Dialogue

We haven't written in awhile, but feel it's appropriate to begin today, three days after the brutal killings and assaults in Tucson, Arizona.  As the link in the caption alludes, there is now much discussion and loud debate (only in America can we have loud debates about loud political debates) over the climate of our political culture.  Almost immediately after it was reported that a moderate Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was the target of the shooting (and indeed was brutally shot in the left side of her head), the TV, radio, and internet content providers instantly went to their respective "airwaves" and began alleging that the murders and assaults were the result of violent language in today's political climate.  One "target" of the commentator's rage is Sarah Palin, who last summer posted a map of America with various Congressional districts covered in "crosshairs," urging her followers to "target" those districts and vote out the incumbent Congressional representative, replacing them with more conservative followers of Palin.  Giffords was one of those districts.

However, it is not a straight line from violent political discourse to a deranged gunman shooting at a Congresswoman and killing a federal judge.  While it appears Congresswoman Giffords was the target of the shooting, there are many other variables to the motive of this crime, including the possibility the young man was insane.  Nonetheless, this crime is a vivid reminder of theories of criminal behavior that we have forgotten in this "lock 'em up and throw away the key" era: society has a huge role to play in crime.  How we shape our children, address mental health issues, regulate instruments of violence (guns), poverty, education, greed and wealth.  Whether it's an Enron executive inflating stock value or this young man who shot at a crowd of people on a Saturday morning, our society shaped and informed those acts.

Unfortunately, ideology and violence are a potent mix.  The reason the picture with this blog is of a Northern spotted owl is because it is merely one example of violence and ideology.  In the 1990s the Pacific Northwest was split apart by widely divided sides on how our federal and state forests were managed.  The Northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species under the Federal Endangered Species Act, and violence broke out in the woods, federal offices, and in state legislatures.  A colleague of mine had an owl nailed to his door.  So-called eco-saboteurs reigned terror upon federal offices, logging companies, and even a research facility at the University of Washington.  These same "eco-saboteurs" later testified that they had large caches of automatic weapons and had trained on how to kill corporate executives.  Loggers revved up chainsaws, threatening to cut down trees which held tree-sitters (and in Humboldt County, California, a tree was felled with a tree sitter in it).  These are violent acts in the name of "righteousness" and ideology.

Those of us who sought dialogue were laughed at for not being "pure."  Even attempts by President Clinton to find compromise, where portions of forests could be sustainably harvested and other areas protected, was ripped and tattered by the vastly opposing sides.

Until, until we are ready as a society to reflect on our own, individual reactions to ideologies we don't agree with, we will not find "reasoned" discourse.  While it does take a village to raise children, to change how we talk about heated issues will take each of us to quiet down.  Then to turn to the person next to us, summon courage, and ask them to quiet down.  To tell that person you will listen, but only if they talk, not yell or threaten.  Perhaps this will never happen.   And more deranged people like the Tucson shooter, or the Unabomber, or Peter Young (an animal "rights" advocate who encourages violence), or the man who murdered the abortion doctor in Kansas, will continue to feed off of our collective anger.  It's up to each of us, individually right now to not point fingers at anyone else but ourselves if we want this cacophony of anger to stop.

Grumpy and Insecure Voters

Prior to his concession speech last Friday, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels stated the reason he thought he was losing was because Seattle voters were grumpy and insecure. Since his concession, there have been numerous articles analyzing what went wrong during Nickels eight years. Most commentators have been looking for Big Themes, such as Nickels intimidated and bullied too many people, he didn't know how to manage an increasingly complex city, or this blue collar boy didn't know how to manage a Microsoft suburb. I tend to think the reasons are far more complicated that a Grand Theory, but rather are a conglomeration of all those little annoying things that build up in you.

An accurate assessment of Mayor Nickels governing style goes something like this: he cobbled together an odd assortment of allies: environmentalists, developers, unions. Each feeding off each other. Developers deftly learned the language of environmentalists, talking about increasing densities in the neighborhoods and downtown as a way of mitigating suburban sprawl, an anathema to urbanista enviros. And the unions saw jobs in any sort of development. So, Mayor Nickels rode this coalition through the bling years, giving developers anything they asked for: tearing down ugly freeways, cute, European looking trolly cars slowly going from downtown to new development only two miles away, and permission to build cookie-cutter townhouses without adequate parking making Seattle's once unique neighborhoods homogenous collections of ugly and cheap condos.

Through all of this the Mayor rammed through revenue generators: photos at intersections intended to catch red light running cars, parking meters in neighborhood shopping areas (replacing free parking), fees on plastic and paper bags at grocery stores. And he arbitrarily closed neighborhood streets for "walking days," blithely towing cars that remained parked and telling people anxious on how to get to work to "chill." He reduced traffic lanes with street diets, forgot to plow the streets during snowstorms but then gave himself a "B," for his management. Figuring out garbage became stressful and he empowered garbagemen to riffle through your cans to decide whether you got a ticket for forgetting to compost the banana peel. But big business and landlords became exempt from all the rules. Travel to and from downtown became laborious. Seattle employees became arrogant. And the daily lives of everyone got slightly more difficult every day.

While governing can be sexy if you get to ponder all the big questions, it's really the little things that build up in people's minds. They remember the day they got a parking ticket in an area that was once free, or a city employee hung up on them, or when the Mayor tells everyone to ride bikes but says he can't because he has a security detail or when his park department decided to ban beach fires because of bogus environmental reasons. It's the slights that add up. And finally tumbled out in a grumpy vote.

Of course, now the pundits are wondering, like the morning after a drinking binge, what did we do? We now have two political newbees running for office. Hopefully they spend a little bit of time thinking just how they will manage the little things. Will they rein in the city's Department of Transportation that seems to think a "listening" session is merely a show and tell then cram a decision down citizen's throats? Will they figure out how to stop powerful stakeholders from controlling decisions at City Hall? Will they stop trying to figure out how to ding people for revenue at every moment? Will they find balance between government intervention and government intrusion?

It's a tough job. Probably the toughest in electoral politics. It's a balance between policy making and managing, unique in management structure. In the end, Mayor Nickels showed some of his true colors, gracious and magnanimous to his opponents, apologetic for the snowplows (again). But did he really understand that part of the tsunami that swept him out of office had to do with so many little things?

Earmarks for Exclusive Clubs

The Rainier Club in Seattle, Washington, is a private, exclusive club. Up until the mid-1980s it's members were only male. There is still only one woman's bathroom. On the other hand it has one of the best private collections of Edward Curtis's amazing photographs of Native North Americans (displayed on the stairwell leading to the one woman's bathroom. Curtis exchanged photos for a room). John Muir and Gifford Pinchot are among the historical figures known to have stayed in the Club.

But for the past thirty years it has mainly been a base of power in Seattle. Political fund raisers have been held there, law firm dinners, and banking deals drawn up in it's men's grill.

Now, apparently, it needs some remodeling. To the tune of $500,000. And because the building is considered historical (although it is not on the National Register of Historic Buildings) it can qualify for federal funding. So the local Congressman (who probably collects lots of fund raising dollars at the Rainier Club) submitted a federal earmark for $250,000 to be matched by the members (many of them wealthy beyond belief).

My house was built in 1924, and while not historic, it's old and needs a lot of work. Hmmmm.

Imprisoning Terrorists

I remember driving up Prospect Street in New Haven the morning of June 24, 1993. Fire trucks and aid cars were blocking the street and I had to take a detour to get to Sage Hall, the Yale School of Forestry. I later learned David Gelernter, a computer science professor, had opened a package which contained a bomb. While his injuries were not fatal, he was lucky. Gelernter was another victim of what the FBI called at the time, the UNABOMer, or as we now know, Ted Kaczynski.

Earlier that year, I was returning from lunch along Broadway when I heard hundreds of sirens and watches police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances careen through lower Manhattan traffic. It was February 23, 1993. The first attempt at bombing the World Trade Towers. That night, when I left the subway at Grand Central Terminal, there were armed National Guardsmen along the train platforms. Eery sight at the time.

Both Kaczynski and the militants responsible for the World Trade bombing in February, 1993, were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced in federal courts. Kaczynski and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade bombing, are now incarcerated at the federal super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

Recently, the federal Bureau of Prisons has established other prisons within prisons to incarcerate terrorists. So far, there are two Communications Management Units, one in Marion, Illinois and Terre Haute, Indiana. Among other inmates in these units are two of the Earth Liberation Front members who committed a number of arsons throughout the west. These CMUs constrict communication by the inmates with the outside world and closely monitor the inmates while they serve their sentences, but they are not held in solitary confinement as the inmates are in Florence, Colorado.

As the Obama Administration begins resolving what to do with the more than 200 detainees held at Guantanamo, Cuba, the politicians concerned about public backlash against these so-called "bad guys" have raised a strawman argument that these men should not be incarcerated in federal prisons because of safety issues. And President Obama has rightly responded by saying no one, not one convicted terrorist, has escaped from a federal prison.

If it is one thing we do well here in America, it's our prisons.

Today, the first detainee from Guantanamo was brought to the United States for a trial on his involvement with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Our justice system is a model of fairness and impartiality. While there are many things wrong with our system, it sure beats what we have witnessed recently in North Korea or Iraq.

If this man is found guilty, he should be incarcerated in one of our prisons. They work well. Often too well, but that is another discussion. It is the role of politicians to help calm unjustifiable fears. In this case, our leaders are not serving us well by flaming the fires of fear that we can not imprison the convicted terrorists.

Post Script: After I did this entry, I found a piece on Huffington Post by Daniel McGowan, one of the more vocal ELFers. He is currently incarcerated at the Communication Management Unit in Marion. It's amazing, frankly, that this piece somehow managed to get out of the prison, which essentially shoots down my theory the federal Bureau of Prisons can "contain" terrorists! But it's an interesting read, nonetheless.

Finger Pointing in Washington, DC, Oh My!

Instead of addressing the surge in foreclosures, the greed filled credit card industry, the exploding health care costs that are bankrupting Medicare and many personal finances, or even the mess in Afghanistan, our "for change" politicians seem to me indulging in their favorite activity in Washington, DC.  Finger pointing.

The targets this time are Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who for years, was the ranking minority leader on the House Intelligence Committee.  During the Bush Administration's in-house debates about the use of "enhanced interrogation methods," (read: torture) then Congresswoman Pelosi was briefed by CIA administrators on the capture and interrogations of several al Qaeda masterminds.  

The Republicans, eager to gain some toehold into the Democratic steamroller, leapt onto this information, claiming Speaker Pelosi is a hypocrite.  How can she call for prosecutions or a truth commission on the Bush Administration's use of torture when she knew about it herself.

Pelosi, aware of this problem, is now pointing fingers at the CIA, claiming the briefings were misleading.  Congress, she said yesterday, was misled.

And today, the Obama appointee to head the CIA, Leon Panetta, said there was no misleading by his agency.

Stop this madness!

Show me one Congressman, heck, one politician who isn't a hypocrite.  Anyone?

So, what really should be happening here is Speaker Pelosi should admit she was briefed, at the time the briefings were confidential, she expressed her concerns about the interrogation methods, and now it's time for us to find out what actually happened and move on.

But this game, this finger pointing.  What a waste of time.  While we're focused on this, thousands of people lost their homes to foreclosures.  Millions are out of work.  People are struggling trying to find health care.

The Loneliness of Political Expediency

Last week, Senator Arlen Spector, from Pennsylvania, changed from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.  It doesn't take a lot of political sophistication to understand that Spector read the polling data telling him voters in Pennsylvania self identify either with a Republican far more conservative than him or with a Democrat, name unknown.  So, Spector, switched, probably thinking he could get elected if he was a moderate  Democrat rather than a moderate Republican.

Then, within the week, he failed to follow his new party's voting recommendations.  Among other things, he was against the modifications to the Bankruptcy Act, allowing for borrowers to seek court ordered modifications of their mortgages.  I am not sure if he said this, but some Senator who voted against the legislation apparently said: "a contract is a contract, a deal is a deal."  Okay, and since when has any politician followed through on their word much less a contract?  

So now the Democrats in the Senate "stripped" Spector of his seniority.  In other words, he has become a freshman Senator.  Ironically, the reason he switched was so he could be re-elected, to hold onto power.  Power.

Maybe, maybe, just once these ya-hoos should listen to their constituents.  If they are not re-elected for who they are, stop trying to bend and contort themselves into something they are not.  Rather, exit stage left, gracefully.

Guns and Stress

It's no surprise that we are beginning to see a rise in gun violence in America.  People are stressed.  Homes foreclosed, creditors calling, employers expecting more for less, health insurance non-existent.  One more thing reaches a tipping point whether it is spousal issues, kids, landlord, employer.  And the gun gets pulled out, safety off, trigger pulled.

And since this is America, we will get the usual responses from the advocacy groups.  Gun control advocates will point fingers and say: "see I told you so," while the NRA will emphasize that only people kill people, not guns.  

These shooting sprees are generally not a result of a bank robbery, but systemic stress in our culture that is increasing.  These are not horrific incidents that will be cured by gun control or liberalized gun laws.  Rather, we must find ways of dealing with this increasing stress that leads to such horrible violence and death.

The unfortunate thing is that the policy makers don't seem in any hurry to help the average person.  Today, White House officials acknowledge that they will not be able to accomplish President Obama's ambitious agenda in the first year.  What concerns me is that I am not sure the Administration or Congress is going to do much to help main street (to use their term) in the next few months.  

It's important to continue linking this violence to the current economic disaster.  To keep the pressure on policy makers, whether local, state or federal to understand that people are in a world of hurt.  Remember, 5 million Americans are without employment.  That's 5 million (actually more, since many are unable to find work past unemployment compensation much less those who lost their jobs and don't qualify) people worrying about bills, their children, their partner, and wondering where the ammo is kept.

And This Is Important Because?

For the past several days there have been skirmishes by leaders in the Democratic Party over Rush Limbaugh, the polarizing talk show host who recently said he hopes President Obama fails.

Over the weekend, Mr. Limbaugh spoke, as he does almost every year, to a convention of conservatives and on the Sunday morning talk shows, the President's chief of staff announced that Limbaugh was effectively, the leader of the Republican Party.  

While it seems to me the recently GOP has been bereft of ideas, for instance dredging up the old ideas of more tax cuts rather than spending money to stimulate the economy, I believe most Americans other than Limbaugh's ditto-heads generally agree that the Republicans are clueless right now.  That is, unless the White House knows something we don't know.  So it seems that trying to pull the plugs on the GOP life support by closely allying them with Rush Limbaugh is a waste of time.

Memories are short. I think the White House may be forgetting that only a few years ago, the Republicans were anxious to dance on the Democrat's graves.  This kind of behavior really isn't, I don't think, the change American's voted for in November.

Besides, we only have a vibrant democracy when there are thoughtful and energized opponents.  That's what we want.  Not feeding Rush Limbaugh's enormous appetite for attention.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Years ago I read a book where the description of the marriage struck me.  The wife said something to the effect that she felt her husband made her try to be better every single day.  Yesterday I lunched with a very close friend.  The conversation meandered, as it usually does, but landed on the economy for quite awhile.  I said something about how our economy has been on a melt down for well over two decades, and my friend reacted almost violently.  To her, it was all President George Bush's fault.  And I have to say, my friend is a very very smart person.  She even knows what praxis means without having to look it up every time (like I do!).

Here is the thing.  If we don't try to make our leaders better every day, we have failed democracy.  And we can not, especially now, just think every thing is hunky dory because we have a new President in office.  We need to examine every thing he proposes, yell and scream if we don't think it's good, celebrate if we think it is fabulous.  But to believe that one side is bad and the other is good is, well, naive.

Critical thinking is what is required of us in this democracy.  By simply aligning ourselves with one side or the other, we fail.  And in fact, I think the lack of critical thinking by all sides is one of the reasons we are standing knee deep in quicksand now.

Frankly, I consider myself one of the "team of rivals" for Obama.  Challenge, nudge, scream, yell, demand better.  For too long we neglected our country.  We let people inside the Washington, DC bubble run amok.  Everyone inside that bubble.  It took both parties to tango on these issues, truly.  Wall Street and US corporations didn't care what high powered politicians believed on abortion or saving the Northern spotted owl (trust me, large timber companies wanted the endangered species listing, it put small competing mills out of business, but that is for another day).  But what Wall Street did care about was buying those same politicians, whether liberal or conservative, to look the other way and vote to remove legislative obstacle after obstacle so there  was no oversight on what the geniuses did.  Both parties looked the other way and were richly rewarded.

So, it's become our jobs to be the oversight, to make sure our interests are protected.  And that requires critical thinking.  It's patriotic.

Who Elected These People?

When I was growing up I remember my father debunking the ultra-right wing conspiracy theories that the world was controlled by the Trilateral Commission, or bankers, or the Rockefellers.  

But now, I am beginning to believe those folks were on to something.  The World Economic Forum has been held in the ski resort town of Davos, Switzerland for 38 years, but in the past decade, it has become the must go to event for the world's powerful and gliterati.  Former President Bill Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, heck, even African dictators muscle an invitation.  Private jets fly corporate executives, cocktails and dinner parties entertain the attendees, and apparently there is a famous all night party hosted by, of course, Google.

So who cares if they are in Davos or Cannes?

The difference is, in Davos there is a lethal mix of corporate interests and policy makers, all allegedly talking about how to help the world.  And indeed, theories about free trade and the globalization of the economy (the lifting all boats idea), are discussed with enthusiasm.

It has been reported (which, by the way, hot-shot reporters and opinion makers like Arianna Huffington and Tom The World is Flat Friedman not only attend, but give talks at this Forum) that at this years forum which recently ended, many policy makers and more than likely corporate leaders, derided American politicians for including stipulations in the stimulus packages before Congress that American produced goods should be used on infrastructure projects.  And these leaders say, if America is not careful, free trade will end.  With straight faces they assure Americans that China will have an open bidding process for their infrastructure projects, so maybe American steel could be used for railroad tracks.   Raise your hand if you believe that any American manufacturing company will win a bid in China.  

But really what these threats are about is that the rest of the world still views the United States as one large consuming population.  And if we become even the slightest "protectionist" it means we won't buy BMWs from Germany or running shoes made in China.  Since we barely manufacture anything in the United States, those countries are not afraid of us flooding the world markets with goods, but rather that we will not buy their goods.  

I am not a buy American person.  I don't think I have ever owned an American car, although the foreign car I own now was manufactured in America.   I buy Chinese made running shoes, wear Mexican made jeans, Vietnamese made fleece vests, Thai oxford cloth shirts.  But, I do resent the simplistic and self serving pro-globalized economic arguments that are made these days.  And I think it behooves us to spend time examining the fundamentals of what went wrong with our economy before we gleefully return to spending money on imports.

Last, I really want to know who elected those people who attend the World Economic Forum and why it is the rich, powerful, and famous all get together to decide the fate of this world?