will still be disappointed with how their lives have turned out. An irritatingly successful black person will still be on their TV screens reminding them that in their own eyes, they have failed, and they will continue to complain about entitlement programs which give other races an unfair advantage over their own white race, not realizing that being white is the biggest entitlement program of them all.

Shooting On My Corner

2012-02-20T13:14:00.001-06:00

There used to be a delicatessen and liquor store on one corner of 79th & Essex where you could buy pickles out of a barrel. On the other corner was a drug store where you could pick up a prescription or drop off film for processing. On another corner was a shoe store, and on the fourth corner was a burger joint. They are all gone now, as are the people who used to live in the neighborhood. Other people have moved in, and other stores have opened. When I was a kid, my house was two blocks away. This was my corner. I felt safe there. I was safe.

Yesterday, seven people were shot on that corner. Two of them have died. The victims ranged in age from 13 to 61 years old. One of the victims may have been shopping inside a corner store when he was shot. It was what has come to be referred to as a drive-by shooting. It took place at 6:45 in the evening, which is not an unreasonable time for teenagers to be walking on the street or people to be shopping in their neighborhood stores.

I haven't lived near that corner for decades, but it is still my corner. It always will be. It belongs to me and to everyone else who ever lived in that neighborhood.

Every congressman in the U.S. and even the President can look back to the corners they grew up on. I'm sure that if they read in the news that seven people, or even one person, was shot on a corner where they used to meet their friends, buy penny candy, trade baseball cards, or just hang out, they would feel some sadness, just as I am feeling.

I have never lived in Iran or even visited there. But I know that every corner of every city or village is special to the kids who grew up there and to the people who now live there. If we attack, all those people will feel the sadness that I am feeling. They will also feel anger. Just as the people in Iraq felt sadness and anger when we bombed their corners and killed their teenagers. Just as the people in Afghanistan felt sadness and anger. Just like the people in Viet Nam felt.

Maybe if we could realize that the corners we are attacking all around the world are special to people we wouldn't be so quick to shoot up those corners and the people who happen to be there when our planes and drones and tanks drive by. Maybe if we who live in safe neighborhoods in the U.S. could remember that the corners where people are being shot in our own cities are special to the people who are still there, we would do more to stop the shooting. Maybe if we would just spend a few moments with our own memories of feeling safe during our childhoods, we would be more upset that because of the violence in our society, other people will never have those kind of memories. Kids are growing up in the U.S. and all around the world never feeling safe on their own blocks.

I grieve because someone just shot seven people on a corner. My corner. They are all my corners. Here, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in Iran. They are yours, too.

Rich People Rules

2012-02-16T08:23:00.001-06:00

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in the Citizens United case that corporations can contribute unlimited amounts of money to help elect (buy) candidates. The Court said that corporations have the same constitutional rights of free speech as people have, because the court can't tell the difference between people and things such as corporations that aren't people. What the Court hasn't quite said yet, so far as I can tell, is whether people have a constitutional right to spend unlimited amounts of money to help elect (yes, buy) candidates. If they do, then all the campaign finance laws will be thrown out, and rich people will have the unhampered ability to overwhelm the electoral process.

A lot of people think that letting rich people run everything is a bad idea and that it will destroy what is left of democracy. But one group that likes to get rich folks' money believes that rich people ought to be able to buy whomever they want. That group is Personal PAC. They have filed a lawsuit to have Illinois' $10,000 limit on personal contributions to political action committees thrown out. Their reasoning seems to be that if corporations are allowed to corrupt the system, rich people should be allowed to corrupt it, too.

The Illinois law hasn't been around for long. It was passed after our last governor was arrested because of the way he was letting money influence him. That governor will start serving his 14-year jail term in the next couple of weeks. If the campaign finance law is thrown out, he'll have a lot of time to wonder why it is that he has to stay locked up while the rich people get to keep buying elections.

The group that is trying to eliminate campaign finance limits is not usually thought of as some right-wing front for the ruling class. Quite to the contrary. Personal PAC exists to lobby for women's rights to get abortions. Because they support women's reproductive rights, they would normally be placed on the liberal or progressive end of the political spectrum.

Apparently, though, Personal PAC's concern for women doesn't extend to the rights of women to live in a free society and be governed by public officials who owe their allegiance to the people. The issues of equal pay for women, advancement of women in business and the professions, violence against women, sexual exploitation, sexual stereotyping, and harassment, all of which are directly affected by the actions of elected officials, don't seem to worry this group. No, so long they can get their money and women can get abortions, this group is happy. Maybe they think we ought to trust that they and their rich friends know what is best for everyone, and that they will take care of everything. I guess they think we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about the consequences of eliminating campaign finance laws.

Personal PAC says right on their website that they use money to influence elections. The obvious problem, of course, is that if this group wins its lawsuit, groups that want to eliminate abortions will also be able to raise unlimited money from rich people. Whether women can get abortions will depend not on any concept of rights, but on which side has richer friends. The outcome of entire elections will become, even more than it is now, just a matter of which side the richest people are on, and not a questions of which position is right, fair, and just. We won't have a democracy at all. All that will be left is a teller window.

Funerals

2012-02-13T13:24:00.001-06:00

I went to two funerals last week. Two men. One was 89 years old. He lived as long as might be expected. The other was 58. He died young. Very different ceremonies. One officiated by a rabbi, with lots of Hebrew and religious and cultural references. The other emceed by a friend, with absolutely no mention of God or religion. Instead, Dylan songs sung to a live guitar. Two grieving families, remembering the good things and laughing at the deceased's quirks.

I may have met the older man many years ago. He was the father of a boyhood friend. Friends' fathers weren't part of the picture much back then. They worked a lot, and they didn't bake cookies so they didn't get the attention that friends' moms did.

The younger man whose funeral I attended was an acquaintance of mine. We had worked on some campaigns together. He was a good guy. I liked him, and I appreciated what he had done.

I don't seek out funerals to go to, but when I attend one, I get a lot out of it. Every life has a story. Every person has someone to remember and miss them, or did at some point.

No one ever gets the chance to enjoy his own funeral. It's a shame. I think people would like hearing what others say about them. I think it would inspire people to treat other people better if they heard that the kindnesses they did in their lifetimes are what their survivors remember and cherish. Seldom does a eulogy emphasize how much money a person made, although I have heard it.

I'm probably not the only person who leaves funerals wondering what people will say about me when my time comes. I'm counting on my friends and relatives having imperfect memories, or at least to keep their mouths shut about things best forgotten.

None of us knows when our time will come. I'm trying to prepare, though certainly not looking forward to the eventuality. I'd like a little warning. I'd like a little time to tidy up and say goodbye. I suppose that in one sense we all have plenty of warning. We know what is coming.

Life is so precious. So fragile.

Which Side Are You On?

2012-02-07T20:46:00.001-06:00

For the past many months, Democratic campaigns in our area have concentrated on influencing party activists. These are the people who knock on doors, make phone calls, attend coffees, contribute money, and do all the things that have to be done to win elections. Generally, they pay more attention to politics than most voters do, and they influence the outcome of elections. Their friends, families, and neighbors look to them for guidance on who to vote for.

One of the candidates in the upcoming Democratic primary has met very strong resistance within his party. The party activists are upset that year after year, while they were doing the hard work of trying to get Democratic candidates elected, this candidate was helping Republican candidates.

It wouldn't surprise most people that the party activists have been soundly rejecting this candidate, but it seems to have surprised the candidate. Probably because he hasn't been one of the people who has been active in the Democratic party, he doesn't seem to understand just how deeply their feelings run. These aren't people who help candidates so that they can retain patronage jobs or get government contracts. These are people who volunteer because they feel passionately about the issues and believe that their efforts are needed if our country is to be strong, prosperous, a respecter of individuals' rights, a force for peace and justice, and a land of freedom and opportunity.

Under George Bush, these Democratic Party activists saw our country turn in an ugly direction. They saw the Republican congressman who represented them push the regressive Republican agenda, while pretending not to. These activists paid attention to their congressman's objectionable voting record on dozens of important issues. Then, when Obama became president, they watched that Republican congressman, now a senator and still pretending to be moderate and independent, vote along with all the other Republicans to prevent the new president from making the changes the American people had elected him to make.

The activists in my district saw their Republican congressman vote against health care reforms that would have given people the same kind of medical care that the government is now providing to the congressman as he recovers from a stroke. When their congressman became a senator, they saw his Republican replacement continue to vote along with the regressive wing of his party to deny basic services to needy people, while, like his predecessor, pretending to be compassionate and independent.

The Democratic activists are angry at the self-proclaimed Democratic candidate who seems to think that his decade-long efforts to defeat them should be forgotten or forgiven. They see no reason to embrace him. Instead, they have been lining up behind another candidate who has actually worked along with them these past several years to promote the agenda that they support.

In time, if the newly converted Democrat sticks with his new-found party, the activists will probably accept him. But it won't happen right away. Because right now, the only evidence that the self-proclaimed former Republican-supporter can offer to show that he has in fact changed his mind is his own say-so. The Democratic activists aren't impressed, considering the damage he has caused by his actions over the last ten years by supporting not only the Republican candidates they were trying to defeat, but also other right-wing Republicans across the country.

Implausible Excuse

2012-02-06T19:42:00.001-06:00

A local newspaper reporter wrote that a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Representative in Congress didn't vote in most of the elections that were held over the past eleven years. The candidate admitted the charge and seemed to go even further by saying that he has never voted in any primary election or in most local elections. About the only time he votes, it seems, is in national general elections, and maybe not even in all of them.

A lot of people don't vote in primaries, so the candidate probably wouldn't take much of a hit just for not voting. But the reason he gave for not voting raises some very serious questions. He said that he did not vote because there is an “unwritten code” that says military people shouldn't vote in primaries because they should be non-partisan.

Odd. This candidate just a couple of days earlier was telling a roomful of Democratic activists that he expected to win the primary because all the military personnel at the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, which is in his district, would vote for him. His literature boasts of his endorsements from military buddies. And yet he tells the newspapers that military people, himself included, don't vote in primaries.

The candidate's claim that there is an “unwritten code” not to vote is dubious. The U.S. Department of Defense directive on the Federal Voting Assistance Program says that all military personnel are encouraged to vote in local, state, and national elections. Every election judge knows that there are special procedures which are strictly observed to assure that all ballots from military personnel, no matter where in the world they are stationed, will be counted. The U.S. Air Force, in which this candidate served, has an official policy document that they title a Voting Plan that encourages all personnel and their family members to vote in “all elections.” The Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard have similar official policies and plans. The Department of Veterans Affairs encourages all veterans to vote and gets disabled and hospitalized veterans help with voting if they need it.

If there is an “unwritten code” that contradicts official, written government policy and discourages people from voting, it would have been this candidate's duty as a military officer to expose it. He didn't.

The candidate talks as if the “unwritten code” is pervasive in the military. If he is correct, it seems odd that we never heard about this pernicious code before. Not in the highly-contested primaries leading up to the Bush/Kerry election. Not in the contentious Bush/Gore election primaries. Not in the hot Obama/McCain election primaries. We didn't hear about this anti-American “unwritten code” until an inexperienced candidate needed an excuse for not having voted.

Somehow this candidate seems not to have learned the lesson that most voters have learned from a long series of scandals: all too often candidates get into more trouble trying to cover up their errors than they would have if they had simply owned up to them.

Talking With The Press

2012-01-23T09:29:00.001-06:00

The other day, I was interviewed by a writer who is working on an article and possibly a book about Mark Kirk, Republican Senator from Illinois. She asked me a lot of questions about Kirk, who won reelection to his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004. He represented the 10th District, which at the time included both affluent Kenilworth, where he was from, depressed Waukegan, and a whole lot of other towns. She was asking me because I was the Democratic nominee in that race, so presumably I knew something about my opponent.

It was an interesting trip down memory lane. When she asked how I happened to run for Congress, I explained that I was asked to run because I had become somewhat known in the community due to my work in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. I told her I had continued to work on a variety of peace and justice issues since the election, right up to the present day. She didn't really seem to want to know much about me or my campaign. She wanted to know about Kirk. I tried to answer her questions as accurately as I could.

When she asked if I had gotten to know Kirk's family or staff I told her that I had. On numerous occasions over the years, I had gone to Kirk's office with other people who wanted to talk with their congressman. Kirk's staffers, Andy, Aaron, Eric, and others were generally polite when they would tell us that the congressman would not meet with us, and we were polite with them. Kirk never did meet with us, of course, but it wasn't his staffers' fault. They were just there to keep their boss from having to do his job.

When the reporter asked if I had heard the rumors about Kirk's personal life, I told her that I had heard all sorts of things. I explained to her that I had made it clear that I was not interested in my opponent's personal life, and that I refused to make it an issue in my campaign. When the reporter asked if I had heard one particular rumor, I wouldn't tell her. It is still his personal life, and I still don't care.

When the reporter asked about Kirk's lies being exposed on the front page of the newspapers when he ran for Senate in 2010, I told her that the lies that bothered me most were the ones that Kirk used to help bring the country to war. Among them, he had said repeatedly that he had seen the secret proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It turned out there were no such weapons, so there was no proof for him to see. He made it all up. Those lies cost thousands of people their lives.

When the reporter asked what the main issues had been in the campaign, I told her that there were a lot of issues, but that there were two things at the top of most people's minds – the Iraq war and health care. She expressed surprise that people in the 10th District, which she thinks of as a wealthy district, were concerned about health care. I reminded her that not everyone in the district is wealthy. I explained to her that there were more than forty million people in the country with no health insurance back in 2004, and many more with inadequate insurance, and that the situation has gotten worse since then.

The reporter told me that she was not recording the interview, just taking notes, and that I might be contacted in the future by a fact-checker. I'm sure she wrote down what I said reasonably accurately. She seemed professional and pleasant. There was only one odd moment during the interview, when she told me that I wasn't easy to interview. She said that talking to me was like talking to her husband. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I told her that I was trying to be helpful and offered to talk with her again if any other questions occurred to her.

I enjoyed the conversation. I was pleased that someone was making the effort to understand a bit of history and explain it to her readers. She said she thought Kirk was ambitious and would seek higher office. That was exactly why I was talking to her. If our country is given the choice in the future about whether to elevate someone whose lies cost so many lives, it is best that we have as much information as possible.

The High Road

2012-01-20T09:10:00.001-06:00

Democrats across the country are having a wonderful time watching the Republican presidential nominees tear into each other. It's not so much fun, however, seeing candidates in your own party do the same thing, and in the long-run, it's bad politics.

Right now, two opposing Democratic candidates for Congress in the area where I live are in a spat. According to Greg Hinz, writing in Crain's Chicago Business, one candidate's chief campaign consultant is spreading the word that the opposing Democratic candidate is a “quasi-Republican” who has donated large amounts of money to Republican candidates. This is a charge that, to the extent it is true, could sway a lot of Democratic candidates to vote for someone else – someone who they feel is a real Democrat. The charge relates pretty directly to issues of political philosophy, so it is probably perceived by most voters as legitimate campaigning.

In retaliation, if the news report is correct, the candidate whose political loyalty is being questioned is striking back at his accuser by pointing out that the other candidate has had foreclosures filed against two of his homes in the last few years. It is a lot harder to figure out what this has to do with the candidate's qualifications to hold office. The accuser says that the foreclosures raise questions about the candidate's financial problems which could jeopardize his chances of winning the general election if he wins the primary. But unless some evidence materializes that shows that the the candidate's poor judgment led to his being foreclosed upon, rather than, as he claims, bank misconduct, it is questionable that voters will punish someone just because he is in the same unfortunate position that many of them are in.

It probably won't take the two candidates long to realize that their tactics are akin to spitting into the wind. If the charges were being made by low-level campaign volunteers, the candidates might be able to disavow them. By the charges are coming from the highest levels of the two campaigns, so the candidates themselves will be held accountable.

The third candidate has stayed out of the fight and is spending his time talking about his qualifications and the failings of the incumbent Republican whom he hopes to run against if he wins the primary. He is taking the high road. But it probably won't be long before one or both of the other candidates turns and attacks him. They have already shown their propensity for that kind of politics. They may already have made their plans of attack. They may be waiting until the last minute, to make it harder for their target to defend himself.

The pundits love to tell us that even though voters claim to want clean campaigning, the dirty stuff is what wins. There is undoubtedly some truth to that. But there have also been a few campaigns, including some recent ones in our area, which have failed specifically because the voters rejected their negativity.

There isn't much time left before the primary, but there is still plenty of time for all of the candidates to make clear to their campaign staff and volunteers that the object of their campaigns is to educate the voters so that they can choose a candidate who will be best for our country, rather than to destroy their opponents by any means possible, fair or unfair.

The "Jewish" Vote

2012-01-16T08:44:00.000-06:00

Census data indicates that there is a sizable Jewish minority in the area where I live. Traditionally, Jews in this country vote, and as a general rule they tend to vote Democratic. So some political observers have difficulty understanding why the district keeps electing Republicans. The answer is that this is a relatively well-off community, and a lot of Jews, like a lot of non-Jews, vote according to what they think is in their own financial interest instead of letting their religious affiliation guide their voting.

Nationwide, Jews got a reputation for being politically liberal when they were recent immigrants. They tended to live in cities like New York and Chicago, where they worked sewing garments, rolling cigars, peddling goods, and in various other low-wage occupations. They supported unions, public education, non-discrimination, and other positions that are now considered “liberal,” both because those positions were relevant to their daily lives and because their religion taught them to be charitable, concerned with other people, and welcoming to other peoples.

Some Jews who moved from the factory floor to factory ownership tended to view unions differently once they achieved their successes. And when they moved from the crowded cities into splendid suburbs, some of them started to view other issues differently, too. The more money they accumulated, the more they worried about being forced to share their good fortune by paying taxes. As nouveau rich, they tended more towards Republican values, just as their non-Jewish counterparts did.

The problem they had was that they were embarrassed to admit to their Republican leanings when so many of their friends retained their democratic allegiances. It was difficult to be a Republican Jew, because Republicans had become the party of the greedy rich. Israel solved their problem.

Republican Jews found they could vote for and contribute money to Republican candidates without having to admit that they were Republicans simply by claiming that the Republicans whom them supported would be good for Israel. Once they invoked the name of Israel, no one dared to question their motives for supporting Republicans, because it could be made to seem that the questioner was not a supporter of Israel.

Jewish Republicans could therefore be against unions, tax equity, public schools, health care, and even peace, without becoming social outcasts, so long as they could find Republican candidates who claimed to be pro-Israel. It was never difficult to find Republicans who supported Israel, because nearly all candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties supported Israel.

If the Jews in this area had followed the route taken by other people who have moved from modest means to wealth, they would simply have switched over to the Republican party. But Jews have been slow to do so, because making that switch would have alienated them from friends and family. It was easier to pretend to subscribe to traditionally Jewish values while actually supporting the other side.

As another election approaches, we should keep in mind that although the new district boundaries appear to favor Democrats, there may not really be as many Democrats as it would appear. Some of the people who have been voting in Democratic primaries, where they have had to publicly declare their party affiliation, have actually been voting for Republicans in the general elections all along and will likely continue to do so. Among those Republican voters will be some Jews who will continue to pretend to be Democrats and will continue to use Israel to camouflage voting against taxes and schools and unions. Any Democratic candidate who thinks he can appeal to those voters just by being pro-Israel is in for a surprise. Although there is a small group who don't care about anything except Israel, for a much larger group of voters Israel isn't really the issue at all. Money is.

What Romney Doesn't Get

2012-01-12T09:14:00.000-06:00

What Mitt Romney doesn't seem to understand or can't admit to himself yet is that the wealthy individual and corporate interests that control the Republican Party don't mind if Barack Obama wins. That's why there have been so many debates sponsored by media outlets and organizations that are sympathetic to or controlled by those powerful interests. For months those debates have put marginal candidates together on stages where they all looked like they were equally credible and gave them equal time to espouse their fringe views and tear each other apart. It was entertaining. It resulted in a fragmented Republican electorate. But most important of all, it distracted the public from what was going on in the halls of power.

While the debates and campaigning have been going on, the lobbyists, elected representatives, administrative agencies, and the President have been carrying on just as they have for years, happy that the public wasn't paying attention. The monied interests have been getting what they want from the Obama administration. He has proven to be a reliable ally who is willing to go along with their schemes and grant their selfish wishes. Theoretically, Romney might prove to be an even greater friend of the elite, but why would they want to risk that he wouldn't be as compliant as Obama has been? History has taught us that, once in office, Presidents can act in very unexpected ways. Just like Obama has.

Although most of the polls show that, among the Republican candidates, Romney has the best chance of winning an election against Obama, the polls also show that Romney might lose to Obama. The big money doesn't have any real reason to bet on Romney and risk losing. They are better off putting their money behind Obama and making sure he wins.

Romney isn't the first candidate who is going to have to come to grips with the reality that our politics, and therefore our government, are controlled by people who don't care about party affiliation or principles as much as they care about control. Over the years, plenty of candidates in both the Republican and Democratic parties have been sold out by people who were more concerned with how they would benefit from an election than how the results of the election would affect the country.

Romney will probably view the defection of the aristocracy as a betrayal. He shouldn't. He is one of them. He knows how the game is played.

The bulk of Republican voters, however, probably expect more from the people who pull the strings in their party. But when Romney loses, they won't be angry at their own leaders, because they won't know or won't admit what happened. They will blame the liberal media, George Soros, Blacks, Mexicans who can't even vote, Jews, and the rest of their usual demons for misleading the voters and stealing the election, because that is who the wealthy individual and corporate interests that control the Republican Party will tell them is at fault.

Things could change between now and the election. If Obama's popularity slips, the power brokers could turn on him and back Romney. Some of them are already quietly supporting both candidates, so that regardless of who wins the election, their influence remains intact. But as it stands now, Romney is the designated sacrifice. He'll campaign hard and he'll win some votes. But he'll lose, because regardless of what the Republican Party platform says and regardless of what Republican voters want, the folks who really decide these things have already made their choice, Obama, a President who has proven that he will do what he is told to do.

Joy of Killing

2012-01-06T12:51:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine who likes guns and thinks everyone should own them delights in posting news stories on his Facebook page about people who shoot and kill people and claim self defense. He recently pointed out a story about an eighteen-year-old woman who shot a man whom she said was breaking into her house.

My friend has also recently posted stories in which gun stores claim to have sold a lot of guns as Christmas presents and a story that said people are arming themselves in anticipation of the upcoming elections.

Other friends of mine point out stories like these, too. One such story said that so many people are applying for permits to carry concealed weapons in Wisconsin that the state can't process the applications as quickly as they come in. But there is a difference in the way people bring these stories to my attention.

The pro-gun people add gleeful comments to the stories. They view the shootings as evidence that people need guns to defend themselves. The anti-violence people, on the other hand, add sad comments to the stories. They view the proliferation of guns and their lethal use as an indication that people are reacting to the challenges of our time in inhumane ways.

In short, the pro-gun people think that guns solve problems. The anti-gun people think that guns create problems. Who is right?

Statistically, the picture is pretty clear. Of the nearly 100,000 people who are shot in the U.S. each year, very few are shot while they are committing a serious crime or any crime at all. Defensive shootings are so rare – from a few hundred to a couple of thousand a year – that the gun industry makes sure that every one of them receives the maximum amount of publicity. These are the shootings that my friend helps the gun sellers publicize. Neither he nor the gun sellers looks very closely at whether the victims could have defended themselves any other way, such as by calling the police. Nor do they care much whether the shooter was defending a person or just preventing the loss of a few dollars worth of property.

What the gun enthusiasts don't talk about is that every day, two to three people are accidentally killed by gunshots and another 30 are sent to the hospital with non-fatal injuries because they were shot accidentally.

The gun lovers also don't mention that every day in the U.S., nearly fifty people commit suicide by shooting themselves to death. That's about forty percent of all the shooting deaths, or about 18,000 gun suicides a year.

So, it looks like both sides are right. Guns are used defensively by a few people, they are used by a massive number of people to kill themselves, and they are the instrumentality of a huge number of accidental shootings and deaths. If you can't do grade-school mathematics, you may agree with my friend and the gun industry that more people should have guns in their homes. If, however, you look at the facts honestly, you will come to a different conclusion.

Neighborhood Shooting

2012-01-05T09:54:00.001-06:00

A man was shot to death in his own home a few blocks from where I live. Here is what the newspapers reported: A woman had called the police. She was already outside her house when they arrived. She told them her husband was inside and that he had a gun. For four hours, the police tried to phone the man and contact him using a bullhorn. He never responded. Finally they stormed the house and found him dead inside.

After the shooting, the local government sent automated phone calls to everyone in town telling them that the public had not been in any danger. That's what they said after they found the man dead, but for four hours the police were pretty sure the public might be in very serious danger. They closed off the streets and told everyone to stay in their basements. They evacuated some nearby residents in an armored vehicle. They set up a command post in a nearby church to coordinate about seventy five police officers from about a dozen nearby towns. They posted spotters in the windows of the house next door to the dead man's house.

Whether there was an actual threat of violence to the man's wife or to anyone else, the fear of deadly violence was justified, and it had an effect. That effect did not vanish when the “all clear” phone calls went out telling everyone that the situation had been “resolved.” People will remember for a long time that one of their neighbors was armed and dangerous and that they had been confined to their homes so that they wouldn't get hurt by the man or caught in police crossfire. The coroner's report that the shooting was a suicide was not released until a week after the shooting.

A month prior to the shooting, a group of people in my town had started planning to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords by holding a meeting at a local church. Several area clergy agreed to speak. We all figured that it would be a good idea to talk about violence before there was a tragedy in our town and we found ourselves saying, “We never thought it would happen here.” Then it happened here, a week before our meeting was scheduled to take place.

The meeting will be this Sunday, January 8 at 2:00 pm at St. Norbert Church, 1809 Walters, Northbrook, IL. It is free and open to the public. I have no idea how many people will attend. Maybe people will come because the recent shooting alarmed them or maybe they will decide that they don't need to attend because the situation has been resolved. I'll be there. I hope you will, too.

Silent Majority

2011-12-28T13:15:00.001-06:00

Before we invaded Iraq, all over the U.S. people who were against the invasion sat at their kitchen tables talking about how to persuade their neighbors to join them in protesting against the impending war. Would marches be a good way to get people's attention or would silent vigils be more effective? Should the message be that all wars are immoral or that this war was not justified? Should it be pointed out that war would hurt our economy? Should religion be invoked? Should banners be erected? Should there be a march on Washington? Should people be asked to call their congressmen or to sign petitions?

We tried everything. Nothing worked. The majority of Americans let the war happen, and they let it drag on, until finally the second president to preside over the war told us that he was stopping the war, not because we told him to and not because it was too expensive and not because it was morally wrong to continue. He never really told us why he was stopping the war. He just said the time had come.

Back during the Viet Nam war, the politicians told us that they felt justified in keeping the war going because, although a vocal minority opposed the war, there was a silent majority of Americans who wanted it to continue. It wasn't clear at the time whether the majority of Americans actually wanted the war or just didn't have any strong objection to it. It's hard to know what silent people want, because they don't tell you. Their silence makes it easy for the government to claim their support.

This time, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, a sizable minority of Americans very vocally asserted their objections, and there was, again, not much indication that the still silent majority of the country wanted it. Once again, the majority just went along with the war.

Eventually the majority of Americans grew tired of the war in Iraq. But they never abandoned their silence. They watched this war the way an audience watches a movie. They may have found the war interesting. They may have been moved by the suffering that was reported in the news. They may have become emotionally involved. But they said nothing and they did nothing.

The problem democracies face is that most of the time majorities are silent. If the representatives listen only to the vocal minority, they risk acting undemocratically. If the representatives listen to no one, they risk becoming dictatorial. The absurdity of our present situation is that the majority of Americans, although they remain silent, are upset because they feel that their representatives are not listening to them. They feel the government is exercising power not for the good of the people, but in order to further their own interests. What do these silent people expect?

Taking Down the Sign

2011-12-20T14:29:00.000-06:00

More than a few years ago, we put a sign in our window that said, “Keep 'em safe – Bring 'em home.” It was bright yellow and red. We just took the sign down, now that the President told us that the war in Iraq is over. The sign was in the window so long that the colors have almost entirely faded away.

It hardly seems worth quibbling that the war was never officially declared or that we still have thousands of armed personnel in Iraq and tens of thousands more in neighboring countries. I choose to celebrate the fact that, by ending our total occupation of Iraq, we have taken one small step in the right direction.

Obama is trying to get as much political advantage as he can. Naturally. I choose at the moment not to argue about whether he kept his promise or whether he should have acted more quickly. Nor do I feel compelled to debate the extent to which the war, which was started under George Bush, was supported by both major political parties. I'm not in the mood to contemplate the overwhelming influence militarist corporations continue to have on our country.

All I feel right now is sad. It was all so unnecessary. It accomplished so little. So many lives were lost. So many people have been injured.

We are being told that after the Viet Nam war, our soldiers were traumatized because they came home to an ungrateful country. But that is only part of the story. The soldiers who came back from Viet Nam felt alienated because they knew themselves that they had been fighting a pointless war. They knew that the people had been lied to. They knew that their fellow soldiers had died and been injured for nothing. Even if we had welcomed them with parades, they would still have known the truth and had trouble fitting back into civilian life.

This time we are being barraged with news stories about soldiers being welcomed home by motorcycle motorcades and flag-waving neighbors. The politicians who sent these soldiers off to war encourage us to join in these displays because they want us to feel good about what they sent the soldiers to do.

I don't think the soldiers will be fooled by a few parades and welcome-home banners. They know what they did. They know what they saw. They know what an awful waste it was. They will have trouble fitting in for the same reasons that a lot of others who stayed here in the U.S. have trouble feeling at home in their own country. It bothers us that we keep sending our young people off to fight wars that should not be fought.

Who Can Win?

2011-12-18T11:16:00.001-06:00

In the last several elections, Republicans have become masters at undermining Democratic support for Democratic candidates. They have been supporting candidates in our local Democratic primaries who have been hammering at the idea that the front-runner “could not win” in the general election. In each case, the front runners did gain our nomination but were handicapped in the general election because a portion of the Democratic electorate had become convinced that they could not win, so they didn't work as vigorously, or at all, to secure a victory. Their candidate having lost the primary, they sat out the general election, doing their part to make sure that the Democratic nominee could not win, and thus proving that they had been right all along.

Not being on the inside of the Republican organization, I can't know whether the candidates they supported to do their dirty work were recruited for that purpose or were simply taken advantage of. But the results were the same. We lost, because just enough Democrats were convinced that we had nominated a candidate who could not win. It didn't matter that the candidate who had the secret Republican backing did not win. What was important was that in the general election, the actual Republican candidate did.

I am hearing the same talk again. It is pretty easy to trace it back to the Republicans, since they harp on it in their blogs. They have seen time and again that we Democrats are so eager to win that we will cannibalize our best candidates on the mere whisper that they can't win. Can't win because not enough money. Can't win because too liberal. Can't win because hasn't been blessed by the extreme militant right-wing of a foreign government's lobby. Can't win because African American. Can't win because gay. Comb through the FEC reports and it isn't hard to see who is behind these “can't win” choruses. The money, and even the candidates, show up, spread their doubts, and tend to vanish until the next election.

The genius of this Republican tactic is that it recruits Democrats to destroy their own party's chances, like a virus replicating within a body. Brilliantly, the Republicans have figured out that there are Democrats who are so fatigued from losing that they welcome an excuse to not even try anymore. If our candidate can't win, why bother? And when the election is over, if we lose, they can say with great satisfaction, “I told you so.”

So far I have not heard any of our candidates themselves say their opponents “can't win”. They don't have to. The Republicans are seeing to it that the meme gets a lot of exposure, and vanity assures that there are Democrats who will carry the tune. By saying someone “can't win,” a person can imply that they really understand beltway politics; they are real insiders. Shake your head sadly when you say someone “can't win” and, like Tevya says of the rich man, “they think you really know!”

There is a defense against this pernicious attack: awareness. If you hear someone say your candidate “can't win,” recognize that you are listening to Republican propaganda. You may be hearing it from a friend or someone whom you respect, whom it will be difficult to confront. But your response need only be the truth. The truth is that no Democratic candidates can win if the Democrats don't support them, and this time around, with the new district boundaries and recent history of very close elections, good Democratic candidates can win with the support of the people. The question should be whether the candidate deserves your support, not whether they “can win.” The Republicans are the ones who want you to get those questions mixed up.

Uncertain Justice

2011-12-07T14:26:00.001-06:00

Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for lying, trying to be corrupt, and maybe even being corrupt. As far as I can tell, he has no prior convictions. If he had shot someone or broken into someone's house, he probably would have gotten a much shorter sentence. He might even have been given probation. But a judge, many of whose fellow judges got their jobs because of their connections with politicians, wanted to make a statement about official corruption.

What is that statement? That if you are a deal-making governor and get caught, you go to jail, but if you don't get caught, you get a building named after you? That if you are a Chicago politician and get caught, you have to mop a prison floor in Indiana, but if you don't get caught, you get a job at a big law firm and travel to China? The judge didn't have to remind us that the most important thing is to not get caught. We already knew that.

There is a lot of research indicating that the death penalty doesn't deter people from committing capital crimes. Other research shows that in general criminal penalties don't deter criminals. Why? Because most criminals don't even know what the penalties are for the crimes they commit, and even if they do know, they don't care. They aren't rational businesspeople evaluating potential investments. They are dumb crooks, doing what they think of doing to make it through life. They know they might get caught, but they also know they probably won't, so they don't give a lot of thought to the length of the sentence they might get.

Politicians are mostly a whole lot smarter than common crooks. They are usually college educated, articulate, and socially adept. But there isn't much reason to believe they think about the sentences they might get for being corrupt. Like street crooks, they know they probably won't get caught, so why worry about the sentence?

And let's not forget about the white-collar criminals who made fabulous amounts of money and profited from the destruction of the financial system, leaving the entire country in a deep, long-lasting recession. None of them have been prosecuted. They knew, from the savings and loan collapse, that their chances of getting caught were slim. Why pay attention to penalties?

The judge who sentenced Blagojevich may think he accomplished something more significant than thrilling the crowd by throwing a man to the lions. But unless the likelihood of criminals getting caught increases, the penalty for getting caught really won't much matter to the politicians, judicial aspirants, and crooked fund managers who are already working their way into positions which they can take advantage of.

What About Me?

2011-12-01T10:00:00.001-06:00

I was discussing gun violence with a friend who likes guns and thinks everyone should carry them. He sent me an article which said that the right to carry a gun should be viewed from the perspective of the person who wants to carry a gun, not from the perspective of public safety. The article said that the only important question in the gun debate is, “What about me?”

The author made the point that proponents of guns are concerned primarily with themselves and that people on the other side of the issue are also concerned about the public welfare. I would have thought that such an observation would be considered insulting to people who are in favor of guns. But my friend explained to me that he was more concerned about himself and his family than about his friends, and more concerned about his friends than about strangers. He said such self-centeredness is “natural.”

It is sometimes difficult to determine what is natural and what is not, but when speaking of humans and other social animals, both instinctive and learned behavior are clearly natural. Certainly there is competition in nature. But just as certainly, the survival of humans has always depended upon cooperation. Throughout history and before history, humans living in a great diversity of environments have survived not because we have big teeth and claws but because we were able to live together and benefit from each other's efforts. Just like bees and hyenas and dolphins and penguins do.

Somehow people on the right of the political spectrum have forgotten that humans depend upon one another. They look to their rights as individuals to carry weapons, and they reject the wording in the U.S. Constitution that says the right to bear arms is reserved to a “well regulated militia,” and that it is guaranteed in the Second Amendment because it is “necessary to the security of a free State.” Where the Constitution says “State,” they substitute the word “me.”

This same self-centeredness is one of the biggest differences between the rhetoric of today's Occupy movement and the Tea-Party movement. Occupy protesters talk about economic justice for all people. Tea-Partiers say they just don't want to pay their own taxes. When Occupy protesters promote policies because they think they will be good for society, Tea-Partiers call them Socialists.

The Tea-Partiers and a large segment of the Republican Party seem to think that concern about other people is bad. Their economic policies are based on the central idea that if we do what is good for rich people, poorer people will benefit as an indirect consequence, as the wealth trickles down. But the efforts of the Republicans are not intended to help the poor or middle-class. Helping them is just a byproduct of policies that are designed to help the rich. They reject as a matter of principle the very idea that we should even try to help poor or middle class people. They think that helping people leads them to expect help and makes them lazy, less productive, and ultimately union members and public school teachers.

The U.S. Constitution begins: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It's is pretty clear that the country was established for “we” and not “me” and that the benefits are intended to inure to all people. It is odd that the Tea Party, which draws its name from the revolutionaries who worked for independence, has so much trouble with the concept of the common good and the general welfare.

Afraid of What?

2011-11-29T15:46:00.001-06:00

Police in a number of cities have tried to evict Occupy protesters, with varying degrees of success. There are several reasons why they may be trying to get rid of the protesters.

The city councils and mayors that give the police their orders and that are protecting the status quo may be afraid that the protests do not look inviting to visitors. They may be afraid that the protest encampments will become permanent squatters' villages, such as those established in cities elsewhere in the world. These are questions of appearance, and most people probably share these concerns. People want New York and Chicago and other American cities to remain livable and attractive. The powers-that-be understand that this is what most people want, so when they ousted the occupiers, they said it was to clean the parks.

The powers-that-be may also be concerned that the protests will become violent if they get large enough, even though they have been peaceful so far. Most people don't like violence, so if the powers-that-be can make the protesters appear to be violent, the public will go along with repressing the protests. The problem the powers-that-be have had in making this argument is that so far the only significant violence that has come out of the protests has been caused by the police, as has been clearly shown on videos posted online.

But the powers-that-be may be concerned about something that is much more threatening than untidy parks or unruly demonstrators. They may be worried that if the protests continue, people will start thinking more seriously about making fundamental changes to the way the capitalist system operates in our country.

Most people support some of the ideas which we are told are the foundation of our current economic system. Principally, people like the idea that they will be rewarded for their talent and effort, and they believe that the possibility of making money encourages people to be creative.

But there is an awful lot about the so-called capitalist system that people aren't particularly interested in preserving. Most people don't believe that the richest people have been able to amass large fortunes solely based on their talent and effort. They know that luck usually plays a role in financial success, and that exploitation and corruption often do also.

People don't like the idea that individuals and corporations should be allowed to accumulate vast wealth without paying their fair share to the government and without helping people who are not as fortunate and who are in need.

People don't believe that business profits should go only to the people who invest money in the businesses, without a share of the profit going to the people who work for the businesses. They think that people deserve bonuses and raises when their work makes companies profitable.

People also don't believe that businesses have the same rights as people do, despite what the Supreme Court recently decided. People think that they are more important to this country than the companies that make their toilet paper or import their waffle irons.

People also no longer believe that whether a person is wealthy should determine whether they, their children, or their parents get to see a doctor.

If the police and their bosses can keep people thinking about the outward appearances of the protesters and the tactics the protesters are using, most people will support the repression of the protests. It is not so clear what will happen if the public starts listening to what the protesters are saying about economic justice, and it is impossible to predict what kinds of changes people will make if they decide to restructure the economic system so that it acts in the way that the people think that it should.

What Do They Want?

2011-11-28T10:10:00.001-06:00

Many commentators, particularly those who sympathize with the monied elite who are being referred to as the One Percent, have been criticizing the Occupy movement for not setting forth their demands. Maybe these critics should turn their gaze to the One Percent and ask what it is that they want.

Does the One Percent want young men who are living in gang-infested, economically distressed, racially segregated parts of our cities to shoot each other on a daily basis? Do they want innocent bystanders to get caught in the crossfire? Does the One Percent want children to drop out of high school because, seeing no successful people in their neighborhoods, they have no hope that education can help them succeed in life? Does the One Percent want middle-aged workers to sink into depression when they are laid off and unable to find work because their jobs have been sent overseas to maximize shareholders' values?

Does the One Percent want young people who cannot pay their student loans back to rely upon an underground black-market economy for their livelihoods and the goods and services they need, generating no tax revenue? Does the One Percent want to be catching colds and flu and more serious communicable diseases because people without health insurance do not get treatment? Does the One Percent want to feel they have to barricade themselves in their houses to avoid burglaries and muggings and kidnappings which increase as desperate people do what they feel they have to do in order to support themselves or their families?

Does the One Percent want their children to grow up in a world where increasing numbers of people resent them because of their privileged position? Does the One Percent want to have to walk to work through a gauntlet of beggars tugging at their sleeves? Does the One Percent want to live in fear that if they make bad investment decisions or are just unlucky they will be forced into the misery people at the other end of the economic spectrum experience on a daily basis?

An historically high level of economic disparity is the status quo that the police are protecting. Is that what the One Percent wants? Or do they really want what the Occupiers want – more hope, more justice, more equality, more respect, more peace, more democracy. If the One Percent and the Occupiers each wrote up their demands, how similar would they look? And if they were different, whose list would you sign on to?

Made In America

2011-11-23T18:34:00.001-06:00

I went to buy a couple of pillow cases and towels because we needed them for the guests who were coming for Thanksgiving, an American holiday. At a store called Bed Bath and Beyond, I found linens made in a half dozen countries, but not in America. Three salesclerks were standing in the aisle, talking with each other, so I approached and asked if they had the items I was looking for that were made in America. They all said no. I asked if anything in the whole store was made in America. All three pondered, until one of them said there were some baking sheets at the front of the store that were made in America. That was the only American-made item that any of them could think of. At the checkout counter I saw the baking sheets, proudly displayed next to a sign saying they were made in America. The sign, which seemed to have been placed there to give the impression that the store had American-made merchandise, would have told a more complete story if it had said that the baking sheets were the only things in the whole store that were American made.

Next I went to Macy's, where they had plenty of pillow cases with brand names like Martha Stewart that sounded American. But all of the towels and bed linens were made in Turkey, India, and other foreign countries, not in America where cotton used to be king. I noticed that none of the foreign-made goods were branded to sound like they were made overseas. There were no Lakshmi towels or Patel pillowcases. There were no signs boasting that the merchandise was made abroad. You practically had to have a magnifying glass to read the little tags on the merchandise to find out where they were made. Stores must have concluded that Americans want to buy things that seem American even if they are not.

When I got home, I did find what I was looking for on the Internet. If I had thought ahead I could have ordered the American-made items and had them shipped to me. But I like to be able to feel towels and other soft-goods before I buy them so I can judge their quality, and you can't do that when you shop online.

I don't have anything against foreigners. I am happy that they are busy making things to sell. It just saddens me to think how much our manufacturing sector has shrunken. Years ago, I worked in a clothing store. It sold everything a man could wear, including socks, underwear, suits, coats, sweaters, jeans, handkerchiefs, belts, and hats. Items made of cotton, wool, linen, leather, and synthetic fabrics. No shoes. That's where I learned the importance of feeling the goods before buying. Nearly everything in the store was made in America by union workers. The quality was excellent and the price was reasonable. There were only a few foreign-made items, like some French sweaters for which there was no American-made substitute. They cost more than the American sweaters. No one ever had to ask to see merchandise that was made in America.

I remember salesmen stopping by the store and pulling samples out of their cases, proudly inviting us to feel the quality and inspect the stitching. The salesmen were Americans. I remember phone calls to the factories to reorder goods that had sold well. The factories were in America. The phones were answered in America, by Americans. I remember removing crumpled-up newspaper which had been stuffed inside of big shipping boxes to cushion the smaller boxes of merchandise inside. The newspapers were in English, and they came from American towns.

As I reminisce, I think of the people in those towns scattered all across America who used to make and pack the merchandise that I sold and I wore. I hope they enjoy Thanksgiving with their families. I hope they are healthy. I hope that those who want to work can find work.

Police Procedures

2011-11-22T13:43:00.001-06:00

The video of a police officer at a California university casually spraying non-violent student protesters with noxious chemicals, the photo of an 84-year-old woman who was pepper-sprayed by police, the video of a marine whose skull was fractured by a projectile the police shot at him, the video of police firing point-blank at a reporter, and the photo of a protester's face which was bloodied by a police baton have all become emblematic of police repression of the Occupy movement.

We have learned from recent events that, to a disturbing degree, some police all over the country are better equipped with weapons than with judgment, and they have been acting with uncalled-for brutality. The civilian authorities have not done a very good job of controlling these police. Or perhaps, in some instances, the municipalities have been pleased with the police actions.

Some people think that the police are justified in using whatever force they want, and that the protesters could have avoided injury simply by not protesting. The point that they miss is that unless police officers are constrained by well-thought-out policies that are strictly enforced, the police will become a menace to the public at large.

That is exactly what happened the other day when police pursued a man who drove off in a minivan that he had stolen from a shopping center parking lot in suburban Northbrook, Illinois. Seven police cars chased him on the expressway, where he was apprehended after crashing into four vehicles, injuring himself and two other people.

The police could have simply written a report and told the car's owner to file a claim with her insurance company, like they do with countless other auto thefts. Instead, the police created a situation which resulted in damage to five vehicles, injuries to three people, and which could have caused even greater mayhem. The police were willing to risk that innocent motorists would be killed, just to apprehend someone who stole a car.

It is hard to imagine what policy the police were following. What rational person would risk so many lives in order to recover a car? But that is what police do every day. A couple of weeks ago, eight people were injured, four critically, when a car that was being chased by Chicago police crashed into another car.

After four students were shot by National Guardsmen at Kent State University forty-one years ago, President Nixon established a commission which investigated the killings. It concluded that the guardsmen had acted improperly and should not have been carrying lethal weapons when they confronted the protesters. In 1997, a study published by the U.S. Department of Justice said that because of the risk of injury to the public, high-speed police pursuits should only be undertaken if necessary to apprehend violent felons, and then only after weighing the risks.

Police like to think they are protecting the public. The public likes to think so, too. But unless the public insists that police follow reasonable procedures, the police can end up being more of a danger to society than the people they are supposed to be protecting us from.

Stranger Than Fiction

2011-11-21T10:47:00.001-06:00

Months ago, Democrats – astonished by some of the Republican rhetoric about eliminating government regulation – joked that the next thing Republicans would propose would be repealing the child labor laws. This week, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich actually made that proposal, and he was being serious. He said that schools should save money by firing janitors and making the kids do the janitors' jobs.

Schools in Chicago and elsewhere have been lengthening the time students spend in class, in order to improve their educational performance. Newt thinks kids should spend less time studying in class and more time sweeping. If this proposal was coming from one of the other Republican candidates who have already lost credibility within their own party, it wouldn't be so newsworthy. But Newt is the latest candidate to surge in the polls as a possible challenger to Romney. He is being taken seriously largely because he actually has some experience in government, although people who remember how he behaved when he was in office are probably less likely to vote for him than people who didn't witness his antics.

Newt says that there is nothing wrong with a kid washing cars or selling newspapers to make a few bucks. I agree. I cut a neighbor's grass and shoveled snow and had a lemonade stand. But I did it in my free time – not when I was supposed to be in school. We had school janitors to mop the floors, clean up vomit, clean the toilets, pick up broken glass on the playground, balance on window ledges to wash the windows, and climb ladders to replace light bulbs. They did their jobs while I was in class. Sure, I occasionally washed the blackboards and clapped the chalkboard erasers. Other kids were playground assistants or hall monitors or bell-ringers or supply-room helpers. These were positions that were designed to teach us responsibility, and to give us a feeling of pride and involvement. We weren't just cheap labor brought in to bust the unions. Newt specifically attacked unionized janitors in his comments.

There are plenty of countries where kids still work instead of going to school. They shine shoes, sell gum, run errands, serve coffee, and mine minerals. What they don't do is get an education. They are too busy working to support themselves and their families. That's one of the big reasons we have child labor laws – to make sure kids get educated.

Another reason we have child labor laws is that when kids work, they get injured. They lose eyes and arms and lives – not shoveling snow or selling greeting cards door-to-door – but working on farms and in restaurants and factories, and falling off ladders and window ledges. Kids don't have a lot of power to insist on safe working conditions. It's hard for them to tell an adult supervisor that they don't think they have been given the proper equipment or training. Kids just do what they are told, unlike unionized adult workers.

Newt is actually proposing that adults be fired and replaced by lower paid kids. Newt talks as if this would be good for kids in poor neighborhoods. But will those neighborhoods be better off if adults' jobs are converted to kids' jobs, with lower pay? This degradation of income is one of the things that child labor laws were enacted to prevent. Newt must know this. He used to be a history teacher.

Our country has been attacked a few times, but Newt is one of very few people who can boast that he actually shut down the U.S. government, back when he was in Congress. He rose to power because of his “contract for America,” which was so destructive that it became knows as his “contract on America.” He is chiefly remembered as a guy who told his wife while she was in the hospital for cancer that he was leaving her for another women with whom he was having an affair. When he tells us that our kids should work instead of study in school, I have to wonder why anyone, even the most regressive Republican, would think it was a proposal that should be considered or that he is a candidate who deserved anyone's support.

Throwing Away Money

2011-11-17T20:42:00.001-06:00

Once again, local elected officials seem to be in competition with the Pentagon to see who can waste the most taxpayers' money. A high school board in north suburban Chicago (Glenbrook District 225) wants to spend $3,500,000 to replace the grass on their football fields with artificial turf, and it is willing to distort the projected costs in order to justify the expenditure to the public.

In order to make the artificial turf look like it isn't as expensive as it seems, the school board points out that the artificial turf is less expensive to maintain than natural grass. Perhaps it is, but how much less? The board estimates that the artificial turf will cost only $36,500 per year to maintain compared to the $80,000 it now costs to maintain the natural grass. That is an annual savings of $43,500, which means it would take 80.5 years for the savings on maintenance to equal the $3,500,000 cost of the artificial turf. The board, in an apparent attempt to make the savings look larger than it really is, said the cost of maintaining natural grass would be $800,000 over ten years. Apparently they hoped we wouldn't notice that they were comparing ten years' costs for maintaining natural grass to one years' costs for maintaining artificial turf.

But that isn't the only problem with the figures the school board is using to justify buying artificial turf. The school board plans on borrowing money to pay for the artificial turf, so it would have to pay interest on the money it borrows, which means the turf would actually cost more than $3,500,000, which means it would take even longer than 80.5 years for the maintenance savings to equal the costs of the turf.

But wait, there's more. Because, according to the artificial turf industry, artificial turf only lasts about ten years, it would have to be re-installed seven times over the eighty-year period. The costs of each re-installation could be as much as several hundred thousand dollars, so that the total cost of installation and re-installation would be about $7,000,000, or twice as much as the $3,500,000 initial cost. In other words, it would take about forever for the cost of the artificial turf to be offset by the decreased maintenance costs.

But don't stop there. There are also concerns about the environmental impact of artificial turf. When it is uninstalled every ten years, it has to be disposed of, like a giant carpet taken out of a flooded basement. And if granulated rubber, which is made from old tires, is used to fill in the field, as is commonly done, and as was done on the artificial turf that the local park district installed, the entire field essentially becomes a big, smelly waste dump, complete with the possibility of air and water pollution from the rubber.

The school board wants us to believe that artificial turf is good because students can play on it even if it is wet, so the students could play outside in the rain and snow, instead of staying dry and healthy by playing inside when the weather is bad. The school board doesn't mention that they have just spent oodles of money building and renovating their indoor pools and field houses and other gym facilities. There is no reason for the kids to play outside during bad weather.

On the same day that the news story ran about the school board's plan to buy artificial turf, another story ran saying that up to 20 percent of the students at one of the two schools in the district are getting subsidized school lunches so they will have enough to eat. This school district is normally considered quite affluent, but in this difficult economy, families are having trouble feeding their kids. And yet, the school board wants to spend millions on artificial grass. Why? Because a neighboring school district has artificial grass.

The people who want the artificial turf originally told the school board they would be able to raise a million dollars in private donations from the sports boosters clubs to help pay for the turf. But they changed their estimate, and now say they could only raise about $500,00 over four years. Apparently they found out that people don't have as much money to throw around as they once did. The next time someone complains about the federal or state government wasting billions of dollars, we might want to remember the little school district that wasted millions, and tried to fool the taxpayers into thinking it was really saving them money.

Where Are The Young People?

2011-11-16T11:28:00.001-06:00

Ever since the protests against the Iraq War started nearly a decade ago, people have observed that a lot of the protesters have been baby-boomers or older. “Where are the young people?” has been asked both by critics of the protests and by many of the protesters themselves. The Occupy protests, which have a large component of people in their twenties or thirties, have provided part of the answer. But there is more to the story.

All around the country, young people who have been learning about government and politics by volunteering for Obama or other campaigns or helping organize grass roots initiatives are coming onto the public stage and running for office. Last week, Holyoke, Massachusetts elected a new mayor – a twenty-two year old who was a senior in college when he launched his campaign. During the 2008 election, a twenty-eight year old from downstate Illinois became the youngest elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives. And where I live, young people are running for office and getting elected.

One young candidate is Ilya Sheyman, who graduated college just a few years ago. He is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House. Another young candidate is Daniel Biss, who was elected to the Illinois General Assembly when he was thirty years old, and is now, two years later, running for the Illinois Senate.

Some people have expressed concern that some of these candidates are too young to hold such important jobs. I have known both Sheyman and Biss over a period of years. A few minutes into our first conversations, I forgot all about their age, because each of them had a command of the issues and an understanding of the political process that I have only seldom encountered in other candidates and officeholders regardless of how old they were or how long they had been in their jobs. But more importantly, both Sheyman and Biss are in touch with the challenges that the voters are experiencing during these tough times, and they have genuine concern for the people and a determination to make things better.

I don't write this post to promote these candidates, although I do support both of them. I write today simply to observe that the answer to the question “Where are the young people” is “Right where we want them to be.” They are stepping forward and making themselves available when their country needs them, just like their elders taught them they should.

I understand the hesitation some people have about supporting young candidates. Their lack of life experience might suggest that they are not prepared. But the young candidates whom I have seen emerge do not fit that generalization. They are ready, eager, and able. If we want young people to take an interest in politics and government, we should evaluate them on their merits, not on their birth certificates.

Might and Right

2011-11-15T08:06:00.001-06:00

On a recent visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and other Lincoln historic sites in Springfield, Illinois, I learned that because the Union armies won the Civil War, slavery was abolished in the United States. The docents and wall labels made it sound as if everything turned out the way it was supposed to. Slavery was evil, and it was ended by the victorious Good Guys.

But things could have gone the other way. For a while, the secessionist Southern States were winning battles. They could have won the war. If they had won, slavery would have been around longer than it was. It might be with us today. If the South had won, museum visitors would probably be told that the Confederate victory proved that slavery was indeed a good thing, and that everything had turned out the way it was supposed to.

Throughout history, our museums and schools have taught us that we won wars because we were right. Lincoln himself said that “right makes might,” so the fact that we are mighty proves that we are right. Which is really the same as saying “might makes right.” Or, put another way, might is all that matters, whether you are right or wrong.

Some people have been saying, however, that might and right are independent of each other. We defeated the Native Americans because we were more powerful. There was nothing right about our victory. We wanted the land and we took it. Period.

More recently, we have had to explain how it could be that we have been losing our military adventures. We lost in Vietnam. Were we wrong? Some people think so, but I haven't yet seen a schoolbook or museum label that said so. The books and museums try to pretend that we didn't really lose, or they say that we weren't really at war, or they say that we would have won, but we gave up. They never say that the other side won because they were right. As a country, we never say we were wrong.

The Civil War has been over for 146 years. And still, the ideological descendants of the Confederacy are not willing to admit that their side was wrong. They are still arguing for “states' rights,” which during the civil war meant slavery, a hundred years later meant racial segregation, and today means no social programs for Blacks, expulsion of Mexicans, denial of reproductive rights for women, and repression of Muslims.

Although we would all like to think that we will not have another civil war, our schools and museums continue to teach us that if you can win a war, you not only can impose your will on those whom you defeat, you can also claim that it was God's will that you won. So, as we hear that sales of guns have increased since a black man was elected president, and that the right to carry concealed weapons in public has been affirmed in all but one state, we ought to ponder just how close we may be coming to the day when angry people will once again set out to prove that they are right by declaring war on what they see as an illegitimate domination of their states that has gone on since the surrender at Appomattox Court House. If that day comes, we can expect that our schools and museums will teach that whoever won was supposed to win. And if slavery once again becomes legal, we will be taught that everything is the way it is supposed to be.

What I Learned on Vacation

2011-11-14T10:14:00.001-06:00

We took the AMTRAK from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois. The online ticket purchasing was easy. The check-in was quick, and we didn't have to arrive early or go through security. The conductor was pleasant. The seating was much more roomy and comfortable than on an airplane, and we could walk around. There was no charge for luggage.

I struck up conversations with a couple of other passengers. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the ride, which was much cheaper than flying, safer and more relaxing than driving, and less polluting than either. We arrived right in downtown Springfield and walked a couple of blocks to a hotel. We were delayed because of a computer problem experienced by the freight line that shares the tracks with AMTRAK, so we arrived about an hour and twenty minutes late. The delay was annoying, but much less annoying than construction or accident delays we might have encountered on the road. AMTRAK is talking about putting high-speed rail on this same route. Sounds like a good idea to me.

We toured the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum that the State of Illinois opened in 2005. It does a nice job of presenting a very limited story about Lincoln, but it probably didn't need to be built. Few authentic objects from Lincoln's life were on display. The historic district just a couple of blocks away, which is run by the U.S. Department of the Interior, is more impressive. At the historic district we toured through the actual Lincoln home, which has been beautifully restored. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and helpful. In another building, there was a well-presented orientation video. Those who say our federal government doesn't do anything well should visit this historic district. I have visited historic sites and museums all around the country, and a few abroad, and the Lincoln historic district is among the best. Admission was free. Paid for by our tax dollars.

We also visited the historic old state capitol. This is the stone building Obama stood outside when he announced he was running for President. Although some relatively minor mistakes were made in the restoration, such as putting the wrong kind of glass in the windows, the friendly docents were quick to point out the errors and to give additional information to anyone who wanted it. I walked out on a presentation about Civil War weapons. The presenters seemed entirely too in love with their killing machines and didn't seem to have any perspective on the destruction those weapons caused in their time or how they have contributed to our present-day militarism. The talk was for a general audience, and the presenters made an effort to engage the youngsters who were there. But it upset me that the only message those kids were getting about guns was “golly-gee-whiz isn't that cool.”

We talked with a few Springfield residents. They like their town but are sad to see it in its present state of economic decline. One state employee told us that the big problem is that recent Democratic governors have eliminated a lot of government jobs and moved others to the Chicago area, where most Illinoisans live, rather than keep them in Springfield, where Republican job-holders used to turn out the vote. Seemed strange to hear complaints in this traditionally strong Republican town that the Democrats are cutting government too much.

Everywhere we went, the people who depend on tourist dollars were gracious and accommodating. Over and over they thanked us for staying at their hotel, eating at their restaurants, visiting their attractions. I'm not sure that a few years ago, when people had more choices of jobs, that they were quite so hospitable.

It was good to get out of the house, talk with a few strangers, and see what is going on somewhere else. The hard times are reaching far and wide, and they will have long-lasting effects, good and bad. Just like when Lincoln was president.

Herman Cain

2011-11-08T16:55:00.001-06:00

A woman who is generally aligned with the Tea Party posted on Facebook, “I wish I cared if Herman Cain was innocent or guilty of the allegations made against him. But after Bill Clinton, John Edwards, ... and Anthony Weiner, I only care if he will be better than the person currently in the Oval office. That answer is an easy yes.”

I don't understand how she could not care. She has a daughter. Would she want her daughter to interview for a job with Herman Cain, having heard what he's accused of doing to a woman who sought his help in getting her job back at the National Restaurant Association? If he used his position as head of a trade association to get sex, how would he abuse his power as President? Does it make any sense to not care whether he is guilty or innocent?

In general, what someone does in their own personal life is their own business. But the charge against Herman Cain is not simply that he was pursuing an extra-marital affair. He is accused of breaking the law by pressuring a job applicant to have sex with him.

The NRA paid two other women a year's salary each to keep quiet about Cain's sexual harassment. The NRA did not admit in the settlement that Cain did anything wrong. But the NRA paid these women far more than most women receive to settle their harassment cases. The NRA was represented by attorneys who were experts in this area of the law. If the charges against Cain were baseless, as Cain insists, why didn't the NRA defend the cases in court, where everyone could see just how unfounded the charges were? That is exactly what most employers do when faced with unfounded charges – they stand up to their accusers.

Our schools have a slogan they use in teaching children how society expects them to conduct themselves. The slogan is “Character Counts.” The schools are telling the kids not to cheat on tests, not to copy each other's homework, not to bully other kids. The schools are trying to counter the message kids hear over and over on TV that the only thing that matters is winning. Our schools are trying to instill ethics into our kids before the kids go out into the wide world.

The “Character Counts” slogan is a response to Olympic competitors breaking each other's kneecaps, to politicians taking bribes, to corporations ignoring environmental laws. It is based on the idea that if we have a strong moral core, a sense of right and wrong, confidence in ourselves, and sensitivity and concern for others, we will be able to make good choices as we encounter challenges in our lives. It is a message that I would have thought almost everyone agrees with, particularly people who like to think they are superior to other people because they are Conservative - Tea Party - Right Wing – Christian - Value Voter - Moral Majority, and legally in this country.

Guns In Church

2011-11-07T09:04:00.001-06:00

The Catholic archbishops of Milwaukee, Madison, La Crosse, Green Bay, and Superior say that it is up to individual churches whether to allow parishioners to carry weapons into churches, now that Wisconsin law allows people to carry concealed weapons. "Whatever an individual parish decides to do regarding its policy on concealed weapons, we ask that all people seriously consider not carrying weapons into church buildings as a sign of reverence for these sacred spaces."

I guess we've come a long way since the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy had to confront people's concerns that as a Catholic he would have to obey the Pope, which could conflict with his obligation to the nation. Today, the church hierarchy doesn't even seem to feel comfortable telling people how to act in its own churches. Now that carrying guns in church is OK, gum chewing must be, too.

I like that the church's statement encourages people to make their own choices on how to behave, although it does seem odd, coming from a church which is famous for telling people which choices they should make in their own bedrooms. And I like that the church reminds people that they are supposed to have reverence for sacred spaces. What I am having trouble figuring out, though, is why the church is being so timid. Surely the Catholic church can't think that their churches are really dangerous places to be on Sundays, or they would be arming the ushers.

For the past ten years, very few religious organizations have taken a stand on the most fundamental of all questions: whether we should make wars and kill people. I have been told that a lot of religious leaders sidestepped that issue for the very practical reason that they didn't want members who disagreed with them to stop coming to church and contributing to their church's coffers. Is this why the Wisconsin Catholic churches aren't taking a stand on guns? Are they afraid that Wisconsinites love their guns more than they love their God?

Without claiming to be an expert on Catholic church doctrine, I feel safe in saying that a basic belief of that church is that people are supposed to have faith in God, and that people are supposed to demonstrate their faith in the way they live their lives. Could the church think it would be asking too much of people to show their trust in God for a few minutes each Sunday by take their guns off?

Oakland and Chicago Occupations

2011-11-03T14:09:00.001-05:00

Reading about the violence in Oakland, which was apparently initiated by some of the police and joined in by some of the occupiers, I have been pondering whether the occupations in Chicago and other cities can expect that they will also experience more violence, either by the police or by others. Because protests in both cities were inspired by the occupation of Wall Street in New York, news reports about them make it seem as if they were all part of one movement, and many of the protesters like the idea that they are part of a nationwide movement. In many respects they are. Most notably, they share many of the same concerns and some of the same tactics.

But there are differences. One difference is that the people in Oakland are different from the people in Chicago. Not necessarily different races or income levels or ages – just different people. It seems obvious, but the reporting on the occupations seems to have overlooked this difference in the protesters, the reporters, the politicians, and the public.

People in Chicago have to deal with Mayor Rahm, a man who was elected despite the fact that just about everyone who had ever dealt with him described him as a bully. When he had the police roust the protesters from the park where they were encamped, it came as no surprise. People in Oakland knew what they could expect, too. It is a city with its own history of police brutality and resistance to that brutality. This is not to say that the police in either Oakland or Chicago are worse, it is just to say that the protesters in each city know their own police and politicians, and they have developed their own strategies for dealing with them over the years.

Besides the people, there are huge differences between the two cities. Different industries, different histories, different geography, different neighboring cities, different climate, different everything. Chicagoans take pride in their El, the way they garnish hot dogs, the thickness of their pizzas, their jazz, their sports teams, their corrupt politicians, and their accents or lack of accents. People in Oakland have their own sense of pride-of-place, too. It shouldn't come as a surprise if the way they protest is different from ours, or if they have fringe groups among their occupation that we don't have here. When the police in Chicago get out of control, we chant, “The whole world is watching” because of what happened here in 1968. I don't know what they chant in Oakland when their police go on the attack.

The press in Chicago has been doing a pretty good job reporting on the Chicago occupation, and the press in Oakland has probably been doing a pretty good job, too. But a reporter in either city would have to do an awful lot of homework to be able to really understand the situation in the other city. Some news outlets try to overcome this problem by having local reporters cover each city and write joint stories. But with deadline pressures, even this collaborative approach has severe shortcomings. So the stories we get really don't give us much basis for drawing any conclusions about whether the activities in one city will be duplicated in another. Social and political scientists can theorize about what will happen, but their predictions usually look backward into history, and they have the same problem the reporters do of not being familiar with the differences among the occupied cities.

Probably anyone can guess what will happen next, but no one can make reliable predictions. The future will depend upon so many things. Oakland ain't Chicago, politics ain't beanbag, and things ain't always the way they seem to be. To date, Oakland is the only city among dozens in this country that are occupied where there has been any level of serious violence. The violence may be more about Oakland than it is about the occupations.

I Was Wrong

2011-11-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

When I encouraged readers to attend the Urban Dolorosa events that are being held at five churches this week, I thought I was sending people to the sorts of anti-violence vigils that take place on a regular basis when someone is killed. I attended the first event this evening and found that I was mistaken. The event was extraordinary. The music is beautifully performed by musicians and vocalists with professional-quality abilities. The photographs that were projected were powerful. The reading of the names of the victims left the room in a solemn silence, and when a few people in the audience called out names that had not been on the list, the message that violence is too commonplace was driven home beyond any doubt.
There are four more of these events this week. See the previous post for the dates, times, and locations. Make a point of attending one.

Five Chances to Stop the Killing

2011-10-31T14:56:00.002-05:00

For the past couple of days, the headlines have reported on the killing of one suburban teenager. It is appropriate that we remember that more than two hundred sixty children were killed in Chicago in the past year – mostly by gunfire. Barely a day goes by without another killing. Some days there are more than one. I believe we can stop the violence.

This week, an interfaith coalition called Urban Dolorosa will read the names of the victims, and will present a program of music, poetry, and photography at five churches as part of its effort to make our community safer for everyone. The programs will be presented:

Tuesday, Nov 1, 7 pm – St Sabina Faith Community – 1210 W. 78th Place (Auburn Gresham)

Wednesday, Nov 2, 5:30 pm – 1st Methodist Chicago Temple – 77 W. Washington (the Loop)

Thursday, Nov 3, 7 pm – New Mount Pilgrim Baptist – 4301 W. Washington (Garfield Park)

Friday, Nov 4, 7 pm – Holy Cross / IHM – 46th & Hermitage (Back of the Yards)

Sunday, Nov 6, 5:30 pm – Hyde Park Union Church – 5600 S. Woodlawn (Hyde Park)

I plan on being at some of these programs, and I hope to see you there.

Whether or not you can make one of the programs, if you would like to get together with a small group of people to discuss helping with the effort to reduce violence, please let me know.

Fox Attacks

2011-10-28T08:37:00.001-05:00

Throughout U.S. history, people have tried to create utopias – ideal worlds in which to live. Some established communal farms or workshops. Others tried to convert the general society to their vision. Utopians included Shakers and Oneidas and Amanas and hippies. In other countries, they were knows as Harmonites or Kibbutzniks. Depending upon the times they lived in, they were either romanticized, ostracized, ignored, or destroyed.

Today's occupiers are clearly not proposing the creation of a separate society, as some other utopians did. Quite the contrary, they are seeking to reform the society as a whole, not to create an alternative to it. For that reason, they are within the mainstream of American political history, and they are able to appeal to a wide cross-section of the country. They do not pose a threat to the majority of Americans, only to the one-percent whose power and influence they seek to diminish.

Enter Fox News, defender of the one-percent. Using the same misleading techniques that it has employed time and again, it is now trying to discredit the occupiers. Fox has “reported” that some people who used to work with the ACORN organization are now infiltrating the occupation. Fox has printed an opinion piece that claims, without any support, that “Behind the current Occupy Wall Street protests is a 'red army' of radicals seeking no less than to provoke a new, definitive economic crisis,with their goal being the full economic collapse of the U.S. financial system, with the ensuing chaos to be rebuilt into a utopian socialist vision.” Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly led off his segment by claiming there was “more violence from the occupiers” in Oakland, California, despite the fact that reporters from other news outlets who were at the scene attributed the violence to the police, and not to the protesters. When asked if they had been firing bean-bags, stun grenades, and rubber bullets at protesters, officials of the Oakland police said that they had so many officers there from so many neighboring communities that they didn't even know who had been firing what weapons at whom. Fox News has also been pushing the notion that the occupiers are anti-Semites , but Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, disagreed: “The movement is not about Jews; it's not about Israel. It's about 'the economy, stupid.'”

The immediate challenge that faces the occupiers is to keep talking about their message and not be distracted by the daily attempts of Fox News and other supporters of the one-percent to portray them as dangerous, evil, misguided, and who knows what else. It is generally not a good idea for a public figure to ignore attacks, as John Kerry learned when he did not respond to untrue attacks on his record in the military. Because the occupiers function as a leaderless movement, it could be difficult for them to respond to the Fox attacks. No one individual has the authority to speak for the occupiers. But in this case, the lack of a spokesperson does not seem to be hurting the Occupy movement. The responsible media have been reporting the truth, countering the attacks that Fox has been mounting. The responsible media's rebuttal is much more persuasive than anything the occupiers could say.

Why No Leaders?

2011-10-27T08:51:00.001-05:00

Reports about the Occupy Chicago protests and other occupations around the U.S. keep pointing out that there are no leaders of these groups. The reporters, with no leaders to talk to, have had to talk with several protesters each day in order to get a sense of what the protesters want. As a result, the reports have taken on a very different tone than what we usually see in political reporting, which is a quote from a leader on one side of an issue and a quote from a leader of a group that disagrees. Instead, we are getting quotes from a bunch of ordinary people. The quotes are not all polished, but they seem very authentic and sincere.

The stories that have been written about the Occupy protesters leave the reader thinking that the protesters are not all of one mind. It's really quite refreshing. People in any political movement are never all of one mind, but the usual reporting makes it look like they are.

I doubt that the Occupy protesters are consciously trying to alter the way they are covered in the news. I do think, however, that they see themselves as different, and they want the public to appreciate that difference. The Occupiers see themselves as being part of a popular uprising, not as followers of any particular leader or party. The protesters are, to a great extent, young. They believe in individuality, and in collective action, but they reject the political organizations that they see as having led us into our current difficulties. They not only do not trust leaders to represent them, they do not feel that leaders are necessary.

People who have been involved in other political efforts and reporters who have covered those efforts may think that the Occupiers are naïve and poorly organized. They probably are. But the way that the Occupiers are conducting themselves can also be viewed as profoundly uncomplicated. At the core of the Occupy movement is a desire for change in methods, not just in message. The Occupiers have seen, in the Obama presidency, the incompatibility between a message of change and a machinery that preserves the status quo. The Occupiers are getting their inspiration from protesters around the world who achieved their goals by working outside of the established power structure, and usually by toppling that structure.

The demands that the Occupiers are making don't sound very radical. But the image that the Occupiers have in their minds of how people can exert power is very different from the way that power is wielded right now. That image is what the reporters are having a hard time covering, because it is something they haven't seen in this country in a very long time.

To the Barricades?

2011-10-25T22:26:00.001-05:00

The Governor of New York ordered his state troopers to clear the Occupy protesters out of Albany, but the troopers decided not to try. They knew they were outnumbered and that they would not be able to control the protesters if they resisted arrest. The police in Oakland, California used teargas to disperse the protesters there. Some people on the scene said that the police had fired non-lethal projectiles at the protesters. Police in Chicago arrested more than one hundred protesters who refused to leave a city park where they had harmlessly camped out.

All over the country, police are trying to figure out what to do about the protesters, and the protesters are trying to decide how they want to protest. So far, no one has been seriously hurt. So far, the protesters have been peaceful. So far, no one has had to stay in jail more than a few hours. So far, the police have been restrained. History tells us this will probably not last.

No one knows how this will all end. In all likelihood, at some point the police in some of these cities will plant agent provocateurs among the protesters and have them throw bottles or rocks, so that the police will have an excuse for becoming violent. The press will initially accept the police story that the protesters became violent and that the police had to respond with force in order to protect innocent people and property. Later on, the truth may come out.

Once the police initiate violence against the protesters, most people will probably stay away from the protests, both because they will be afraid of being hurt by the police, and because Americans are peaceful people who won't want to have anything to do with violence, regardless of which side started the violence. If the scenario unfolds this way, the police will succeed in quashing the protests. People will feel dejected that the protests did not succeed in changing the country, and things will just keep getting worse. That is the most likely way the Occupy movement will end.

But successful police repression of the movement is not the inevitable outcome. It is possible that Americans will become outraged if the police use excessive force, as happened in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention of 1968. If the police get totally out of control, public opinion may become galvanized, as happened when Ohio National Guardsmen killed students at Kent State University. It is possible that the public will pour into the streets in support of the protest, as has happened any number of times around the world when people start to believe that they can make a difference, even if the police do not continue their efforts to stifle the protests.

The outcome of the Occupy protests will depend upon how committed some people are, how upset other people get, and how foolishly the police react. Nothing is predestined, which means there is hope.

What Occupiers Want

2011-10-24T22:17:00.001-05:00

Any number of commentators have complained that the Occupy protesters have not set out their demands in sufficient detail. These commentators are not satisfied with the one-page lists of demands that have been adopted in New York and Chicago and other occupied areas. They want action plans, legislative proposals, lobbying briefs. Or so they say. What they really seem to want is to make the protesters look unsophisticated, unrealistic, disorganized, uninformed, and generally not worthy of the attention they are getting.

I have looked over some of the protesters' proposals, and they seem clear enough. They want more effective regulation of the banking and financial service industries, to prevent future catastrophes. They want criminal prosecution of criminals who have stolen millions of dollars. They want an economic stimulus package that will help young people enter the workforce and become consumers, in the form of student loan forgiveness. These proposals are at least as concrete as the ones that were in the original Declaration of Independence. King George was able to figure out what those protesters wanted.

But the written proposals don't really capture the flavor of what the Occupy protesters want. Listen to them and you will see that they really only want one thing: justice. They want their government to treat them fairly. They want the laws to be enforced equally. They want a chance.

The critics could probably figure out what the protesters want, if they would simply listen. But they don't want to listen. They'd rather not hear the message, and they'd rather not treat the protesters as if they deserved to be heard. They'd rather feel superior to the protesters, so they mock the protesters, call them names, and tell lies about them.

Our senator, Mark Kirk, even joined in the chorus of disrespect, suggesting on radio that the protesters were all on drugs, and laughing along when the radio-show host guffawed that the protesters smelled. There was no basis for these jibes, but the senator was having fun at the expense of his constituents. It was reminiscent of politicians who laughed as they unleashed dogs on civil rights protesters many years ago. That a U.S. senator would engage in such repulsive behavior would have been shocking, if the senator wasn't Mark Kirk. But, like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond and Bull Connor, we know what to expect from Mark Kirk. We know that when people are protesting because they are frustrated with their government, Mark Kirk will be smugly chortling with the defenders of privilege, showing disrespect for the very people whom he is supposed to represent. If the critics want to understand what the Occupy protesters are upset about, all they have to do is look at the way they are being treated by their own senator.

Victory in Iraq

2011-10-21T18:53:00.001-05:00

The president announced that our mission in Iraq is about to end. He is bringing home most of our troops after nearly nine years of war and occupation. He said they could hold their heads high and be “proud of their success,” but he didn't say what that success was. He never said we had won. He didn't tell us what we had achieved. He just said it was going to be over. For years people have been predicting that we would eventually simply declare victory and go home. But we aren't even declaring victory. We are just going home.

It was sad. Despite the president's attempt to make our withdrawal look good, the most uplifting thing he was able to say was that our soldiers will be home in time for the holidays. We all know that they could have come home last year, or the year before, or the year before that. We know that there was never any good reason for them to leave home in the first place. More than 4,400 of them died for nothing. We destroyed our economy paying for the war. Tens of thousands of military personnel will bear the physical and mental scars of the war for many years to come. The country of Iraq will bear the terrible scars of our bombings for a long time.

It is tempting to say that the war has been a waste, but it has been much worse than that. You can't simply call the killing of all those people a waste, as if ending human lives were no more important than spilling some food on the ground. The war has been a disgrace. At least the president didn't lie about that. He kept his mouth shut.

There will be parades and television footage of soldiers and Christmas trees and Teddy bears. Every effort will be made to keep this withdrawal from resembling the end of the war in Viet Nam. But no one is going to be fooled. We lived through this war. We know the truth.

Once again, we have been defeated by our own arrogance. We have mistakenly placed our hope in guns and bombs. We told ourselves that this time would be different, and now we must face the fact that war in any time is never different.

In telling us that he was ending the war, the President was delivering a eulogy. He solemnly tried to put the best face on a mournful experience, hoping that we would remember the good times and forget the bad. He encouraged us to embrace one another and think about the future. But we must not be rushed. Before we can heal, we must grieve. We must be honest about what has happened. We must take responsibility.

We have failed in a way that only the mighty can fail. Now is not the time to pretend to glory. Now is the time to be humble and ashamed.

Beginning Again

2011-10-20T21:48:00.001-05:00

When Osama bin Laden was killed, I wrote that we should not rejoice, and that we should not kill. Now officials at the highest levels of government are once again celebrating our role in the killing of the leader of another country, this time Moammar Qaddafi of Libya. Should I again speak out against the violence? Or is once enough?

Coincidentally, today Jews around the world are celebrating Simchat Torah, the day on which we read the last weekly portion of the Torah and begin the cycle again by reading the first portion. For untold centuries we have read these same portions, beginning anew over and over again. Reinforcing old lessons, hopefully finding new meanings. Teaching new generations. Recognizing the cyclical and endless nature of existence but hopefully not concluding that striving for better understanding is futile. A spiritual renewal, following closely upon the annual observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and sandwiched between the weekly observance of the Sabbath, all of which also signal new beginnings.

The lesson that I choose to derive from these cyclical special days is that if a lesson is relevant and needed, it can be repeated as often as necessary. However, to keep from boring my readers, I suggest that we have something new to ponder as we reflect upon this latest elimination of a head of state: we may be getting better at assassination. We certainly seem to be embracing it more readily than before.

This time we were told almost immediately that our unmanned drone aircraft were used for round-the-clock surveillance of Qaddafi's hometown, because that was where our informants told us he might be hiding. When he tried to flee, we used manned and unmanned planes to shoot at his motorcade. We used our communications network to dispatch fighters to the scene. Those fighters captured Qaddafi, and then, once he was already in custody, they shot him to death. We were involved in the assassination from the beginning of the operation until its brutal, bloody end.

Earlier this week, the news reported that our military will soon begin giving soldiers their own personal mini-drone aircraft which they can launch like toy model airplanes. These aircraft, however, will not be toys. They will be armed to carry out attacks on individuals. Foot-soldiers will be able to kill whoever they want by remote-control, as if they were playing on a video game console. And, of course, we know that our military probably has even more capable weapons in development that they aren't even telling us about yet.

Our country seems to accept, even take pride, that the technology we produce for killing people is constantly improving. We don't seem very concerned that our willingness to kill may also be increasing. We don't seem upset that we used to think of political assassination as something that was done by tyrants or terrorists or madmen, and was abhorrent to civilized democracies. Today, it is something that we, supposedly a democracy, do to people whom we declare to be tyrants.

There is a cycle in life, but life is not endless repetition. Circumstances change, and not necessarily for the better. Our society has put faith in the idea that certain timeless lessons will guide us in the right direction, and so we re-read the lessons over and over.

Once again, let us reflect on what we have done.

Limits of Charity

2011-10-18T20:03:00.001-05:00

My wife and I spent the night in a church with three homeless families. Each night, different volunteers like us stay overnight to act as hosts to people who hopefully will soon have their own places to live. These people are from our community. The volunteers come from sixteen different churches and synagogues. The congregations take turns hosting the families.

Earlier in the day, other volunteers had welcomed the families and cooked dinner for them. They were available to help the children with their homework and to play with the little ones, so that the parents could have a little time to take care of whatever they needed to. Or if they preferred, they could just retire to their rooms and have time to spend with their families. In the morning, we set out breakfast and cleaned up, the children went to school, their parents went to work or to look for work, and we locked up the church and went home.

I have only met a few other of the volunteers, but those I have talked with are motivated by all the best concerns for other people, and they are putting their concerns into action. The program gives them the valuable experience of being able to spend time and talk with people who they probably otherwise wouldn't meet, and the homeless people likewise get the opportunity to see that there are people who care about them, at a time when it may seem that the world isn't a very caring place.

Aside from the nights that the volunteers put in, an even greater effort goes into making this program work. A substantial effort is required to recruit the volunteers, train them, schedule them, and make arrangements with participating congregations. The participating congregations also put a lot of work into helping the homeless families during the day, in conjunction with various agencies.

All in all, a lot of money and time goes into helping a very small number of families – three families a night. Three out of thousands of homeless families. A very worthwhile effort, but so terribly inadequate.

I have been told by tea-partiers that government shouldn't pay for entitlement programs that provide services to needy people, because that is a job that churches and charities can do more efficiently. The tea-partiers were talking about programs like the one that we volunteered for, which drew volunteers from sixteen congregations to fill 120 volunteer shifts per month to house three families a night. Three families out of thousands in need.

Do the tea-partiers think that all that we need to do is help three out of thousands? Do they expect that thousands more volunteers will suddenly come forward if the government programs shut down? Do they not understand that it would be a far more efficient use of everyone's time and money to hire people to run homeless shelters than to organize volunteers to do the task? Do they not see that there will never be enough volunteers?

We spent the night with three families. We spent the same night with thousands more who were just as homeless and just as needy, but who did not have a warm church to sleep in. We all spent the night with tea-partiers who think three out of thousands is good enough.

Financing Housing

2011-10-17T18:53:00.001-05:00

While standing outside the hotel where the Mortgage Bankers Association was holding its annual meeting, I struck up a conversation with one of the attendees. He turned out to be a recognized expert on the way mortgages are financed both in the U.S. and in other countries. He gave me some useful information, and I followed up by doing my own research. His basic premise was that the key to fixing the housing problem is finding a way for people to refinance their mortgages.

Mortgage rates have declined over the past few years to an all-time low, somewhere around four percent for a thirty-year fixed-rate loan. Normally when rates decline, people who are paying higher interest rates on their old mortgages refinance at the lower rates. The result is that the people who refinance spend less money each month on their new mortgage payments, and when they get through paying off their loans, they find they have spent less for their homes overall, giving them greater gains when they sell the homes. In the short and long term, homeowners have more money in their pockets. Whether they save or spend this money, the economy is healthier. The benefits of low rates are also enjoyed by people who are buying homes for the first time, although there are a lot fewer of them than there are people who already have homes and could benefit from refinancing.

For the past several years, people have not been refinancing, mostly because they can't get loans. Why? 1) Because their homes are not worth as much as they used to be, so the homes don't qualify for mortgages that are large enough to pay off the original loans. 2) Because homeowners don't have the closing costs. 3) Because people are not employed, so they don't meet lenders' criteria for good risks. 4) Because banks are toughening their standards for lending money, so they don't get burned again.

Unable to refinance, some people lose their homes to foreclosure. What happens? The foreclosed homes are sold for low prices so lenders can get some of their money back. This depresses the value of nearby homes, because the pricing of homes is based on the sale price of similar homes. People feel poorer, so they cut their spending, slowing the economy. New homes aren't constructed. Lower property values cause local governments to increase their tax rates just to collect same amount of revenue they collected before.

What has to happen in order make refinancing easier? The banker I spoke with is arguing for technical adjustments to the way the mortgage lending market operates. But in order for these adjustments to be made, the investors who hold the mortgages (largely in the form of mortgage-backed securities) will either have to decide that it is in their best interest to change, or the government will have to force the change. So far, the investors are not convinced. They figure that even though refinancing would make it possible for more people to pay their mortgages, they make more money off the majority of people who continue to pay their existing high-interest mortgages than they would if mortgages were refinanced.

To date, the government has not forced any significant change, and I think things will have to get a lot worse before it does. The public still subscribes to the idea that people who made bad decisions and can't make their mortgage payments should suffer the consequences, and, having seen the banks get bailed out, people who are still able to make their mortgage payments are against seeing anyone else get a break. Most people are still focused on themselves and not on how their well-being depends upon the well-being of others. This gives politicians, who are still more responsive to the investors who financed their campaigns than to the masses of people who voted for them, very little reason to push for change.

During the first Great Depression, the government initially did nothing to fix the economy. Later it tried to make things better by making technical adjustments. It took years before the government instituted more radical changes. It will probably take even longer this time for the government to get serious. First, the regressives are going to have to finish their work of repealing the New Deal reforms. Then there will be a time of great suffering. Then, maybe, we will get to the point where we once again start thinking in terms that are big and bold enough to allow us to rebuild a society that provides for the general welfare.

Jobs News

2011-10-14T10:11:00.001-05:00

The same day that the Senate defeated Obama's jobs bill, they passed his free trade agreement with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. Like other recent free trade agreements, this one will probably cause a decline in the number of American manufacturing jobs. In fact, the bill anticipates this job loss. It provides for benefits for workers who lose their jobs. The supposedly good news is that the agreement may cause an increase in some farm employment here. Oh boy. Wasn't the shift from agricultural work to industrial work what created an economic expansion and improvement of living conditions – what is called the industrial revolution? How are we benefiting as a country by moving backward on the path of development?

The news the next day was that UAW members rejected a proposed contract, in large part because it continued the practice of paying newly hired workers about half as much as workers who have been on the job longer. The two-tier wage practice was not designed to compensate more skilled workers. It is just there because the automakers realized they can now hire people for less money than they used to pay them. If it seems to you that people in America are making less money these days, this explains why: they are making less money! Anyone who has ever worked in a factory or almost any other workplace knows that there is nothing more dispiriting than finding out you are being paid less than someone else to do the same work.

In a related story the same day, Gap announced it is closing retail stores in the U.S. and opening stores in China. With the U.S. economy hurting, U.S. consumers are buying cheaper jeans at discount stores, not higher quality jeans at Gap.

While campaigning over the years, Obama has frequently said that if you are stuck in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. He also said that if your bus driver runs the bus into a ditch, fire the driver. Any day now we can expect him to issue retractions.

No Place for a Revolution

2011-10-12T10:33:00.001-05:00

Having spent some time with the Occupy Chicago folks on three days, I have concluded that it is not the social revolution that they would like it to be. It is not a popular uprising. It is not any threat to the government or to business. It is just a bunch of well-meaning people peacefully and creatively demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the way things are. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is probably a good thing that they are there. They have pushed some of their opinions onto the news. They have reinvigorated their base. They have shown the average person who is suffering in this economy that there is an alternative to the hate-based Tea Party. But they haven't mobilized a lot of people yet, and they aren't likely to, standing on the corner of LaSalle and Jackson in front of the Board of Trade and the Federal Reserve.

The problem isn't the message that the protesters are voicing. A lot of the people on the street expressed agreement with the protesters. But people who are at LaSalle and Jackson are there because they are going somewhere, mostly in a great hurry. They aren't there to stroll, like they might be on Michigan Avenue. There are no sidewalk cafes or open-air markets, such as those that are found in other countries where we have seen mass protests. There is no plaza where people relax and discuss the issues of the day. The train stations are underground or indoors, several blocks away. People don't wait around a public square as they do elsewhere for day labor jobs. Millennium and Grant Parks are not even in sight. This is not Madison, Wisconsin, where the state capital grounds are right in the middle of town.

Like most of downtown Chicago, all that there is at the corner the protesters are occupying is a sidewalk which is just wide enough to accommodate the pedestrians and a few smokers who have been banished from their workplaces. Hardly anyone lives downtown, and it costs money to take a bus or train or taxi there, so there are no mobs of restless unemployed people just waiting for some rally to gather around. Other than a few tourists who seemed amused by the protest, the only people who are there are the ones with jobs. They might be sympathetic to the protesters, but they aren't about to give up those jobs in order to join a movement of people who are protesting that there aren't enough jobs.

If people get upset enough, they might go to the trouble of joining the occupation. Tens of thousands assembled in Chicago a couple of years ago to protest the wars and to rally for immigration reform. But either people aren't that upset about the economy yet, or else they just don't see this occupation as the event they want to bother going all the way downtown for. So for now, the occupation isn't bringing the system to its knees. It is barely bringing people out on a beautiful autumn day.

Letting Go of Money

2011-10-11T11:21:00.001-05:00

I am normally a cautious person. I wait for the outline of the little man to turn from red to white before I cross the street at a crosswalk. I have never tried to open a beer bottle with my teeth. I wear a helmet when I ride my bicycle. But today I decided to take a risk. I decided to let go of some money.

The Republicans in Congress have been telling us how dangerous it is to let go of even a little bit of one's money. Their opposition to even modest tax increases on wealthy people is based on the idea that calamity could strike if people had to part with money. The entire economy could be destroyed. The national security could be devastated. Not only would jobs not be created, but vast numbers of people would be thrown out of work, as the capitalist system crumbled under the burden of fair distribution of wealth.

I don't generally subscribe to Republican economic theory, but their warnings about letting go of money have become so pervasive that, as I prepared for my experiment in letting go, I was scared. I didn't want to be responsible for the destruction of our American way of life.

And what of the personal consequences? We have all been warned that if we let go of any of our money, we might live out our lives in poverty, and people may stop caring about us. There is, sadly, ample evidence supporting that Republican warning.

With trepidation, I prepared for the experiment. I took all the precautions I could think of. I made sure my will was up-to-date. I paid the bills that were on my desk, so as not to be any more of a burden on my survivors than necessary. I told my wife I loved her.

Not wanting to take any unnecessary risks, I removed just a single dollar bill from my wallet. I held it over my head. I took a deep breath, and I let go. Time seemed to stand still as the dollar drifted down to the ground. I stood staring at it where it landed. The Earth did not open up. I look skyward. No dark clouds formed. Lightning did not strike me down. The birds continued to sing. I had survived, and the world was intact!

In the interests of scientific rigor, I acknowledge that one experiment is not sufficient. The experiment must be repeated by others, under other conditions. Most importantly, it must be performed by some rich people, even some millionaires and billionaires. But I feel I have done my part. I took the risk. And now I turn my findings over to others to see if they will get the same result

Insight

2011-10-06T20:11:00.001-05:00

For several years, I have been puzzled about why some Jewish Americans were voting for certain conservative Republican candidates. They would say the candidates were “good for Israel.” It didn't make much sense to me, because the opposing candidates also seemed to be good for Israel, in that they supported Israel's right to exist, to have secure borders, to defend itself, and to conduct its affairs as it deemed best. Finally, today, I met a Jewish American who explained what he and his Republican friends considered to be “good for Israel.”

He said that George Bush was good for Israel because Bush thought that if he invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein, at some time in the future a democracy might be established in Iraq and this man figured that would be good for Israel. He explained that Bush's plan had only a one-percent chance of succeeding, but even that slight chance justified our invasion. He supports other candidates if they also are willing to take actions, such as going to war, if there is even the remotest chance that somehow Israel might benefit. In other words, he and his friends are concerned about one thing and one thing only: Israel. They are willing to have our government kill, torture,violate international law, displace people, and destroy property and the environment without limits, even if these efforts are almost certain to fail, all in the name of helping Israel.

Some people who are not familiar with Judaism might not be surprised at this man's views but most American Jews would be shocked. Judaism teaches peace and respect for all peoples. Over the centuries, a body of Jewish law has been developed which carefully protects and demands respect for enemies in war, competitors in business, and non-Jews in all circumstances. So I was puzzled to hear that this man, who is affiliated with an Orthodox community, seemed to have somehow jettisoned huge parts of the established Jewish religion which would be contrary to his extreme views that allegiance to the state of Israel justified violations of fundamental secular and religious laws. Fortunately, he explained that also.

He said that, in his and his friends' views, the more liberal branches of Judaism are no longer really Judaism, they are just secular liberalism. As examples, he pointed to reform Jews' acceptance of abortion and concern about the environment and social justice as beliefs that are just political and not really consistent with Judaism. I didn't argue with him. It was clear that he had selectively re-defined Judaism as supporting and justifying his personal fanaticism. As disturbing as it was for me to hear this, even more troubling was the thought that he was part of a community which seems to share his beliefs. But at least I now know why all the logical arguments and all the facts and evidence with which we have been trying to persuade the “good for Israel” voters has had so little effect. Now I know that these voters don't just mean “good for Israel,” they also mean “and to hell with everyone else.”

Certainly not all Jews agree with this man. But just as certainly, he is not alone in his views, and he and his friends have influence even in the broader Jewish community because of their relationships with rabbis and Jewish community organizations. When this man and his friends declare which candidates are good or bad for Israel, it can be nearly impossible to get a different viewpoint heard, let alone accepted. In fact, promoters of contrary viewpoints are frequently labeled as “anti-Semitic,” or if they are Jews themselves, as “self-hating Jews.”

My acquaintance and I had a very civil conversation, and I am grateful that he was honest about his beliefs. I have learned from him. But I am very much saddened by what I have learned. It portends possibly irreconcilable rifts within Judaism and potentially dangerous misunderstanding of Judaism from those of other faiths. Islam has suffered grievously from such divisions and distortions. Judaism may be headed down the same path.

Class Warfare

2011-10-04T22:04:00.001-05:00

Progressives and regressives have been accusing each other of engaging in class warfare. It is not clear whether they are talking about the same thing. Apparently, some progressives think that by promoting tax policies which favor rich people and corporations over people with more average incomes, regressives are trying to establish and maintain domination and control by the rich over those who have less wealth. And some regressives seem to think that by advocating that rich people and corporations pay a larger share of taxes, the progressives are trying to dethrone the rich from their positions of power and privilege. If this is how the two sides perceive each other, I think they are both right.

But I don't think it is class warfare, because there is no war. War denotes violence, and to date, there is no violence in the so-called class war in America. There is, however, a question about what the division in this country is. Some say it is between classes. Some say it is between people in different economic situations. Some think there is a racial component. From what I see, the division is one of outlook.

There are wealthy people, such as Warren Buffett, who, surprising many, line up on the side of higher taxes on the wealthy. And there are a lot of people who are of much more modest means who would like to see their taxes reduced, but who are, again surprisingly, willing to be taxed more if the money will be spent for the good of the country. So, the division is not clearly demarcated by how much money one has or makes.

The division is similarly not clearly drawn between whether people work or are retired, whether they are black or white, whether they are professionals or non-professional workers, or whether they made their money or inherited it. The division seems to be most clearly drawn on the basis of one's personal philosophy. Right now, people who are concerned about other people are more likely to be willing to share the burden of funding an organized society than people who are concerned only or mostly with themselves.

This isn't to suggest that the people who are against taxes are inherently selfish. In better times, many of them would probably be more generous and socially responsible. But in these difficult economic times, they have let themselves be frightened into turning away from others. So, some doctors, for example, who might otherwise be showing compassion and acting charitably towards their patients, are grumbling that uninsured people are costing them money and protesting that they should not have to compensate people who are injured by incompetent doctors. And some parents, who would normally be praising their kids' teachers, are shouting that teachers' pay and benefits should be cut.

But these tough times are not evoking the same response from everyone. There are still some doctors who put their patients' interests first, some parents who support their schools, some rich people who are willing to pay their taxes, and some heirs who are willing to let go of a few of their pennies.

The struggle we are experiencing isn't between classes. It isn't between the haves and have nots. It is between the people who see themselves as part of society, and people who see only themselves.

Dold Lets Truth Slip Out

2011-10-03T08:51:00.001-05:00

Republican Representative Bob Dold of Kenilworth faced an angry crowd at his town hall meeting in Wheeling. It was not clear whether the people who were angry were mostly Democrats or Republicans or even affiliated with a party. Dold's office, as usual, had not announced that the meeting would take place until the day before, so most of those in attendance probably were there because one group or another had notified them.

Some people said they were angry that Republicans in Congress have been standing in the way of efforts to get needed legislation passed, for purely political reasons. When Dold tried to escape blame, a man in the audience countered that Dold had run as a Republican and continued to affiliate with that party without criticizing his party's leadership.

Many people said they were angry about the economy. Dold spent a lot of time talking about imports and exports, taxes, and the national debt. He tried very hard to sound reasonable and moderate, but a lot of the people in the room showed they had been paying close attention to his record and pointed out that he was a lot more one-sided than he wanted them to think.

One revealing exchange came when a man criticized Dold for siding with one of the most extreme right-wing groups, the Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist. Dold squirmed as he admitted that he had taken Norquist's pledge to never raise any taxes, no matter how desperately the government would need the money. Norquist had used that pledge to pressure Republicans to refuse to support fiscal reform legislation, with the result that the country was recently brought to the brink of a government shut-down, for what most people in America saw as purely political purposes. Dold told the audience that although he had signed the pledge, he supported removing some tax subsidies, which some people consider to be raising taxes.

Several people, upon hearing Dold's attempt to defuse his critics and yet not disavow the pledge, asked him why he had signed it in the first place. Dold explained, rather sheepishly, “I signed the pledge back when I was running for office.”

And there you have it. Dold so desperately wanted to get elected that he signed a pledge that was specifically designed to lock him into a position on every single fiscal vote he took while in office, regardless of whether that position would turn out to be in the best interest of the country. He allowed the notorious Norquist to own his vote on all tax matters, so that he could get Norquist's money and support in his election bid.

Plenty of commentators decry the incivility of public discourse. I have been among them. But today, it wasn't until near the end of the meeting, when people's frustrations with Dold's attempts to avoid frankly answering their questions boiled up, that they started shouting questions at him. And that was when Dold, struggling to regain control of his audience, let a little bit of the truth slip out. Congratulations to the angry people.

Tom Sawyer 2011

2011-09-30T14:53:00.001-05:00

The regressives have largely succeeded in recruiting the wealthy to their ranks. They have now embarked on a campaign to convince the rest of us that we should accept a subservient rank in society and enroll ourselves in an underclass. They tell us that they should be able to bring the money they have been hiding overseas back into this country without paying any taxes on it, because that will enable them to create more jobs. They tell us that we should give them tax holidays and permanent low tax rates, so that they can create jobs. They tell us that if we give them everything they have and let them accumulate everything they want, they will let us work for them. Tom Sawyer couldn't have done better.

Who are the so-called “job creators” we keep hearing about? Certainly not the big corporations, which count the number of people they lay off the way a kid counts to ten in a game of hide-and-seek: one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand. It would take too long to count each individual who is laid off. And it might make them recognizable as individuals, rather than as just nameless hash marks.

A lot of politicians are telling us that small businesses create most new jobs. But these days, small businesses are mostly growing smaller, not larger. New businesses create some jobs temporarily. But the vast majority of new businesses fail in just a couple of years. The jobs they create aren't really created from an expansion in commerce. They are just a transfer of money out of people's home equity and savings, because small businesses can't borrow money without their owners putting up personal guarantees. When the cash is exhausted, the companies fail, the employees are out of work again, and the banks foreclose on the ruined “entrepreneurs.”

The truth is that these days, there are no job creators. But the truth isn't what is important to the people who are promoting the phrase “job creators.” What is important is that, in addition to the super-rich whom we read about, there are lots of less rich but still well-off people all across America who aren't creating jobs but who like the label. Doctors, raking in lots of money from Medicare and health insurance companies, are a prime example of people who would like to think of themselves as job creators, rather than just as folks making money off of other people's misfortune and sitting on big bunches of cash and investments. These are the donors the Republican party relies on to pad their campaign coffers. These are the people who make it seem like there is support for regressive politics not just on Wall Street, but in every city and small town where doctors have offices.

For years, doctors said they weren't the reason health care costs kept rising faster than any other part of the economy. They blamed insurance companies and hospitals and layers of administrators and bureaucrats. But when they had a chance to eliminate all those middle men who they accused of soaking up health care dollars by supporting national health care, the vast majority of them, and their associations, sided with the very people and institutions they said were the problem. Because, in fact, they knew they were all in on the scheme together. The drug companies and doctors and all the rest realized that the only way they could continue to amass their fortunes was if they stuck together.

A variety of rich folks who aren't doctors also like the idea that they are job creators. People who spend their lives watching over their inherited wealth enjoy the idea that they are doing something more important than just spending money on themselves. Hedge fund managers who sit counting their millions like gamblers at a poker table like to think they are doing something that is really productive, and not just taking advantage of special tax breaks that only they benefit from. The Republican party realized that these folks would rather join a party that told them they had a right to hoard all their money than join a political party that told them they should share their wealth for the good of the entire society. The Republicans realized that these folks would prefer the title “job creator” than the title “greedy, selfish tax-dodger.” And the Republican party recognized that these people would contribute to the party that showed it would support their privileged place in the economy.

The monied elite are not job-creators. They are modern day feudal lords, expecting their serfs to accept subsistence wages for the privilege of working for them. They are modern day Maharajahs, promoting a class system with extreme concentration of wealth. What they seek is a return to a time when wealth, not votes, conferred power and when power, not rights, guaranteed fair treatment. They aim to turn America into the type of society that America was created as a remedy to.

Shadowy Politics

2011-09-28T15:27:00.001-05:00

No one is surprised that shadowy figures influence politics in Washington D.C. But few want to acknowledge such manipulation when it occurs at a more local level. Here in the northern suburbs, some very strange things have been happening. Established incumbents suddenly retiring. Fringe candidates getting mainstream support. Party leaders left in the dark. What's behind it?

To understand what is going on, you have to look at the history of the area. You have to know who has gotten used to having power, and who controls the money. You have to be willing to acknowledge that people who speak of very lofty goals may have very base objectives. You have to realize that some candidates are being promoted, and others are being used. You have to avoid becoming paranoid, but be prepared to see things as they really are.

There are patterns, and they have been emerging for a number of years. Republicans pretending to be independents. Conservatives pretending to be moderates. Democrats pretending to be progressive.

There are also players. A congressman. A senator. A mayor. And others – some from neighboring areas, some whose allegiance is far away from here.

A lot of very sincere people have been working very hard in this area for a number of years to bring about change. It looks like the decision has been made that this election is an opportunity to clear the boards of those people. Some Democrats thought that the redistricting would be their chance to consolidate power. Others see it differently. They are working very hard and very stealthily. They have vast resources and no scruples. And they have the advantage of surprise.

More On Consolidation

2011-09-27T18:30:00.001-05:00

My previous post supported the idea of consolidating special governmental units. Now, let's take a look at what should be considered when deciding how to restructure government. We should have some overriding principles, beyond just saving money. Saving money is a valid goal, but if that is all that we were trying to achieve, in the process of cutting costs we would risk eliminating some of the desirable functions that are being carried out by the existing governmental units. That is the mistake that the Tea Party has been making by focusing just on money and not on consequences.

For me, one goal should be to restructure in a way that allows us not just to do the same things we have been doing, but to do more. For example, there is little benefit to consolidating school districts if we don't end up doing a better job of teaching our children. To just teach them as well as we have been, for less money, isn't worth putting much effort into.

How could we improve education through consolidation? One way would be to expand the scope of consolidation in a way that would give our children a broader range of educational experiences. Why just combine the four districts in our little suburb? Our districts, and others in the area, could draw their district boundaries differently, so that kids would have more interactions in the classroom with kids of different income levels, and ethnic, cultural, and racial identities. The segregation of housing in the Chicago area makes this difficult, but some improvement could be made for at least some of the kids without burdening anyone with a longer bus or carpool ride.

By consolidating school districts we could also even out school funding, so that more equal amounts of money would be available to teach children than is available under the present system, under which the quality of education a child receives relies on property values in the vicinity of the child's home.

There are also improvements which could be made while consolidating and eliminating other special districts. It doesn't make much sense to have a lot of little governmental units with different capabilities in charge of treating waste water, which is all being discharged into the same watershed and which we all end up drinking. Nor does it seem sensible to have streets in one town cleared quickly after a snowfall when, a few blocks down, the same streets become impassable as soon as you drive into the next town.

So, what prevents restructuring and consolidating in a way that would bring about better results for everyone? People who don't care about everyone. People who want their own kids to have the best education and are willing to ignore the inadequate education that other people's kids have. People who are satisfied if their libraries are well-stocked, even if the next town's library's shelves are bare.

The administrators who want to protect their own jobs and fiefdoms understand how people think. They know that all they have to do to prevent change is to encourage people to be concerned only with themselves. They know how to frighten people into thinking that they will lose control over their local schools and parks and streets if they expand jurisdictions so that other people will be served.

That is why any effort towards consolidation in the well-to-do suburbs like the one I live in must have goals that are broader than just saving money. Because as concerned as people are about money, they will quickly abandon the cause if it starts going in a direction that they perceive threatens their privileged position. It may seem odd, but the only way consolidation will gain any traction is if the people who want to consolidate districts in order to save money but who still want their kids educated, their water pure, and their streets plowed, realize that the only way they can achieve their goals is to spend some of their money on other people. At present, they are paying instead for the illusion that if they keep their money in their own little communities, served by a multitude of special taxing units, they can get everything they want. They are wasting a lot of money for this illusion.

Time To Reorganize

2011-09-26T19:28:00.001-05:00

Illinois has thousands of units of local government – more than any other state. We have townships, park districts, mosquito districts, library districts, sewage districts, water districts, road districts, and who-knows-what-else districts. Each district is governed by some sort of board, mostly elected, and each spends money, mostly from property tax and other taxes.

My local township raises and spends a few million dollars each year. A large part of the money is spent on office staff. What do these people do? Almost nothing that some other unit of government either already does or easily could do. For example, you can apply for a passport at the township office. Or you can apply at any number of post offices. Or you can go to the passport office in downtown Chicago. If you apply at the township office, they don't actually issue the passport. They just mail it to the passport office.

What else does the township office staff do? They can tell you how to appeal your property taxes. Or you could get the same information at the county assessor's office a couple of miles away at the county courthouse in Skokie, where you can actually file your appeal. You can also get the information and file the appeal online. The township office doesn't decide the appeals. They just mail them for you to the county assessor if you want.

The township also plows a few miles of roads. That could also be done by the county, which plows a lot more roads in the area. The county's plow trucks drive right by the roads that the township plows. All they would have to do is lower their plows.

A well-meaning, diligent group of people are elected to run the township. They take their jobs seriously. But their jobs don't need to exist. They aren't the only ones we should be looking at. My town of less than 35,000 people has four elementary school districts and a high school district. Why? Historical happenstance, and now none of the administrators wants to give up their jobs, and few of the elected board members think anyone else could do as good a job as they do . As a result, one district is building new school buildings to accommodate a growing population within its boundaries while the district across the street has empty classrooms. One district has a budget surplus while the district across the street is having financial difficulties. If the districts were consolidated, these problems and disparities wouldn't exist.

Not only does having so many units of government create waste, it also creates confusion. Hardly any voters know what all these districts do, let alone who is running for them. That is part of the reason we have so many districts. They provide a lot of jobs that the political parties can dole out as rewards for their loyal supporters.

Having so many special districts also allows mayors and county officials to avoid responsibility for the things the other districts do. It's hard to blame the mayor if the library district raises taxes, even if the mayor appointed the library district board or had them slated. And a city's budget doesn't look as big as it would if it included all the things that have been shunted off onto the other districts. My village's spending would be twice as large if it included all the money the park district spends. Both the village and the park district serve and collect taxes from exactly the same people. When people complain that their property taxes are too high, both units of government can escape criticism by blaming the other.

Most of these special districts could be eliminated, and their work done better. The neighboring suburb of Highland Park, with about the same population as my town, consolidated several school districts a few years ago, and it has worked out fine.

It isn't easy to get rid of a governmental entity. The special district that was created to run a tuberculosis sanitarium in the suburbs wasn't dissolved until decades after it stopped being needed due to improvements in the medical treatment of TB patients.

You may wonder why I am writing about this issue. The answer is that just because some of us think we should stop making wars and should provide medical care for everyone and should preserve Social Security so that people will be able to live decently in old age and should educate all children and should do a lot of other things for the benefit of everyone doesn't mean we like to see our tax money wasted or our government poorly administered. But unlike the regressives in the Tea Party and Republican Party, we don't think that the only answer is to thoughtlessly eliminate government programs. A better solution is to implement changes that will create efficiencies without hurting people.

I don't claim that progressives thought up the idea of consolidation. It has come up now and then, and has been supported by people all over the political spectrum. Right now, it is an idea that I would like to see get broad support, and not just because of the improvements it would bring to the way our government runs. Maybe, if progressives and regressives worked on this issue together, we would learn that we have more in common than we sometimes think. Maybe we could even learn to get along a little better.

Nothing To Say

2011-09-22T13:36:00.001-05:00

Georgia executed a man whose guilt was in doubt. Most of the witnesses against him had realized they might have been mistaken, and had recanted their testimony. The Supreme Court of the United States, to no one's surprise, gave the OK to the execution.

There is so much to say about this. So much controversy. So many moral, religious, political, sociological, economic, and racial issues. But it has all already been said, many, many times over the years.

There just isn't anything new to say. But does that mean that nothing should be said? Or should I and others who continue to be disturbed by killings like this just keep harping on the same old arguments, hoping that someone who is new to the issue will be influenced, or that someone whose mind is already made up will see things in a new way?

One of the many commandments in the Torah says that Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent. Does it necessarily mean that on issues like the death penalty, about which there seems to be a permanent divergence of opinion within our country, Thou art destined to be frustrated and ineffective? Does it mean that Thou art supposed to be concerned, but not necessarily required to do anything? Does it mean that Thou art required to try, but you don't have to feel bad if you don't succeed?

Rabbis have been reading and commenting on the same Torah for a long time. Over the course of every year, they read through the whole scroll. Leaders in other religions also go over the same teachings of their faiths yearly, or every couple of years. Is the notion that there is always something new to learn from the same old passages? Is there a more practical consideration, that many people don't attend services every week, so they are likely to miss lessons unless the lessons are repeated regularly? If so, why go over the same story of The Binding of Isaac every Rosh Hashanah or the Birth of Jesus every Christmas at the one service that most people do attend annually? Do they really need to hear the same thing over and over, or would it be better for them to learn some of the other stuff?

Everyone talks about how it is necessary for people to compromise if we are going to reach agreement on issues. Maybe we could all agree that there would be just one person executed each year. That way, once a year, Georgia and other states would have the same opportunity that religious leaders do to teach us a lesson. We could have a national execution day, when all the news outlets could call attention to the killing so it would have maximum exposure and impact, just like Christmas. We wouldn't have to be so concerned about whether the person was guilty or not. We could skip all the appeals, and just choose the person to be executed by lottery among all those who have been sentenced to die. I bet a lot of the people on death row would sign on for the deal.

Some people, reading the preceding paragraph, might think it was a reasonable compromise. Others would reject the very notion of compromising when people's lives are at stake. They read their Bibles as containing absolute commandments, not suggestions to be used as the basis of compromise. And therein lies the problem that keeps us from reaching agreement on the death penalty and other issues. We are caught between conflicting religious and moral teachings that are phrased as absolutes and a pluralistic society that depends upon compromise. There is no solution. So we keep arguing. Which may be what we are supposed to do. So long as we are arguing, we are not indifferent.

Gays In Uniform

2011-09-21T09:24:00.001-05:00

NOTE: If you were one of the people who had difficulty posting comments, please accept my apologies. I welcome comments, and have adjusted the settings to make commenting easier. Please try again.
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Officially, gay men and women can now serve in the military without concealing their sexual orientation. Realistically, it is going to be a long time before they can openly express themselves without fear that there will be consequences. People's attitudes don't change that fast, and the military is probably among the slowest institutions to change. Heck, the military still thinks that killing people is the way to settle disagreements.

There are a lot of reasons the military will change slowly. Among the biggest impediments to change will be the homosexuals who hold high rank. Some of them will now be afraid that their partners will talk about their own sexuality. They will worry that people will put two and two together and figure out why a particular general and a particular lieutenant spent so much time together.

Military recruiters will also resist the change. Until now, they were able to promote the idea that joining the Army or Navy or Marines was a good way to make people believe that you were a manly man. It was a good ruse for gays who weren't ready to come out of the closet. Now they will need a new beard.

Straights will also resist the change. What guy on leave wants the ladies to think that he has spent months at a time with no one to kiss him goodnight except one of the other fellas in his unit?

There have been gays in the military for as long as there has been a military. Surprise! But what happens if, now that soldiers and sailors can tell the truth, we find out that the military is actually more gay than the rest of society? What may happen is that it becomes ever more gay, as gays flock to be part of an organization where they know they will find people who are like them. That happened a long time ago in some parts of the country. There are cities with famously large gay populations, and neighborhoods in other cities where gays have elected to reside, and professions where gays were not kept out.

The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell does more than just rescind a policy that sought to prevent gays from being interrogated about their personal lives. The military is implementing the new policy as a right of military personnel to identify themselves as gay. This protection is not given to people who work for private employers in a large part of the country. Most employers are still allowed to discriminate against gays. They can refuse to hire gays and fire them just for being gay.

So, the U.S. military is now one of the most gay-friendly employers in the country, and it has better benefits than many other employers. There will be resistance to change, but big changes may very well come anyway. Or maybe there won't really be any change at all, just a little more honesty about what has been going on all along.

This Too Shall Pass

2011-09-20T09:52:00.001-05:00

“This too shall pass.”

This phrase, recognizing that everything changes over time, is usually uttered by people who look forward to the end of their present unpleasant conditions. They can find comfort in the anticipation that some day they will have a better life, although the phrase also tells them that the better time would in turn be destined to give way to something else. But for those who see their present situation as unbearable, who think that things can only get better, there is solace in the hope for a better future.

Sometimes, however, it can seem that one's problems will never yield their grip. Hopelessness can replace the optimism that normally gets people through even the most difficult days. When that happens, people can act in all sorts of ways, many of them destructive to themselves and others.

It has been a challenge for a lot of people to understand why people of very modest means would support Republican politicians whose policies are intended to favor the very rich. It seems irrational, and it is. But to people who do not believe that a better day is to come, the irrationality of their view does not matter.

The middle class in the U.S. has taken a severe beating. Millions of workers have lost the sense of economic security they once had. They have gone back to school to learn new skills, only to find that the new jobs they were promised had been sent overseas while they were training for them. They have lost their savings and their homes. Their children have been priced out of the market for higher education. In so many ways, they have been beaten down, to the point that they no longer believe that a better day will come.

Years ago, when inner-city minorities burned the ghettos that they felt trapped in, some asked why they would destroy their own homes. Part of the answer was that they did not feel that the buildings were theirs. The rest of the answer was that they felt hopeless. Irrationality was not an unreasonable reaction.

Many of today's tea-partiers would be surprised to think that they were acting the same way that the arsonists of yesterday acted, and for the same reason. Tea-partiers, ever railing against entitlements and those who claim them, do not think they have much in common with a bunch of minorities who lived in the 1960s. But their economic condition, and their lack of hope for the future, make them the direct descendants of the rioters of a generation ago.

Politicians in both political parties have been accusing each other of fomenting class warfare. But we have not yet seen that struggle. All we have seen so far is the frustration and anger of the middle class as it sinks lower and lower into a growing underclass. We have not yet seen that anger directed towards the upper class, which holds the power and the money. We have not even seen much awareness among the tea-partiers that they have become part of the suffering-class. When and if the multitudes recognize the commonality of their condition, then class warfare may begin. The politicians won't have to tell us that a war is going on. We'll be able to see the smoke.

Full Disclosure

2011-09-19T10:39:00.001-05:00

Instead of working to solve the nation's financial problems, Congress appointed a “super” committee to study the issue. Who did they put on the super committee? Super people, of course. Well, at least not ordinary people. They would have a hard time appointing ordinary people, because more than half of all congresspeople are worth at least a million dollars. Compare that to the wealth of an average American. Only about one percent of the U.S. population is worth that much. John Kerry, one of the members of the super committee, is worth, by his account, more than 167 million dollars. He may be the wealthiest member of the committee. Republican Senator Max Baucus claims that he isn't worth anything. It's a hard claim to dispute, but if it was true, he probably wouldn't be able to rent an apartment without putting up several month's rent in advance, which he wouldn't have.

The reports about congresspeople's incomes and assets are designed to allow them to give us very incomplete information. For example, although the reports are supposed to show what a congressperson's assets are, the congresspeople don't have to include the value of their homes. Since a personal residence is the largest asset that most people have, this is a very peculiar exclusion. It means that what are probably some congresspeople's biggest assets can be entirely ignored. And on top of that, congresspeople don't have to disclose the value of vacation homes if they have them. Or multiple vacation homes. There is no limit to how many properties a congressperson can own without having to disclose any of them.

Congresspeople are also allowed to exclude almost everything else that they own other than investments. They can have antiques, art collections, even vaults filled with jewels and gold bullion, and nobody ever finds out about it.

Even if the reports were complete, they wouldn't be of much use, because almost no effort is made to insure that the reports are accurate. The congresspeople aren't required to file any proof that the figures they put on the reports are true, and once the reports are filed by the congresspeople, they are never verified, checked, or audited. They are just filed away and that's that. If you try to open a checking account, you have to give more complete information than the congresspeople have to, and if the information can't be verified, the bank won't open the account and you'll have to pay your bills with coins and paper money. Oh, I forgot, you won't have any bills, because no one will let you charge anything until you disclose your financial situation and pass a credit check.

The personal financial disclosures that congresspeople make are, like the information that congresspeople have to provide about their campaign contributors, not as informative as they are supposed to appear to be. Did you ever wonder why so many of the big contributors to campaigns are listed simply as “housewife” or “retired?”

Of course, none of this matters much. The Supreme Court has destroyed campaign finance limitations, and people have grown numb to the influence of money on elections. Dick Cheney got away with funneling billions to his own company. Obama got elected despite revelations about his shady real estate deals. The slimy, sleazy connections between money and politics are accepted as “just the way things are.”

If anyone expects the super committee to come up with solutions to our financial problems, they ought to consider that the solution these congresspeople came up with for their own problems was to let money flow into their pockets without any meaningful scrutiny. Super.

Economic Forecast

2011-09-15T17:14:00.001-05:00

While the stock market keeps fluctuating up and down, the economic situation just keeps going downhill for a huge segment of the U.S. population. More people are in poverty now than at any time since the Census Bureau started keeping track, 52 years ago. A larger percentage of the population is living in poverty than at any time in the past eighteen years. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, has declined to the point that people are now making less than they did 13 years ago. Unemployment continues to be high, especially among minorities. Forty eight million people didn't work a single week last year. Nearly 50 million people now have no health insurance. More than a quarter of the country was uninsured for at least part of the year. The number of people living on less than half the income that is considered poverty has increased. More people are moving in with relatives because they can't afford to live on their own. The rate of poverty in the suburbs is at the highest level since 1967. Twenty-two percent of all children in the U.S. now live in poverty.

That's the bad news. There is good news – corporate profits are still healthy. Oh, and the rich still don't have to pay much in taxes. And rich people and corporations will be able to contribute unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates who will continue to do what they want them to do. Good news, for some. For a while. Until the whole society disintegrates. Until violence wells up among the desperate. Until the upper tier finds out it can't live the way it is accustomed to if the underclass refuses to wait on them or is too exhausted to do their bidding. Until the vision of suffering becomes painful to the eyes of those who can no longer look away. Until the awakening of conscience brings into consciousness that which has been too easy to ignore.

Economists are reluctant to even guess how long this state of affairs will continue, but they shouldn't be. The precise date when things will change for the better can be predicted with 100 percent certainty. Things will change when we make them change, and not a day sooner.

Who are the “we” who will bring about the change? This is not a question, really. It is an indictment. An accusation of negligence. A charge that demands an answer. “We” have a warrant out for us. “We” will be judged. “We” the people, the document says, established this union. Not “they” of long ago. We signed the Constitution. We committed ourselves to a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. We are our country. We are our present and our future. We are the only ones who can make change happen. Or we can let this country and all its promise fall apart and disappear.

Seniors Without Security

2011-09-14T15:53:00.001-05:00

Some of the figures in a recent Census Bureau report got a lot of attention in the media. The figures showed that the average family's income has declined in recent years, that more people are living in poverty, that more people don't have health insurance, and that more people are unemployed. These figures paint a fairly coherent picture of a society in decline, but they don't tell the whole story.

Since there is a national debate going on right now about Social Security, let's take a look at how much money senior citizens are making. According to the Census Bureau, a person aged 65 or older is living in poverty if that person has $10,452 or less in annual income. If two seniors, such as a husband and wife, live together and make less than $13,180 a year, the Census Bureau considers that they are living in poverty. Let's not quibble about whether these numbers really define poverty, or whether two people can live on just $2728 more than one person can. I think we can agree that in most parts of the country, you can't live very well on that kind of money. Once you pay rent, heat, electricity, water, phone, taxes, groceries, health-insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays, medicine, basic transportation, and a few other necessities, you wouldn't have much left over – if you can make your income stretch that far at all.

Most retirement-age people in this country have almost nothing saved, so they live entirely off of their Social Security checks, plus a little bit of money they earn. People don't really retire at 65. So, how much money do those people have to live on? According to the Social Security Administration, the average Social Security recipient gets $14,179.20 a year in benefits. That is just $3727.20 more than the poverty level for one person. (Because some spouses collect a spousal Social Security check and some don't, it's more complicated to compare the figures for couples living on Social Security.) In other words, most people in this country who retire on just Social Security live just above the poverty line.

According to these figures, if Social Security is eliminated, most actual retirees will be thrown into poverty. If Social Security benefits are reduced even a little bit, the result is the same. Many other seniors, who still work, will have their standard of livings drastically reduced. The median income for a household with seniors who still work is $31,408, and that is the median for families of all sizes.

What the figures really show is that a huge number of Americans are living in a very narrow income range. The median income for a single worker is $29,730. The median for all households including families of all sizes is $49,445. Poverty for a family of four is $22,113. So, the difference between living in poverty and living on what most people live on, using any of the above income figures, is less than $30,000. Americans who are not living in poverty are living on not much more than poverty-level incomes – maybe twice the poverty level. Or, to put it another way, the loss of one income in a family with more than one wage earner can be all that it takes to plunge an entire family into poverty. The loss of income for a retiree puts one right on the edge.

The big picture is that half our country is either living in poverty or living not far from poverty, and poverty is dangerously close for those who have escaped it so far. The rest of the picture is that half of the country is living in a much broader range of incomes, reaching into the millions and billions. Most of those fortunate people in the upper half are a lot closer to the bottom than to the top of the income distribution. Only a tiny number of people in this country make anywhere near what the top earners do.

So, we still have a middle class. But the middle is a lot closer to the bottom than we like to think.

Building The Dream

2011-09-13T17:00:00.001-05:00

I watched a couple of movies about immigrants coming to America. One was from the perspective of a European Jew, the other from an Irish Catholic viewpoint. Both movies were set in the times when there were massive migrations from Europe, both were based on true stories, and both told of the hope that America held out to people facing hardship in their native lands. Both movies ended with the now cliché scene of the Statue of Liberty viewed from an arriving boat. Since the movies ended before their protagonists set foot on our shores, they leave it to our conjecture whether America turned out to be what they had dreamed of, or something else.

There is a lot of talk these days about the American dream and whether it is still alive. This seems as good a time as any to start thinking about what the modern American dream should be. The world has changed, both in the lands we attract people from and here in America. The dream should probably change with the times.

Running water. Indoor plumbing. Central heat. Relatively non-corrupt police. Opportunity to choose one's work, and to earn advancement. A chance to accumulate wealth. Freedom to worship or not. Freedom to travel. An absence of restrictions on the basis of caste or class or sex. These are facets of the old American dream. They are commonly viewed almost entirely in terms of what the dreamers can get for themselves, and for the dreamers' children. It has not been, for the most part, a dream that has been dreamed for the benefit of other Americans, and certainly not for the advancement of the rest of the world. It has been a selfish dream.

At times, a more socially oriented dream has been proposed, by reformers and labor unions and religious leaders and visionaries. Philanthropy and taxes and charity and sacrifice have helped that dream along. We have built schools, bridges, dams, highways, canals, railways, airports, waterworks, museums, concert halls, post offices, parks, and libraries to benefit the masses. But in this difficult economy, these sorts of expenditures are not so much advanced for the public good that the projects will provide as for the temporary jobs they will create while they are being built.

When we think about public works projects which are being proposed as a stimulus to the economy, whether the public good is viewed as the focus of the American dream, or just a byproduct of job-creation will make a big difference in what kind of country we end up building.

Independence

2011-09-12T22:47:00.001-05:00

If you don't like the stuff a store is trying to sell to you, you can walk out without buying anything. But what if you don't like the candidates you have to choose from in an election?

A lot of people feel like walking away from Obama. They feel he just isn't good enough. He hasn't done what he said he would. Obama supporters say he's better than any of the Republicans, but who wants to accept shoddy merchandise just because someone else's merchandise is even worse? As Americans we are told we have a history of striving for excellence, not settling for the inadequate. Obama supporters say he has tried, but the Republicans wouldn't let him accomplish what he wanted to. The truth is that on most of the key issues, he hasn't even tried. His policies were Republican polices. Obama supporters point to a list of his achievements, but the list is awfully short and the achievements pretty insignificant.

Obama ran on a promise of hope and change. Now we are being told not to hope for so much change. What are people to do?

We could back a third party candidate, and many of us would, if a credible candidate would emerge. But no one has thrown a hat into the ring yet. We could sit the election out, let Obama lose, and watch the Republicans spend the next four years continuing to do what they have been doing despite Obama's ineffective opposition, and often with his cooperation. Maybe the Democratic opposition in Congress would become more energetic if it didn't feel it had to go along with the Republicans every time Obama told them they had to pull together as a party and support him as he capitulated. We could vote for Obama and hope he would win and that after the election we could persuade him that he should repay us by actually standing up to the Republicans and promoting a progressive agenda, but that didn't happen the first time we elected him. He turned his back on the people who put him in office.

The frustrating truth is that we don't have any good options at the moment. But there is another way to look at it. We are free to do whatever we want. We don't owe Obama anything. We gave him a chance, and he blew it. We don't owe the Democratic party anything. It didn't hold Obama to his promises, and for the most part, Democrats in Congress sided with Obama as he accepted Republican proposals. We don't have to buy the junk the Democratic party is selling. We may end up without much after the election, but no one is offering us much anyway, and at least when it is over, we won't feel like we have been swindled.

The best option may be to start working for third party candidates, not so much because they will win this time, but so that they will have a foundation to build upon in the next election. The problem with that strategy is that until third parties win more seats, it is very difficult for them to gain any influence or sustain people's interest from one election to the next.

If progressives don't support Obama and he loses, we will be called spoilers, and the Democrats will blame their failures on us. This shouldn't deter us. We have been called all sorts of names before, and it didn't stop us from doing what we thought was right. And come the next election, the Democrats will still ask us for money.

Maybe forming a spoiler coalition is the way to go. The Republicans probably won't field any candidates that we would support, but we would be able to say to the Democratic party, “You can start acting like progressives and, with our support, win elections. Or you can keep doing what you are doing and not get our support and lose.” Maybe they'd get the message.

Obama's Resignation

2011-09-09T10:20:00.001-05:00

The one word that sums up President Obama's speech last evening is resignation. The President has given up any hope that he will be able to get the Congress to pass any measures that would help the average American who wants to work. Obama has given up on trying to get really progressive measures through the Congress. He has given up on anything that might in any way be thought of as a Democratic initiative. He has given up on putting his own ideas forward. He knows he is beat. He knows, after more than two and a half years of trying to work with Republicans, that they don't want him to succeed and that they have the votes to make sure he doesn't. All he is proposing is old legislation that he repeatedly told us the Republicans have supported in the past, and it was obvious that he knows that now that he is supporting it, they won't even vote for that.

All that Obama has left is the hope that if the economy doesn't significantly improve before the next election, the Republicans will be blamed for having stood in the way of reform and progress, which is the same as saying that he has given up on the idea of reform and progress. All he is left with is politics. What he still doesn't grasp is that the voters are sick to death of politics, and since that is all that he is offering to them, they aren't going to put him back in office for another term.

The biggest miscalculation that Obama made is that he forgot that the one thing Americans have no use for is a quitter. No matter how hopeless his efforts may look in the face of Republican obstructionism, the people want their President to keep fighting, and as their situation gets more desperate, they want him to fight even harder than he has before. But instead of showing the voters that he will work for them just as hard as they are struggling themselves, last evening Obama quit.

What should he have said? That for two and a half years he has tried, as a gentleman, to work with Republicans, but that for two and a half years, they have refused to budge. They have behaved selfishly and obstinately, putting their own interests and the interests of their wealthy contributors above the interests of the country. They have distorted every statement he made and torpedoed every innovation he has put forward. They have refused to confirm his nominees, making it impossible for the government to accomplish what it needs to accomplish in these desperate times. They have politicized the courts. They have used their power and money to confuse the people rather than illuminate the issues. They have done everything they could to make sure that he would fail, and in the process they have set the country on a downward course from which it may never recover. And if they think it is proper for him to say “God Bless America” at the end of his speeches, they better be ready to hear him say “God Damn those who stand in the way of their own country's recovery.”

Obama should have said that while America has no innate right to succeed when other countries fail, neither does it have an obligation to fail when others are succeeding. He correctly pointed out that China and Korea are building high-speed railroads while America's efforts to modernize its transportation system have been unable to gain governmental support. What he forgot to mention was that he had worked to get such support, but that the Republicans had only passed a small portion of the programs he asked for, and they later cut those programs back to the bone. He should have laid the failure right on the doormat of the Republicans in Congress, in no uncertain terms. “Do you want us to become a second class nation?” he should have asked, “If not, why do you keep giving our country second class solutions?”

Our President told us he was proposing cutting back on Medicare benefits so that Medicare would be there in the future, which is almost word for word what the Republicans have been telling him he should do. Instead of making their case for them, he should have told the truth, which is that every cut in Medicare hurts someone. Every person who can't start on Medicare at age 65 but has to wait until age 67 will face the very real possibility that they will not be able to buy insurance for those two non-covered years. He should have explained that if they can buy the insurance, they will still have unmanageable deductibles and co-pays, and that if they can't buy insurance they will likely either use up their savings or will go without medical care. He should have explained that every dollar in savings to the Medicare system costs people who don't qualify for Medicare two dollars, because they pay more for their health care than Medicare pays with its huge purchasing power.

And without stopping for breath, he should have told them that every person who goes without medical care from age 65 to 67 should curse the Republicans, because the Republicans are the ones who are needlessly causing the suffering. He should have reminded everyone that nearly every other advanced nation in the world pays much less for their medical care and gets care that is at least as good as what we get, and often better, and that in the rest of the world everyone gets medical care, not just those who can afford it. Then he should have asked why we can't do what every other country can. And it shouldn't have been a rhetorical question. He should have singled out a Republican congressman and said, “You there in the fourth row. You tell me, right now, why we can't do what every other country can.”

He should have reminded us that President Harry Truman tried to get health coverage for everyone under a Medicare style government sponsored program, and that President Clinton tried, and that he tried, but that each time the insurance companies and drug companies and for-profit hospitals and middle men descended on Washington with suitcases full of money and made sure that things would stay the way they were, so that men and women, children and old people, working people and the unemployed would suffer, and even die.

He should have told them that he now realizes he made a mistake when he sat down and tried to negotiate a compromise on the issue of health care. It was a mistake because the other side never intended to compromise. He should admit that pushing for the watered down “ObamaCare” that he finally got was a terrible mistake, because it isn't good enough for the American people. What they really need and what they deserve is real universal health care, real government sponsored health care, and that he was going to renew his efforts to get the people exactly that, so the Republicans can go ahead with their lawsuits and try to stop ObamaCare, because he now realizes it isn't worthy of his name. What he wants now, and what the American people need, is real reform. And he should apologize for having tried to convince them otherwise.

Obama should have told the American people that he went back and re-read the speech he gave at the Democratic Convention in 2004 that brought him to the attention of the nation, and he knows that he has failed to stand firm on the ideals he promoted and the promises he made. And he should look the people in the eye and tell us that we can call it a new deal or a new start or a new Obama or whatever we want, but he is going to do things differently starting right now. He is going to insist that Congress start doing what needs to be done, and that they shouldn't worry about Tea Partiers who insist that the government can't do anything that wasn't in the Constitution in 1791, because that Constitution says Congress shall have the power to make laws that are necessary and proper and that's what Congress has always done and it is what they are darn well going to continue to do.

Instead of saying he was going to continue to cut the payroll taxes like he did last year, he should have said he was going to restore those taxes to their prior level, because every dollar that doesn't go into Social Security through those payroll taxes helps to bankrupt that essential program that provides for the retirement of nearly every American.

Obama should have said that, while we are on the subject of taxes, we should have a major increase in taxes on millionaires and billionaires, because they can afford to pay the taxes and the government can't afford for them not to. He should point out that these ultra-rich people are only the tiniest sliver of the population, but like kings of old, they own an enormously disproportionate share of the wealth of the entire country. And he should have given us the numbers that prove that the CEOs of big corporations, taking in millions of dollars a year, each make more than one hundred of the people who work for those same companies. “Could a person who makes three million dollars pay an extra fifty thousand in taxes? You bet they could, without even noticing it.” That's what Obama should have said.

And instead of assuring us that all his programs would be paid for, but not telling us how, our President should have told us that he was going to pay for his programs by stopping the foolhardy wars we are fighting, and that there would be money left over. It wouldn't have been a bad idea for him to remind us that part of the reason we started the war in Iraq was because the Republican president and his Republican friends thought that if we kept generating government surpluses as we had been doing under the prior president, a Democrat, we would be able to take better care of people who were disabled or out of work or otherwise needed our help. The Republicans wanted to get rid of some of that extra money so that it wouldn't be used for social welfare, so they cut taxes on the wealthy and started some wars. The wars were a great way to divert government surpluses away from social programs and into the pockets of military contractors. “By golly,” Obama should have said, “The tax cuts and the wars are crippling our government and our country and I'm not going to stand for it anymore because it is shameful for us to deliberately neglect people when we have the ability to help them.”

Obama talked about the economic theory of job creation, but he should have been talking reality. “Go home to your districts,” he should have told the Congresspeople, “and ask them if they are happy that kids who are graduating college can't find jobs. Ask them if the parents of those kids enjoy seeing the disillusioned looks in their kids' faces. Ask the kids, and their parents, what they are going to do about the mountains of debt the kids have that they can't pay back. And then ask them whether they appreciated that you spent weeks arguing about a debt ceiling, or if they would have preferred that you do something to help make college more affordable and jobs more available. I know what you will hear. You will hear what I hear every day.”

No one can say for certain what will or will not create jobs, but everyone knows that if you don't have a job and Congress cuts off your unemployment compensation and you can't find a job, you're in trouble. So it would have been easy for Obama to say that until all the economists can agree on a policy, we sure shouldn't stop sending those unemployment checks out, or people aren't going to have anything to eat.

Obama appropriately said that if America is going to be an industrial powerhouse in the future, it needs to educate its population and train them for jobs. He correctly said that now is not the time to be cutting back on the number of teachers in our schools. But at the same time, he said we should enter into yet another trade agreement that, if it is like the other trade agreements we have entered into in recent years, will ship even more jobs out of our country and send them abroad. “Not one more job overseas, until we see some jobs coming back here,” is what he should have said. Even the Republicans, who made a point of barely applauding anything Obama said, would have had a hard time not rising to cheer that sentiment.

Obama told us, as all Presidents do, that ours is a great country. But he should have gone farther and told us that the multinational corporations which have been dictating our national policy, don't care about our country. He should have explained that these corporations are happy having their goods manufactured in China if it is cheaper than having them manufactured here, and that they don't really care if all the U.S. jobs move overseas. All these corporations care about is their profits, and they have been making huge profits even though American workers are stretched as tight as the skin on a drum.

And he should have kept talking all night if he needed to. “Go ahead and watch football, Mr. Boehner,” he should have said, “I've got a lot to talk to the American people about and I'm not stopping until I've said what I came to say.” He should have gone farther in standing up for unions. He should have reminded us that if it weren't for unions, a lot more American workers' fingers would be chopped off each year by unsafe machinery, and a lot more women would be sexually assaulted at work, a lot more kids would die doing unsafe work that they were pressured into, and a lot more middle aged workers would be fired, and replaced by younger workers who would be paid less. He should have told us that without unions, pensions would be plundered by companies even worse than they have been, and people would be afraid to complain about being forced to work with poisonous chemicals without any protection. “Visit a rehabilitation center and talk with someone who has been maimed at work and then come back here and tell me that government shouldn't regulate workplace safety because it interferes with the entrepreneurial spirit. I dare you!” is what Obama should have said.

A half-hour into his speech, Obama finally got energetic, but he never got as angry as he needed to. He needed to get as angry as vast numbers of middle class people are getting, seeing their retirement approaching while their houses decline in value, their property taxes increase, their 401-ks languish, and their Social Security threatened by the very representatives whom they count on to protect them. He needed to get as angry as the mass of middle-aged workers who are afraid that if they lose their jobs they will never recover financially. He needed to get as angry as the millions of people who are working part time but who need full-time jobs, the millions who can't find any jobs, the millions who hate their jobs but have nowhere else to go.

But Obama never got that angry. He stayed in control. He was cool and calm. He never really connected with the people, because he doesn't know how. He stayed on script, reading carefully crafted words from his prompter, when he should have been pounding the lectern, pointing fingers at his nemesis, staring down the people who have been thwarting his policies and calling them out by name. He delivered a speech when what he needed to do was light a fire.

Bachmann Overboard

2011-09-08T15:25:00.002-05:00

Michele Bachmann had to know the Republican Party wouldn't nominate her to be President of the United States. She's a woman. That's all she needed to know.

The Republican Party is looking for another Ronald Reagan, with broad shoulders, thick dark hair, and an adoring woman on his formally-dressed arm. They are still trying to get his image carved into stone at Mount Rushmore. They still want his image struck into metal on our coins. Today's Republicans are in love with the image of Reagan, and they will nominate the candidate who does the best job of impersonating him.

Prove it for yourself. Find an old photo of Ron and petite Nancy walking into a state dinner. Black out their faces with a marker. Look at the photo of the tuxedo and red dress and ask yourself which of the people in the picture today's Republicans would nominate for President, even knowing, as they do now, that while Ron had Alzheimer's, Nancy was calling the shots.

Want more proof? Take a look at a photo of the eight Republican candidates who were on stage at the debate (which was held at the Reagan library). Pick the two with the broadest shoulders and most rugged features and you will find a guy from the manly state of Texas and another from the original Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Bachmann got as far as she did by running as a conservative Christian who believes that women should submit to their husbands. She ran as a leader of the Tea Party, which has had absolutely nothing to say about women's rights, because all they want to talk about is money. She could hardly be surprised that Ed Rollins, who ran Ronald Reagan's political operation, would abandon her on the eve of an important debate because he thought the contest had narrowed down to Romney vs. Perry.

It was useful to have Michele in the race, so that Republicans who want to eliminate women's rights to have abortions could claim that they were not against women. It was handy to have Michele take up space in the news that might otherwise have gone to Sarah Palin, who is seen by Republican regular power brokers as a dangerous maverick and by many more as just a kook.

But alas, today's Republican voters, like beauty contest judges, and like today's Democrats, have a hard time looking deeper than the appearance of their candidates. Which is why the people who really control the Republican party have to make sure they give the voters a candidate who looks the part they will be called upon to play, but who is also at his core philosophically aligned with their plutocratic vision and entirely controllable. The Republican voters may have a woman candidate for Vice-President, but in 2012 they are not likely to get a woman as a presidential candidate. That job will go to a man. A tall, white, muscular, virile-looking, tough-talking, man. With nice teeth.

More About Obama

2011-09-06T20:09:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about President Obama's failure to act. Today let's take a look at who else isn't doing all that they could. I'll skip over Sarah Palin, who stepped down from elected office so that she could make speeches. It's hard to say whether her involvement in either of those endeavors would accomplish anything, but she seems to think she has made the correct choice.

I'll skip over the entire U.S. Congress, too. No need to talk any more about whether they are doing all that they could for the country or are too preoccupied with raising money for their next campaigns. Let's talk about you and me. We are the folks who read and write about politics, current events, the economy, and other pressing topics. Some of us are also the ones who from time to time attend demonstrations and lend our presence to the causes we believe in. Some of us may even be the ones who organize the actions. Are we doing all that we could?

Of course not. I could do more. So could you. So, would Obama be within his rights to write a blogpost about us, complaining that we aren't doing enough? He could, but it's hard to imagine anything that would get a politician in hotter water than complaining that the voters aren't doing enough to fix the country's problems.

The voters expect their elected officials to fix things. This is a representative democracy, right? We don't have the time or the expertise or the resources or the connections or the power to fix things ourselves. That's what we pay elected officials to do. And if they don't get everything fixed fast enough, we fire them by electing someone new.

The American people seem to be expecting the President to fix the economy, even though the President doesn't run the economy. We expect our government to guarantee us that we will be able to live with dignity in our old ages, even though we don't want to pay the taxes that the government would need in order to fulfill this guaranty. We want our government to make sure our water is drinkable and air is breathable, but we don't want the government to interfere with our lives or impose burdensome regulations on companies that would pollute the air and water.

In short, we are the terrible bosses that we all complain about all the time. We expect our employees (the President and other elected officials) to do the impossible, do it immediately, do it without the money or support they need, and to give themselves pay cuts. We are constantly criticizing our employees behind their backs, insulting them to their faces, and threatening to replace them with new employees. We are pitting one employee against another, giving them conflicting orders that change on a daily basis, undermining their authority, and then giving them poor marks on their evaluations. We are the bosses from Hell.

What do employees usually do when their bosses turn out to be jerks? They stop trying to do their jobs as well as they could, and instead they put their efforts into trying to fool their bosses into thinking they are doing more than they really are. They build empires to insulate themselves from criticism and responsibility. They figure out ways to get as much for themselves as they can, rather than trying to promote the business they are working for. They spend time looking for their next jobs, so they can leave the ones they have, or so they can have somewhere to go when they are fired, which they are constantly afraid will happen because they have no feeling of being appreciated or having job security.

Our politicians, it turns out, are doing exactly what the people they represent do in their own jobs, in part because we, the people they represent, are treating them just as badly as we feel we are being treated by our own bosses, whom we resent, and dislike, and for whom we have no respect. We feel like our employers don't deserve our loyalty because they have shown us no loyalty. And when we are in the position to act as the bosses, in the electoral system, we follow the same self-destructive patterns that we have learned as employees.

We are stuck on a carousel, shouting at the guy on the horse in front of us, and he is shouting at us, and we are all going in circles. Someone is going to have to get off and show some leadership.

Commander In Chief

2011-09-05T19:42:00.001-05:00

Every couple of days, I get an email from Obama's campaign or run across an article by one of his supporters trying to convince me that he really is doing a good job. The reason he hasn't accomplished more, they say, is because the Republicans won't let him. The criticism he has been getting for having no spine and caving in at every chance is unfair, they say.

I agree that the Republicans have been deliberately hampering Obama. They announced a long time ago that they were going to. They didn't want him to succeed, and they have been eager to let the country suffer so that they could encourage the voters to blame Obama for the nation's troubles. That's politics in this country right now. It's a sad state of affairs, but it isn't anything new. We only have two parties, which for a long time has meant that failure by the party in power helps the fortunes of the party that is out of power.

What the President's apologists ignore, in blaming the Republicans in Congress, is that there are some things the President can do all by himself, without even asking Congress. One of those things is leading the military. Our Constitution says that the President is the commander in chief of the military. He can tell the military to do whatever he wants without having to get the consent of the Senate. One of the only real limitations on the President's power to command the military is that Congress, not the President, has the power to declare war, although that provision has been ignored for a long time. Also, the money to pay for the military must be appropriated by Congress, but once the money is appropriated, the president can send the military where he wants.

Most importantly, the President has the power to send the military home. He has the power to do what he promised to do when he was campaigning, which is to stop the wars. The Republicans, no matter how determined they might be to thwart the President for their own political purposes, and no matter how large a majority they might have in Congress, could not stop the President from stopping the wars. It's his call. Congress never declared the wars we are now waging, so it can't complain if he ends the wars. Congress may have appropriated money for the military, but it can't make the President spend it to continue the fighting.

I am sure Obama is frustrated by the way the Republicans – with the aid of a lot of Democrats – are acting. The whole country is frustrated with Congress. But Obama has no excuse for not doing what he can do on his own. Unless perhaps Obama is no longer capable of commanding the military because there has been a military coup and the military is commanding itself without Presidential interference. If that has happened, he should at least tell us.

Being in command of the military is an important part of the job of a president. It is on a very short list of powers that the Constitution delegates to the president. If Obama's supporters want the American people to think he is doing a good job of being president so that we will reelect him, they're going to have to explain why he isn't even doing one of the most important parts of his job. Or if they maintain that he really is in charge of the military, they are going to have to explain why he has ordered the military to do exactly what he told us he wouldn't have them do. So far we haven't heard that explanation.

Military Waste

2011-09-01T13:38:00.002-05:00

A recent report showed that the U.S. military paid nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in late fees because it didn't return leased shipping containers on time. Anyone who has scolded themselves for not getting a book back to the library in time to avoid paying a dime should be able to relate to this story, but very few people will sympathize. Three-quarters of a billion dollars is a lot of money to pay for being careless.

Another report made the shipping container waste look like small potatoes. The Commission on Wartime Contracting, which was created by Congress, just reported that in just the past ten years, in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, the military has wasted between thirty and sixty billion dollars. The commission couldn't be sure of the figure, because the military does such a sloppy job of keeping track of the money it spends. Which in itself is remarkable, since the military spends more tax money than any other part of government.

As upsetting as these reports may be, they missed the mark. In fact, military waste is much larger. The truth is that almost all U.S. military spending is a waste. In the past ten years or so, military spending has approximately doubled. The increases were mostly for weapons we didn't need and for a couple of wars we shouldn't have started. So, about half of what we are now spending on the military is a waste. We could have kept military spending at the level it was at ten years ago.

Looking back just a few more years, the biggest increases in military spending were for the Viet Nam war, which we didn't need to fight, and for more weapons we never needed. Take out those increases, and our military spending would be a small fraction of what it is now. Remove our nuclear arsenal, which is useless, and we see that military spending could be even less.

So, we could drastically reduce our military expenditures simply by getting rid of these unnecessary items. But wait, there's more. Our entire military structure is built around the assumption that we should always be prepared to start, fight, and win at least two major wars at once. We should have realized by now the foolishness of such a goal. We are in two major wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and several smaller skirmishes, and it is pretty obvious we would be better off if we weren't. The simple truth is that if we hadn't been so prepared to fight, we wouldn't have been so quick to start the fights. Being less prepared is a better policy than being prepared.

Even being prepared to fight one major war is a foolhardy policy. Not so many years ago, that wasn't the central assumption of our military. We used to keep a relatively small standing military, and gear up in case of conflict. It worked fine. We won World War II that way.

Unless we look at the big picture, we will never make any progress in curtailing waste in the military. Every part of government and every private business has some waste. Waste is unavoidable, and although it can be managed, it can't be entirely eliminated. Estimates are that military waste is somewhere less than ten percent of the whole military budget. When you are looking at the trillions the military spends, even a percent or two is a lot of money, but it is still just a percent or two. Real savings can only be obtained by looking at the ninety-plus percent of the budget that isn't usually thought of as waste, but that should be. That's where the money is, and cutting there is the only way to really make a difference.

Pity The Parents

2011-08-30T19:58:00.003-05:00

Republican leaders in Congress told the fifty million people who suffered through Hurricane Irene that they would not approve funding for relief efforts unless President Obama cut something else out of the budget to offset the costs of the relief. Five million people lost their electricity. Some towns were completely cut-off because roads were washed out. People's homes were swept away. People died. And the Republicans decided that instead of having the government do everything in its power to help Americans, they would do everything they could to push their political agenda. The Republican leadership stood with a life-preserver in hand, refusing to toss it to people in need.

I feel for the parents of these Republican leaders. They were undoubtedly proud to see their children elected to high office. They probably bragged to their friends about their kids' accomplishments, like most parents do. But how ashamed they must feel now that they see how poorly their children are behaving.

I have stood on the sidelines of the playground, chatting with other parents while our children played. Sometimes the play would get a bit rough, and the parents watched anxiously, ready to intervene if necessary. But none of us generally had to do anything more drastic than call out to our kids and remind them to behave. The kids knew how they were supposed to act, and they knew we were watching. Only rarely would a parent have to separate his or her child from the others, usually for a brief time-out. In the most extreme cases, a cranky child might have to be taken home for a nap. It was a little embarrassing if your kid was the one who had to be removed because he or she was causing trouble, but the other parents understood. Everyone knew that kids have to learn, and sometimes parents have to step in.

As parents, we figure that if we do our jobs right, by the time our kids get elected to Congress they will know how to act like adults. It must be humiliating for the Republicans' parents that their kids are not playing nicely. Who wants to see their kid refuse to help someone in need, specially if their kid promised to help other people and was entrusted with that responsibility?

Weren't any of these Republicans ever Boy Scouts or crossing guards or baby sitters or life guards? I bet some of them were. I bet their parents drove them to meetings and sewed patches on their uniforms and pinned badges on them at ceremonies. I bet most of the Republicans' parents attended their graduations and threw parties for them. I bet the parents did everything right. And now they see that somehow, despite everything they did, their kids turned out bad. I'm sure the disgrace is very hard for these parents to bear.

Fortunately, there are kind people in this world who will do what they can to comfort these parents of Republicans. A reassuring word. A gentle touch. An accepting glance. Some little thing that will tell these disappointed parents that they should not be too hard on themselves; we know they tried. I hope these parents of Republicans can accept the kindness that is extended to them, without stopping to think that their own kids would never do such a nice thing for someone in need.

Seeing Signs

2011-08-29T10:12:00.001-05:00

A Christian televangelist suggested that the stone in the Washington Monument cracked, not just because of an earthquake, but as a sign of the decline of the U.S. and the imminent coming of Jesus. A right-wing rabbi said that the earthquake happened because God is upset that New York state legalized gay marriage. He didn't explain why the quake was centered in Virginia and was felt in many states. There are always people who observe natural phenomenon and proclaim them to have supernatural origins. They could be right. How can we be sure, except that there is no evidence for their claims and perfectly adequate scientific explanations that don't depend upon magical powers?

I once walked into a casino in Las Vegas and put a nickel into a slot machine. The machine was broken, and my nickel came back to me. I took it as a sign that I should not gamble. I figured I was being given one last chance to not lose the rest of my money.

I once rode as a passenger on a motorcycle. The driver lost control at a very low speed, and we tumbled to the ground. No one was hurt, but I had been carrying a handful of dowel rods that I had purchased and every single one of them broke. I took it as a sign that I should not ride motorcycles. I was being given one last chance to not break my bones.

There was no evidence that any superior power was sending me signs to protect me. But it didn't matter. I derived my own lessons from these occurrences and acted the way I thought I should.

We are surrounded by things that could be interpreted as signs to guide us through life. Sometimes we heed them. Sometimes we don't. Just yesterday I saw a red light at an intersection. I took it as a sign that I was supposed to stop my car, so I did, but the guy next to me blew right through the light, and very nearly collided with another car. I'm pretty sure the light was meant for both of us. I'm also pretty sure it wasn't a sign from God, but just a sign from the local municipality.

It turns out that even a stop light, with no moral authority and no religious significance, is worth obeying. So why is it that the Libertarians and Tea Partiers are so adamant that government shouldn't make rules about anything that the Constitution doesn't specifically say government should regulate? Red lights aren't in the Constitution. Should we tear all the stoplights down?

Libertarians and Tea Partiers say they are tired of having so many rules telling them what they can and should do. They don't want to be told which foods are healthy. They don't want to be told they can't destroy the environment. They want to be able to do whatever they want to do, and to heck with all the rules and rule makers. To heck with everybody else; let them look out for themselves.

I don't know if the guy who ran the stoplight was a Libertarian or Tea Partier. He may just have been a selfish jerk. I'm not even sure how to tell the difference.

Uncertainty

2011-08-25T21:45:00.001-05:00

Republican politicians, by claiming that businesses won't invest in their businesses until they have certainty about their taxes, don't make a convincing case that taxes must be cut. They do prove, however, that they don't know anything about business.

Businesses never have certainty about anything, and when things are most certain for businesses, consumers and workers suffer. The greatest degree of certainty in business exists when a company has a monopoly, so that it is the only supplier of a good or service. Monopolists, knowing they have no competition, can produce inferior products and charge exorbitant prices. That is why monopolies are illegal.

Relatively high levels of certainty are also found when the marketplace is corrupted, as when government officials take bribes in exchange for contracts. This also is illegal, because it leads to shoddy goods and high prices. It also stifles competition, because honest businesses learn they can't succeed in a crooked marketplace.

Business in a capitalist, free-market system is all about uncertainty. Uncertainty is what leads businesses to innovate and take risks. Uncertainty about whether a product will be chosen over the competition leads businesses to improve their products and reduce their prices. Uncertainty about whether valued employees will quit and take their skills to another employer leads businesses to entice their employees with higher wages, benefits, training, and opportunities for advancement. Uncertainty about future expenses prompts businesses to hedge, creating liquidity in the marketplace, and to innovate, so that the value of their businesses will outpace inflation.

Amazingly, some politicians who claim to have been private-sector entrepreneurs are pleading for certainty. Amazing, because entrepreneurs are lauded as risk-takers. The ability to take advantage of an uncertain marketplace is one of the defining characteristics of a real entrepreneur. A real entrepreneur would never argue that businesses need certainty.

The call for certainty is not just nonsensical, it is offensive, because the plea for certain tax-breaks for businesses is being made by the very same politicians who are busy destroying the little bit of security which workers still have. Working people have no certainty that they will be able to keep their jobs, and if they lose their jobs, they have no certainty that they will be able to find others. They have no certainty that they won't lose their pensions if their employers go bankrupt, and they have no certainty that their savings and investments will not decline in value. They have no certainty that they will continue to have health insurance, and no certainty that the laws against age discrimination will be followed or enforced. Until recently, workers could at least feel certain that their Social Security would be there for them when they retired, but the Republicans have been trying to get rid of Social Security. And it shouldn't go unnoticed by the Republicans, who claim that certainty for businesses is a good thing, that workers have no certainty that their taxes won't go up or their wages go down.

The truth is that businesses will invest in their businesses when they think they have to in order to survive, or when they think the investments will make them more money, regardless of whether their taxes are a little higher or lower, and regardless of how much certainty they have about their taxes. The plea for certainty is a ruse. The only thing that is truly certain is that, whether or not businesses get the tax cuts they are asking for, they will be back asking for more later on, with the help of politicians who are willing to say anything if they think it will help their careers.

Libya

2011-08-24T21:52:00.001-05:00

As America prepared to dedicate the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C., our military took part in the violent overthrow of the government of Libya. We talk about non-violence, but we act violently. We simultaneously praise both Dr. King, who relentlessly preached and practiced peaceful methods, and the Libya insurgents who, with the help of some of the world's mightiest armies, including our own, mounted a bloody revolution.

The question used to be whether the ends justified the means, and the American answer was “no.” Lately, the means aren't even questioned. We have the power to topple governments, and we use it. The only time our use of force is questioned is when it doesn't work smoothly, like when one of our helicopters crashes and some Americans die. But then the question isn't whether we should have been using violent means; the question is why the mission didn't go as planned. We accept the violence without even thinking about it.

We also don't give much thought to the “ends.” Why were we so eager to destroy Libya's government? Was it acting very differently from how it was acting just a short while ago, when we were praising and supporting it? Does the fact that oil prices dropped as soon as the coup was successful shed any light on what we were trying to achieve?

Eight years into the war in Iraq, we still haven't come to an agreement about why we invaded, and why we are still there. The same holds true for Afghanistan. If we have a coherent foreign policy, nobody is making it clear to the American people what it is.

It is difficult to debate whether the ends justify the means if we have no ends in mind. If all we have are military means, nothing needs to be justified. Military power becomes it own justification. It seems preposterous, but we may just be fighting simply because that is what we know how to do. We fight because we fight. We don't fight to win, because we aren't trying to win anything. And we will never stop fighting, because there is no victory possible without a goal that can be achieved. I think Dr. King understood that if we accept violence as a means, it could become the ends also. And I am afraid that is what has happened.

Intolerance

2011-08-22T20:35:00.002-05:00

I was at a Muslim friend's house for Iftar, a meal that breaks the daily fast that Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan. My friend and his family like to share this tradition with non-Muslims, to promote interfaith understanding. As we departed he jokingly said that next year I should bring some bigoted friends so that they would see for themselves that Muslims are not hatching terrorists plots to take over the world. I delight that he can joke about the public perception of Muslims in America, and yet how sad it is that on a holy day, he must be conscious of the bad feelings some people have for people who share his faith.

With the passage of time, many Americans who became inflamed against Muslims after the September 11 attack have calmed down. They have listened to and read articles by informed people and have learned that a single criminal act does not define an entire religion. Even though there aren't very many Muslims in America, some people have also gotten to know a bit about Islam through personal contact in the past few years, and their fears have disappeared. Still, there are a few self-proclaimed experts, jumping in front of whatever cameras they can find, who continue to incite suspicion of all Muslims. These hate-mongers don't represent America any more than a few bombers represent Islam. But oddly, they manage to get an audience.

A short while ago, the news from England showed people burning buildings and looting stores. Simultaneously, people in the Middle East continued to rebel against dictatorial regimes, and Israel and its neighbor continue to shoot at each other. Political violence in the world is frightening, but people seem to find it tolerable as long as it is thousands of miles away. The prospect of this kind of violence showing up on our own streets is scary, so it makes sense that people who want to frighten Americans would focus on foreign violence and try to convince us that it will be brought here by people whose religion is popular elsewhere.

Why are some people trying to frighten us in this way? They would say that they are patriots, alerting us to a threat. But they must know by now that the threat is not real. Why do they persist? I'm sure that some of them are just in it for the money they make as speakers and authors. But some of these fear-mongers have support from people and institutions. What do the people behind the spokespeople gain from the hatred and the fear? And why have they chosen hatred and fear as their tools? There are other ways to influence people.

I don't have the answers to these questions. To simply say that the haters are evil doesn't really tell us much. To say that they are simply mistaken or fools is no more enlightening. To see conspiracies where they cannot be proved is not useful. But how revealing it is that the response of my friend, and so many in his community, is to laugh at the intolerance, to open their doors to people of all beliefs, and to quietly affirm their faith in the future and in Allah.

Surveillance

2011-08-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

Our local police charged a young man with possessing marijuana at a suburban train station. They learned of his crime via surveillance cameras that were purportedly installed in order to protect passengers and the station itself. I haven't seen the surveillance tapes, but it is almost a certainty that the man was alone in the station, because, except for the morning rush hour, there is hardly ever anyone in that station. Since the man was not charged with any other crime, he obviously was not damaging the station or a threat to passengers or anyone else. He was just there, smoking.

A couple of days earlier, I was in the park just down the road from that station, enjoying the outdoors. Along came a police officer on an all-terrain vehicle, dashing all over the park for no obvious purpose. Another officer was riding his motorcycle on the footpath through the park, also for no observable reason. The two officers kept buzzing around, making noise, using gasoline, pumping exhaust into the air, and generally creating a hazard to anyone who might be lying in the grass or taking a stroll.

Little objection was heard when it was announced that Chicago was going to add more surveillance cameras to the thousands that are watching people as they walk and shop and bank and ride buses and trains and try to enjoy themselves outdoors. No one seems to care anymore that we are quickly headed into a constant surveillance society, where there is no privacy. The refrain is that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you shouldn't be concerned that someone might be watching you. I disagree.

Where are kids supposed to court, if they can't stroll through the park without being leered at by some bored cop, and maybe watched online? Where are they to steal their first kiss, if there is a camera around every corner? What happens to romance if the whole world really is a stage?

Women's rights to have abortions were guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court as part of their right to privacy. Anti-abortion protesters have tried to intimidate women who seek abortions by taking their pictures as they enter abortion clinics. How much easier it will be for the anti-abortionists if the government does their surveillance for them. People who want to purchase birth-control pills or condoms face the same future.

What becomes of the right to political dissent if people can be surreptitiously followed by camera from a rally, onto a train, and right to their front steps? What hope is there of stopping police misconduct if the police can silently observe every meeting between a reporter and a government official who is critical of the police?

Once considered a paranoiac's fantasy, we have learned that our own government is already using satellites, robotic aircraft, cellphone taps, automobile GPS devices, and Internet snooping to track individuals and target them for arrest or assassination.

Of course, the early targets are those that the public has little sympathy for. Alleged terrorists, drug users in train stations, people crossing borders. But if the government can use all this technology to stop those crimes, why shouldn't it be able to use the same tools to spy on people in their own homes as they fill out fraudulent income tax returns? What is going to keep the police from silently panning the cameras in the parks in other directions, to look over the fences and into the bedrooms of people living near the parks? Why shouldn't the government be allowed to use the microphones in your telephone handsets to listen to everything you say in your home, just in case you are plotting something?

No, it is not just criminals who should be concerned about pervasive surveillance. Anyone who likes to enjoy the solitude of nature, anyone who wants to pull back the drapes and let the sunshine into their house, anyone who thinks that kids should occasionally be allowed to escape parental supervision so they can grow to maturity should feel nervous when they see a camera lens staring at them. And they should feel nervous when they don't see the camera, because it may be concealed.

What People Do

2011-08-18T21:34:00.001-05:00

My wife and I sat in a hospital waiting room with a friend while her husband was undergoing surgery. We were there to distract her from the worries that might otherwise overwhelm her. We talked about this and that until the doctor came out and said the operation went well and she could soon go to her husband's side.

While we were there, another woman sat by herself, waiting. I struck up a conversation with her and learned that she was waiting for her father to come out of surgery, at which time she would be able to go to another hospital to see her mother, who had been rushed into the emergency room there. She seemed to like having someone to talk with for a while as she waited.

Some religions teach that we are commanded to help people when they need help, although it seems that the notion of a directive from the all-powerful is remarkably easy for people to construe as not binding on them. The feeling that one is obligated to help others seems to have withered in this capitalist society, where we are told that if anything is worthwhile, someone should be paying money to get it. Recently, a lot of people are also saying that the government shouldn't help people either, or at least that government shouldn't help people based upon their need for help. These misanthropes say that only people who deserve help should get it, and they view neediness as a divine indication of unworthiness.

My mother used to tell me that there are things we do because that's what people do. There was no question of whether these things had to be done or what would happen if they weren't done. They were just the things to do. Not the right thing, not the good thing, not the holy thing, not the kind thing, and certainly not anything a person should feel self-righteous for doing. There are some things, she would remind me, that people do whether or not it is convenient, regardless of who else did them, and irrespective of whether anyone would know you had done them. You did them without a thought of whether you would be repaid, in this life or another. You did them because someone needed them done.

Some day my wife or I may be sitting in a hospital, waiting for a surgeon to come out. Some friend or stranger may help the one of us who is waiting to pass the time. They won't do it to repay us for our vigil today. They will do it because their mother or father taught them that if you are fortunate enough to be able to help people, you do. That is what people do.

Don't Shoot the Children

2011-08-17T21:44:00.001-05:00

Walk or drive through certain neighborhoods in Chicago, and you will see signs on lampposts that say, “Don't shoot. I want to grow up.” Of course, that assumes that you have the courage to walk or drive through those neighborhoods. Or, as some would think, it assumes that you are foolish enough to walk or drive there. Because in those neighborhoods, people are shot nearly every day.

Who gets shot? Children and adults. People on their way somewhere and people just hanging out. People with enemies and people who are mistaken for someone with enemies. People who are there just get shot, a lot more than people who are somewhere else.

Not many people get shot in suburbs like the one where I live. Every so often, some kid picks up his father's gun and accidentally shoots himself or a sibling or friend. Every now and then someone commits suicide. Every now and again someone gets mad at a spouse or boyfriend, or mistakes their kid coming home late at night for a burglar and shoots her. But that's about it. The shooting is stupid, but pretty much stays within the home.

But in other neighborhoods, public shooting is part of the daily routine. Yes, these are poor neighborhoods. Yes, they are neighborhoods that don't get much in the way of services from the city, except when someone gets shot. Then the police show up and make a show of having a presence in the community.

We live in different worlds, just a few miles away from each other. In one world, people walk on sidewalks at night gazing at the stars. There aren't many streetlights. There aren't any flashing blue lights on police surveillance cameras. People feel safe, and they are safe.

In the other world, you never know if you can make it to the corner store safely. You are afraid to sit out on your stoop. You lock your kids indoors.

What would happen if kids and their grandparents started getting shot in my neighborhood in drive-by shootings? I can't even imagine. It wouldn't be tolerated. People would be hysterical. There would be meetings all night and day, and cops thick as mosquitoes by the pond.

So why aren't the people in my neighborhood demanding an end to the shooting? Why don't we object when someone gets shot in some other neighborhood? How can we be so complacent, so myopic, so insensitive, so self-centered? Why do we hear so much about the right to own and carry guns, and so little about the lunacy of having guns? Because when it's not you being shot, it's easy to ignore the shooting. So easy. Too easy.

Unequal Justice

2011-08-16T17:29:00.001-05:00

Court systems across the country have recently been opening special courts for veterans who get in trouble with the law. It turns out that a lot of veterans get into trouble. According to one court that has set up a special court for veterans, nearly three quarters of a million veterans are currently awaiting trial or serving some sort of sentence for crimes they were convicted of.

The aim of these special courts is supposedly to help veterans who have drug or alcohol addictions or other problems learn to get along in society, now that they are no longer part of the separate military society. It sounds like a worthwhile goal, but these programs are dangerous.

It wasn't so long ago that judges in U.S. courts would give an accused lad a choice – go to jail or join the army. Sure, it sent a bunch of misfits into the military, but the military was supposedly used to dealing with misfits. They had strict discipline, and they turned boys into men. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, but in the meantime, and in wartime, local judges were viewed as being patriotic for helping to fill the military's recruitment quotas. Until recently, no one paid much attention to the kinds of havoc misfits caused once they were wearing the uniform and carrying guns.

Military personnel still receive special treatment when they commit crimes while they are in the military. While in service, they are generally immune from prosecution under the laws that govern civilians. If they commit crimes, they get to be tried not by juries of their peers and judges who are elected or appointed according to the law, but instead they are tried by military tribunals, where the procedures and sentences are different. The attitudes of the people doing the judging are also different. The judges in military tribunals are all in the military themselves and are concerned about the image and morale of the military, in addition to whatever concern they might or might not have for victims, particularly for victims who are in distant lands and unfamiliar cultures.

Now, with the creation of special courts for veterans, offenders are given special treatment not only while they are in service, but for the rest of their lives after they have left the military, even if they were thrown out of the military. The special courts have special judges who are supposed to understand the problems that veterans have. The special courts hand out special punishments instead of sending veterans to jail, and they allow convicted veterans to wipe their records clean at the end of their sentences so that no one will ever know about the bad things they did.

To the extent that the veterans' courts are responding to drug and alcohol addiction by veterans, some of these provisions seem reasonable. But since these same sorts of provisions are already in place for non-veteran addicts, there doesn't seem to be any need to treat the veteran addicts any differently. By setting up veterans' courts, politicians can cut funding for programs that help ordinary addicts, but still seem to be helping veterans.

Our courts have treated different groups differently before. Blacks and and poor people have experienced different treatment from whites and the wealthy for a long, long time. But at least in theory, the goal was always equal treatment under the law. Now, with veterans courts, we are establishing courts which have the express goal of special treatment for some people.

I am concerned that one group of accused people will be getting better treatment than another. But I am more concerned that society in general will be deprived of whatever measure of justice our courts are capable of delivering. When judges are pre-disposed to protect the accused, the victims are at risk. When veterans' records of convictions are erased, the public is misled. When judges know that they are serving a special group which has a lobby that is powerful enough to affect the judges' careers, the judges will judge differently.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided a long time ago that “separate but equal” cannot be equal. The people who are setting up veterans courts know that, and they are deliberately making sure that the “justice” for veterans is separate from the “justice” for non-veterans. It is obvious why they are doing this, and sad that they are getting away with it. Eventually, it will result in two sets of criminal law rules: those that apply to most people, and those that apply just to veterans. It will also result in two sets of criminals, ordinary criminals, and veteran criminals who know they are going to get special treatment. Does the military really want to become known as the place our elite criminals come from?

Bachmann Unmasked

2011-08-15T08:44:00.002-05:00

Just reading what Michele Bachmann is like doesn't tell the complete story. Neither does just listening to her. To understand her appeal, you have to watch her as she responds to questions, because then you will realize that not only doesn't she answer the questions, she smirks and smiles her way through the interview. Just like George W. Bush did. He became president. So could she.

In the interview that I watched on television, she gave the same evasive answer to a question three times as the interviewer tried and tried again to get her to answer the question directly. When the interviewer gave up and moved on, she did the same thing to all of his following questions. To someone who wanted to know what she thought on the topics she was being questioned about, it would be a frustrating experience. She just wouldn't say. But to all the fundamentalists who already know what she believes, it didn't matter that she didn't answer. They know that the answer to every question can be found in the Bible, and that Bachmann reads the Bible the same way they do.

Bachman's approach was exactly the approach Bush used when he was running, right down to the smirks and smiles that signaled to his supporters that he and they really didn't care what the reporter asked or what the non-fundamentalist public wanted to know. Bush knew that the only people who mattered were fundamentalists, and that everyone else was ungodly and doomed anyway. The reporter was doing the devil's work, trying to bring Bush down and lead the people away from the Truth, so it was OK to lie to the reporter and evade his unholy questions.

Bush thought it was perfectly all-right to lie about Saddam Hussein and non-existent weapons of mass destruction because, in the big picture, heathens were undeserving of his respect – they didn't subscribe to his world view. Bachmann was doing a perfect imitation of Bush when she wouldn't explain her previous statements about homosexuals and about her Christian obligation to be submissive to her husband. She knew what she had said on other occasions, she knew that her fundamentalist voting base agreed with her, and she didn't give a damn whether her contradictory statements made sense to some humanistic secular reporter or not.

I remember people dismissing Bush as an unelectable former drunk who did poorly in school and evaded his military obligation, failing his way through life on his family's fortunes. But all that was just human frailty to his supporters, unimportant to them once he told them he had been born again. He said he listened to a higher father, and they knew he was talking their language. Bachmann is doing the same thing.

Will the Republicans nationwide elect Bachmann, having seen the mess Bush made of the government and the country? Of course they will! The reward they seek isn't of this world, so they don't care whether she'll screw it up or not. She knows the Way, so they'll vote for her, unless some other candidate demonstrates that he or she is even more zealous than she is. I suspect that is what the other Republican candidates will set about trying to do as the primary and caucus season progresses. The issue is no longer whether there should be a separation of Church and State. State no longer even matters.

Marching In Parades

2011-08-12T17:31:00.001-05:00

I have marched in seven parades this summer with a candidate I am supporting. Sometimes it seemed like a marginally productive effort. In the most recent parade, the parade organizers placed my candidate in the spot right behind his opponent. Each campaign had volunteers carrying a banner with their candidate's name, and each candidate ran along the route shaking hands with the onlookers. A few times, the candidates literally bumped into each other. The candidates were each, by coincidence, wearing light blue shirts. One candidate was a bit taller than the other. One was a little older. One a little heavier. But I would doubt that many of the people they met along the route, most of whom smiled at each candidate and shook each candidate's hand, remembered either candidate's name five seconds after the candidates marched past them.

Parading is often viewed as more of an obligation than an opportunity. If a candidate fails to show up, he is more likely to be remembered for his absence than he would have been for his presence if he had been there. To not march in a town's parade is to say to the town, “I don't care about you.” So the candidates march, knowing that their opponents will spread the word if they don't show up.

It wouldn't seem as if anyone should vote for a candidate just because they shook the candidate's hand, and most people probably don't, especially if they have shaken both candidates' hands. The candidates' positions and backgrounds and records should be what influences who wins and who loses. And those are, to a great extent, what matters. Parades don't. But parades aren't a waste of time. They are actually very important, but not because of the votes they bring in.

Parades are important because they give the candidates an opportunity to hear from a whole lot of people in a very short time. If people have something they want a politician to know, and they can see that the politician only has a couple of seconds for them, they will hold onto the politician's hand and tell them in very terse language what they want to tell them. People who need jobs will tell the candidates “I need a job.” People who are against a war will tell the candidates, “Stop the damn war.” People who want lower taxes will say, “Stop raising taxes.” Parade watchers boil their concerns down to bumper-sticker length. In the hour or two that it takes to walk a parade route, candidates who listen can learn a lot about what is on the voters' minds.

But beyond just learning the messages that parade watchers give them, candidates can learn the mood of the electorate, too. People sometimes boo or shout angrily at a candidate who displeases them. People sometimes cheer. A few people throw things. The mood of the crowd can differ depending upon which political party dominates a region, and the mood of any crowd is a pretty good indicator of how they feel about the direction the country is going.

People who haven't seen the inside of a political campaign like to belittle politicians for shaking hands and kissing babies and eating funnel cakes at carnivals, and politicians who do these things just for the photo opportunities deserve the criticism. But politicians who embrace these public events as chances to get amongst the people and talk with them at their own level, in their own neighborhoods, move into their campaigns with a real advantage over opponents who rely on consultants to tell them what the voters think.

Some people complain that politicians shouldn't politicize July 4th, or Memorial Day, and some parade organizers even try to keep candidates out of their parades. But I hope the politicians never stop glad handing at parades. Parade watchers aren't a scientifically selected sampling of the voters. They are just real folks, who in the immediacy of an unexpected chance to tell a politician a thing or two, will tell it straight up. So long as politicians are listening to them, and not just to the pollsters, democracy may survive.

How Pundits Fail Us

2011-08-11T21:55:00.001-05:00

I recently chatted with a reporter for a mainstream, D.C.-based publication. A personable and sincere fellow, and a skillful writer. His assignment from now until the November 2012 elections is to cover half of the U.S. Senate and House races. That's 217 House races and 16 Senate races, each of which will have at least one and often several candidates. He is supposed to report on several hundred candidates, many of whom he may never meet. Obviously, he has an impossible job.

What could he or any of the other reporters with similarly overly-broad assignments, know about any of the districts? Without spending significant time in a district like the 10th, would they understand the social, political, economic, racial, educational, religious, and other differences to be found among towns like Libertyville, Waukegan, and Buffalo Grove? Would they know the difference between Lake Forest and Lake Bluff? Will they know the history of factionalization among Democrats in one part of the district, or the personalities who influence opinion in another? Will they understand the suasion that some religious leaders have on the voters in their congregations, and the duplicity of others? No, nope, no way. These out-of-town instant experts will know almost nothing about the races they are expounding upon.

So, what will they write? They will write about how much money each of the candidates raises, because it is one of the only things they can write about and seem informed without really knowing much about the races they are reporting on. From a distance of a thousand or more miles, based solely on numbers in the Federal Election Commission's online disclosure database, they can pass judgment on which candidates are strong and which weak, which are ahead and which behind, which likely to prevail and which to fail; in political terms, who shall live and who shall die.

We who live in the districts from one end of this vast country to another know much more. But amazingly, many of us read these pundits and give them credence. Some candidates will drop out of races because the analysts, looking only at fundraising numbers, tell them they can't win. Some potential candidates will decide to not even enter races once the number crunchers tell them they are running behind financially. Some people who would otherwise have contributed to candidates will decide not to, because some columnist, who probably can't pronounce the names of the candidates he is writing about and hasn't set foot in their districts, convinces them that they would be wasting their money on doomed campaigns.

If we accept the notion that all a pundit needs to know in order to predict an election is the fundraising numbers, we don't need elections at all, and we certainly don't need pundits. We could all just count the money and declare a winner, without a single person needing to cast a ballot. It seems that is what the U.S. Supreme Court wants to happen, and I am sure that is what certain bankers and hedge-fund managers and financiers want. They believe that money makes the world go round, and they are the ones with the money. But they don't know that Round Lake isn't entirely round, that North Chicago is miles away from Chicago, and that there aren't many deer in the field or buffalo in the grove anymore. And they don't know nearly as much as the voters do about which candidates are campaigning hard and which are just posing for photos to put in a brochure, which candidates answer questions and which duck them, which seem to enjoy being with people and which seem ill-at-ease, which have a passion and which simply have a stump speech, and which candidates have been working in their districts on local issues and which candidates appeared on the scene just in time to declare their candidacies.

We could let the pundits make our decisions for us. They'd be happy to do it, writing from faraway. But they don't have to live with the results of our elections. We do.

Not Heroes

2011-08-10T18:47:00.001-05:00

A major network television news anchor, in reporting on the deaths of some U.S. military personnel, called them all heroes. What had they done to be considered heroes? The report didn't mention anything. Apparently all they needed to do was to be killed, and they were automatically supposed to be our heroes. This kind of editorializing has been common throughout the news industry since we first invaded Iraq. Every eighteen-year-old who is blown up by a roadside bomb is referred to as a hero. Every soldier who is shot, even if shot by one of his fellow soldiers in “friendly fire,” is a hero. Even soldiers who are injured in car accidents are referred to as heroes. Every member of the military who is welcomed home, injured or not, is greeted as a hero. No reasons given and no questions asked.

Well, what about everyone else? What about the guy who tried to get into the military but flunked the physical – is he a hero because he tried to be one? What about the guy who tried to get in but couldn't because of his criminal record – is he a hero because a year later the military started letting in guys like him? Is he a hero because he could have been one if he had volunteered a year later? What about the guy who didn't even try to get into the military because his family needed him at home? Is he a hero because he might have been one if he wasn't taking care of his family? What about the guy who served his entire military career pushing papers stateside while other guys were doing the fighting? What did he do that was heroic? What about the guy who remotely controlled a drone aircraft that blew up a house with children in it because someone who thought there were terrorists in the house told him to? What kind of hero is he?

And what about the guy who didn't apply because he didn't think our current wars should be fought? Isn't he a hero for standing up for his convictions? And the guy who didn't apply because he doesn't think any war should be fought – isn't he even more of a hero? And what about all those guys who refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War? Aren't they heroes for showing us that war is not the answer to our problems? How about the men and women who protested in the streets of Chicago and D.C. to try to prevent the invasion of Iraq? Aren't they heroes for showing us what democracy is supposed to be about, and for not being intimidated into silence by their own government?

I choose my own heroes. I'm willing to listen to a reporter who has some information that might lead me to conclude that an individual acted heroically. But news anchors who label every soldier a hero, just because they are part of the military establishment, give me very little basis for judging. Years ago, when a news anchor gave is own opinion, words would appear on the TV screen telling us that that portion of the broadcast was an editorial, or opinion, or commentary, so that we would not think they were just doing an unprofessional job of reporting the news. We don't see those signs anymore. The propaganda just gets mixed in with the news, and mixed in so well that we might not even notice.

Poverty Tour

2011-08-09T16:55:00.001-05:00

Along with about a dozen friends I sat in St. Sabina church on Chicago's south side listening to radio personality Tavis Smiley and Princeton University professor Cornell West and Minister Louis Farrakhan talking about poverty. The church was filled with about a thousand people. The stained glass windows were beautiful, as was the wood carving adorning the walls. The audience included not only the African Americans who regularly worship there, but also people of other national origins. There were Muslims and Christians and Jews, and probably some who follow other religious teachings, or none at all. There were young people and old people, men and women. It was the kind of audience every liberal likes to be part of.

But as diverse as the crowd was, there was a glaring absence among the speakers: none of them was poor. That didn't detract from what they were saying. Each of them had a perspective on poverty and may have even experienced hard times at some point in their past. Each had obviously encountered poor people, and had important things to say about what poverty does, what causes it, and what they believed should be done about it. But their speeches, strong and impassioned as they were, lacked the element of credibility that could only have been supplied by poor people telling their own stories of poverty in today's world.

From a political standpoint, the lack of a poor person's voice will hamper the roadshow that these personalities are taking around the country. I recall the Poor People's Campaign organized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the photos of sharecroppers in overalls. The dignity of ordinary folks marching arm in arm with an internationally recognized leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The unspoken affirmation that all people were entitled to a share of the wealth that was concentrated among a very small portion of the populace. That was missing from the presentation at St. Sabina.

I do not point out this shortcoming in order to criticize the effort that is being made to bring attention to poverty. The organizers of the tour are to be commended for courageously trying to call attention to an issue that has been almost entirely absent from the public consciousness for many years. Their task is daunting. Their goals is worthwhile. I make my observation in the hope that it will prompt some change in the way the tour is presented to the public in other cities. Reducing poverty will required a movement, not just a lecture series. A movement cannot successfully be waged on behalf of people who do not participate in the movement. If poor people deserve our help, they deserve our respect, and their voices should be included. They should be on stage, not just in the audience as they were at St. Sabina.

Cost of War

2011-08-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

Months before President George Bush allowed the U.S. military to invade Iraq, people gathered in homes and libraries to talk about whether we should go to war. The concern was sometimes raised that the war would be expensive for the U.S., although that was generally not the major objection voiced by those who went on to protest against the war. The anti-war community was mainly concerned with the killing, not the cost. The enormous cost of the war was only occasionally raised during the public debate, in an attempt to convince Republicans that war was a bad idea. Because they seemed unconcerned about the destruction and loss of life, it was hoped that, being Republicans, they might respond to an argument that the war would cost them money.

As we all know, Republicans put aside their usual concerns about fiscal responsibility and endorsed the war, saying that we should kill no matter the cost. That was the way President Bush handled the war, keeping it out of the federal budget, and it was how the Congress funded it, with no limits. As we all now know, the war was so expensive that it was a major cause of the extended economic slump that the country is now in. Billions and trillions of dollars spent blowing things up and occupying foreign lands eventually added up to billions and trillions of dollars that couldn't be spent here in the U.S. on homes and roads and public services and jobs.

Now, all of a sudden, some in the Republican party, pushed by the Tea Party regressives, are talking about how much the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya are costing. They are even saying we should remove our troops and stop the wars. Not a word from them about the killing, but plenty of concern about how expensive the killing has gotten. They are asking what we are getting and what we are fighting for, and forgetting that when anti-war Americans asked these questions they labeled us as traitors and cowards.

Those of us who have been speaking out against the wars welcome the newcomers, hopeful that their well-rested voices will increase the political pressure to stop the killing. We are hopeful that they will work alongside us toward this important goal, even though they have been so insistent in the past that we have nothing to teach them and that we should not be listened to. So far there is no evidence, though, that a coalition is forming. All that has emerged is two groups seeking the same goal but for different reasons and acting independently of one another.

It is understandable that the leaders of the regressives would not want much discussion between their followers and the anti-war folks, even though the latter have years of experience working in this realm which the regressives could benefit from. If the two groups got to know each other's ideas, each might learn from the other. The regressives would learn that human life is sacred and should be valued above all else. It should not be sacrificed for corporate profits or to insure the flow of oil or to give the US military more bases overseas. What would the anti-war folks learn from the regressives? That money is the only thing that matters, and that when the economy improves we can start more wars because we will be able to afford them? It is understandable that the leaders of the regressives would fear that one message would be more powerful than the other.