Tomorrow

I have been busy, so I haven't written in a while. Busy preparing for tomorrow, Monday, when the Stop Concealed Carry Coalition, www.stopconcealedcarry.org which I helped put together, will hold its first press conference. We will announce our intention to make sure that Illinois, which is now the only state that does not allow people to carry concealed weapons, remains free from this danger. We chose Monday for our event, because on Tuesday the Illinois legislature goes back into session. We want our representatives to know that the NRA is not the only voice they should be listening to. They should also be listening to the people in Illinois, a majority of whom don't want concealed guns in our state.

That's the message. That's the plan. As everyone who has ever done this kind of thing knows, the press may or may not show up and even if they do, the newspapers and broadcast stations they work for may or may not run the story. Despite all the effort that we have put in, we may or may not succeed in getting our message out to the public. Something more urgent may get the attention of the reporters, or their editors may just not be interested in what we have to say. A lot of other people and organizations will be vying for their limited time and space.

As always, I am in awe of the people with whom I have been working on this effort. They are so capable, so energetic, so selfless, so dedicated. When something needs to be done, they know what to do and they do it.

As always, I am anxious. I tell myself that regardless of how much press we get, we have succeeded just by putting together a coalition and energizing people on the issue. We have gathered more than 6,600 signatures on a petition which we have delivered to legislators. We know that some legislators have noticed and have been responding. At the minimum, what we have done has accomplished more than if we had done nothing.

I have read books and attended workshops on how to organize and lobby on issues. I have tried to learn from others with whom I have worked. One of the most important lessons I have learned is that I am not really the best person to be doing this kind of thing. I have far too much self-doubt. I don't like to ask people to do things. I don't have enough patience. I am not good at attending to details. I don't put a high value on bureaucracy, even though I recognize its importance. I really like to just get things done.

The other thing I have learned is that I love doing this sort of thing, even though my stomach gets tied up in knots and I get overcome by worry. I love it even though our side often loses, and when we win the victories are usually modest.

Tomorrow I will stand with people who have worked longer and harder than I have on this issue. Some of them have lost family members to guns. Some of them have counseled survivors. I will be among people whose hearts have been torn and whose faith has been tested. It will be a privilege.

When tomorrow's event ends, someone will turn to me and ask, “What do we do next?” I don't really have a plan, just a goal. I want the shooting to stop. I want people to feel that they don't need to be ready to pull out a gun to defend themselves. I want people to live without fear that the person next to them on the street might be carrying a gun. I want people to trust one another. I want people to feel justifiably confident that their government will protect them as best it can and that they do not have to arm themselves. I want hope and faith to replace doubt and despair.

I know that there are many whose vision is the same as mine, and who can be counted on to do what they can. The holiday is over, but I am still giving thanks.

Election Observations

Every election, people complain that money has too much influence on politics, and then they spend even more on the next election.

Every election, people say the electoral college should be abolished and we should have direct elections, and then no one does anything about it.

Every election, Republican and Democratic candidates claim to be independent of their parties, but they never run as independents.

Every election, voters complain that the filibuster and other Senate procedural rules stifle debate, and then they reelect Senators who continue to follow the same rules.

Every election, people tell the pollsters that they want change, and then they reelect nearly all the incumbents.

Every election, whichever party is in the minority in its state legislature or in the U.S. House of Representatives complains that the Speaker of the House has too much power to suppress legislation that is proposed by members of their minority, and then if they gain a majority, they elect a Speaker to wield as much power as possible to suppress legislation that is proposed by members of the other party, which is now in the minority.

Every election, TV commentators complain that the rules for televised debates are too restrictive, and every year they televise the same types of debates.

Every election, some politician gets caught on tape saying something offensive, and the next election politicians try harder to keep audio and video recorders out of their events and to catch their opponents on tape saying something offensive.

Every election, candidates spend months bragging about themselves, and if they win, they tell us how humble they are.

Every election, candidates promise to run positive and clean campaigns. Then they attack their opponents and complain that their opponents' retaliatory attacks are dirty politics.

Every election, candidates say they want to represent all their constituents but put most of their effort into getting members of targeted ethnic, sex, religious, and other demographic groups to support them.

Every election, in their victory speeches, winning candidates thank the volunteers who tirelessly walked door-to-door and made phone calls for them. These candidates never thank the smaller group of lobbyists, party bosses, and large donors who were essential to their campaigns. Those thank-yous are made off-camera.

Every election, losing candidates promise to continue to work in their communities on the issues that the people who supported them think are important. Do they?

Every election, news commentators spend more time predicting which candidates will win than talking about the issues. Then the commentators complain that the candidates aren't talking about the issues.

Every election, people who know nothing about how government runs say we should elect them because they know how business runs.

Every election, exhausted volunteers swear they will never work on another campaign. Every year, they are the first to get involved.

Every election, people ignore what the candidates are saying, then the day before the election they ask a friend who is involved in politics who they should vote for.

Every election, people who have never worked on a campaign show up at candidates' offices and ask for high-level jobs running the campaigns.

Every election, some candidates pledge to not accept money from special interests. Guess what they do?

Every election, the map of red and blue states looks a lot like a map showing which states were on which side in the Civil War.

Every election, voters who threatened to move to Canada forget to move.

Every election, we are told it is the most important election in our lifetimes.

Every election, nearly as many people don't vote as vote.

Every election, someone writes a list like this one.

Don't Throw Away Your Teeth

The 94-year-old woman was frustrated with her new dentures. They irritated her gums, despite repeated visits to the dentist who kept telling her to give it time and she would get used to them. She complained to her friend she wanted to just throw her dentures in the garbage and eat soft foods. He told her, “Don't throw away your teeth.” He said he had the same problem when he got new dentures, but reassured her that he did eventually get used to them.

Throughout our lives we trade advice and encouragement with friends. “Dump him, he's not right for you.” “Don't worry, you'll get a new job that's even better.” “It isn't a big deal, kids grow out of these things.” “I know you miss her after all these years, but time will make things easier.”

Coming from people we know and love, these simple platitudes help us get over the little bumps in the road and through the most profound losses. They are just words, but they make a huge difference.

Sometimes we need more than words, more than a hug, more than a gift basket. That is what Mitt Romney doesn't seem to understand. His gesture of packing canned food to ship to areas hit by hurricane Sandy, and his running mate Paul Ryan's photo op helping at a soup kitchen, were supposed to show their deep concern for people in need. Instead, they were powerful symbols showing how far from reality current Republican attitudes towards social responsibility are.

Damage from the hurricane will run into the billions of dollars. Millions of people need power, water, debris removal, rebuilding, transportation, medical care, and more. The effort will require many thousands of people and many billions of dollars over a period of months, and even with all that, people will suffer losses. The notion that a shipment of canned food or a serving of soup is all that is needed is astounding, and yet that is the essence of the Republican party's call to eliminate what they label as entitlement programs for what Romney called the 47 percent whom he said “are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” Today, the people who think they are victims and that government has a responsibility to care for them includes nearly 100% of the people in New York and surrounding areas.

Just as ridiculous is the Republican philosophy that people can get by without government assistance because private charity will get the job done. Last year, the American Red Cross spent $283 million helping victims of nearly 70,000 natural disasters in the US, including drought, tornadoes, and floods. The same type of disasters occur every year. There is no way the Red Cross or all other charities put together will be able to help nearly as many victims of hurricane Sandy as the government will help. And yet Romney and his party pretend that miracles will happen and the multitude will be fed with a few loaves.

If we abolish FEMA and eliminate government assistance as Romney suggests, we will be turning natural disasters into human catastrophes. If we continue to deny the influence of man-made climate change, as the Republican platform proposes, we will have more natural disasters with more severe consequences.

There are things we can do as individuals, other things we can do through philanthropic institutions, and still other things we can only do as a nation with the assistance of our government. Right now, the most important thing all of us can do to help the victims of hurricane Sandy and victims of disasters still to come is to not vote for Republicans.

Confessions of an Undecided Voter

Sometimes it's easy to decide who to vote for. Elaine Nekritz and Julie Morrison have my support. They are both good people with strong credentials and records, I generally agree with their views, and their opponents are both scary.

But like a lot of people, I am having trouble deciding which presidential candidate to vote for. Certainly I won't be voting for Romney. On too many issues, he appears to have no idea what he is talking about, and when he does articulate a clear policy, it is usually one that will hurt more people than it will help.

Although I tend to vote for Democrats, I am having trouble convincing myself to vote for Obama. Too often, he has turned his back on the principles he espoused and the constituencies that supported him when he was first running for office. I can't find any reason to think he will be any more courageous or effective in a second term than he was in his first.

Fortunately, Obama is making it easy for me to not support him by sending strong signals that he doesn't care whether or not I vote for him. He hasn't campaigned in Illinois where I live. He seems to assume, as do many analysts, that he will win this state without making any effort. Like any other candidate, if he doesn't think he needs me, I don't see any reason to argue with him.

There is a Green party candidate, Jill Stein, who may get my vote. I'd be shocked if she won Illinois or any other state, but maybe this is a good time to help third parties get a larger voice in our elections. Some of my Democratic friends will be upset with me if I don't back the entire ticket, but I know that a lot of them haven't been very happy with Obama either, even if they have been making apologies for him.

I can't really think of any reason not to vote Green, but still, I haven't decided for sure. The two-party system is ingrained in me. I recall Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson, and George Wallace. Parts of some of their campaigns were good for the country. Parts were irrelevant. Some of their efforts may have helped elect people who we would have been better off not electing.

It would have been nice if the media had given Stein more coverage. She could have changed the dynamic of the debates, which were pretty boring. I don't really know why the media lets the Republicans and Democrats monopolize our political life, but I don't like it.

My most difficult choices will be in races where neither the Republican nor Democratic candidates are attractive but there are no third party alternatives. I don't like to leave a ballot blank, but neither do I like being forced to choose between people who are equally unlikely to move the country in the directions I think it needs to go, and I resent that some Democratic candidates seem to assume that they will get my vote no matter what they stand for and how offensive their campaigning is.

I have heard partisans disparage people who don't make up their minds until they get into the voting booths, implying that indecision is a result of not being informed or of not having strong opinions. In my case they are wrong. I'm pretty well informed politically, and my opinions are well developed. I just don't like some of the choices I am being given.

It's Not the Economy, Stupid

Having just talked with people from all across America as I rode from Chicago to the West Coast on Amtrak, I am convinced that both the Romney and Obama campaigns are wrong in thinking that the most important issue on people's minds is the economy. People understand that the worldwide economy is changing. They don't expect any president to be able to single-handedly bring back the prosperity that our country enjoyed during most of the past sixty years. They don't believe either candidate's promises to create jobs. Yes, people are hurting financially. But they are not looking to the president to fix their situation by cutting taxes or instituting new programs.

What people want from candidates is honesty, and they don't feel like they are getting it from either the Republican or the Democrat. Unemployed fifty-five year olds know they aren't going to retrain for exciting new careers in green energy. They know that no matter how skilled they become as X-Ray technicians or welders, employers will hire younger workers. They don't want to spend a year or two taking courses at community colleges, and they sure don't want to be racking up student loans.

What people want is some security. They want to know that even if they don't find work, they will get medical care and they will get a social security check to help them get by. But instead of talking about the kinds of systemic changes that are needed in order to bring our country's health care system up to the same level as the rest of the developed world, politicians are talking about fixing the national deficit, which is something that very few people understand and which has little real relevance to most voters. Instead of showing the people how their government will make sure that they are able to meet their basic human needs, politicians in both parties are playing slight-of-hand tricks with numbers. The people are not fooled. They know the difference between reality and illusion.

It has been sixty five years since the U.S. fought a war that most people think we needed to fight, which means that nearly every person who will vote in the upcoming elections knows that we don't need to be wasting more than half of our national budget on our military. But with two billion dollars already having been spent on just this one election, no one is hearing a word about that. They are hearing about abortion and every other issue that the politicians think can be used to divide people from their neighbors.

The people are not as stupid as the politicians seem to believe they are. The people know the politicians are trying to frighten them. What the politicians don't seem to understand is that people are already terrified. People know that the American dominance of the world economy is gone, and they sense that it won't return for a very long time. They can accept that. They just want someone to talk honestly about what comes next. Romney and Obama don't want to talk about that.

From the Great Plains to the Rockies to the ocean, Americans are frightened, frustrated, and angry. They are not fools, but they feel that their politicians are treating them as if they were. It may be too late for either Romney or Obama to start talking straight with the American people. Any change of strategy or message would be viewed as a desperation move. So the campaigns will almost certainly keep talking around in circles, and the voters will almost certainly feel disgusted the day after the election.

The past two years of campaigning have been almost a complete waste of everyone's time. They have not been enlightening, and the candidates have not given the people what they want and need. The campaigns should not have been about the economy, they should have been about the people, and we're not stupid.

"Be Nice" Isn't Enough

Last evening, I was in an audience made up mostly of parents of high school students. We had come to hear the lecture that was presented earlier in the day to the entire student body. The presenter was the uncle of a girl who had been among thirteen people who were shot to death at Columbine High School in 1999. His message was simple: we should all be nice to one another.

The speaker didn't say a word about the gun culture in America, the issue of gun control, or how it was that the two killers at Columbine were able to get hold of the weapons and ammunition they used. He didn't mention that just a couple of months ago there was another shooting just down the road from the Columbine shooting which killed another twelve people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He didn't mention that even after the Columbine shooting, Colorado law allows people to carry concealed weapons nearly everywhere, including on college campuses.

The speaker didn't talk about people committing suicide using guns, which happens much more often than mass shootings and kills far more people. He didn't say a word about mental illness, which contributes to a large number of shootings. He didn't talk about poverty, racism, or the gang shootings which arise out of urban ghettos. All he talked about was one shooting incident, and the only message he derived from it was that we should all be nice to one another.

It was a simple message. It would appeal to people who like the “Just Say No” approach to drug abuse, even though that approach has been proven to be ineffective. It would appeal to people who don't want to deal with the complexities of the gun-violence problem.

If everyone took the speaker's advice, some shootings might be avoided. But a lot more would still happen. People get depressed even if other people are nice to them. People who are taught that violence is a legitimate solution to problems use violence in response to the challenges they face, even if they see someone wearing a rubber bracelet that encourages them to have a nice day. People who have guns at hand use them when they are angry, frightened, confused, drunk, or just bored.

“Be Nice” may be a message that soothes suburban parents' anxiety, but it is largely irrelevant to the types of people who end up in the headlines because of who they shot. It's a nice message for kindergartners, but way too simple for high-school students and their parents. Unless we take a more meaningful look at what is causing the shootings which are daily occurrences across our country, we can expect the shootings to continue unabated.

Business Experience

When Dan Seals was running for Congress full-time, Republicans and some Democrats said he wasn't qualified because he was just trying to land a job. They said he didn't have enough business experience to serve in Congress.

When Bob Dold first ran for Congress, some Democrats gleefully turned the tables and attacked him for not having really managed his family business as he claimed. They pointed out that he was named president of his parents' pest control business just in time for the election, and that his resume showed that he was so busy working on various political staffs outside Illinois that he couldn't possibly have been the business executive that he pretended to be.

Two years later, when Ilya Sheyman ran for the Democratic nomination to run against Dold, he was attacked for being too young and not having enough business experience to know how to help the country get out of the recession. Republicans had fun joining some Democrats who were making these attacks.

Now, Bob Dold is saying that Brad Schneider doesn't really have the business experience that he claims to have. Dold and his backers say that Schneider's consulting company didn't show a profit for the past few years, and that his business credentials are therefore invalid.

The cycle is complete. A pattern has been established. Democrats and Republicans in the 10th District attack each other every election on exactly the same personal issue. Candidates are judged, among other things, on whether they are rich enough and have enough business experience. Neither Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Jesus Christ would do very well if judged by this standard. Very few people who unselfishly devote their lives to public service would.

Despite weekly exhortations from the pulpit that we should devote our lives not to the quest for wealth but to the pursuit of more significant goals, and despite sanctimonious pronouncements on MLK Day by politicians that we should judge one another by the contents of our characters, it is obvious that some politicians think the real criteria we should use to select our leaders is whether they have somehow accumulated a lot of money.

Americans used to tell each other that a person shouldn't be discouraged if they stumbled. The important thing was whether you got up, dusted yourself off, and tried again. But in the 10th District the ethos has changed. Now, it doesn't matter how determined you are. If you don't manage to make a lot of money in business, you are branded a failure in all aspects of life, and particularly unacceptable as a politician.

If government was a business, it might make sense to elect only business people to office. But government is supposed to be more than that. It is supposed to be the instrument of the will of all people. If success at business was due only to skill, it might make sense to elect only skilled business people. But success at business is due to a lot of things other than skill, including luck. If the only measure of success in business was money, we could decide who to vote for simply by looking at their bank accounts and investments. But for business people, success should also be measured by how they treat their customers, suppliers, employees, competitors, and the world.

Neither Democrats or Republicans will say that they prefer to live in a plutocracy, where the wealthy govern, rather than in a democracy, where the people rule themselves. But in the 10th District, it seems like plutocrats are what some people in both parties want.