April 2021 Archives

Dear America,

I have to confess that I didn't watch President Biden's speech last night.  In fact, I have to admit that I haven't watched any other president's since the year that some Republican yokel Republican congressman exclaimed "liar" during one of President Obama's State of the Union addresses.  It is true that most presidents articulate some form of the  truth during their annual summaries of our national state, purportedly for the benefit of the nation but primarily to keep their hats in the ring for the next presidential election cycle.  And then of course there was Trump, whose speeches one and all were nothing but self-serving panegyrics intended to boost his own ego and arrogate more power to himself.  But I have read the commentary on Biden's speech, and though I am not sorry I didn't spend an hour and five minutes watching it because I already knew what he was doing by virtue of paying attention for the past 99 days, the comments of professional observers and shills alike are much as I would have expected them to be: a Trump acolyte panned it on the basis of form, a rabid conservative with only a seemingly tenuous connection to the facts denouncing the speech with contrived interpretations of the past to support his opinion, and of course the mild accolades to high praise of the commentators from the left side of the political spectrum.

Of all the comments I read, the one coming from the political observer I respect most, David Gergen, meant the most in light of what we have all seen on the news about President Biden's plans for our future.  Gergen spared us all his evaluation of Biden or his speech by pointing out that only two modern presidents, FDR and LBJ dared to propound the magnitude of socio-economically bold plans that Biden has proposed, and their names are in the history books with almost no sign of stigma attached to either one.  And in addition, both of those former presidents are recognized as great and profound agents of positive change by their posterity; as leaders whose effects on the nation and the world were palpable and humanely motivated.  Gergen eschewed such encomia for Biden, but pointed out that, if he succeeds in his plans for a new kind of America not contemplated since before the advent of "Reaganomics" in the early 1980's, Biden's programs will elevate him to the same pantheon that those two of his predecessors occupy all by themselves in our presidential history since the turn of the last century and before.  And I must say that what Gergen wrote is in principle what I have been thinking since Biden's proposed legislation started coming out of the White House.

For the first time since Johnson's "Great Society" arched over our political conversation, a president has put together a comprehensive plan for renewal of the prosperity that working Americans shared until the corporate executive class and those endowed by progenitors who made their fortunes by hook or by crook became the American analog of Russian oligarchs.  And now, like Johnson, Biden is intent on including everyone in this prosperity, regardless of color, and what's more in Biden's case, regardless of personal preferences or national origin.  I don't really care about hyperbole about socialism and "big government;"  it is time that someone on our political scene with the possible power to do something has come forward with a new grand design for an America that conforms to the promise of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.  There is room to criticize that notion by nibbling around the Hamiltonian edges, but it was intended that in America, all men (and since Title IX specifically included them, women) were created equal.  It was intended that each of us should have the "equal protections", "privileges and immunities" that each other of us has.  

Of course, more self-serving praise from us liberals...more effusive fluff...could come next, but I'll spare you.  The crux of it all is that for the first time since I can remember a presidential mantra being intoned, we have a president who is worthy of the title "Leader of the Free World."  I couldn't help but feel a sense of profound hope for us all when our president's Covid relief and infrastructure omnibus legislation proposals were reported, especially with the Trump era still visible in our rear view mirror, and Trump himself still hovering over the conservative tranche of our conservative polity.

So, America, I want to invite you to enjoy what could be the sun coming out from behind the clouds over our nation.  With the imposition of the cost of all this good work to be imposed on those who won't even miss it, it is a platform for our future, politically, socially, ethically and morally.  Perhaps, we have finally arrived.

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

We've been hearing this self-serving casuistry about bi-partisanship from the Republicans for two decades, but it never seems to materialize in the form of Republican policy, proposals or even counter-proposals.  Now, we have an activist president--and frankly, I am pleasantly surprised by President Biden's initiative and fortitude--and he has proposed dramatic programs to redress the deficiencies left behind by not just the Trumpster, but by Biden's presidential patron, President Obama, as well.  Obama was a nice president, but his diffidence wasn't a favor he did the nation.  Now Biden seems to be taking the Farragut  approach (you know...damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!) and opting to do things instead of just gently nudging the opposition to cooperate in doing so until it's too late and nothing happens in the end.  And now, there seems to be enough public sentiment in favor of the proposal for a few trillion dollars worth of "infrastructure" repair that the Republicans will either have to come up with a rational approach to funding it all other than taxing under-taxed corporations at a higher rate and making the rich pay their fair share or the votes of the rich and corporate executives will be the only ones they get in 2022.  But it may be that the most momentous initiative Biden has proposed involves something more long-term in effect than fixing highways and bridges.

Our president is creating a commission to investigate the prudence and feasibility of term limits, mandatory retirement of justices, and of expanding the Supreme Court to probably thirteen justices, and it appears to me that all of those things are irrefutably good ideas.  That isn't just because the Republicans used hypocrisy and outright dishonesty to pack the court with conservatives, though that alone would justify increasing the size of the Supreme Court bench in my opinion.  And it isn't because the late Justice Ginsberg, knowing that she was likely to die before President Obama's successor assumed office refused to retire even after Obama exhorted her privately to do so in an attempt to obviate suffering someone like Trump putting three justices on the court and throwing it out of moral balance for a generation or more.  It is because no matter which party is in control of The Senate, political inclinations play a role in filling vacancies on the court, and expanding the court mitigates the possibility that the court will become an oscillating forum for the whip lashing of our national ethos that happens now.  We get decisions like Citizen's United that allow the rich to at least make credible attempts to buy our national destiny and for eminent domain in favor of private developers as in Kelo v. New London, Connecticut, which allowed the town to seize private property so that a mall could be built by a private developer on the waterfront.  And of course, there is all the damage done by the court to "Obamacare," which Trump opposed probably only because it would never be known as "Trumpcare." In other words, a thirteen person court would help to prevent a would-be-autocratic demagogue from creating an America in his own image.

Of course, the Republicans having now had their way with our judicial system in a fashion that will afflict us all for decades are calling the proposal to expand the court the very thing they themselves have inflicted on us over the past four years, literally by hook and by crook thanks to Mitch McConnell.  But this proposal is actually the opposite of "court packing" for the purpose of proliferating political positions in the form of judicially manifested social policy.  It is an attempt to prevent such from occurring in the future, and maybe 15 justices would be more effective in doing so, though it would seem too unwieldy to be workable.  In any event, if one president appointed three justices out of 13, the effect would be far less precipitous a change than three out of nine has been.  And since the Republicans profess to be implementing the will of our founding fathers when they do the dubious things they do, thus blaming progenitors for what is actually the perfidy they are committing, they should read the Federalist Papers, especially numbers 62 through 68.  Hamilton wrote most of what they contain, and a continuing theme in them is the threat to our national stability and our democracy that populists like Donald Trump represent, and sure enough, that is what eventuated despite their ill-conceived attempts to prevent it.  And that's the irony of that sentiment; the very electoral college and senate they created intending to keep the nation a bastion of sanity allowed the country to become the seat of the Mad Hatter's tea party that was the Trump era.  This expansion of the court that Biden is proposing is an attempt to undo some of the kind of misguided attempts to keep irrationality out of our governing institutions that Hamilton and his co-founders bungled into.

So we have an opportunity with our sane president in office to fortify the Supreme Court, optimally a bastion against tyranny, amorality and demagoguery, and at least mitigate against the reiteration in future administrations of what Donald Trump has wreaked upon us.  The only question is, will Biden's efforts succeed, and if so, will they do so in time.

Your friend,

Mike  

Dear America,

It can be hard to separate what is personal from what matters in the more universal sense.  I was reading a piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times today and it occurred to me that I didn't know what he was talking about.  I have always been a literalist when it comes to the language in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  The most basic proposition of which we as Americans subscribe to, in my estimation, is that every one of us is entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  That is arguably the creed of the United States of America.  It exceeds in importance the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, statutes and both constitutional law and common law ever since.  But in this piece by Bruni, he expressed his sentiments about a law passed in Arkansas, vetoed by its governor, Asa Hutchinson, and then passed again by the legislature of Arkansas over Hutchinson's veto, that I gather bars attempts to facilitate conversion of gender by youths below 18 years of age trying to become who they know themselves to be.  The problem is that as I read the piece, I could not identify what Bruni was saying was objectionable.  Understand me.  Bruni is a self-professed gay male.  And I am certain that his point was that if a person feels that he or she is trapped in a body of the gender that isn't his or hers, he or she should be free to rectify the quirk of nature that led to that incongruity.  But as I read his recapitulation of the terms of the legislation, I couldn't tell from the terminology what he was objecting to.  Let me be specific.

I have felt from when I was old enough to ideate on the subject that the Declaration of Independence was irrefutable.  We all have the right to pursue happiness as we see fit.  But let me be clear.  That doesn't mean at the expense of others, but it does mean that when we seek happiness, we have the right to do so sans such harm to others.  Thus in my and many other opinions, when we talk about gender conversion, or reassignment as I have heard it termed--and about ancillary therapy as well--it is our right as individuals to pursue such remedies as are available to us to address the related deep-seated incongruities about gender identity that inner awareness impinges on in some of us.  And to be fair, I think that was Bruni's point.  The law being pushed through the legislative process by Alabama Republicans is an abomination.  It serves no purpose other than to thwart the self-actualization of people who aren't hurting anyone.  It is pompous positivism intended by conservative Republicans to affirm beliefs that no one involved shares with them, and more importantly, that affect the lives of no one other than those who will be harmed by the law.  It is anti-American, and more importantly, it is inhumane.  But why do I write to you tonight, America?

My purpose isn't to take Frank Bruni to task.  My purpose isn't to take you to task either.  My purpose is to make the point that there is a sanctimonious sadism to the conservative Republican impetus toward passing this legislation that cannot be countenanced.  It is one thing to promote values that require affirmation in order for the affirmer to live what he or she conceives to be a virtuous life.  But it is an entirely different thing to interpose one's beliefs between another's happiness and the necessary measures he or she can take to secure it.  It goes beyond spite and becomes sadism in the kind of concerted effort that the Arkansas statutes on gender reassignment comprise.  The outright arrogance and tyranny that Arkansas's Republicans have now indulged in is something that they will have to answer to their God for, and I don't say things like that lightly.  My agnosticism prevents me from making such imprecations in general, but in this instance, I cannot resist.  They claim that God is on their side, and they had better hope that they are right.  This measure defies moral justification, and ultimately, they will have to explain, to a higher authority if they are rightly faithful in that higher authority, their role in passing it.

The fact is that this isn't the first conservative, Republican action that makes these reproaches appropriate.  The Trump presidency has manifested opportunity after opportunity for Republicans to evince hypocrisy, and they seem to have seized on every one of them.  The consequence is that, according to recent polls, Democrats outnumber them by 9% points whereas the advantage was only 4% before the Trump era.  And it isn't that the Democrats have gained so much...just a few percentage points.  But those who characterized themselves as independents are now getting close to comprising half of the electorate, which suggests that pedantry and peremptory moralism may be waning in our society...and for the better. 

So, to the point, we have to put aside our tendency to speak in clinical terms about what are essentially social and moral issues.  Transgender people are just trying to make lives for themselves as are all of the rest of us.  And as long as they don't interfere with our efforts, why should we interfere with theirs.  In fact, why can't we just leave each other alone and tend to what's important: economic inequality, poverty among those who work all day every day but remain impoverished, children who don't have enough to eat or places to go where they can learn what they need to know to get along in our society, and on and on.  Seeing all that people in America suffer daily, I can't help but think that we all know what those things are, and in the case of Arkansas, that we have better things to do.

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

Like every other American who pays attention to the world around him, I am constantly assessing sources of information in order to ensure that the fact on which I base my opinions are unvarnished.  In that connection, I subscribe to the New York Times Friday through Sunday, Friday and Saturday being the most active news days.  This week, The Times published a synopsis of the Georgia election law changes that the Republican legislature in the state passed recently, which the Republican governor praised as enhancements of voting rights as opposed to the circumscription of them seen by those outside the state.  The Times has been part of the outcry over the changes, and in service of their editorial opinion, they printed the major provisions of the new voting laws along with expositions on them so as to ostensibly make clear the implications of those statutory provisions.  It's all somewhat obscure, but when I read the whole piece, I came away with a disconcerting conclusion: even The Times has to be scrutinized rather than believed without question.

There's no need to go through all of it here; if you're interested you can read the piece on the internet.  But while some of the provisions are absolutely intended to winnow voting rights in the more populous, Democratic, liberal areas of Georgia...in the cities, where most of the minority population lives in other words...some of the new voting law harkens back to when I first got to vote in the late sixties.  I was still a college student and you had only one day to vote back then, at least as far as I can remember.  Thus, all this fuss over extended voting is something of a revelation to me.  Mind you, I'm not against it for several reasons, not the least of which is that most people of voting age have to work or be away from home for one reason or another, thus rendering extended opportunities to vote, including early voting and absentee voting, not just desirable but a virtual necessity.  And as the income gap between those on the top of the economic heap and those on the bottom broadens, the availability of transportation to remote voting places diminishes for those most in need of the right to vote: those who have the least are in many respects the most politically disadvantaged, and thus the most in need of representation in the halls of political power.  That's why reducing the number of ballot boxes in the state and moving them into polling places that are presumably closed for most hours of the day is anti-democratic.  Similarly, prohibiting in a couple of ways the provision of water and food to those forced to stand on long lines for hours because state, county and local governments have provided so few polling places is suppressive, as is requiring the requirement of the provision of driver's license numbers from those requesting and casting absentee ballots.  But on the other hand, reducing the period during which one can vote from months to weeks doesn't seem unreasonable.  And though the use of deprivation of food and water to those on line is flagrantly inequitable, denying those who would do so the right to lobby for votes among those on line, in particular trying to bribe them with food and water is not unacceptable, at least to me.  Of course, prohibiting lobbying isn't synonymous with feeding and quenching thirst, and thus should have been accomplished in another way.

There's more to it, of course, and the law is quite extensive including both benign and malignant provisions, but the Times's adumbration of its provisions seems slanted to me, as has its coverage of some other things lately.  The Times seems eager to pillory Andrew Cuomo, for example, as I wrote recently.  And while I'm no fan of Donald Trump, some of the paper's analyses of what he did seemed, how shall I put it...tendentious.  Don't misunderstand me; I'm not accusing The Times of misreporting or slanting what it prints.  I'm just saying that the paper sometimes seemed to be soliciting a specific sentiment about things on which it reported over the recent past.

I still rely on the New York Times for facts, but I look at what they tell me critically.  I am not averse to fact checking the institution that I used to conceive to be the ultimate fact checker itself, which brings me to my point.  An old Marvin Gays song contains the lyric, "People believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear."  Of course that's hyperbole, but it bears heeding in this respect.  In carpentry, the rule is measure twice and cut once.  The same general principle applies to information.  Skepticism never hurt anyone.

Your friend,

Mike