A recent article in this past Sunday's New York Times captured my interest and reminded me about something I rarely own up to: I am a contrarian.
The article profiled Freeman Dyson (great first name), the most celebrated of today's small group of scientists who do not accept the current dogma on Global Warming. Dyson is not, as might be imagined, one to pooh-pooh concern for the environment. On the contrary, he is passionately dedicated to responsible use of the environment. Nor is he a crackpot. He is, in fact, one of the most accomplished scientists of his generation. He is, however, inclined to pooh-pooh science used inappropriately, even in support of a good cause.
Global Warming could be all that those who postulate its presence claim it to be. It could be entirely our fault (the result of excessive CO2 in the upper atmosphere, the result, in turn, of our excessive use of hydrocarbon fuels) and the greatest threat yet to our continued existence on this planet.
Alternatively it could be a significant threat that will surely change the way we live and upset the current environmental balance, thus significantly altering things — all things — leaving nothing as we know it now. Disruptive, to be sure, but not catastrophically destructive.
Or it could be a primarily natural occurrence — a continuation of a cycle of warming and cooling that the earth has experienced for far longer than we've had the ability to record history, one which we contribute to by burning hydrocarbons, but one that would happen in any case, no matter what we did.
Or, what we perceive as global warming could be a temporary, and relatively benign, wobble in a much longer warming/cooling cycle, a wobble that poses no serious or imminent threat.
Reasonable cases can be made for each position. Cases that account for the data we possess. (Keep in mind that the scientific claims on which global warming hinges involve a one degree difference in the average annual temperature recorded on Earth.)
Dyson pooh-poohs the idea that we can confidently extrapolate from meteorological evidence recorded over a tiny slice of geological time (one source says since 1847) sufficient evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt any of these theories. He believes that much of the dire claims and warnings Al Gore recorded in his celebrated film are, for all he knows, just so much pooh-pooh. Gore could be right but he could just as easily be wrong. Dyson's basic contention (one I share) is that we just don't know. We simply don't have sufficient data.
Dyson performs the entirely necessary if disruptive service of the contrarian, loudly proclaiming, as a means of pursuing much needed balance, some heresy in the face of the rising tide of scientific certitude.
Personally, I have no problem with people believing that continuing to drive their gas-guzzling cars and denude the world of its forests will kill them. Fear is a pretty strong motivation. So if that's what it takes to motivate people to change, then so be it. We need to stop doing both (and a lot of other foolish things), and the sooner the better, for lots of good reasons (the fact that pollution is demonstrably bad for your health and is, therefore, killing you, for one) that have nothing to do with global warming.
But I don't think people need to believe a lie to do the right thing. And peddling a half-truth or a suspected truth as absolute truth may get things done in the short term, but I think that history testifies loud and clear that a lie, even in support of truth, ultimately tarnishes the truth. Truth that is not entirely true — that is mere supposition or assumption masquerading as truth, is often the worst kind of lie.
More power, then, to contrarians everywhere, who dare to question the received wisdom, sometimes at great cost, when "experts" get so sure of themselves that they no longer ask the questions that got them where they are.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Absurdity of the "Quality of Life" Debate
This article from BBC News, in which a medical ethicist weighs in on a U.K "right to life" case under adjudication in the British courts, reminds us of the essential futility of making decisions in such cases based on so-called "quality of life."
The case concerns a small child afflicted with a terminal disease. The doctors were suing for the right to discontinue treatment and withdraw life support because they believed the child is subject to "intolerable suffering." The father, a Muslim, believes that the right to take a life belongs to God, not humankind, and the mother contends that, in any case, the child's life is not without its compensatory pleasures. The court, for the moment, has sided with the parents. But the case, whichever way it ultimately falls out, will further reinforce a legal precedent that is dangerous, misguided and patently immoral.
The crux of the issue is the impossibility of adequately defining life's quality. In an age when the requirements of the simple business contract can be argued in court for decades, the very idea that a satisfactory legal definition for what constitutes "quality of life" could ever be forged is absurd. The medical ethicist in this case admits as much when he says (italics mine):
The problem with that, of course, is that I have experienced what I judged (at the time) to be intolerable suffering. And I know many others who have as well. By this man's definition, people afflicted with chronic depression, for example, could tell us at a point of pain, that we need to help him/her end that painful life, and we'd be bound to do it. (That, of course, is the position of the so-called "Right to Die" lobby.) But of course, the world is full of people who are glad that they didn't drive off that cliff, take those pills, pull the trigger or otherwise initiate the end of their own life but instead were prevented form doing so by caring family and/or friends or, on their own, grasped hold of their will to live and let it pull them out of intolerable suffering.
We are no better judges of what's best for us when we're in pain than anyone else would be. And this line of argument has no bearing anyway on the rights of those, both born and unborn, who cannot yet express themselves.
"Quality of life" is inherently one of the slipperiest of ethical slippery slopes, and one down which a society increasingly divorced from God or absolutes of any kind is doomed to go. The medical ethicist in this article, in fact, recognizes the vast, uncrossable gulf between the doctor/scientist, who only deals with what he can see and the parent, particularly the religious parent, who taps into what cannot be seen. He even admits that no one can fault the parents in question:
The case concerns a small child afflicted with a terminal disease. The doctors were suing for the right to discontinue treatment and withdraw life support because they believed the child is subject to "intolerable suffering." The father, a Muslim, believes that the right to take a life belongs to God, not humankind, and the mother contends that, in any case, the child's life is not without its compensatory pleasures. The court, for the moment, has sided with the parents. But the case, whichever way it ultimately falls out, will further reinforce a legal precedent that is dangerous, misguided and patently immoral.
The crux of the issue is the impossibility of adequately defining life's quality. In an age when the requirements of the simple business contract can be argued in court for decades, the very idea that a satisfactory legal definition for what constitutes "quality of life" could ever be forged is absurd. The medical ethicist in this case admits as much when he says (italics mine):
Intolerable suffering is not an objective criterion. Suffering, like pleasure, is a purely subjective experience and there exists no scientific instrument that shows exactly how much an individual is suffering.In that case, how is it, then, that we continue to pursue such a definition? In his very next sentence, the ethicist finds what he thinks is a partial answer, noting that the only way to know for sure whether a person's suffering is "intolerable" is to ask him/her, which, in the current case, is not possible.
The problem with that, of course, is that I have experienced what I judged (at the time) to be intolerable suffering. And I know many others who have as well. By this man's definition, people afflicted with chronic depression, for example, could tell us at a point of pain, that we need to help him/her end that painful life, and we'd be bound to do it. (That, of course, is the position of the so-called "Right to Die" lobby.) But of course, the world is full of people who are glad that they didn't drive off that cliff, take those pills, pull the trigger or otherwise initiate the end of their own life but instead were prevented form doing so by caring family and/or friends or, on their own, grasped hold of their will to live and let it pull them out of intolerable suffering.
We are no better judges of what's best for us when we're in pain than anyone else would be. And this line of argument has no bearing anyway on the rights of those, both born and unborn, who cannot yet express themselves.
"Quality of life" is inherently one of the slipperiest of ethical slippery slopes, and one down which a society increasingly divorced from God or absolutes of any kind is doomed to go. The medical ethicist in this article, in fact, recognizes the vast, uncrossable gulf between the doctor/scientist, who only deals with what he can see and the parent, particularly the religious parent, who taps into what cannot be seen. He even admits that no one can fault the parents in question:
For the parents, these pleasures are sufficient to constitute a worthwhile life. Based on these beliefs, their decision to fight for their son's ongoing treatment is understandable. Indeed, we would be deeply concerned if anyone with these beliefs willingly allowed their child to die.
Indeed. But then he goes on to make this astonishing statement:
Although commentators have expressed much sympathy for the parents, they have generally overlooked the moral challenges for the medical team. In the doctor's eyes, by continuing to treat Baby MB with painful and futile measures, they are treating a vulnerable child against his best interests and violating a basic tenet of medical practice: first, do no harm Ironically, in these spacial circumstances, it is keeping the child alive that constitutes the harm.
Really!??! Since the greatest harm they could do (particularly from the point of view of the scientist who holds no belief in an afterlife) is to end its existence, it is arguably the lesser evil to treat him. Sorry, that seems to me to be pretty simple. In fact, it is foundational to every legal system that those who end the life of an innocent, and the act was premeditated, have committed murder. But our ethicist persists:
The child's neurologist, Dr S, said: "I have been feeling that what I have been doing as a doctor has been wrong for many months, which is a very difficult position for me to be in." The wrongness lies not only in acting against his conscience (which is distressing enough), but in being complicit in a child's profound and avoidable suffering. It is no surprise that some of the doctors have expressed a reluctance to carry on treating Baby MB if the ruling goes against them — which it now has.
Well, there you have it: This is a case of the medical community "feeling" like its in a "difficult" position and therefore, insisting on its right to relief from its own suffering. And, he suggests, the doctors are not sure they're willing to comply with the court's judgment, despite the fact that the court has ruled against them in accordance with the "quality of life" criteria they claim to live by.
If today's medical ethicists have their way, the world will eventually be robbed of the greatness, even the genius, that is wrought, in part, by people who fight intolerable suffering and handicap and survive to contribute much to the world's more fortunate and less pain stricken. What would the world be without a Steven Hawking? Or, to turn it around, a Mother Theresa, who believed that loving and comforting and valuing those in pain made more sense than to kill them. Who in fact, gave up what could have been a nice life like yours or mine to devote herself to those in intolerable pain?
The answer is, it would be a world in which the weakest, smallest and most vulnerable would be done away with by the powerful who, as a consequence of their own weakness, smallness and vulnerability, would presume to deteremine another's ultimate value.
Hasn't the world had enough of that already?
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Watching Watchmen
"Who is watching the Watchmen?"
The answer this weekend is lots of people. A much anticipated film adaptation of this now legendary graphic novel premiered in thousands of theaters Friday. Hotly debated in the entertainment press even before the first trailers appeared, the film was declared a sure failure by purists (called fanboys), disowned by its author and doubted by critics who consider the novel's dense, flashback-laden, multilayered story-within-a-story structure and fantastic imagery unfilmable. Indeed, the film's director, Zack Taylor, had been preceded by many who attempted then abandoned Watchmen film projects.
An unashamed fanboy himself, Taylor spent much time during the film's post-production period explaining and defending his vision of the book as film, reassuring fans that he would be faithful to the original. People went to the theater either in fearful anticipation, hoping for the best, or out of morbid curiosity, unwilling to pass up the chance to discuss a good train wreck over a latte.
How I came to be among the legion of Watchmen watchers Friday night and write this review deserves some explanation. Let me first say that I come late to the party. Until this past Christmas, I had never heard of Watchmen and had only the sketchiest notion of what a graphic novel was (a glorified comic book, right?). But I had determined to get my younger son, who requested only video games for gifts this year, at least one book. At the local book store, the yellow cover and its blood-spattered "happy face" badge caught my eye, and I just had to look. I didn't buy it right then, but did do some research. Turns out I had had in my hands what more than one reviewer called "the most celebrated graphic novel of all time," one that no less than Time magazine had named to its list of 100 Greatest Novels written in the past century. Well. So ... I took a chance.
Written by semi-reclusive Alan Moore, a self-described anarchist and comic book industry demi-god, Watchmen is considered his and that industry's masterpiece. In it, Moore, a Briton, creates a parallel universe version of the U.S. in 1985, in which Richard Nixon was not dethroned by Watergate, we won the Vietnam War, the comic book heroes have character flaws of the sort usually reported in supermarket tabloids, the still-raging Cold War is threatening to get nuclear hot, and a government experiment gone wrong has created a neon-blue superhuman who sees the future and could save the world or destroy it.
Moore envisions America gone mad for crime, sex and drugs after the second generation of a vigilante crime-fighting group formed in the 1940s to clean up America is forced to disband in the 1970s. His unmasked and decaped crew includes the Nite Owl (who still visits his underground lair in an abandoned subway tunnel, where his hovercraft and armored hero suit gather dust; Silk Specter (the daughter of the 1940's original); the embittered Comedian, who embarks on a second career doing government dirty work; and the regal, aloof Ozymandias, reputedly the world's smartest man and one of its richest, as well, having written a tell-all book and reaped the rewards of merchandising his former identity. As the story opens, the sinister Rorshach, an outcast, even among his fellow hero has-beens, and a suspected psychotic, investigates the Comedian's murder. From there, Moore's ingeniously conceived dark plot and complex, chilling characterizations coupled with famed illustrator Dave Gibbons' no-pen-stroke-wasted illustrations draw you into a can't-put-it-down encounter with a creative imagination way ahead of its time. Sometimes cynical, other times sympathetic, Moore's enigmatic commentary on the human condition has earned its high place in the pantheon of popular literature. He asks the question with which I began this review, and leaves us to comtemplate its implications.
So far, however, this is a book review. And I am among those who, having read the book first, rarely think the movie version compares well. But director Taylor's effort proved to be an admirable exception, despite some probably inevitable shortcomings. Visually, the film is startling and stunningly faithful to Gibbon's vision. Gibbon, in fact, was on hand to help Taylor and a small army of CG technicians recreate Moore's dark world and his masked characters with the kind of obsessive faithfulness to detail that was simply not available to film makers of previous generations. And the script writers managed to include in their screenplay much of the story's interwoven fabric, by deftly rearranging and carefully abbreviating lengthier flashbacks and dialogue taken from the book. Nevertheless, several of the book's more inventive devices are missing. The saddest omission is that of a parallel terror tale involving a doomed pirate that illuminates Moore's main narrative. (Ironically, its told in a comic book read by a bit character who haunts a local newstand.) Despite a number of missing elements, the movie is long by Hollywood standards (2 hrs, 43 min), but as I told my son on the way home in the car, I'd have sat through four hours to get more of the book on film.
That said, the film is faithful, at least in spirit, to the story original and, fanboy critic protestations notwithstanding, it delivers. It made me laugh, recoil in horror and relate in all the right places, and think about bigger things, as Moore intended. And it moved me to tears twice — something the book did not do. Taylor's excision of the "aliens" element at the end (can't say more without a spoiler alert) is, in my opinion, an improvement not a problem. Whether its a winner at the box office or not (early returns favor the former), it'll certainly collect my $26.95 for the deluxe two-disc boxed set when it comes out on DVD.
Bottomline? I suspect that Watchmen will narrowly miss the cut as great art when my son's son's kids look back. And its dark vision, violence and nudity (the movie is rated "R") will put some people off. Let me also make clear that I do not necessarily agree with Moore's cataclysmic vision of life on earth nor do I subscribe to the remedy the story's unlikely hero/villian ultimately implements for its troubles. (In the ironic final scene, Moore suggests his own ambivalence.) But the book and the film are an important window into the philosophical universe inhabited by this generation — a generation that has confronted, recoiled from and begun to accept its shadow side earlier than most, yet still believes that truth — even dark truth — is worth fighting for and a dying world of broken people is worth saving.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thinking Big in Small Times, Part 2
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.
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.
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.
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