Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day and I'm not sure what to write.  I've had an uneasy sense of this holiday for much of my life, seeing myself as a pacifist.  The two most recent American wars, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, have seemed so misguided to me.  And re-reading Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece Gone with the Wind has reminded me of the devastation that the Civil War wrought throughout the South, devastation that still reverberates today.

Yet I realize that those who fight in our wars, whether they're relatives or friends or strangers, fight on my behalf whether or not I agree with the cause.  They've given of themselves in ways that I would not.  On this holiday, then, I'm reminded every year to offer up thanks and remembrance for those who have served.

"The Scream"

That "The Scream" sold for nearly $120 million last night at Sotheby's seems fitting.  It is the symbol of our time, after all, and only increases in relevance as life grows more bizarre.  All you need to do is read the front page of any American newspaper or listen to the evening news, and you'll feel exactly like the figure in Edvard Munch's pastel.

The Language of War

How we love to wage war in America. In addition to our war on terrorism, we've initiated wars on cancer, drugs, and poverty. Another war, the one that rages every 4 years, has already begun: our presidential campaign. Consider the language: Which candidate has the bigger war chest? How will the battleground states vote? Who has more field offices established? Have the campaigns enlisted their armies of volunteers?

In one sense the outcome of this war will be clear: either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will win. But in another sense, the outcome will be fuzzy. For in modern America the winners of wars are those with the most money. Defense contractors, for example, reap victory in Afghanistan and Iraq; drug companies, hospitals, and high-tech medical manufacturers triumph in the war on cancer; drug cartels and weapons manufacturers continue to win the war on drugs; and all of us but the poor sweep the war on poverty.

The winners in 2012? The big donors, the super PACS, the people we don't know and don't elect who dictate how the rest of us live. For in this war corporate America--especially energy, finance, and health care interests--brings out its big guns and mows everybody else down.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see who's left standing when the air clears.

You May Say I'm a Dreamer

The killing of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, by an American staff sergeant last week brought us to a new low in the war in Afghanistan. But we've been here before, many times. The My Lai massacre in Vietnam comes immediately to mind; having occurred almost exactly 44 years ago, it was more horrific in scale but otherwise a similar crime.

When we put people in brutal situations, we must expect brutal behavior. So why are we shocked when these events happen? Commentators are now analyzing Sgt. Bales' life and his 4 deployments over the last 10 years. Was his marriage stressful? Did the fact that he'd seen a buddy lose his leg the day before affect his state of mind? Did he have Post-traumatic stress disorder?

Tell me, who doesn't have PTSD who's been sent off for the sole purpose of killing fellow humans?

It's not right. War is not right. Call me naive, but it's time to stop the killing. Every time we send a young man or woman to Iraq or Afghanistan, we set in motion a cascade of destruction. Atrocities committed, lives lost, families separated, dreams ruined--all for what?

John Lennon had it right:

"Imagine all the people
Living life in peace. . .
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one."

Experts Part 1

One day last week on "All Things Considered," the host invited listeners to call in with our opinions about a containment policy towards Iran. Since I didn't really know what containment meant, I wasn't about to pick up the phone and express my thoughts. Fortunately, not too many other people did either.

Every day in America talk radio is filled with opinions from ordinary people like me. I wonder about the merits of giving all of us a voice. When we're all experts on everything, are we less likely to hear the opinions of those who might actually know something that we don't?

Such thinking--that all opinions are equal--serves only to reinforce the strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through our culture. The suspicion of those who are educated has always run deep, but Paul Krugman writes in a recent New York Times column that the Republican presidential candidates have sharpened the attack in new ways. The resulting disrespect for knowledge gives all of us permission to ignore expertise.

Therefore, we can ignore the wisdom of scientists who explain climate change; we can ignore the wisdom of economists who explain deficit spending; and we can ignore the wisdom of historians who explain Afghanistan.

I like to give my opinions, too. But when I don't know what I'm talking about, I hope I defer to those who do.

Afghani Rhetoric

Listening to the president last night as he announced troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, I was struck by how un-soaring his usual soaring rhetoric was. True, I listened to him on the radio and didn't see his expressions, but his sentences were short and repetitive and included no rousing moments.

This war--along with its twin war in Iraq--has been a disaster. That anyone can continue to defend our presence in Afghanistan, when our own country remains in shambles and declines day by day, is beyond me.

The fact is, there is no soaring rhetoric to describe our ten unproductive years fighting a war that was never worth fighting in the first place.

The End of the World

I laughed (along with lots of people) at Harold Camping's apocalyptic prediction this week. On Sunday afternoon I told my family I would be leaving them soon, and at 6:00 that night--when the rapture was supposed to start--I said, "I feel like I'm floating." The jokes about these supposed ends of the world are themselves endless.

But then on Tuesday The New York Times ran two articles together: one on Camping's revised prediction that both the rapture and the world's end will arrive now on October 21, and one on the aftermath of the Joplin tornado--the search for the living and the dead. In reading the articles I realized that the monster tornado hit Joplin around the same time that Camping's saved souls were supposed to be ascending to heaven. At around the same time that the rest of us would begin our hell on earth.

Which is exactly what happened in Joplin, Missouri.

We don't need firebrand preachers and Bible-waving soothsayers to remind us that the end of the world arrives every day for someone somewhere on the globe. If we forget, we're quickly reminded by storms or by illness or by death.

If the rapture ever comes, it will surely take all of us for none of us deserves the suffering we endure. It's part of being human.

The Bogeyman

As a child I worried about the bogeyman. If I left my bike outside overnight, the bogeyman might take it. If I walked home in the dark after playing outside, the bogeyman might get me. I never saw him, but he was always there.

It didn't occur to me until this week that an entire nation might fear the same bogeyman. Yet we did. His machinations created the stuff of nightmares: jumping from burning buildings; being buried alive; knowing you're about to crash.

I didn't think much about Osama bin Laden in recent years. But I realize now that he was always there, lingering in the dark. Now that he's gone, though, I wonder what fears will take his place. For when the child learns that there's no bogeyman, she feels relief, yes, but soon learns that danger itself is ever present in ever many forms. Though the devil is gone, evil remains.

Are we safer today than we were before Sunday night? I doubt it. But maybe now that we've gotten the bogeyman and buried him at the bottom of the sea, we can regain the balance and vision we need to move beyond September 11 and its disastrous legacy.

Thoughts on Libya

1. President Obama's speech on Monday night was thoughtful and compelling. I understand his decision to intercede in Libya, and I appreciate his determination to protect others from genocide.

2. I don't understand, though, where the money comes from to fund warfare in America. It's like a giant keg at a frat party--simply turn on the spigot and let the gold flow. Troop escalations, no-fly zones, pre-emptive wars--the money is always there.

3. But when it comes to domestic needs, we're broke. Our Congress is now arguing over which vulnerable group to stiff next, and we don't have money to feed our hungry or educate our children.

4. Are we the world's self-sacrificing protector?

5. Or are we simply in love with war?

Free Speech

Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that protected hateful protests at military funerals brought home the gravity of our first amendment.

A caller on NPR's Talk of the Nation named Brian, whose brother died in the war on terrorism, explained what free speech means to him. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church showed up at his brother's funeral, he told listeners, but "the counter-protest of over 400 people completely muted anything they had to say . . . While personally it was very distressing and personally they crossed the line, I know that my brother was defending the Constitution. . . and I believe we need to keep it intact."

I especially appreciate our nation's freedoms--those that we often take for granted--when someone like Brian articulates what's at stake.

History Lessons

Should anyone really be surprised anymore when oppressed people finally rise up and overthrow their governments? We need only look to examples from history--our own and that of other nations--to recognize the events playing out in Egypt. And we need only look to our own history to remember what can happen when we side with dictators.

History is everywhere in the news these days. Michele Bachmann told us recently that our founding fathers worked hard to end slavery, and the Republicans cite the Constitution whenever they can (except when they confuse it with the Declaration of Independence). And when anyone bothers to take note of the endless war in Afghanistan, inevitable comparisons arise to both the Vietnam War and to the Soviet defeat.

That it's important to understand history should go without saying. Yet our public schools in Durham are ignoring this fact. With pressures building from the "No Child Left Behind" Act and now "Race to the Top" funds, our teachers must focus almost exclusively on math and reading. Science still gets its own time slot, but social studies is an afterthought. It's no longer an essential academic subject.

As it is, Americans haven't done a great job in learning the lessons of history. Now it seems like there's no longer history to learn.

Reflections on the SOTU

Part I. John Boehner seemed oddly uncomfortable throughout the speech. He didn't fit his new clothes as Speaker of the House, and certainly didn't resemble someone riding a wave of change. He looked liked he'd eaten something sour. I wonder what this means for the work of this Congress.

Part II. President Reagan's idea in 1982 to honor ordinary heroes at the SOTU was brilliant. I love watching the people who sit with the First Lady; Tuesday night was no exception. They're the only ones in the room who look like the rest of us and seem to have a clue of what living in this country is really like. Especially wonderful was the woman from Forsyth County, North Carolina, who has returned to school to pursue a degree in biotechnology. When President Obama began speaking about her, she turned to those around her and said, "That's me! That's me!"

Pure spontaneity is not what these speeches are about.

Part III. The long, thunderous applause for our troops disturbed me, not because they don't deserve it. They do. But the applause was like the bumper stickers that say "Support our Troops"; these feel like lip service paid to people who give up their lives in ways that the rest of us can't imagine and aren't called on to do. We're not even asked to pay more to support their work. All we need to do is clap every so often and all will be well.

Part IV. I was glad to see President Obama dispel the arrogant notion of American exceptionalism without giving up on American idealism. Finally someone told us from the top what we need to hear: China is now home to the world's fastest computer, South Koreans have greater internet access than we do, our own engineers give our infrastructure a "D," and we have sunk to 9th place in the percentage of college degrees held. So much for an America that's better than the rest of the world.

Yet the President reminded us at the same time that "we are the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook." He called this our Sputnik moment and challenged us to do better. I liked his message. We may have talents as a nation, but these aren't automatically handed to us. We need to work hard and to think imaginatively to reclaim a special place in the world.

Part V. Nobody called out, "You lie." Maybe we're moving, gradually, to a better place.

Reality Checks

Just days before the assassination attempt in Tucson, my friend Dee and I were talking about how impossible it is in America to speak honestly about the problems we face.

We all know, for example, that children who arrive at school ill-fed and unprepared are unlikely to succeed; yet to say so is racist. We see our dismal rankings in international health statistics and know that we don't have the best health care in the world; yet to say so is treasonous. We know that pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan won't repair our crumbling bridges, roads, and airports; yet to say so is unpatriotic.

It didn't seem like anyone was speaking honestly about anything--until Saturday afternoon when Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik let us have it. Outraged by the killings in his home community, he said that "the anger, the hatred, [and] the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous." He cited "the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government" and lamented that "this has not become the nice United States that most of us grew up in."

Finally. Someone not afraid to speak the truth.

We need more people like Sheriff Dupnik--willing to name the ways our society has veered off-track and lost sight of the common values of decency, respect, and fairness. If a sheriff in Tucson, Arizona, can name so clearly an insidious undercurrent in modern America, then other elected officials can do the same.

We should expect no less from those who call themselves leaders.

Eisenhower Wisdom

Guess who said this?

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Imagine any Democratic president saying this today, let alone a Republican. Where is Ike when we need him?

Perhaps it takes a man from the battlefield, and a person of unusual humanity, to understand truly the senselessness of war.

Veterans Through the Ages

The North Carolina Monument at Gettysburg honors our state's 14,147 soldiers who fought there in 1863. Close to 6,000 North Carolinians lost their lives in 3 days at Gettysburg, over 1/4 of all Confederate casualties.

To date, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have claimed nearly 5,800 American lives.

Does it matter how many die? Civil War numbers boggle the mind. Iraq and Afghanistan numbers, in comparison, seem like mere skirmishes. Many of us don't know anyone who's been killed this time around; I doubt if many southerners could say the same in 1863.

The dead, no matter how many they are, ask little of us. We, in turn, pay almost no attention to them. Perhaps on this Veteran's Day we can be reminded of the simple request made clear by this monument: May "[our] valorous deeds [be] enshrined in the hearts of men long after these transient memorials have crumbled into dust."

Get Off the Couch and Support Elaine

It's easy to feel discouraged about the coming election. Predicted gains for naysaying Republicans, who consistently block legislation to help ordinary (meaning non-rich) Americans, make me want to sit this one out.

But there's hope in North Carolina in the senatorial campaign of Elaine Marshall, our current Secretary of State. I first became aware of Marshall in 2002, when I contacted her office to establish my new business. Her staff couldn't have been more helpful in guiding me through a complex process. If there's one thing I've learned about office staffs, it's this: the treatment you get by the front-line people reflects the attitude of the boss. I knew then that Elaine Marshall was topnotch.

When I started receiving emails earlier this year about her campaign for US Senate, I was struck by her direct, straightforward tone. No games, no bragging, no stretching the truth. She lays out our problems and provides solutions. Check out her website. She proposes a fee of .25% on certain stock transactions to fund a comprehensive jobs program. She advocates aggressive Wall Street reform, having addressed investment and securities fraud in North Carolina. She believes it's time to end the Afghanistan War and to redirect our resources (1) to protect our borders and ports and (2) to disrupt terrorist activity wherever it occurs, rather than mire ourselves in unstable nations.

Marshall's opponent, Richard Burr, has been an automatic vote for the powerful and well-to-do. He opposed legislation that kept state workers employed--teachers, fire fighters, and police officers. He currently opposes a bill to help small businesses, which even the North Carolina Bankers Association has endorsed. He supports continued tax breaks for millionaires, and his campaign is bankrolled by Washington lobbyists.

Elaine Marshall is a vote for the future. A future where we all have a voice, regardless of how much money we make. We're lucky that Marshall hasn't given over to doubt and cynicism, the way so many have. She's tough, and she'll act on our behalf, and--if anyone can--she'll begin to change the elitist culture of that club that calls itself our United States Senate.

I'm putting my money, and time, with her.

War Peddlers

Sometimes General Petraeus sounds like a door-to-door salesman. Especially when he peddles his wares--the war in Afghanistan--to a weary public.

I'm not sure if it's a deliberate tactic or not, but he uses words that can leave you dizzy. On Sunday's Meet the Press, he said, "Over the last 18 months or so, what we’ve sought to do in Afghanistan is get the inputs right for the first time. . . And, indeed. . . the inputs already are enabling some outputs."

He evidently likes this language. In June he told us that General McChrystal had "played a key role in helping get the inputs right in Afghanistan." And in March, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said, "We've spent much of the past year working to get the inputs right in Afghanistan. . . And with those inputs now in place, we're starting to see the outputs."

My head spins with questions. What exactly are inputs? "Organization," "concepts," and mostly troops, as far as I can tell. What are outputs? Not clear. So far there don't seem to be any or he would have spelled these out, as any good salesman knows. And biggest questions of all, why has it taken 9 years to get the inputs right? And why have we tolerated a 9-year-old war that, to date, shows no outputs?

The salesmen have come and gone. George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Barack Obama, Robert Gates, brass and non-brass, all packaging and repackaging the same product--one that costs far more money and lives than we can afford.

Instead of shutting our doors and pretending we're not home, let's confront the salesmen and tell them we're not interested. We owe it to ourselves and our country to do no less.

Rolling Stone Revelations

Of the many troubling observations offered by Michael Hastings in his Rolling Stone piece about the Afghan war, two sentences stand out: "Even those closest to [General] McChrystal know that the rising anti-war sentiment at home doesn't begin to reflect how deeply fucked up things are in Afghanistan," he writes. "'If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular,’ a senior adviser to McChrystal says."

When the advisers themselves start advising the rest of us to pay attention, so we should.

We have been at war with Afghanistan for nine years, making this the longest war in American history, as Hastings points out. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars, he writes, "on the fifth-poorest country on earth [and have] failed to win over the civilian population, whose attitude toward U.S. troops ranges from intensely wary to openly hostile."

Moreover, we have allowed General McChrystal to use Afghanistan as a testing ground for the military’s counterinsurgency strategy, COIN. As Hastings describes it, "COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve."

That we should invest in such a process in Afghanistan is bizarre. That we expect our military to die for this senseless cause is immoral. We have too many problems in our own country to pour money into a sinkhole. I’m afraid the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Speaking of whom, President Obama must acknowledge that a change of clothes isn’t all that’s needed. While General Petraeus can restore respectability to the mission, he can’t work miracles.

It’s time to end this war and bring our troops home.