A lot of things are down now. Things we wish were up: Employment figures. Manufacturing production. Profits. Wages. Even bonuses on Wall Street (although only the bankers are likely to miss those). Things that are up — cost of health care, and personal, business and federal debt — we wish were down. There's one thing that is currently down (and most people are pleased that it is) but I wish was up, even though I know no one will like it. That's the price of oil.
Americans have been spoiled by low gasoline prices for most of the automobile's history. Unlike drivers in Great Britain, the European Union and elsewhere in countries that have no petrol reserves to call their own, we've paid a comparatively small price for our automotive freedom. We're spoiled. So we were shocked, shocked to see prices shoot up in 2008. We got a reprieve — one we do not deserve — when the bottom fell out of the world economy, and diminishing demand brought the price of gas back down from its brief peak at about $4 per gallon. While that may have you sighing we relief, it irritates me to no end.
If the climate change folks are right and global warming is the threat they think it is, it makes no sense for our government or us to sit back and watch the price of gas fall.
The Obama Administration has missed a significant opportunity to stimulate the economy, to stimulate development of alternative energy and begin to wean America from its dependence on foreign oil. We could make a truly meaningful investment in and make progress toward those worthy goals with one simple act: Institute an adjustable tax rate on gasoline that raises it's price, again, to $4 a gallon (with an adjustment clause to cover any future inflation).
I'm not joking. Consider: We know from our recent past that $4 per gallon is a pain point for Americans that stimulates real action: Last year, people bought and actually rode bicycles, took mass transit, drove less, negotiated "work at home" days with their bosses and began to talk about electric and hybrid electric cars like they're more than a curiosity.
At $4, demand would stay low, so crude would continue to trade low and the tax raised would remain high. The best part is that the increased tax revenues could be a huge stimulus to the economy and go a long way very quickly toward getting us out of our fossil fuel predicament.
Here's how: I paid $1.75 for gas just the other day. I bought 8 gallons of gas for my subcompact car. If I had paid, instead, $4 a gallon under our new tax, the revenue raised from me at that one stop would have been 8 X $2.25 = $18. Conservatively, let's say everyone drives a subcontract and that we all fill our tiny tanks only twice a month. Again conservatively, let's say there are 50 million cars on the road in the U.S. That number times the $36 in tax per month comes out, per annum, to $21,600,000,000. That's right, $21.6 billion.
Wow. Well, wait. There's more.
We all know that most people spend twice to three times as much as I spend on gas in my thrifty little compact and that there are many move petrol-driven vehicles. There are, in fact (I just looked it up), more than 250 million passenger vehicles on the road in the U.S. today. If they all consume only my meager amount of gas, the tax revenues would add up to $108 billion. Adjusted for filling up four times a month (more realistic) that figure doubles. If we allow for half of the passenger vehicles to be bigger than my subcompact, we could probably almost triple the amount. Just to be safe, let's call it $300 billion. That's more than six times the total amount Mr. Obama has earmarked for alternative energy development in his stimulus bill. And this would be real money, not debt.
If we really believe we have a problem with global warming, and we really accept the fact that saving the planet is an immediate and grave concern, then we've got to have the guts to pony up some real dollars to solve the problem.
I'd be on the hook for $432 per year, because, yes, I only fill my tank twice a month. (Some of you would pay more, but that's your choice. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.) I'd consider that a small price to pay for a meaty, effective investment in technology that will hasten the day we're in possession of affordable clean transportation and no longer dependent on fossil fuels. (There will come a day, if we don't act now, when it will cost far more than that, per person, to slow the destruction of our planet. And someone may have a gun to our heads, at that point. Worth considering, don't you think?) Frankly, most of the people I know spend at least that much on beer, frothy caffeine-laced concoctions, donuts and/or fast food every year, none of which will save the world or their waist lines. And they think nothing of it.
While the largest portion of the tax revenue would go to alternative energy research, development and commercialization programs, some of the funds could be used to give folks incentives to buy electric cars while they're still a bit pricey, to prime the pump (but not the gas pump).
All this, of course would create jobs and put autoworkers back to work, not to mention get money and credit flowing again. And the best thing about this new tax program is the built-in performance incentive. People hate paying taxes. It's just human nature. So it would be mightily painful (at least psychologically), and that's good. They'd be pressuring their Senators and Representatives to bully the car companies (who owe us, big time, for the bail-out funds) to get the job done. The more money we raise in taxes, the faster alternative energy gets mainstreamed. The sooner we all are driving electric cars, the sooner the tax goes away and, hey ... the pain stops! Then we can all get back to our Mochas and Budweiser.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thinking Big in Small Times, Part 1
As the world watched, President Barack Obama spoke before the gathered U.S. Congress on Tuesday. Thankfully, he refused former President Clinton's public suggestion to paste on a cheerful attitude, and he did not preen like Clinton at the numerous standing ovations.
Instead, he took pages from a couple of former Republican presidents. Like Reagan, he focused attention past policy to where attention really belongs, which is people: He gathered a number of people together from all walks of life and, while they sat watching with First Lady Michelle, he told some of their stories: Of a bank exec who gave way his bonus of missions to his employees and former employees. Of a high school student who had the audacity to write to the members of the U.S. Congress about the pitiful conditions at her crumbling small-town school in South Carolina. He quoted her words, "We are not quitters." Like the first Roosevelt, he used the "bully pulpit" to hammer home the necessity to confront huge problems with realism — that is, admit that they are big and painful problems — but also recognize that implicit in those problems are opportunities for those willing to embrace monumental tasks with Mr. Obama's brand of audacious hope. He spoke seriously about his determination to act and did not waste words on either pollyanna prognostications or partisan accusations.
Republicans spent the week preceding the speech visiting radio and TV talk show hosts and commentators, sounding the old saw about "too much government," forgetting that the "government" is just us. "Of the people, by the people and for the people." They justified their complaints by claiming they did not want to saddle future generations with an unbearable burden of debt.
It is revealing that, even before the President's speech, when pundits were grumbling about Mr. Obama's glumness, the public's estimation of Obama's grasp of the situation and his job performance so far is astonishingly positive. Miraculously, the 60+ percent approval rating he held on Election day and Inauguration Day is holding.
Yesterday, Mr. Obama followed his speech with a prosposal for a federal budget in which he intends to follow through on his campaign promises (wouldn't that be a change!). Unlike the previous administration, Mr. Obama has included the cost of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq in the budget and proposes cuts that a broad group economists has recommended for years. He's rolling back the "trickle-down" tax-incentives program for the wealthy, a relic of the Reagan era, which has, instead, caused most wealth to "trickle up" at quite a fast clip, contributing to a widening gap between rich and poor. And he's called for regulation that would prevent the kind of brazen, profligate piracy that has passed for investment banking and mortgage lending in the last decade.
Audacious? Yes. Hopeful? That's putting it mildly. Yet, history is on Obama's side. At times of crisis, great leaders — who did not flinch from "impossible" tasks — have set in motion changes that enabled economic development and technological expansion. Lincoln (a Republican) build the first transcontinental railroad despite the financial and human price of our most tragically costly war ever, our own Civil War. At the height of WWII, the second Roosevelt, a Democrat, pushed through the G.I. Bill, despite the greatest national debt we'd ever run up, which gave a generation of returning soldiers college educations that put America first in the world, technologically. Mr. Obama has set his course unflinchingly (and God speed) because he must.
It would have been nice had the terrorists who run Wall Street and the mortgage industry not strapped the monetary equivalent of C4 explosive to the world economy. But Mr. Obama is right: If we the people do not risk acting now to secure renewable energy technologies, rein in health care costs, and make better and higher education available for the youth whose future we have mortgaged, than that generation will have precious little to thank us for when it inherit a debt that will be there anyway in the form of runaway social security and medicare entitlement burdens that, because of a still faltering economy and resulting low GDP. And he was right, therefore, also to call upon Congress to end a quarter century of "ignoring the elephant in the room" and begin to deal with those entitlements now.
More power to you Mr. Obama. Do not flinch or shrink from the task. Stay the course. Do not be intimidated by naysayers among Republicans or distracted by the pettiness of those within your own party who would waste your time and our money extracting a pound of flesh from your predecessor. If either camp has its way, we will sow wind and reap whirlwind.
Keep speaking directly to the folks who put you where you are. Continue to respect the electorate, speak straight with them, don't lie to them, don't coddle them, and don't underestimate them.
Don't give them the government they deserve. They got that with Clinton and Bush. Give them better. That would be a change. With any luck at all, they'll live up to it.
Instead, he took pages from a couple of former Republican presidents. Like Reagan, he focused attention past policy to where attention really belongs, which is people: He gathered a number of people together from all walks of life and, while they sat watching with First Lady Michelle, he told some of their stories: Of a bank exec who gave way his bonus of missions to his employees and former employees. Of a high school student who had the audacity to write to the members of the U.S. Congress about the pitiful conditions at her crumbling small-town school in South Carolina. He quoted her words, "We are not quitters." Like the first Roosevelt, he used the "bully pulpit" to hammer home the necessity to confront huge problems with realism — that is, admit that they are big and painful problems — but also recognize that implicit in those problems are opportunities for those willing to embrace monumental tasks with Mr. Obama's brand of audacious hope. He spoke seriously about his determination to act and did not waste words on either pollyanna prognostications or partisan accusations.
Republicans spent the week preceding the speech visiting radio and TV talk show hosts and commentators, sounding the old saw about "too much government," forgetting that the "government" is just us. "Of the people, by the people and for the people." They justified their complaints by claiming they did not want to saddle future generations with an unbearable burden of debt.
It is revealing that, even before the President's speech, when pundits were grumbling about Mr. Obama's glumness, the public's estimation of Obama's grasp of the situation and his job performance so far is astonishingly positive. Miraculously, the 60+ percent approval rating he held on Election day and Inauguration Day is holding.
Yesterday, Mr. Obama followed his speech with a prosposal for a federal budget in which he intends to follow through on his campaign promises (wouldn't that be a change!). Unlike the previous administration, Mr. Obama has included the cost of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq in the budget and proposes cuts that a broad group economists has recommended for years. He's rolling back the "trickle-down" tax-incentives program for the wealthy, a relic of the Reagan era, which has, instead, caused most wealth to "trickle up" at quite a fast clip, contributing to a widening gap between rich and poor. And he's called for regulation that would prevent the kind of brazen, profligate piracy that has passed for investment banking and mortgage lending in the last decade.
Audacious? Yes. Hopeful? That's putting it mildly. Yet, history is on Obama's side. At times of crisis, great leaders — who did not flinch from "impossible" tasks — have set in motion changes that enabled economic development and technological expansion. Lincoln (a Republican) build the first transcontinental railroad despite the financial and human price of our most tragically costly war ever, our own Civil War. At the height of WWII, the second Roosevelt, a Democrat, pushed through the G.I. Bill, despite the greatest national debt we'd ever run up, which gave a generation of returning soldiers college educations that put America first in the world, technologically. Mr. Obama has set his course unflinchingly (and God speed) because he must.
It would have been nice had the terrorists who run Wall Street and the mortgage industry not strapped the monetary equivalent of C4 explosive to the world economy. But Mr. Obama is right: If we the people do not risk acting now to secure renewable energy technologies, rein in health care costs, and make better and higher education available for the youth whose future we have mortgaged, than that generation will have precious little to thank us for when it inherit a debt that will be there anyway in the form of runaway social security and medicare entitlement burdens that, because of a still faltering economy and resulting low GDP. And he was right, therefore, also to call upon Congress to end a quarter century of "ignoring the elephant in the room" and begin to deal with those entitlements now.
More power to you Mr. Obama. Do not flinch or shrink from the task. Stay the course. Do not be intimidated by naysayers among Republicans or distracted by the pettiness of those within your own party who would waste your time and our money extracting a pound of flesh from your predecessor. If either camp has its way, we will sow wind and reap whirlwind.
Keep speaking directly to the folks who put you where you are. Continue to respect the electorate, speak straight with them, don't lie to them, don't coddle them, and don't underestimate them.
Don't give them the government they deserve. They got that with Clinton and Bush. Give them better. That would be a change. With any luck at all, they'll live up to it.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Holding Hope Hostage
Just when we've heard enough disturbing news to last all week, what with all the educated second-guessing going on about President Obama's stimulus bill, we read a report in the Chicago Tribune today that Ronald Burris didn't quite finish saying all that needed to be said to those who were vetting his appointment to Mr. Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Seems he "didn't have the opportunity" to tell them that he had spoken to the brother of recently removed and now former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich on several occasions about a "donation" he might want to give in consideration of that appointment. Burris' announcement raised howls of protest from pundits of all stripes ("He didn't have the opportunity???" they asked, in mock shock) and there was much bemused speculation about what if anything might happen now. Some cried for his removal while others sardonically suspected the thing might get swept under the rug, somehow, because Burris is black.
Saddest thing about it all, for me, was not the reports or the pundits prattle, but the "comments" posted by ordinary people in response to the news. Most assume Burris is just trying to head off what might have been an even more painful third-party revelation. Some are angry or just plain disgusted, but an even greater number are neither surprised nor particularly concerned. It is, after all, politics as usual. One writer summed up what many others suggested:
"Everybody lies, what's new here people?" wrote one Chicagoan. "Do you people even think that it's ever going to change? It's going to happen until the end of time. We're just the pawns and there's nothing we can do about it."
Mr. Burris has joined Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Bernard Madoff and spouse, the entire cadre of Wall Street bankers and sub-prime mortgage brokers, President Bush and friends, the Big Three automakers and by implication, just about everybody else who has access to money, power and privilege on the "These people are why I don't give a shit" list kept by every cynic.
I must admit, I can hardly blame them. Disappointing news is difficult to bear. Cynicism is a balm of sorts: Point to the long list of crooks that you are personally powerless to do anything about and say," What a crock! What can I do? And what difference would it make, anyway?" Smother your disappointment under a protective blanket of "Who cares?" Then go on with your life and look out for number one.
Of course, to act on that plan, you've first got to forget that the folks on your "shit" list got there because their hopes, like yours, gave way inevitably to disappointment. And in their pain, they gave way to cynicism.
Here's what I think. And I've said it before. We get the world we deserve. The rich, powerful and politically connected who feed like pigs on financial folly do so because they can count on just enough cynicism in the public's mind to deflect serious consequences. They know that we, who might be doing something to combat the greed and corruption are hoping, instead, only to greedily take a turn at the trough.
It's a sad irony that the apostle of "audacious hope" has arrived in Washington at a time when too many Americans seem ready to forget Inauguration day, because the "morning after" is turning out to be as bad as he warned it would be.
Mr. Obama had the courage to say it wouldn't be easy and that it would get worse before it got better. Mr. Biden had the good sense to admit that there's a chance that no matter what this administration does, its efforts could fail. The cynics had a field day with that one, of course. But they'd have been just as put out with pollyanna platitudes, so there's no pleasing them, it seems.
My prayer is that Mr. Obama himself can resist the cynical tide and maintain his hold on the hope that got him, against all odds, into the White House. My hope is that he can withstand the partisan pride on both sides of the aisle and continue to call all to bipartisan action. If he can't, then no one else will. I think he can. But he can't turn hope into history alone.
Hope that caves at the first blow is no hope at all. When you trade it in for cynicism, you add you own name to your "shit" list. You meet the enemy in the mirror each morning. You hold hope hostage.
We can dwell on Burris and Blago and Bush and bankers. We can waste a lot of time blaming (that is not to say that responsible parties shouldn't be brought to justice for wrongdoing). But right now, we would do well to simply to stand with the guy who we elected because he preached hope precisely when we needed to hear it.
An American people that can choose hope when things look hopeless will be a far greater balm than any stimulus bill.
Seems he "didn't have the opportunity" to tell them that he had spoken to the brother of recently removed and now former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich on several occasions about a "donation" he might want to give in consideration of that appointment. Burris' announcement raised howls of protest from pundits of all stripes ("He didn't have the opportunity???" they asked, in mock shock) and there was much bemused speculation about what if anything might happen now. Some cried for his removal while others sardonically suspected the thing might get swept under the rug, somehow, because Burris is black.
Saddest thing about it all, for me, was not the reports or the pundits prattle, but the "comments" posted by ordinary people in response to the news. Most assume Burris is just trying to head off what might have been an even more painful third-party revelation. Some are angry or just plain disgusted, but an even greater number are neither surprised nor particularly concerned. It is, after all, politics as usual. One writer summed up what many others suggested:
"Everybody lies, what's new here people?" wrote one Chicagoan. "Do you people even think that it's ever going to change? It's going to happen until the end of time. We're just the pawns and there's nothing we can do about it."
Mr. Burris has joined Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Bernard Madoff and spouse, the entire cadre of Wall Street bankers and sub-prime mortgage brokers, President Bush and friends, the Big Three automakers and by implication, just about everybody else who has access to money, power and privilege on the "These people are why I don't give a shit" list kept by every cynic.
I must admit, I can hardly blame them. Disappointing news is difficult to bear. Cynicism is a balm of sorts: Point to the long list of crooks that you are personally powerless to do anything about and say," What a crock! What can I do? And what difference would it make, anyway?" Smother your disappointment under a protective blanket of "Who cares?" Then go on with your life and look out for number one.
Of course, to act on that plan, you've first got to forget that the folks on your "shit" list got there because their hopes, like yours, gave way inevitably to disappointment. And in their pain, they gave way to cynicism.
Here's what I think. And I've said it before. We get the world we deserve. The rich, powerful and politically connected who feed like pigs on financial folly do so because they can count on just enough cynicism in the public's mind to deflect serious consequences. They know that we, who might be doing something to combat the greed and corruption are hoping, instead, only to greedily take a turn at the trough.
It's a sad irony that the apostle of "audacious hope" has arrived in Washington at a time when too many Americans seem ready to forget Inauguration day, because the "morning after" is turning out to be as bad as he warned it would be.
Mr. Obama had the courage to say it wouldn't be easy and that it would get worse before it got better. Mr. Biden had the good sense to admit that there's a chance that no matter what this administration does, its efforts could fail. The cynics had a field day with that one, of course. But they'd have been just as put out with pollyanna platitudes, so there's no pleasing them, it seems.
My prayer is that Mr. Obama himself can resist the cynical tide and maintain his hold on the hope that got him, against all odds, into the White House. My hope is that he can withstand the partisan pride on both sides of the aisle and continue to call all to bipartisan action. If he can't, then no one else will. I think he can. But he can't turn hope into history alone.
Hope that caves at the first blow is no hope at all. When you trade it in for cynicism, you add you own name to your "shit" list. You meet the enemy in the mirror each morning. You hold hope hostage.
We can dwell on Burris and Blago and Bush and bankers. We can waste a lot of time blaming (that is not to say that responsible parties shouldn't be brought to justice for wrongdoing). But right now, we would do well to simply to stand with the guy who we elected because he preached hope precisely when we needed to hear it.
An American people that can choose hope when things look hopeless will be a far greater balm than any stimulus bill.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Back Taxes, Big Bonuses, Bye-Bye Bipartisanship
I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the honeymoon is already over.
Contributing to the end-of-honeymoon chill were revelations about Obama appointees' lax tax performance. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama's choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services and the man tapped to take the lead in the president's promised health care initiative, withdrew his name on Tuesday this week. He was the third of four Obama Administration appointees to face uncovered tax shortfalls and the second to bow out. Republicans questioned whether those who don't pay their own taxes can be trusted to handle the tax money paid by others. You can't blame them for that.
Mr. Daschle's unpaid tax bill amounted to $128,000. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining but that's more than twice what I gross in a year. How does one "inadvertently" overlook that much money? (I wouldn't want to be Mr. Daschle's accountant this week.)
It would be understandable (not excusable, let me add) if someone in a lower-middle tax bracket, who has six kids, one of whom spent the year in a hospital, happened to "inadvertently" underpay a tax bill. But someone in Mr. Daschle's tax bracket ought to be paying his accountant to ensure he pays all he owes, and maybe some extra, particularly if he or she aspires to public service.
Then there was the bonus backlash. Mr. Obama mirrored public outrage at reports that financial institutions passed out huge pay packages and perks to those who helped perpetrate the catastrophic losses in world stock markets. In response to Obama's call to curtail compensation, Wall Street insiders — good Republican supply siders, no doubt — complained that if compensation is capped, then banks wouldn't be able to attract the best talent — conveniently ignoring the fact that the best talent got us into the mess in the first place. Administration efforts here seem doomed to failure. Wall Street has seen attempts to curtail excess pay in the past. These folks are nothing if not expert at designing pay packages that get around statutory limitations. Next to Mr. Daschle's tax lawyers, Wall Street execs are second to none at the art of the loophole.
Finally, there was the embattled stimulus bill. Faced with economic conditions that, some economists now speculate, may not respond to a stimulus bill of any kind, Mr. Obama has managed to float a bill in the House, but with no Republican help whatsoever. A Senate version was eked out with the votes of only three on the other side of the aisle.
Republicans complain loudly, now, that the stimulus plan won't work, without bigger tax cuts and less government spending (sound familiar?). They've accused Democrats of mortgaging our children's future, forgetting somehow that a Republican administration took out the first half of that mortgage, this past November, to bail out broke investment bankers and then mismanaged the bailout distribution, to boot.
Mr. Obama's pleas for bipartisan cooperation are mere formalities, now. House and Senate Democrats will soon conference in hopes of delivering a single bill to the Oval Office for signature by Mr. Obama's mid-February deadline. Mr. McCain, as echoes of his concession-speech promise of cooperation quickly fade, has taken up his new role of opposition leader as his troops battle to gut the bill of provisions that make them look "liberal" to the conservative base back home. In the end, they'll cast their nay votes.
Why? Because Mr. McCain and company, having placed their bets on a stimulus-plan failure, are settling back to callously watch the carnage as Main Street goes down with Wall Street. They fully expect to blame Obama for the failure they didn't vote for and then put one of their own in the White House in 2012.
Inside the Beltway, it's back to business as usual.
Contributing to the end-of-honeymoon chill were revelations about Obama appointees' lax tax performance. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama's choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services and the man tapped to take the lead in the president's promised health care initiative, withdrew his name on Tuesday this week. He was the third of four Obama Administration appointees to face uncovered tax shortfalls and the second to bow out. Republicans questioned whether those who don't pay their own taxes can be trusted to handle the tax money paid by others. You can't blame them for that.
Mr. Daschle's unpaid tax bill amounted to $128,000. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining but that's more than twice what I gross in a year. How does one "inadvertently" overlook that much money? (I wouldn't want to be Mr. Daschle's accountant this week.)
It would be understandable (not excusable, let me add) if someone in a lower-middle tax bracket, who has six kids, one of whom spent the year in a hospital, happened to "inadvertently" underpay a tax bill. But someone in Mr. Daschle's tax bracket ought to be paying his accountant to ensure he pays all he owes, and maybe some extra, particularly if he or she aspires to public service.
Then there was the bonus backlash. Mr. Obama mirrored public outrage at reports that financial institutions passed out huge pay packages and perks to those who helped perpetrate the catastrophic losses in world stock markets. In response to Obama's call to curtail compensation, Wall Street insiders — good Republican supply siders, no doubt — complained that if compensation is capped, then banks wouldn't be able to attract the best talent — conveniently ignoring the fact that the best talent got us into the mess in the first place. Administration efforts here seem doomed to failure. Wall Street has seen attempts to curtail excess pay in the past. These folks are nothing if not expert at designing pay packages that get around statutory limitations. Next to Mr. Daschle's tax lawyers, Wall Street execs are second to none at the art of the loophole.
Finally, there was the embattled stimulus bill. Faced with economic conditions that, some economists now speculate, may not respond to a stimulus bill of any kind, Mr. Obama has managed to float a bill in the House, but with no Republican help whatsoever. A Senate version was eked out with the votes of only three on the other side of the aisle.
Republicans complain loudly, now, that the stimulus plan won't work, without bigger tax cuts and less government spending (sound familiar?). They've accused Democrats of mortgaging our children's future, forgetting somehow that a Republican administration took out the first half of that mortgage, this past November, to bail out broke investment bankers and then mismanaged the bailout distribution, to boot.
Mr. Obama's pleas for bipartisan cooperation are mere formalities, now. House and Senate Democrats will soon conference in hopes of delivering a single bill to the Oval Office for signature by Mr. Obama's mid-February deadline. Mr. McCain, as echoes of his concession-speech promise of cooperation quickly fade, has taken up his new role of opposition leader as his troops battle to gut the bill of provisions that make them look "liberal" to the conservative base back home. In the end, they'll cast their nay votes.
Why? Because Mr. McCain and company, having placed their bets on a stimulus-plan failure, are settling back to callously watch the carnage as Main Street goes down with Wall Street. They fully expect to blame Obama for the failure they didn't vote for and then put one of their own in the White House in 2012.
Inside the Beltway, it's back to business as usual.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
With Respect to Respectablity
Mr. Patrick Quinn, the Illinois lieutenant governor, was sworn in as interim Illinois governor this week. For those who have been living under rocks, Mr. Quinn replaced Rod Blagojevich, whose impeachment trial ended with his removal from office by unanimous vote of the Illinois Senate.
Pat Quinn, by all accounts, is a rarity in politics. Quinn stays in Super 8 motels (he can show you his Super 8 Discount card) and eats at no-frills restaurants when he travels. He first achieved political notice as what one commentator called "a champion of the little guy," leading a successful petition drive to amend Illinois law by expanding the people's right to referendum and recall of Illinois officeholders (only to see it disallowed in court). He once walked 150 miles through Illinois to promote a health care initiative, and he has fought successfully to fund greater benefits for veterans of the armed forces and current military families. Definitely Main Street. He also has headed for years a group called the "Coalition for Political Honesty" (!) It should come as no surprise, then, that the Illinois political establishment, embarrassed by the arrest of Mr. Blagojevich and subsequent revelations of his expletive-peppered pay-to-play scheming and bizarre talk-show swan song, has seized with relief on the respectable Mr. Quinn. His quiet, humble resemblance to Gerald Ford (Quinn's own comparison), who stepped in to replace Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, is playing well in Springfield. Quinn declared, after reciting the oath of office, that he would set himself to the task of "fumigating" public life, to rid his state of corruption.
In the respectability sweepstakes, even the Republicans tried to get into the act this week, electing, after six ballots, Michael Steele, an African-American, to head the Republican National Committee. The field of contenders had narrowed, in the final ballot, to a race between Steele and a gentlemen who had recently resigned his "whites-only" club membership. Steele was one of two black men in the filed of five male candidates for the job. The man who had led the party during the Bush years dropped out after the third ballot.
Although Republicans are noisily proclaiming a "new day" for their party, one has to wonder if the election of Mr. Steele has a bit more in common with Mr. McCain's impulsive selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. But it's also possible that younger Republicans are as dismayed with the direction their party has gone in the last decade as young Democrats were with theirs. Just as Mr. Obama was not the first choice of the Democratic Old Guard, Mr. McCain was not the Grand Old Party's favorite son, either. The electorate sent both parties a message this time around. While the message may not be clear, but in fact is clearly mixed, the Old Guard — that group in each party that sees racism, misogyny, sexual exploitation and/or pay-to-play deals as forgivable sins in those who meet their political ends — has been given a vote of no confidence.
I'm all for an attempt at respectability. I'm frankly thrilled that Mr. Obama appears to be married not only in name, but in fact, and appears to be genuinely interested in maintaining a real rather than a sham family life. I applaud his call for the same kind of responsible behavior in others. I'm hopeful that the Obama presidency, on this subject at least, will stand in stark contrast to previous and (among Democrats, anyway) still-revered Democratic presidents (Jimmy Carter aside). I'd like to think we won't be treated to the spectacle of Mr. Obama lying under oath to the Senate and the nation about a sexual tryst after the example of Mr. Clinton or find that the press turned a blind eye to dalliance with the current "Marilyn Monroe" in Hollywood or a mobster's moll, as they did with the compulsive womanizer, John Kennedy.
As encouraging as these developments have been, I must admit to deep, deep skepticism about what goes on when the cameras aren't rolling. After all, for sake of its public respectability, the Roman Catholic church covered up priestly pedophilia for decades. Prominent evangelical pastors resign in disgrace after engaging in the very behavior against which they preach. Even those people who actively identify with movements devoted to right thinking and right living tend, it seems, to want respect without actually having to be respectable.
Certainly, the day when Americans willingly turn a blind eye to the character flaws of its cultural icons is far from over. On NPR, the day of the Blagojevich removal, callers to a talk show repeatedly defended Blagojevich, excusing his crimes because he had given them something they wanted.
Americans are quite hypocritical on the subject. We heard a lot, this week, about how Wall Street brokers shouldn't be taking those big bonuses when all around are losing their shirts. Mr. Obama, who staked himself out in opposition to rampant greed in his Inaugural Address, pointedly condemned the reported $18 million bonus Wall Street rewarded itself during the market's recent freefall. (When was the last time you heard an American president call anything a fellow American had done shameful?) Predictably, the NY Times reported that Obama's stock on Wall Street went way down, as irate stockbroker's attempted to justify the bonuses that they had "worked hard for." But few Americans would refuse that bonus if it came their way and they were pretty sure some talking head wouldn't announce it on the 5:00 o'clock news.
Americans — in Washington, on Wall Street and on Main Street — are obsessed with money, power, fame and sex. When being respectable means having to give up unrestricted access to any of those things, too many of us, from Bernard Madoff to Joe the Plumber, will gladly accept the appearance of respectability in place of the genuine article.
Unlike Mr. Quinn, Mr. Blagojevich is not a rarity. The latter said as much in his impassioned plea, delivered as his trial drew to a close. In a parting shot, he predicted that if most politicians lives were examined under the same microscope used on his, impeachment might be a commonplace.
Indeed.
Until we citizens are willing to frequent life's Super 8 motels, unaccompanied by people not our spouse, eschewing our entitlements to 15 minutes of fame and a winning lottery ticket, the Quinn's of the world will remain as rare in the electorate as they are among the elected, and the Blagojevich's of this world will continue to rule.
As they say: People get the leaders they deserve.
Pat Quinn, by all accounts, is a rarity in politics. Quinn stays in Super 8 motels (he can show you his Super 8 Discount card) and eats at no-frills restaurants when he travels. He first achieved political notice as what one commentator called "a champion of the little guy," leading a successful petition drive to amend Illinois law by expanding the people's right to referendum and recall of Illinois officeholders (only to see it disallowed in court). He once walked 150 miles through Illinois to promote a health care initiative, and he has fought successfully to fund greater benefits for veterans of the armed forces and current military families. Definitely Main Street. He also has headed for years a group called the "Coalition for Political Honesty" (!) It should come as no surprise, then, that the Illinois political establishment, embarrassed by the arrest of Mr. Blagojevich and subsequent revelations of his expletive-peppered pay-to-play scheming and bizarre talk-show swan song, has seized with relief on the respectable Mr. Quinn. His quiet, humble resemblance to Gerald Ford (Quinn's own comparison), who stepped in to replace Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, is playing well in Springfield. Quinn declared, after reciting the oath of office, that he would set himself to the task of "fumigating" public life, to rid his state of corruption.
In the respectability sweepstakes, even the Republicans tried to get into the act this week, electing, after six ballots, Michael Steele, an African-American, to head the Republican National Committee. The field of contenders had narrowed, in the final ballot, to a race between Steele and a gentlemen who had recently resigned his "whites-only" club membership. Steele was one of two black men in the filed of five male candidates for the job. The man who had led the party during the Bush years dropped out after the third ballot.
Although Republicans are noisily proclaiming a "new day" for their party, one has to wonder if the election of Mr. Steele has a bit more in common with Mr. McCain's impulsive selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. But it's also possible that younger Republicans are as dismayed with the direction their party has gone in the last decade as young Democrats were with theirs. Just as Mr. Obama was not the first choice of the Democratic Old Guard, Mr. McCain was not the Grand Old Party's favorite son, either. The electorate sent both parties a message this time around. While the message may not be clear, but in fact is clearly mixed, the Old Guard — that group in each party that sees racism, misogyny, sexual exploitation and/or pay-to-play deals as forgivable sins in those who meet their political ends — has been given a vote of no confidence.
I'm all for an attempt at respectability. I'm frankly thrilled that Mr. Obama appears to be married not only in name, but in fact, and appears to be genuinely interested in maintaining a real rather than a sham family life. I applaud his call for the same kind of responsible behavior in others. I'm hopeful that the Obama presidency, on this subject at least, will stand in stark contrast to previous and (among Democrats, anyway) still-revered Democratic presidents (Jimmy Carter aside). I'd like to think we won't be treated to the spectacle of Mr. Obama lying under oath to the Senate and the nation about a sexual tryst after the example of Mr. Clinton or find that the press turned a blind eye to dalliance with the current "Marilyn Monroe" in Hollywood or a mobster's moll, as they did with the compulsive womanizer, John Kennedy.
As encouraging as these developments have been, I must admit to deep, deep skepticism about what goes on when the cameras aren't rolling. After all, for sake of its public respectability, the Roman Catholic church covered up priestly pedophilia for decades. Prominent evangelical pastors resign in disgrace after engaging in the very behavior against which they preach. Even those people who actively identify with movements devoted to right thinking and right living tend, it seems, to want respect without actually having to be respectable.
Certainly, the day when Americans willingly turn a blind eye to the character flaws of its cultural icons is far from over. On NPR, the day of the Blagojevich removal, callers to a talk show repeatedly defended Blagojevich, excusing his crimes because he had given them something they wanted.
Americans are quite hypocritical on the subject. We heard a lot, this week, about how Wall Street brokers shouldn't be taking those big bonuses when all around are losing their shirts. Mr. Obama, who staked himself out in opposition to rampant greed in his Inaugural Address, pointedly condemned the reported $18 million bonus Wall Street rewarded itself during the market's recent freefall. (When was the last time you heard an American president call anything a fellow American had done shameful?) Predictably, the NY Times reported that Obama's stock on Wall Street went way down, as irate stockbroker's attempted to justify the bonuses that they had "worked hard for." But few Americans would refuse that bonus if it came their way and they were pretty sure some talking head wouldn't announce it on the 5:00 o'clock news.
Americans — in Washington, on Wall Street and on Main Street — are obsessed with money, power, fame and sex. When being respectable means having to give up unrestricted access to any of those things, too many of us, from Bernard Madoff to Joe the Plumber, will gladly accept the appearance of respectability in place of the genuine article.
Unlike Mr. Quinn, Mr. Blagojevich is not a rarity. The latter said as much in his impassioned plea, delivered as his trial drew to a close. In a parting shot, he predicted that if most politicians lives were examined under the same microscope used on his, impeachment might be a commonplace.
Indeed.
Until we citizens are willing to frequent life's Super 8 motels, unaccompanied by people not our spouse, eschewing our entitlements to 15 minutes of fame and a winning lottery ticket, the Quinn's of the world will remain as rare in the electorate as they are among the elected, and the Blagojevich's of this world will continue to rule.
As they say: People get the leaders they deserve.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Modest Proposal
Pundits are pawing over the details of the Obama Administration's economic stimulus plan as they are unearthed, looking for newsy tidbits.
Yesterday, for instance, Republicans dug up a small handful of what, to them, smelled like pork — money for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), for example. Apparently, for Republican lawmakers, art has its rewards as an investment that helps them preserve the bacon they bring home, but the artists themselves, it appears, aren't high on the list of those they want to keep off the unemployment rolls.
The pig sty aside, the Obama plan as a whole sounds OK to me. It's got short-term and long-term stimuli. I'd like it better if there were even more dollars for alternative energy in the mix, but it's a start. Certainly better than alt energy got the last few years.
But ... there is something missing. Something so obvious, I'm just baffled at the fact that no-one is talking about it. It would provide a significant economic stimulus, it would take a fairly big bite out of our global-warming and dependence-on-foreign-oil problems and, the best part, this program could be started tomorrow, and needn't add one cent to the real porker, our National Debt.
I have no idea, really, how many people spend their days working a computer and/or a telephone for a living, but I bet it's in the double-digit millions. A sizable majority of them work on PCs rather than mainframe computers, and most of those, these days, have, or could be issued, laptop computers. So, my proposal is simple: Mr. Obama should issue an executive order to employers: Send all of these laptop-users home and tell them to stay there.
I figure there are many millions of folks in this category, all capable of doing their jobs less than 50 ft from their bedrooms. What employee wouldn't spring for a high-speed Internet connection to reap that kind of windfall? And the smart employer could pick up the tab for it, because he/she is off the hook for a whole raft of expenses associated with such issues as long-term maternity leave, in-office child care and nursing rooms, and other accommodations they have to make (or soon will have to make) to maintain an office workforce. I bet there are thousands of employers who, for a well-dangled tax break, would be happy to comply. Eventually, companies with high percentages of stay-home workers could find smaller office spaces, as leases run out — downsizing the building rather than the workforce.
Yes, some people would take advantage of being at home, goofing off, etc. But hey, if the work falls off, employers could simply get someone else, selecting from the pool of 51 million job seekers experts say will be added to the unemployment rolls worldwide this year. There will soon be a large number of people, many of them grossly overqualified and desperate for work of any kind, standing in line for just about every job opening imaginable. I don't see goofing off as a serious problem for the foreseeable future, do you? It's much more likely that those stay-at-homers will be happy to work the extra hour they once devoted to the commute, increasing productivity without losing a second of their personal time, in order to ensure that they keep their jobs!
Imagine 20 million or more people NOT driving to work every day, NOT spending money on gas, NOT having accidents, NOT having to be late home to dinner. Imagine 20 million or more cars NOT on the road in rush hour. Figure the average commute is a half-hour, twice a day. Let's call it 25 miles, to be conservative. Let's figure 25 mpg as the average, between the gas guzzling pickups and SUVs, and the sedans and compacts, that sounds about right. So let's figure it's just one gallon of gas per day (very conservative). If 20 million people save just 1 gallon a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's more than 5 billion gallons a year. That's a lot of greenhouse gas NOT screwing up the ozone layer.
And at today's prices, (conservatively, $1.50 per gallon), that's $7.5 billion straight back into the pockets of taxpayers, (compensating them for the pay reductions and lack of bonuses this year, if they're lucky enough to stay employed) and it doesn't add one cent to the National Debt. And at $4.00 a gallon, a rate we'll no doubt be paying again very soon, the money put directly back into those taxpayers pockets balloons to $20 billion.
That's $20 billion going to the mortgage (to preclude foreclosures) the credit card (to buy down their debt), tuition (so their kids get those math/science degrees we say we need) and to help pay for hybrid or electric car they cannot, right now, afford to buy.
I think my figures are actually far too conservative. There is probably a much larger number of people who could work from home. And many of them use a whole lot more than one gallon of gas getting to work and back each day.
I suspect some Republicans won't like this idea, either. They'd think it was a worker's union plot or something. But in a day when you can reach the world, talk to anybody, face-to-face, and teleconference with a group of any size simply by logging in to a laptop, the fact that so many of us are compelled to drive to another location to do so is not only unnecessary but unproductive, disruptive, wasteful and bad for the environment, not to mention self-destructive and just plain stupid.
Yesterday, for instance, Republicans dug up a small handful of what, to them, smelled like pork — money for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), for example. Apparently, for Republican lawmakers, art has its rewards as an investment that helps them preserve the bacon they bring home, but the artists themselves, it appears, aren't high on the list of those they want to keep off the unemployment rolls.
The pig sty aside, the Obama plan as a whole sounds OK to me. It's got short-term and long-term stimuli. I'd like it better if there were even more dollars for alternative energy in the mix, but it's a start. Certainly better than alt energy got the last few years.
But ... there is something missing. Something so obvious, I'm just baffled at the fact that no-one is talking about it. It would provide a significant economic stimulus, it would take a fairly big bite out of our global-warming and dependence-on-foreign-oil problems and, the best part, this program could be started tomorrow, and needn't add one cent to the real porker, our National Debt.
I have no idea, really, how many people spend their days working a computer and/or a telephone for a living, but I bet it's in the double-digit millions. A sizable majority of them work on PCs rather than mainframe computers, and most of those, these days, have, or could be issued, laptop computers. So, my proposal is simple: Mr. Obama should issue an executive order to employers: Send all of these laptop-users home and tell them to stay there.
I figure there are many millions of folks in this category, all capable of doing their jobs less than 50 ft from their bedrooms. What employee wouldn't spring for a high-speed Internet connection to reap that kind of windfall? And the smart employer could pick up the tab for it, because he/she is off the hook for a whole raft of expenses associated with such issues as long-term maternity leave, in-office child care and nursing rooms, and other accommodations they have to make (or soon will have to make) to maintain an office workforce. I bet there are thousands of employers who, for a well-dangled tax break, would be happy to comply. Eventually, companies with high percentages of stay-home workers could find smaller office spaces, as leases run out — downsizing the building rather than the workforce.
Yes, some people would take advantage of being at home, goofing off, etc. But hey, if the work falls off, employers could simply get someone else, selecting from the pool of 51 million job seekers experts say will be added to the unemployment rolls worldwide this year. There will soon be a large number of people, many of them grossly overqualified and desperate for work of any kind, standing in line for just about every job opening imaginable. I don't see goofing off as a serious problem for the foreseeable future, do you? It's much more likely that those stay-at-homers will be happy to work the extra hour they once devoted to the commute, increasing productivity without losing a second of their personal time, in order to ensure that they keep their jobs!
Imagine 20 million or more people NOT driving to work every day, NOT spending money on gas, NOT having accidents, NOT having to be late home to dinner. Imagine 20 million or more cars NOT on the road in rush hour. Figure the average commute is a half-hour, twice a day. Let's call it 25 miles, to be conservative. Let's figure 25 mpg as the average, between the gas guzzling pickups and SUVs, and the sedans and compacts, that sounds about right. So let's figure it's just one gallon of gas per day (very conservative). If 20 million people save just 1 gallon a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's more than 5 billion gallons a year. That's a lot of greenhouse gas NOT screwing up the ozone layer.
And at today's prices, (conservatively, $1.50 per gallon), that's $7.5 billion straight back into the pockets of taxpayers, (compensating them for the pay reductions and lack of bonuses this year, if they're lucky enough to stay employed) and it doesn't add one cent to the National Debt. And at $4.00 a gallon, a rate we'll no doubt be paying again very soon, the money put directly back into those taxpayers pockets balloons to $20 billion.
That's $20 billion going to the mortgage (to preclude foreclosures) the credit card (to buy down their debt), tuition (so their kids get those math/science degrees we say we need) and to help pay for hybrid or electric car they cannot, right now, afford to buy.
I think my figures are actually far too conservative. There is probably a much larger number of people who could work from home. And many of them use a whole lot more than one gallon of gas getting to work and back each day.
I suspect some Republicans won't like this idea, either. They'd think it was a worker's union plot or something. But in a day when you can reach the world, talk to anybody, face-to-face, and teleconference with a group of any size simply by logging in to a laptop, the fact that so many of us are compelled to drive to another location to do so is not only unnecessary but unproductive, disruptive, wasteful and bad for the environment, not to mention self-destructive and just plain stupid.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tunneling Toward Peace in the Middle East
As the smoke and rhetoric clears from yet another armed conflict in the Middle East, Gazans weep for their lost and face a $1 billion humanitarian crisis as Israelis question their political leaders, in shock, about undeniably widespread civilian casualties. Thoughtful people, regardless of their allegiance, are asking what has been accomplished, and what can be learned.
From this conflict — one that has raged, in one form or another, over what three faiths consider their Holy Land — no lasting good has ever come. This latest bloodletting — months of rocket attacks by Hamas on civilian neighborhoods in southern Israel followed by a short, inevitable and bloody Israeli backlash, with the equally inevitable "collateral damage" — is no exception.
For Israel, whose right to defend itself is recognized by international law and not disputed here, the move has been costly on two fronts. Inside Gaza, Hamas has hardly accepted defeat. Instead, it has declared victory. Although that claim is ludicrous, it is, nonetheless, very unlikely that Hamas has been weakened sufficiently to prevent future rocket attacks. Rockets continued to enter Israeli airspace and randomly strike civilian settlements throughout the offensive and only stopped when Hamas joined the cease-fire. If Hamas rescinds the order, rockets will almost certainly fly again. Hamas will redig the tunnels through which it smuggles arms and aid. Outside Gaza, Israel forfeited the "public relations" battle on all fronts, losing face with foe and friend alike. Nothing works against one more than to be a bigger fellow with a bigger stick, going after an smaller offender — even when the latter deserves all he's about to get.
Make no mistake: Hamas had it coming. Even friends of Hamas, at least privately, have wondered why the democratically elected Hamas leadership authorized (or at least permitted) the rocket attacks. To the rational mind, they accomplished nothing but a seemingly useless provocation, literally forcing a centrist Israeli administration, during an election year when it is being challenged by right-wing hardliner, Benjamin Netanyahu, to put on a show of force in order to remain in power. But Hamas — powered by the bone-chilling, cold-bloodedly insane logic of the fanatical — appears to have wagered that lots of civilian casualties would somehow help its cause.
There is little doubt in my mind that Hamas used Gazan civilians, especially women and children, as shields. I have no doubt that rockets were fired from the courtyards of U.N. facilities, schools, and mosques. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamas itself was responsible for some of the civilian casualties, knowing that, in all the chaos, Israel would be blamed.
As I watched and listened to the news coverage, I recalled a day 40 years ago when I sat with a Palestinian student in a bistro near the inner city college we both attended. I'll never forget his face as he told me, quite calmly, that he would kill women and children to get what he wanted: His was a countenance that confidently enjoyed — was deeply satisfied by — the look of shock he had carved into mine. Nor did he specify whose children. No, I do not doubt for a moment that Hamas is capable of killing its own.
Unfortunately, this cold-blooded Hamas strategy has been brilliantly successful. Hoping to score campaign points with its populace by way of an election-year show of force, Israel's current governing coalition instead got branded with the "bully" label by the gathering crowd of international onlookers, most of whom rarely look below the surface drama. Israel's denial of press access and frustration of relief work for Gazan civilians — not to mention firing on U.N. facilities — not only aroused the predictable condemnations from Syria and Iran but also enraged the few Middle Easterners who try to maintain a middle ground. Egyptians turned on what they saw as their "do nothing" government and mourned for brothers and sisters in Gaza as Egypt's Mubarak refused to open its borders to displaced Gazans. Secular Arab regimes friendly to the West sometimes brutally interrupted dissent in their streets, further weakening their holds on power and playing into the hands of Muslim extremists. The Gazan suffering even prompted a stunning public denunciation from a high-ranking, always westward-leaning Saudi prince.
The press, now allowed in the Gaza Strip, has filled the air waves with the anguish of Gazans who once disdained Hamas but now have been radicalized. Israel's European allies publicly question the enormity of the response. Israel's own press finds it difficult to plead the party line. And that, surely, was Hamas' intention.
In its single-minded defense of the homeland granted to it in 1948 by the international body whose educational compounds Israeli tanks demolished two weeks ago, Israel has forgotten the lessons of its history: Israel's people and culture were nearly destroyed by another power with a big stick. The Palestinian people were displaced to make room for Israel and now live as refugees, some in Lebanese camps for 60 years, with accommodations little more inviting than those Jews died in during the Holocaust. Israel cannot afford the comparison.
Nor can Palestinians any longer sit idly by while their leaders, elected or otherwise, continue to smuggle weapons and permit missiles to be lobbed into Israeli neighborhoods. Can a Gazan actually be surprised that Israel would finally retaliate? Those who dream of a Palestinian state must come to realize that a terrorist state is one Israel would never permit. And the U.N. could not, and would not condone it. Worse, states built on terror survive on terror. Palestinians willing to trade the hope of statehood for government by terrorists will see a change only in the ethnic background of the oppressor who carries the nightstick and gun. Freedom cannot be won by compromising freedom.
The new Obama administration has appointed George Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator and veteran U.S. diplomat, to be the special envoy responsible for daily peace efforts in the Holy Land. Mitchell has credentials. He helped bring to a end the decades of bloodshed in Ireland. His selection has been praised from all quarters. Opinion is that if the job can be done, Mitchell can do it.
Although Mitchell has eloquently spoken of the possibilities for peace, based on his experience with nominally sectarian Irish unrest of a few hundred years duration, he faces the challenge of heading off a conflict the potential horror of which has roots in millennia of hate, the proportions of which are Biblical in every sense of the word.
Mitchell cannot do it alone. He cannot do it even with the aid of the U.N. and allies in international community. Not as long as the fires of hate are fanned by Middle Eastern hardliners on both sides.
Someone has to stop hating. Someone has to say, enough. Governments on both sides of the Gazan border have callously gambled with the future posterity of their citizens, in large part to prop up their questionable regimes and maintain a tenuous hold over the passions of their people. Those people would do well to cultivate a deep distrust of their leaders. The wise among them have got to seek tertium quid — only a radical third option can promise any fulfillment to the hopes held for peace on both sides of the Gazan border.
Peace does not, as too many have for so long mistakenly believed, involve the protection and security of borders, thinking that by doing so, they protect the inhabitants within those borders. Just the opposite is true. Those borders must be breached. Tunnels must again be dug ... but this time, between Gaza and Israel.
What might happen if ordinary Israelis clandestinely guided relief workers under the border to supply the needs of Gazans? What if Israeli doctors sneaked into Gaza to help Gazan physicians heal their wounded? What if Israel Defense Force reservists shed their uniforms to help rebuild the homes and U.N. compounds they so recently destroyed? What if ordinary Gazans stopped looking the other way when the neighborhood militia fired rockets or recruited "martyrs," and refused them entry to mosque, home and U.N. compound? What if both the Israeli and Gaza populace thought better of the votes they have cast in the past, and replaced hardliners with those raised up from among their own number who would rather give their own lives to wage peace than sacrifice a voter's life to wage war?
Against those who carry a stick too big to oppose, the only effective weapon is no weapon at all. It is, in fact, to act in accord with tenets of compassion and kindness that both Torah and Qu'ran command. It is to recognize that one's enemy is, all too often, little more than a political prisoner — a victim of subtle secular or sectarian oppression just like yourself, in need of a truer homeland.
From this conflict — one that has raged, in one form or another, over what three faiths consider their Holy Land — no lasting good has ever come. This latest bloodletting — months of rocket attacks by Hamas on civilian neighborhoods in southern Israel followed by a short, inevitable and bloody Israeli backlash, with the equally inevitable "collateral damage" — is no exception.
For Israel, whose right to defend itself is recognized by international law and not disputed here, the move has been costly on two fronts. Inside Gaza, Hamas has hardly accepted defeat. Instead, it has declared victory. Although that claim is ludicrous, it is, nonetheless, very unlikely that Hamas has been weakened sufficiently to prevent future rocket attacks. Rockets continued to enter Israeli airspace and randomly strike civilian settlements throughout the offensive and only stopped when Hamas joined the cease-fire. If Hamas rescinds the order, rockets will almost certainly fly again. Hamas will redig the tunnels through which it smuggles arms and aid. Outside Gaza, Israel forfeited the "public relations" battle on all fronts, losing face with foe and friend alike. Nothing works against one more than to be a bigger fellow with a bigger stick, going after an smaller offender — even when the latter deserves all he's about to get.
Make no mistake: Hamas had it coming. Even friends of Hamas, at least privately, have wondered why the democratically elected Hamas leadership authorized (or at least permitted) the rocket attacks. To the rational mind, they accomplished nothing but a seemingly useless provocation, literally forcing a centrist Israeli administration, during an election year when it is being challenged by right-wing hardliner, Benjamin Netanyahu, to put on a show of force in order to remain in power. But Hamas — powered by the bone-chilling, cold-bloodedly insane logic of the fanatical — appears to have wagered that lots of civilian casualties would somehow help its cause.
There is little doubt in my mind that Hamas used Gazan civilians, especially women and children, as shields. I have no doubt that rockets were fired from the courtyards of U.N. facilities, schools, and mosques. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamas itself was responsible for some of the civilian casualties, knowing that, in all the chaos, Israel would be blamed.
As I watched and listened to the news coverage, I recalled a day 40 years ago when I sat with a Palestinian student in a bistro near the inner city college we both attended. I'll never forget his face as he told me, quite calmly, that he would kill women and children to get what he wanted: His was a countenance that confidently enjoyed — was deeply satisfied by — the look of shock he had carved into mine. Nor did he specify whose children. No, I do not doubt for a moment that Hamas is capable of killing its own.
Unfortunately, this cold-blooded Hamas strategy has been brilliantly successful. Hoping to score campaign points with its populace by way of an election-year show of force, Israel's current governing coalition instead got branded with the "bully" label by the gathering crowd of international onlookers, most of whom rarely look below the surface drama. Israel's denial of press access and frustration of relief work for Gazan civilians — not to mention firing on U.N. facilities — not only aroused the predictable condemnations from Syria and Iran but also enraged the few Middle Easterners who try to maintain a middle ground. Egyptians turned on what they saw as their "do nothing" government and mourned for brothers and sisters in Gaza as Egypt's Mubarak refused to open its borders to displaced Gazans. Secular Arab regimes friendly to the West sometimes brutally interrupted dissent in their streets, further weakening their holds on power and playing into the hands of Muslim extremists. The Gazan suffering even prompted a stunning public denunciation from a high-ranking, always westward-leaning Saudi prince.
The press, now allowed in the Gaza Strip, has filled the air waves with the anguish of Gazans who once disdained Hamas but now have been radicalized. Israel's European allies publicly question the enormity of the response. Israel's own press finds it difficult to plead the party line. And that, surely, was Hamas' intention.
In its single-minded defense of the homeland granted to it in 1948 by the international body whose educational compounds Israeli tanks demolished two weeks ago, Israel has forgotten the lessons of its history: Israel's people and culture were nearly destroyed by another power with a big stick. The Palestinian people were displaced to make room for Israel and now live as refugees, some in Lebanese camps for 60 years, with accommodations little more inviting than those Jews died in during the Holocaust. Israel cannot afford the comparison.
Nor can Palestinians any longer sit idly by while their leaders, elected or otherwise, continue to smuggle weapons and permit missiles to be lobbed into Israeli neighborhoods. Can a Gazan actually be surprised that Israel would finally retaliate? Those who dream of a Palestinian state must come to realize that a terrorist state is one Israel would never permit. And the U.N. could not, and would not condone it. Worse, states built on terror survive on terror. Palestinians willing to trade the hope of statehood for government by terrorists will see a change only in the ethnic background of the oppressor who carries the nightstick and gun. Freedom cannot be won by compromising freedom.
The new Obama administration has appointed George Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator and veteran U.S. diplomat, to be the special envoy responsible for daily peace efforts in the Holy Land. Mitchell has credentials. He helped bring to a end the decades of bloodshed in Ireland. His selection has been praised from all quarters. Opinion is that if the job can be done, Mitchell can do it.
Although Mitchell has eloquently spoken of the possibilities for peace, based on his experience with nominally sectarian Irish unrest of a few hundred years duration, he faces the challenge of heading off a conflict the potential horror of which has roots in millennia of hate, the proportions of which are Biblical in every sense of the word.
Mitchell cannot do it alone. He cannot do it even with the aid of the U.N. and allies in international community. Not as long as the fires of hate are fanned by Middle Eastern hardliners on both sides.
Someone has to stop hating. Someone has to say, enough. Governments on both sides of the Gazan border have callously gambled with the future posterity of their citizens, in large part to prop up their questionable regimes and maintain a tenuous hold over the passions of their people. Those people would do well to cultivate a deep distrust of their leaders. The wise among them have got to seek tertium quid — only a radical third option can promise any fulfillment to the hopes held for peace on both sides of the Gazan border.
Peace does not, as too many have for so long mistakenly believed, involve the protection and security of borders, thinking that by doing so, they protect the inhabitants within those borders. Just the opposite is true. Those borders must be breached. Tunnels must again be dug ... but this time, between Gaza and Israel.
What might happen if ordinary Israelis clandestinely guided relief workers under the border to supply the needs of Gazans? What if Israeli doctors sneaked into Gaza to help Gazan physicians heal their wounded? What if Israel Defense Force reservists shed their uniforms to help rebuild the homes and U.N. compounds they so recently destroyed? What if ordinary Gazans stopped looking the other way when the neighborhood militia fired rockets or recruited "martyrs," and refused them entry to mosque, home and U.N. compound? What if both the Israeli and Gaza populace thought better of the votes they have cast in the past, and replaced hardliners with those raised up from among their own number who would rather give their own lives to wage peace than sacrifice a voter's life to wage war?
Against those who carry a stick too big to oppose, the only effective weapon is no weapon at all. It is, in fact, to act in accord with tenets of compassion and kindness that both Torah and Qu'ran command. It is to recognize that one's enemy is, all too often, little more than a political prisoner — a victim of subtle secular or sectarian oppression just like yourself, in need of a truer homeland.
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