We the People

The Democratic National Convention begins tomorrow, and I'm glad that it's taking place virtually.  While the coronavirus renders this format necessary, traditional conventions have also become outmoded.  Throngs of impassioned delegates filled with adulation for one man feels out of sync with the democracy we profess to cherish.

Though Donald Trump's political rallies epitomize this idolatry, so do Democratic ones.  I'll never forget the thrill of seeing Barack Obama at a huge rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, in September 2008.  The excitement and energy of the crowd electrified the event in a way that I'd never experienced.  It was great.  And yet I wonder . . .

Every four years, it seems, we cast about for that one candidate--usually male, usually white--who will singlehandedly save us.  In fact, George Washington's inaugural journey from Mount Vernon to New York in 1789, as described by Ron Chernow in his book Washington: A Life, began this American tradition.  Despite the new president's wish to keep celebrations simple, "Before long," Chernow writes, "it was apparent that Washington's journey would form the republican equivalent of the procession to a royal coronation."

A royal coronation indeed.  It's not what our Constitution prescribes, but it's what our conventions and inaugurations have become.

Moreover, we hold unrealistic expectations for the presidents we've elevated.  Washington captures this sentiment in words written over 230 years ago:  "I greatly apprehend that my countrymen will expect too much from me."  He's right.  Those of us who revered Barack Obama expected societal change that never materialized.  Those who worship Donald Trump don't live in an America made great again.

We've lost the "We" in "We the People," though it seems we never had it in the first place.  But it's the goal, it's the idea.  It's all of us participating in democracy.  It's scrapping the Electoral College.  It's getting money out of government.  It's overturning Citizens United.  It's eliminating voter suppression.  It's rethinking presidential power.

It's Make the United States Better for All.

Random Thoughts, 4th of July Weekend

I've always wanted to see Mount Rushmore, in part because I like Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest.  But not anymore.  The land belongs to the Lakota, the sculptor was a white supremacist, and the carved faces (a quartet that's never made sense to me) insult the lives and history of native Americans.

If Donald Trump wants to call his opposition an angry mob whose behavior defines the word "totalitarianism," then he can very well learn how to pronounce it.

The Washington Redskins should have changed their name decades ago.  Given the recent outcry of protest across the country, FedEx and Nike have pulled their support, and it looks like the name will finally change.  Two of the team's main corporate sponsors, their money made the difference.  I guess we should celebrate this?

Mandy Cohen, North Carolina's Secretary of Health and Human Services, lamented our state's lack of chemical reagents to run more coronavirus tests, but we need help from the federal government to do so.  "We can't solve that problem from the state level," she said.  In the midst of this pandemic, do Trump's idolatrous crowds in Tulsa and the Black Hills have any idea how morally and criminally negligent his administration has been?

My mother and I watched two episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on Friday night in memory of Carl Reiner, who produced the show and occasionally appeared in it.  Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore are two of my favorite comedians, and we laughed and laughed.  It felt good.

Baby Steps

So now that the mass protests have largely ended, where are we in our evolution of civil rights?  Here are some good signs:

Confederate statues and other offensive public works are coming down.

Black Lives Matter signs are popping up; I've seen several in my neighborhood, where few people broadcast their political views.

The U S. House of Representatives passed the D. C. statehood bill for the first time ever.

Mississippi's House voted to remove the Confederate flag from the state flag.  Republican Governor Tate Reeves said that he would sign such a bill if it comes his way.

Players in the National Women's Soccer League knelt during the national anthem on Saturday.  In a joint statement, they said they were protesting "racial injustice, police brutality and systemic racism against Black people and people of color" in the United States.

Baby steps, perhaps--and way too long in coming.  Much harder work awaits.  Yet baby steps need not be dismissed.

They're often the first signs of a movement on the rise.

Another Wish List

Last week I posted a list of my personal wishes during this time of coronavirus.  In light of the murder of George Floyd last Monday, I post a new list.  Here's what I wish for America:

1. A dinner table where everyone is fed.

2. A neighborhood where everyone can jog.

3. A school where everyone is educated.

4. A hospital where everyone has the same chance.

5. A police department where everyone is safe.

6.  A government that works for everyone.

7.  A people that confronts its racist past.

8. A nation that's willing to force change.

9. A United States that gets it: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

10. An America that redefines "We, the People," to include everyone.

Rugged Individualists

One of the hallmarks of America is our mythical pride in individualism.  We tout so-called "self-made millionaires" and those who "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."  We profess freedoms at the expense of others and consider ourselves "exceptional."

Interestingly enough, Herbert Hoover cited America's "rugged individualism" in his closing campaign speech in 1928.  By contrasting American principles with European "doctrines of paternalism and state socialism," he heralded the American way of self-reliance and limited government, portending his disastrous handling of the Great Depression.  His failure to authorize the federal government to help ordinary Americans made a terrible situation worse.

So what happens, almost 100 years later, when another crisis collides with American individualism, a new disease that's communal in nature?  A disease that puts my life in the hands of others, even those I don't know and those who choose not to wash their hands or wear masks or distance themselves.

We get protest signs like these:

"Give me liberty or give me COVID-19"
"Sacrifice the weak"
"Tyranny is Spreading Faster than the China Virus"

And we get behavior like these:

Stormed state capitols
Heckled health care workers
Gun-toting intimidators

To make matters worse, our president encourages these attitudes, inciting anger and protests.  He clearly values the rights of the individual--as he pushes states to re-open--over the collective health of Americans.  In tweeting states to "LIBERATE," he implicitly instructs Americans to disregard their responsibility to each other and look out only for themselves.  It's a selfish way forward.

Donald Trump, like Herbert Hoover, gets it wrong.  Echoing his predecessor who vetoed major aid legislation in 1930 by saying it would "bring far more distress than it will cure," Trump said in March that "we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself."  For in the case of COVID-19 the cure means a collective response, a shared responsibility for each other's lives.

Such responsibility confounds Donald Trump.  I'm not sure he knows what it means.  But without it, we lose people unnecessarily.  Fellow Americans.  Human lives. 

What could be more important?

Decision Making 101

At the new George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, visitors to an interactive theater decide how they would respond to some of the challenges that faced the 43rd president.  Here's a slight twist to this game.  Pretend you are President Bush and choose in each case below the answer that best describes the action he took.

1. Terrorists primarily from Saudi Arabia and financed by operatives in Afghanistan destroy the World Trade Center in New York, killing 3,000 people.  In response, you decide to attack which of the following countries:

A. Germany

B. Zimbabwe

C. Iceland

D. Iraq

2. Once you decide to invade Iraq, you need to come up with an explanation for this unexpected move.  You invent the following scenario:

A. The Iraqi government is poised to land a manned space shuttle on Mars.

B. A group of Iraqi school children threatened publicly to throw 50 pairs of shoes (that once belonged to Imelda Marcos) at you.

C. Gold has been discovered near Basra.

D. Saddam Hussein has acquired weapons of mass destruction.

3. You begin to capture suspects in your so-called "War on Terror."  You take which of the following actions:

A. Read the prisoners their Miranda rights.

B. Appoint defense lawyers.

C. Reread the Geneva Convention.

D. Ignore the international ban on torture and set up secret detention sites.

4. A major hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast of the United States.  You act quickly in the following way:

A. Watch CNN's coverage of people stranded at the Superdome in New Orleans and wonder if the World Series is under way.

B. Watch Al Jazeera's coverage of Americans sleeping on luggage conveyors at the New Orleans airport and wonder if this isn't a third world country by mistake.

C. Watch NBC's coverage of the failure of the levees throughout the city and find yourself humming "American Pie"--"drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry/Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye/Singing this'll be the the day that I die."

D. Watch the mayhem below from the comfort of your private presidential helicopter--seemingly disengaged and uninterested.

5. As the hurricane devastation unfolds, you compliment which of your advisers in the following way:

A. "Dick, You're as close to Voldemort as they come."

B. "Condi, You play the piano beautifully."

C. "Rummy, Thank you for reminding us of both the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns."

D. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

If you answered "D" in each case, congratulations!  You've won a day's free pass to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas.

The Messy Way Forward

Each year the Durham County Library sponsors a series of events surrounding one book chosen for the community to read, called "Durham Reads Together."  I propose a variant of this, called "USA Watches Together," where we all watch Steven Spielberg's new movie Lincoln. 

For to watch this movie is to be reminded that both vision and horse-trading make democracy work.  In it, we see vividly that passage of the 13th amendment--to abolish slavery in the United States--required manipulation and compromise on the part of its main players.  The "My way or the highway" thinking that dominates our current political discourse simply didn't work in 1865 and it won't work today.

What will work is a president who has a vision, legislators who can make a deal, at least a few people who vote their conscience, and everyone willing to get their hands a little dirtier than they'd like.

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.

Wanted Desperately: Leadership on All Fronts

It feels like the calm before the storm. These last weeks before Labor Day have everyone hunkered down, quiet, recovering from the fury of Irene. Ten years ago we learned in horror what could happen after Labor Day, when airplanes flew as they pleased and took down a nation unaccustomed to such assault.

Our troubles now seem more far-reaching than they did then and cry out for leaders to lead. Will President Obama stand up boldly for jobs creation in his speech next week (see Eugene Robinson, Washington Post) or will he cave to his instinct for compromise? Will Democrats, reasonable Republicans, and Independents stand up for balanced approaches to our financial woes, or will they continue to let extremists set an extreme agenda?

The times call for those who don't normally view themselves as leaders to lead as well. Will scientists remain in their labs while Governor Perry and his ilk make false statements about climate change and evolution, or will someone stand up? Will ministers hide behind their pulpits while politicians turn their backs on the poor and disadvantaged, or will someone stand up?

And will our press and our people do their jobs as well? A media that constantly inflames rather than educates does a disservice to all, and a population of apathy where so few people vote emboldens demagogues.

A nation where no one leads is a sorry nation indeed. The resulting vacuum leaves opportunities for the worst sorts to exercise power. We need only to read history--or to observe the behavior of ourselves and colleagues at work--to understand this simple lesson.

Feeling Small?

A story this week on NPR told of a series of tiny earthquakes currently hitting the coast of Maine. Earthquakes in Maine? Interestingly enough, 13,000 years ago--during the last Ice Age--the weight of the ice that crushed the earth in this part of the world was so great that even now, thousands of years later, the crust is still responding to the loss of all that weight when the ice melted. As Robert Marvinney, Director of the Maine Geological Survey explained, "It takes some time for the crust to respond and spring back, and these small earthquakes are a consequence of that."

Hmmm.

Osama bin Laden is killed, Wall Street excesses abound, we go about our busy lives and meanwhile, the earth reminds us that we are merely a footnote in the history of our planet and in the mind-boggling movement of time.

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.

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.