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Part III - Determining a Winner
The founders aversion to democratic elections resulted in some interesting electoral structures. For example the Constitution specified that Senators would be elected by state legislatures rather than direct election. This proved convenient in many ways. For example when New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912 Albert Fall famously walked around the New Mexico legislature handing out packets of money just before the vote which made him one the first two New Mexico US Senators. This practice was common in many states where candidates found it so much simpler than campaigning. It took 125 years before this process was changed via the 17th amendment to the Constitution ratified in 1913. One of the most idiosyncratic institutions devised by the framers of the constitution was the Electoral College formulated at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 by the Committee on Postponed Parts (now there is a committee that would fit right in today). What the founders really wanted was for the "people" or at least those they saw fit to enfranchise, to elect individuals such as themselves who would in turn select a president. They meant Electors who were educated, rich property owners, not subject to the emotions or hysteria of the mob, , what today we would call the elite and were then often referred to as the ruling class. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, thought that “the people could not be trusted to intelligently rule themselves” so it should come as no surprise the founders thought that a ruling class should be in control. The Electoral College was the mechanism by which they sought to accomplish that. The other critical issue that made the direct election of the president anathema was one seldom discussed or even noted - slavery. When Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president, the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” What he meant was that since slaves could not vote the South would have a much smaller voting population if direct election was in effect. Therefore the South would likely be out voted by the North. The Electoral College would level the playing field since the number of electors a state had was based on the state's total white population plus three fifths of the number of slaves. This was no small matter as 40% of the population of Virginia were slaves; in South Carolina it was 54% in 1780 rising to over 60% later. The electoral college system proved very effective, with southerners Washington, Jefferson and Monroe all elected president. The "people", being the ungrateful wretches that we are, never followed the founders script very well and the Electoral College now votes based on the rules in place for each state. Because most state have winner-take-all rules, presidential candidates have no reason to pay much attention to the issues of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone conclusion. In 2012 two-thirds of general-election campaign events (176 of 253) were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa). Thirty-eight states were ignored. So the lasting remnant of this odd system is that often states with small populations have a disproportional influence and a few swing states have an outsized influence on the election and so get the lions share of the campaign focus and money. The most obvious effect is that it is possible for a president to be elected via the Electoral College while not receiving a majority of the popular vote. While we used to think such an occurrence was a remnant of the past we have now had this happen twice in the current century - not a recipe for legitimacy or for unifying the country. So should the Electoral College be eliminated? Well if you are in a swing state why would you want to give up the power that comes with the status quo? These "battleground” states receive 7% more federal grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions. Since the Electoral College is enshrined in the Constitution it would take a constitutional amendment to change it, meaning that members of Congress from at least some of the states that might be disadvantaged by direct election by popular vote would need to support it and two thirds of the states would need to ratify it. Not easily done. There is a creative alternative that does not require a constitutional amendment to achieve the same effect. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their respective electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who wins the most popular votes is elected president, and it will come into effect only when it will guarantee that outcome. For that to occur the legislation must be passed by states which together have a total electoral vote of at least 270, enough to elect a president. As of 2016, it has been adopted by ten states and the District of Columbia. Together, they have 165 electoral votes, which is 30.7% of the total Electoral College and 61.1% of the votes needed to give the compact legal force. Conclusion Thomas Jefferson, paraphrasing Joseph de Maistre, said that "The government you elect is the government you deserve". That seems too simplistic. The jury is still out on whether a large group of people can govern themselves effectively and fairly over a long period of time. The Founders were clearly skeptical of the American people's ability to do just that. Government is people acting through a set of institutions and processes that they devise and continue to change, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Ben Franklin said that the government crafted at the constitutional convention was a republic "if you can keep it." Franklin may have been a bit self serving in that remark because our ability to keep the republic is directly related to the mechanisms that he and his fellow framers built into the constitution. If the republic is going to continue we need to be willing and able to consider those processes and improve them where necessary and possible. That can only happen, be accepted, and be seen as legitimate if the broadest spectrum of the citizenry are engaged and participate. And that struggle continues. What changes to the electoral process would you support or advocate? Consider some options: Candidate Selection:
Voting:
Determining a Winner:
I look forward to your suggestions and comments.
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Part II -Voting
One fact about voting that we hear about is that only about 50% of eligible voters actually vote. That number is actually worse if you consider that for non-presidential elections and local elections the turnout is usually much lower. In addition, many people are not eligible to vote. Many states disenfranchise people who have been convicted of certain classes of crimes and voter suppression efforts have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of people. But even among people who can vote the majority often fail to do so. There are many explanations for this, from people being too busy or not being interested in politics, to the inconvenience of the process (election day is a work day, many states do not allow early voting etc). This year in particular gave credence to the old adage that if god had wanted us to vote she would have given us candidates. What is hard to fathom is that so many people fought and in some cases died to gain the right to vote - women, Blacks, people who did not own property, Irish, Italians, and Jews among others. This began at the very start of the Republic, well, really before the Republic started. Abigail Adams famously wrote to her husband who was attending the constitutional convention and admonished him to “remember the ladies.” Apparently he forgot because women would fight for over 100 years to gain suffrage. There are those who advocate for interpreting the Constitution based on the original intent of the founders. Perhaps they do not realize that in the first presidential elections only about 6% of the population was eligible to vote - or perhaps they understand that perfectly and would like to return to the days when voting was limited to white males of property and means. After all, the founders were no fans of democracy. James Madison expressed a widely held belief among the founders when he said "democracy was too precious to waste on the common man." Most were petrified of "democracy" where the "great unwashed" i.e. people without education, wealth or proper dispositions (e.g. women) would select office holders. Perhaps that is why the rate of desertion among soldiers in the American Revolution (those sunshine patriots) was so high. Those doing the fighting were not expected to have a say in the governance of the new Republic. Interestingly, after fighting the War of Independence the commitment to voting was almost non-existent. Although just 6% of the population were eligible to vote in the first presidential election only 38,818 people out of a population of about 3 million (2.4 million free) actually voted for a voting percentage of about 21%. So George Washington was elected with only 1.3% of the population voting - quite the mandate!. But it got worse. Two years later only 13,332 people voted out of population then estimated at 3.9 million or less than 0.5%. Democracy got off to a slow start. So who should be allowed to vote and what is the best process to select a president? It is tempting to say that everyone should be allowed, perhaps required, to vote but this not only goes against our entire history as a nation but there does not seem to be a practical way to make it happen especially when it is in so many groups’ vested interest to reduce the voters in opposing groups. Universal suffrage may be an American ideal that people across a broad spectrum of the political landscape espouse but it has never been achieved and seems unlikely to be in the future. Many techniques have been tried or suggested - "motor-voter" (including voter registration with motor vehicle registration), automatic registration, same day registration and innumerable get out the vote campaigns. So far none seem to have had a substantial or lasting effect on voting participation. Some political scientists have suggested that voting should be restricted to those who have at least a baseline knowledge of government, politics, policy and candidates. Or if not restricted that those who are more knowledgeable should be given more votes or have their votes count more. This has been tried with voter literacy tests. While we usually think of those tests as Jim Crow tools to stop African-Americans from voting they actually began in Connecticut in 1855 to disenfranchise immigrants. New York City did much the same in the 1920s and similar tests were used by many states in the north and the south. Literacy tests were not banned by Congress until 1975. What limits on voting are acceptable? If not knowledge or literacy as thresholds, what about people with dementia, cognitive impairment or developmental disabilities? One concern has been that someone is likely to influence or manipulate those with impairments. But aren’t the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign advertising and activities meant to influence and manipulate as many of us as possible? Should such activities be prohibited? While today people are no longer technically prohibited from voting based on race, sex, religion or ethnicity, voter exclusion is more subtle and tactical. Polling places are moved to inconvenient locations, are reduced in number to create long waits, and names are purged from voter rolls. People who have committed crimes and "paid their debt to society" are excluded from voting in many states. This seems ironic since one might suggest that former criminals are uniquely qualified to judge many of our politicians. I'll leave it there until we wrap up next week with Part III- Determining a Winner. The Electoral Process
Perhaps we are far enough removed from the recent election to consider the efficacy of the institutional mechanisms and processes involved in selecting a president. The 2016 presidential election was a virtual case study in the flaws of the US constitutional democracy. The process started with the extra-constitutional nominating process of the main political parties. The Republicans began promisingly with a large field of candidates and an open primary process. The debates, primaries and campaigns immediately devolved into a spectacle that made pro wrestling look good and seemed to virtually preclude a real discussion of the issues facing the country. As in an unsupervised school yard, the meanest, most foul mouthed bully emerged triumphant. The Democrats took the opposite approach blocking potential rivals to anoint the current member of the Clinton "royal family" just as a certain faction of the Republicans had hoped to continue the Bush dynasty with Jeb. Just as Jeb was derailed, Clinton also was nearly upset by an irascible 75 year old socialist who wasn't even a Democrat. The process resulted in the two most disliked candidates ever to run for the presidency. Ultimately the candidate receiving the most votes lost the election complements of the founders' Electoral College mechanism. Of course as we despair at this spectacle it is useful to remember Churchill's famous remark about democracy as "the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." While that may be true it still begs the question is this the best we can do? Does the system need improvement and what would that be? There are three essential elements of the process that deserve consideration: the selection of candidates; the process of voting ; and process by which a winner is determined. These elements will be considered in a series of 3 separate blog postings. The first one is presented here. Part I -Candidate Selection Key institutions in presidential elections are the political parties and their processes for selecting the candidates for the general election. They are critically important because for all practical purposes they provide the general population with only two viable choices for the presidency. From over 150 million natural born Americans over age thirty-five who are eligible to run for president voters are given a choice of just two. Despite this, political parties, primaries, nominating conventions, delegates and super-delegates do not appear in the constitution. Not only is the entire process extra-constitutional the very idea was anathema to most of the founding fathers. John Adams put it this way: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." Washigton warned repeatedly about the negative impact of political parties and factions including in his Farwell Address: "Let me … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party." This was all to no avail because factions and the early incarnations of politcical parties actually started before the Constitution was ratified (the Federalist papers were basically the organ of a particular faction) and after the consensus in the selection of Washington as the first president future contests were racous affairs of competeing factions and parties. It is easy to think that the way the parties select their candidates today is the way it has always been done but for both parties the current system is relatively recent and subject to change. While virtually every state held a primary election in 2016 as recently as 1968 Hubert Humphery secured the Democratic nomination without ever competing in a single primary. This was still the era of authoritarian machine politics as embodied in Chicago's Mayor Daley who controlled the city process and determined the candidates. Should modifications be considered, such as a national primary, proportional allocation of delagates or rank order voting? Would any of these approaches significantly improve the selection process? Why would either of the major parties consider such changes? Of course the elephant in the room not yet mentioned is money. Particularly since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision there has been renewed debate about the role of money in elections and campaign finance reform. But Citizens United and the financing mechanisms are only different from where we began in form, not substance. We like to think that the USA was created by revolution - that noble hard working Americans rose up to throw off tyranical British rule. But it wasn't really a revolution, rather it was the displacing of one set of elites with another. The American "revolutionaries" were wealthy, landed gentry who wanted to run things their way rather than the way the Britsh elites wanted it. The French had a real revoluntion when they beheaded the elites and the rabble were in control. That was not what the leaders of the American independence movement had in mind. In fact the legal historian Michael Klarman argues that "the Constitution is undemocratic because it was designed to protect wealthy merchants and landowners from the redistributive tendencies of popular government." The title of Klarman's book says it all: Framers' Coup. Should political parties operate outside the Constitution, often beyond any law or regulation? Should the parties decide on their own how presidential debates should be structured, who is allowed to participate and even what questions can be asked? Should political money be unlimited and often anonymous? If not, who should regulate the process and the parties? Remember when the League of Women Voters used to organize the debates? They quit because they thought the process had become too tainted. And while it may be bad now it was probably worse in the past and it is possible to make it worse again. So give that some thought before we discuss the voting process in Part II in about a week. The Sad Christmas Tree
It was a sad little tree with a broken little star hanging from the crown. It was leaning against a garbage can at the curb. Kirby drove past it, stopped, debated for a minute then backed up and picked the sad little tree up and placed it in the back of his pickup truck. He nestled it behind the blown tire and the bag of half rotten cabbage that he had picked from the field on his way home. He drove on. Carlos was a sad little boy. At six years of age already aware that his family was poor and did not belong with most of the families in the area. He already knew that he was not one of us. He was one of them. He knew that his father worked six sometimes seven days a week in the fields planting crops, weeding and cultivating, running the irrigation system, doing all the things that make food grow and then working to harvest the crops and prepare them for shipment. With all that work he did not make enough money to buy the food he grew to feed his family. To buy the food that Kirby grew, Carlos’s mother, Carla, had to sign up for food stamps. Carla use to clean house for some of the families that owned the fields where Kirby worked. When one of the families got scared that they might get in trouble for paying Carla without reporting it they stopped having her clean their house and they told all the other families and they all stopped hiring Carla as well. So Carla spent her days tending a little vegetable garden and looking for work that was close enough to walk to. Carlos knew all this. He was wise beyond his years. Carlos did not smile or laugh very often. There was not much reason for him to be happy. When Kirby drove up to their little trailer and took the sad little tree out of the truck Carlos just stood and stared. Then a smile spread across his face as big as the New Mexican sky and as bright as the New Mexican sun. He never expected they would have a Christmas tree. He knew they could not afford Christmas presents. He ran to his father and together they brought the sad little tree into the sad little living room. Kirby plugged in the lights that were still attached to the tree and every light lite up like daybreak. Kirby and Carla straightened the plastic branches and fluffed out the drooping needles. Kirby tied the broken star so that it mostly sat on the crown of the tree. When they turned all the lights in the house off the tree radiated a magical warmth from the corner of their home. Carlos sat and starred for hours refusing to come and eat dinner. His parents let Carlos stay up way past his bedtime and the whole time he just sat and stared at the tree as if in a trance. After a while Carlos did not know if he was really seeing the lights of the little Christmas tree of if he was dreaming. Gradually he realized that the wind did not blow through the house where the siding was missing and the heat worked all the time and kept the house cozy and warm and the broken window was not patched with duct tape. He knew he was not in the workers rental trailer so he was sure he was dreaming. In his dream the whole house was decorated with colored lights and ribbons and even flowers. His father did not look tired because he only had to work five days a week and he was paid enough to live on. On his father’s feet were a good pair of brand new boots. Then Carlos saw his mother in a new pretty blouse standing in the kitchen cooking dinner. She looked so happy because she had found a good job and they had plenty of good food for her to cook. The dream faded and Carlos saw the light from the sad little tree still glowing in the corner greeting the Christmas dawn. Carlos was wrapped in a blanket and had spent the night sleeping in his father’s arms. Beside his father’s chair Carlos saw his mother asleep on the old worn couch. But Carlos felt warm in a way that the heater never made him feel. The little tree no longer looked sad. The little boy no longer looked sad. Tomorrow he thought, tomorrow we will start again. It can be better; I know that it can be better. American Mosaic
Driving the heartland, all rust and dust. The cities look worn and tired. Streets broken crumbling under the relentless onslaught of tires. The people are a clichéd rainbow race energized and in a hurry, cars a crush on the highway. But sitting in the sun on a warm November afternoon at an ice cream shop everyone is relaxed and friendly . Off the interstate down two lane country roads the fields stretch flat and fallow, all gray above shades of brown below. The people are mostly white and overweight moving slowly even in the crisp autumn air. This is the domain of the angry white men. Each one I meet is friendly and polite. The land of white bread and pie, pickups with dogs in the back. Each a snapshot, each a slice of America, a piece of the mosaic, gather enough and step back to see the bigger picture. We do that with our cross country drives. In the last fourteen years we have done some variation of this 27 times. Patterns emerge of both place and time from following all those miles of asphalt and white lines. Most of those miles are on interstates although we try to get off the beaten track in places small and large. Interstates are boring but fast. They are good economic and social indicators. The arteries of the nation carrying goods and people, they ebb and flow, they pulse with cars and trucks pumped from an unseen heart. The traffic on the interstate Is a good gauge of the economy. In 2003 in that nervous gap between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, traffic was light and as gas prices soared stayed that way. Subsequently traffic increased as the country settled into the new normal. With the financial meltdown in 2008 traffic plummeted, down at least 25% and tractor trailer volume down 40-50%. Fewer trucks and SUV's, more cars that took less gas. Then a steady rebound began, picking up steam each year. Now, while some people have been left out of the recovery, on the road big rigs are nose to tail and the cars, SUV's and pickups get bigger and bigger. On the road it looks like boom times. Interstates show you the changing economy in other ways. In West Texas you now see more windmills than oil pumps. The tractor trailers have sprouted aerodynamic appendages. Speed limits have creeped up to 80 in Texas. But most noticed is the homogenization, the corporatization. Pull off any exit and it's like groundhog day. Stamped out with a cookie cutter every stop looks the same; a MacDonald's over there, a row of gas pumps at the travel plaza with the same brands, a Subway in one corner. The restrooms are in the back so you have to walk past all the snacks, beverage coolers line one wall. You could be anywhere from Ohio to Oklahoma, Indiana to Texarkana. Need to stay overnight? You will find the same motel brands - Holiday inn, Comfort, Red Roof and on and on. Local motels have been reduced to places that look like a drug deal could go down at any time. Restaurants follow the trend. Fake Italian at Olive Garden, a fantasy neighborhood at Applebee's, Chilli's Mexican masquerade, even the occasional local place now acts like a chain - the scripted greeting from your server, the suggestion of an appetizer while you peruse the menu, the portion control meals, the themed décor. Corporate food from corporate farms. The lingering flavor of fertilizer and pesticides. Even regional language and speech are fading. Maybe it's because of TV or the increasing mobility of people. There was a time when you knew as soon as someone spoke that they were from Long Island or the South. Now, no matter where you are, most people sound vaguely Midwestern. They are not from anywhere. There are some distractions- local attractions still unique in time and place. We passed up the world's largest golf tee but stopped to see the nation's largest cross. The vertical column Is a gleaming white obelisk 198 feet tall, the arms stretch east and west 113 feet. It is a Christian symbol but devoid of religiosity. Maybe because Jesus is always depicted as human that you can't imagine him on a cross this big. Easier to relate to are a row of Cadillac cars buried nose down in the desert of West Texas tailfins sticking up like giant jackrabbit ears - Cadillac Ranch as it is known. Americana at its best. For anyone who goes not believe that God is everywhere they have not driven across the country punching the seek button on their radio. Scanning across the radio dial to nothing but static suddenly a clear masculine (it is always male) voice invites you to accept Jesus as your savior. That same voice will follow you from Ohio to Oklahoma and beyond. There are helpful road signs on the billboards. A recent one asked, "where will you spend eternity?" An interesting question but given where they place these signs the answer that jumps to mind is, well, certainly not here. Each excursion paints a bit more of the picture and provides food for thought. But sometimes the pieces don't quite fit together. It seems ironic that as the country becomes more regimented by corporate institutions and conduct and as so many local customs and businesses appear to be in decline that the nation is so divided politically and culturally. Perhaps political, social, and religious differences and antagonisms are a way of rebelling against the blandness of a homogenized world. Points to Ponder
I spend a lot of time on a bicycle. Over the last twenty plus years I have logged over 100,000 miles and upwards of 3 million feet of climbing. I say this not to brag - I know many people who have done more - but just to suggest the opportunities, when not dodging distracted or irate motorists, to let my mind wander. When I ride my bike I sometimes ponder the great questions of human existence and try to make sense of what it all means. You know the kind of questions. Things such as:
Black and Blue
Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. It is emblematic of the state of our nation that those two ideas seem to be in opposition. If you believe that black lives matter, that police should be accountable, somehow that means that you are anti-cop or even condone violence against police. If you think blue lives matter, that the killing of police is unjustifiable, then that somehow means that you condone violence and the killing of people of color. These ideas should be compatible and mutually reinforcing but so far are not. The path to this deplorable situation winds directly from slavery to today and it did not happen by chance. In 1860 a group of elite Southerners led by William Lowndes Yancey, Edmund Ruffin and Robert Barnwell Rhett know as the Fire-Eaters met in South Carolina to forever change the course of the nation. As is so often the case it was about money and power. Humans held in bondage constituted the largest source of wealth in the South and the men at the gathering wanted more: more money, more power and more slaves and slave markets. This meant that the new lands in the West must be slave territories and slave states. Slave states were essential to increasing the number of pro-slavery Senators and dominating the electoral college in presidential elections. Their plans were big. They wanted to conquer and annex Cuba, some or all of what remained of Mexico and parts of Central America as slave holding states. The time for compromise was over, it was time to force the issue. They would either have slavery enshrined nationally or they would destroy the Union. The Democratic convention in April,1860 in Charleston SC deadlocked, adjourning after 50 votes without a nominee. The block of delegates that Yancey and company controlled denied Stephen Douglas the nomination. Subsequently the party split, with different factions running different candidates, thus assuring that the Republican nominee would likely prevail. This was prior to Lincoln being nominated, let alone elected (remember that Lincoln was a dark horse and the Republican nominee was expected to be William Seward). For the Fire-Eaters a Republican victory would be the vehicle to force succession, and it was. South Carolina seceded prior to Lincoln being inaugurated. And it is worth noting that since Lincoln won with less than 40% of the popular vote he did not have much of a mandate. The South lost the Civil War but won the peace that followed, successfully running a campaign to undermine and end Reconstruction and then systematically reinstating the antebellum social order, slavery by another name as one book termed it. A campaign of terror and intimidation drove African Americans from their land, voting booths and public life, turning most into sharecroppers or worse, and ushering in an apartheid order. The de facto subjugation of Blacks was gradually formalized through Jim Crow laws that not only excluded Blacks from political and civic participation but denied them education and institutionalized a system of forced labor. The center piece of this system was lynching. The Equal Justice Initiative has documented over 4000 lynchings in 12 southern states from 1877 to 1950. We tend to think of lynchings as actions taken by liquored up men in sheets in the dead of night. In fact large numbers of lynchings were public events held in village squares or on courthouse steps and attended by hundreds or thousands of good citizens as family spectacles. Police often participated or stood idly by. The people who maintained this system of racial hierarchy were and are very resilient. Like a whack-a-mole game, when one obstacle to racial equality is knocked down they erect another often more subtle, but still effective, alternative. So by the 1930's when lynchings increasingly attracted public notice and condemnation in the North, Southern states instituted a system of capital punishment using white prosecutors, judges and juries to quickly dispatch, often in a single day, death sentences and executions of Blacks on the flimsiest of evidence or pretext. When schools were ordered integrated public school funding was cut or eliminated across the South and white private schools flourished, often illegally funded with public money. More recently we have seen how the Voting Rights Act has been undermined and voting access limited through measures such as reduced polling places in minority majority areas, voter ID laws, purging of rolls, reduced early voting opportunities and the like. A critical role in this system was played by police which is pertinent to the situation today. The police have always been agents of the rich and powerful, the elite. Police attacked striking miners, textile workers and other union workers through out the labor movement. They enforced segregation and discouraged outsiders. As Bill Morrissey wrote "The law is not meant to protect the man from out of town," as the Freedom Riders found out. Police enforced slavery, hunted runaways, participated in lynching, rounded up candidates for the judicial forced labor system, attempted to crush the civil rights movement and are key players in the system that now results in one third of black males going to prison. I think a number of factors are important in the current tension between minority communities and the police. First, the history of the two groups matters. For many of us the image of Sheriff Bull Connor unleashing attack dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators is emblematic of the Civil Rights era. For Blacks that era never ended. Second, the militarization of the police with SWAT teams, riot gear, and armored vehicles fosters a violent, aggressive response to perceived threats. These things also isolate police officers from the people they are supposed to be serving and protecting. Third, African Americans are less willing to be passive and accepting of their "place" at the bottom wrung of society. This all leads to an environment where the police are scared. They are afraid of the people in their communities because they don't know them; they hide behind armor, in cars and with the use of military pacification tactics. It is therefore not surprising that there have been shootings of police officers. While such acts can never be justified, what is surprising is that it has not happened sooner, that is has not happened more. History can be a lesson or it can be a precursor of the future. Do we learn or do we "stand on old familiar ground?" Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. But they will only really matter when they find a way to matter to each other. Do you have to be crazy to be president of the United States? There has been much discussion of Donald Trump's temperament, volatility and narcissism, with some commentators, including the conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, suggesting that Trump may have clinical mental health issues. Less has been made of Hillary Clinton's mental state that makes her unable to admit a mistake and allows her to look convincingly at the camera and lie about what the FBI Director said she did. Well most politicians seem to have similar capability.
Should mental or emotional problems bar a person from the presidency? Remember Tom Eagleton, who was forced to quit the 1972 race as the vice presidential running mate to George McGovern because he had been treated for depression? Well as least Eagleton got treatment, which is better than most have done. And as the election turned out it was McGovern who was crazy - crazy to think he had a chance to win. But when have we had a president who was not crazy? George W. Bush was a recovering alcoholic who thought he was ordained by god (not sure which one) to bring democracy to the world. By many reports he was an obsessive control freak who deluded himself about all things Iraq. Before Bush there was the compulsive womanizer Bill Clinton who could not keep his pants zipped. Surely this indicates some deep-seated emotional void, perhaps resulting from his difficult childhood. And what does it say that Clinton, one of the most emphatic and compassionate presidents when confronting devastated and grieving families, could not empathize with the poor people who would be thrown off welfare in the name of reform or the people who lost their jobs to his free trade initiatives? Reagan suffered from dementia,, a different kind of cognitive impairment, so maybe that explains how he went from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican. It might at least help explain Iran Contra. Then of course we have Nixon and Johnson. I lump them together because they seem like men who both had the experience and desire to do important and good things but like Hamlet suffered from fatal flaws. Nixon's paranoia, obsessive secrecy and drive for revenge led to his downfall with Watergate. Yet here was a man who created the government's environmental programs with the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, and backed those initiatives by creating the EPA to make them work. Oh and by the way, he established Title IX, requiring equity in women's college athletics, so when you watch US women's soccer or basketball or most of the Olympic women's sports realize that most of those women would not have had the opportunity to train and compete without crazy old Richard Nixon. Lyndon Johnson is better known for his Great Society accomplishments, including Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start, among other efforts to improve health and education and reduce poverty. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were the foundation of the federal drive to end racial discrimination and fulfill the promise of American democracy. Yet he was blind to the folly of Vietnam, or perhaps just could not accept the failure of his efforts. And for all his political savvy in getting his social programs enacted he could not find his way out of the morass of Vietnam, splitting the nation and driving people into the streets in protest and, of course, finally driving Johnson from office. I don't know if it is ironic or fitting that the man usually considered our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, was also the most assuredly mentally ill. He suffered throughout his presidency with what was termed at that time "melancholy," what we today term depression. Lincoln did not carry a knife because he feared he would hurt himself intentionally. Lincoln apparently suffered at least two major breakdowns while in office and purportedly was the subject of a suicide watch by his friends. The death of his son in 1862, especially after the previous death in 1850 of another child, must have deepened Lincoln's depression. This at a time when the war was going badly for the North. Yet he persevered and so did the nation. If we had had a "sane" president the result might have been much different. Wouldn't a rational person have told the South to go and good riddance and not sacrificed all those lives in the war? So is there a lesson for us here? Maybe. But most relevant is to remember Alfred Adler's comment that "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well". In other words we are all crazy, weird and unique and, as we see over and over, the result is a mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly. For better and worse that's called being human. Immigration - Some History and Context
Consider the situation confronting a sovereign nation. Large numbers of immigrants, some legal but most illegal are entering the country and are unwilling to assimilate. Most refuse to learn the national language, embrace local customs or abide by the laws of their new country. In many areas the immigrants out number the local citizens. Worse, these illegal aliens demand expensive government services while refusing to pay taxes. The topper is that they threaten native citizens, engaging in campaigns of intimidation, that includes assault, murder and rape and they steal large quantities of local citizens' property. Many flee for their safety. That is the situation that Mexico faced in the 1830's in the then Mexican state of Texas. "Undocumented" Americans were streaming across the border from the east, stealing land from local indigenous peoples and living outside the law. Even those that immigrated legally mostly refused to live up to the terms of the immigration laws namely that they learn the national language, Spanish, practice the national religion, Catholicism, and abide by Mexican law. This later point was particularly troublesome because Mexico had outlawed slavery and most of the Americans arriving, especially the so called elites' were slaveholders and believed slavery was the foundation of their economic success. When Mexico made feeble attempts to rein in these immigrants they were met by a series of insurrections. Thus began Texas's long and dishonorable history of succession, first from Mexico, then from the Union in the Civil War and continuing with threats in recent years by previous Governor Rick Perry and the current Governor Greg Abbott. Texas finally gained independence from Mexico in 1836 and joined the Union in 1845 tainted "with two deadly crimes, the leprous contamination of slavery, and the robbery of Mexico" as John Quincy Adams put it. Between Texas independence in 1836 and statehood in 1845 the number of slaves quintupled to 40,000 and had grown to 182,000 by 1860 and the Civil War. And Indians, who had some rights and protections under Mexico, lost them under the US with the Indian Protection Act of 1850 which stripped them of their land and allowed them to be auctioned off to Anglos for forced labor. It is worth having a bit of that historical context when considering the current Hispanic "immigrants" to the USA. But it is also worth looking a bit deeper. There are two underlying elements related to immigration that never get discussed. First, we should remember that borders are often just arbitrary lines drawn on a map as occurred in the Middle East when Britain and France arbitrarily created the "nations" in that region. More typically national boundaries are created by force, which is the case in the US. Remember the famous campaign slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!"? Soon to be President Polk was ready to go to war to enforce his claim against British Canada. He settled for the 49th parallel losing Vancouver and much of British Columbia in the process. He took a harder line with Mexico, a less formidable adversary, openly calling for annexation of much of that nation. He promptly provoked a war with Mexico in 1846 that brought the US west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. As John Quincy Adams again observed "in this (Mexican) war, the flag of liberty will be that of Mexico, and ours, the flag of slavery." So it is useful to remember that the US borders often deem fixed and sacrosanct were created by force and the quest to get more "free" land (that occupied by Native Americans and Mexican citizens) and to open more territory to slavery. The second issue that seems not to be addressed is the whole concept of land "ownership". Who does the land belong to both individually and nationally and how long are those ownership rights good for? If a person or a nation "owns" land and is driven from it do they have rights to reclaim it? For how long? I had a friend who was born in Latvia. In WWII much of his family was killed by the communists and the Nazis in turn. He and his mother escaped to the US in the 1940's. After the Soviet Union collapsed and Latvia gained independence he and his mother were allowed to claim the farm they had lived on before being driven out. That claim was 50 years old. The people living on the farm had acquired it innocently from the government of the time. Should they be displaced? Who should now "own" that property? If 50 years is legitimate should Native Americans be able to reclaim the land taken from them 125 years ago or Mexicans who were driven out 150 years ago? What is the "statute of limitations" on these things? The Jews claimed that they had a right to Israel after 2000 years. If that precedent was applied to the US most of us would be subject to displacement. Some have suggested that Mexicans are now taking over parts of the US. Does Mexico want its territories back? Does the US want even more of present day Mexico? Well both have precedents. After Gadsden Purchase of 1853 established the present day border with Mexico there have been at least seven well documented attempts by US groups to invade and take additional Mexico territory. From the Mexico side there have been forays as well. In 1859 the Mexican American Juan Cortina in response to a racist incident captured Brownsville, Texas and proclaimed the short lived Republic of the Rio Grande. And of course there was the famous raid by Poncho Villa on New Mexico in 1916 killing 19 Americans, the last foreign invasion of the US mainland. This sent Blackjack Pershing and 6,000 US troops into Mexico for more than a year without ever finding Villa. Pershing is reported to have said his reputation was "saved" by being called back to lead the US "expeditionary" force in WWI. As we continue to discuss immigration and border issues it might be useful to remember a bit of history about how our borders were established and what land ownership means. And to consider that every wall we build has two sides, it can keep "us" in as much as keep "them" out. Worry Bones
Our dog likes to chew bones; rawhide is OK but real bones are best: lamb shanks, beef bones, even a deer antler. She works on them diligently until she chews them up or sucks all the flavor out of them. In the latter case she occasionally revisits them maybe to check if any taste remains or perhaps just out of nostalgia. One day we gave her a new bone; a beef bone seemingly not unlike others she had had. But something was different. At first she chewed it a bit but from then on she carried it around the house while softly whining as if in pain. She wouldn't chew it, couldn't bring herself to bury/hide it and couldn't decide what to do with it. It troubled her, became her burden to bear. It became her worry bone. We all carry our own worry bones. Something that we often can't quite put our finger on that is the source of concern and anxiety, maybe just a touch of fear. It goes beyond the day to day worries about the kids, or your aging parents, the frustrations of work or relationships. It’s deeper and more personal; even existential. It’s that sense that something is not quite right in the world, or that you are not really the person that you thought you were, or that you don't belong. It is like a vague dull ache. Something is wrong but you aren't really sick, you don't know what to do about it and you can't shake it. It’s baggage, it’s in your mind, it’s in your gut, you get tired of carrying it around yet can not find the way to let it go. Sometimes our dog tries to bury her worry bone. Do you try to do that with yours? Where do you bury it? Under some false bravado, hoping that a bit of swagger, some loud talk will obscure the anxiety and insecurity that is still in your gut? Perhaps you try to ignore it with lots of activity - working constantly, playing games or extreme physical activity. These things may help you forget the worry for a while but it always returns. Even when you think you are not carrying it, it still follows you as if tethered to your being. Sooner or later each if us has to confront the worry, deal with it in our own imperfect and individual way. It’s like having a chronic disease that may not kill us but which diminishes our life if we don't tackle it. As the cliché reminds, us recognizing the problem is the first step. But perhaps there is another side to the worry bone. The songwriter David Mallett suggested that "We are made of dreams and bones". So we need to turn those worries into dreams. When you think about it they are not so far apart. Fear and hope are two sides of the same coin. It’s just that worries can lead to paralysis while dreams can spur actions that take us to a better place. So don't worry; just dream on. |
R CookeOne Small Voice |