Guns and Money

H E A D L I N E    N E W S!

 

John Kenneth Galbraith, in his book The Age of Uncertainty, listed explanations commonly given for why, in an era of abundance (the 20th century), there should continue to be poverty in the world. “...[S]o many different and conflicting answers … given with so much confidence and such nonchalance,” he noted. In the list he compiled were: lack of energy and ambition; race or religion; lack of natural resources; faulty economic system; inadequate education, technical, scientific, administrative talent; consequences of past colonial exploitation, racial discrimination, and national humiliation. Galbraith’s answer is:

 

There is no one answer—obviously. It is because so many explanations have a little truth that so many are offered [my emphasis added]. But one cause of poverty is pervasive. That is the relationship, past or present, between land and people. Understand that, and we understand the most general single cause of deprivation. 

 

The “land question” has long been studied, as has population, but neither has yet been solved. That, however, is not my topic today. 

I have been thinking about another knotty problem, another question to which “many explanations,” each with “a little truth,” have been offered, and that is the question, the problem, the fact of gun violence in America. I won’t go over old ground and list all the various explanations Americans espouse for school shootings and other shootings of multiple people in public places, often strangers to the shooter. Instead I want to propose a parallel to Galbraith's claim. 

 

Might there not be an underlying relationship beneath and behind the epidemic of mass shootings in America? What can it be other than guns and money? All the other explanations play their little parts, but only because the basic relationship exists in the first place. At least, that’s what I’m thinking and what I’m asking others to consider.

 

There are a lot of stories we can tell ourselves and each other. We do it all the time. Some stories help us solve problems, while others—the unquestioned myths--insure that the problems will remain enshrined in our national culture.

 

Not Enough. Nowhere Near Enough.

November 6. Next Tuesday. It’s not that far away. 

Vote! Get others out to vote! We need to vote! It’s a rare prescription, one on which the majority of Americans agree. The bad news is that all the votes cast from Atlantic to Pacific and from Alaska to Hawaii won’t be enough to make our country better without a whole lot of ongoing effort, over a very long time, in other parts of our lives. 

There is a two-pronged concept in philosophy, that of the necessary and the sufficient. If your car has a gasoline-powered or diesel-fueled engine, it won’t start and run without the proper fuel. Empty tank means no-car-go. You gotta have fuel. Fuel is necessary. 

Fuel all by itself, however, is not sufficient. 

Suppose the fuel line is blocked or the battery dead or the ignition switch has gone bad. Then your car may have plenty of fuel and still not start. And that, unfortunately, is the situation we’re in in these presently Disunited States. Every eligible voter in the country could turn out and vote, and no matter which party came out on top, we would still be not just a country divided but a country at each other’s throats. We’ve been moving away from each other for a long time, our national moral battery is just about dead, and our public communication — political speech, social media posts — has gone from bad to worse.

“Milton, thou shouldest be living at this hour! England hath need of thee!” 

Well, we aren’t England, and it isn’t Milton we need, and it isn’t enough for good men and women merely to be alive. We need good people of integrity, maturity, and wisdom — more of them, that is; there are a few here and there already — in leadership positions in government. We need officials and public servants with the courage of their convictions and the temperamental ability to abstain from name-calling and shouting. We need leaders willing and able to focus on real issues, on what needs to be done, women and men who can put personal issues aside and move forward, rather than bogging down in endless ego battles. 

And the change really needs — this is really the Gordian knot of the present moment — to be top-down, because that’s what leadership is. Leadership is not whining and blaming and taking cheap shots and encouraging the intensification of hatred and intolerance. Leadership isn’t tapping into irrational fears that keep people from seeing or thinking straight. It’s calling on a nation’s strengths, on people’s better selves. And if the man at the very top cannot lead, those whose job it is to advise him — that would be Congress first and foremost — need to grow spines (to put it in polite terms) and start standing up to him and for our country’s future. But clearly, most of them are not going to do it if we let them get away with shirking their duty and prancing around like movie stars, so while it has to come from the top eventually, it may have to begin at the bottom.

So we cannot stop with casting a ballot. At the personal and local level, we need to listen to and talk to one another, both one-on-one and in groups. On social media and in other public arenas, we need to remain civil. Remain? Maybe more like return to or initiate and practice civility. But we must also continue to urge our elected officials to keep civil tongues in their mouths, focus on practical matters of government, listen to all their constituents, and not sell their souls for short-term financial gain or temporary political career advancement. (People will remember, Mr. and Ms. Candidate. Keep that well in mind.) We cannot rest secure by electing people and then turning them loose on trust to look out for us. We have to watch them like hawks, every minute, and not let them forget for a minute that we’re watching. 

There are a lot of us, though, so we can take turns. Once we’ve established the habit. Once our fevered brains have a chance to recall that we’re all in this together, sink or swim. That’s the good news. It can be done. We can pull together. We can treat one another decently, with respect. And we have everything to gain.

The question is, will we get it together in time? Vote on Tuesday! But don't expect voting to produce a miracle. It's just not that fast or easy.

What Is Patriotic?

The words on this discarded beer can are familiar. “Land of the Free” is proudly proclaimed, along with “Home of the Brave” and “Indivisible Since 1776.” Indivisible? Well, the attempt to divide was certainly made in a bloody conflict that dragged on for years, but in the end the political entity known as the Union held.

Near the top of this recyclable (but no returnable; was it brought to Michigan from another state?) some of the words of the national anthem appear. Only the first few lines, and even those are incomplete, as the lines were made to arc upwards toward the pull tab, cutting off all but “Oh say can ... proudly”/”we hailed at the ... Whose broad”/with two remaining lines appearing in full, ending with the words “so gallantly streaming?”

Against a red background at the bottom of the can we may read “LIBERTY & JUSTICE FOR ALL.”

I found this beer can at the side of one of my favorite walking roads, presumably thrown from the window of a passing car or truck.

Is littering less objectionable if an empty can is emblazoned with patriotic sentiments? Are customers for this product more patriotic than drinkers of Canadian beer? Is the company more patriotic for using the national anthem to promote and market its product? The Budweiser company calls this beer “America.”

Respect. Disrespect. National symbols. I’m thinking about it all.

Opposing Forces: Battling the ‘Other’

“I don’t like ‘us vs. them’ talk,” she wrote. Nor do I. Yet there are times when the world seems to array itself into opposing sides.

Does it have to be that way? Couldn’t we all just get along? Be respectful, listen to one another, consider the possibility that we, our side, might be mistaken – or at least that there’s more to think about?

I’m not willing to give up on facts, i.e., that they exist and need to be faced. Does that alone put me on one side of the current political battle?

One undeniable fact seems to be that many human beings (though not all) thrive on battle. Whether the fight is physical, intellectual, emotional or commercial, warriors would be bored without it. They push away the sweet, smooth custard of civility and demand raw bones, with plenty of gristle – your bones, if you’re available for enemy status, that is, if you question their authority or rank or opinion or course of action. Because someone has to be the enemy. A warrior will happily risk breaking his own teeth for the pleasure of a chance to sharpen them on your bones.

When a warrior declares you to be the Other and refuses to acknowledge or admit commonality, and when the stakes of the disagreement are high, what can one do but join in battle?

I’d rather not. Despite a background in academic philosophy, adversarial as it is (arguments, objections, refutations, etc.), I am happier not having to fight for a place to stand. Living is hard enough without that! There are plenty of struggles inherent in daily life: age, cold, ice, gravity, survival!

Even if one looks at contest in terms of excitement and stimulation, something one desires rather than desires to avoid, battling the Other is not the only possible way for human beings to challenge themselves. Other ways to look at self-challenges might include:

Self-improvement: This can mean anything from education to overcoming a weakness or moral flaw to building body mass. Possibilities are endless, and challenges can be as difficult as you want to make them.

Wilderness challenge: Into this category would fall projects like hiking the entire Appalachian Trail or climbing a mountain or surviving alone in the desert for a predetermined length of time. Again, endless possibilities.

Personal best: In whatever a person already excels, there is usually a chance to improve, and when age rules out marathon running, substitute endeavors can be found.

In short, we can challenge ourselves rather than an Other. ‘Challenge’ does not have to mean getting in the ring and punching another person. Pursuit of an elusive ideal can be a lifelong challenge.

Why, though, might this not inspire a pugnacious warrior?

Well, some of the challenges I’ve suggested are invisible, and meeting them brings no medals, no ribbons, no applause. Often no one else will care at all, even if the struggle is visible in principle. (Climbing a mountain is not an invisible inner struggle, but the mountain is indifferent to the climber's success. The mountain does not applaud the climber.) If someone is after purely extrinsic rewards, recognition will always be essential to satisfaction.

Moreover, even where there is a cheering audience – say, for the successful marathon runner -- certain kinds of personalities will only be satisfied when able to dominate other human beings. In “the thrill of victory,” for many, half that thrill is reducing the Other to “the agony of defeat.”

And so, reluctantly, against my burrowing, bookish, retiring badger nature, I find myself this already difficult winter season enjoined in a battle I never chose. I am part of the Other, because almost every public good I hold dear is under fire – environmental protection, public education, equality, workers’ rights and protections, freedom of speech and assembly, legal precedent. The very idea of a common good is held in disdain.

And I am not going to “get over it,” not going to shut up and retreat and listen and watch quietly from a corner while the values I love and dismantled and the country I love rebuilt to an ugly blueprint I never thought I’d see here. 

If I did not stand up against what’s going on now, how could I claim to be for anything at all?

We Should Not Be Wall-Builders, Either

[What do you do when you can't sleep? I read and write.]

Saturday Morning Reflections

We who do not want to see a physical wall built between our country and Mexico must be careful not to build a social wall between ourselves and the Americans whose different views and votes carried the day on Tuesday, because “They” are not a homogeneous block but a diverse group, with diverse reasons for voting as they did.

·     Some are party loyalists and would have voted for the Republican candidate whoever he or she had been, and a certain segment of Republican party loyalists are of the all-government-is-bad stripe. (Ideologically, they are libertarians.) This group will always vote their ideology.

·     Others are one-issue voters (e.g., anti-abortion). One friend told me her group of Catholic women friends fall into this camp. All other issues, all other statements were unimportant to them.

·     Some “liked some of what he had to say” (e.g., “he talked about jobs”) enough that they could somehow set aside the rest. One woman told me she tried, in looking at both candidates, to set aside personality and character and look only at issues. Apparently there were people who could do that.

·     A very large segment flocked to the Republican Party because they had been feeling invisible and the Republican candidate paid attention to them. Most of the people in this group (amazingly! This came out in post-election coverage) won’t even care all that much if he fails to make good on his promises. Mobilization of the overlooked (overlooked by media and by mainstream politicos alike) is the #1 explanation favored by mainstream journalists in the election aftermath. I say it is significant, but it can only serve, in my view, as one explanation among others. We human beings crave simple explanations, but life is not always simple. Yes, this is an important factor (and we must all draw a lesson from it), but it is not the only factor.

·     Don’t forget that many who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary voted Republican in the election! Crossover vote from Democrat to Republican accounts for people (1) who believe that American workers have not benefited from trade agreements (I did NOT cross over, but I also believe that the agreements have benefited corporations at the expense of workers both at home and abroad; NAFTA was my biggest disappointment of the Bill Clinton administration) and (2) who want a president not beholden to the status quo.

·     Even the anti-Hillary contingent cannot be dismissed simply as anti-woman or anti-feminist. I voted for her but have never fully trusted either of the Clintons since NAFTA. Be honest, my dear fellow feminists: was she your ideal candidate? Not mine, but I voted for her because I mistrusted her opponent far, far more on almost every issue and could not stomach his behavior or rhetoric.

·     This brings us to racism and sexism and bigotry of all kinds. Undoubtedly, those played a part, and undoubtedly racism persists in this country, as does sexism and homophobia and xenophobia, etc. Unfortunately, too, the worst segment of that contingent now feels it has a mandate to act out its hate. And no, we cannot stand back in silence, and we cannot hide fearfully in our homes. We must oppose hatred and bigotry and persecution wherever we find them. But it’s important we not characterize half our country’s population on the basis of what I have to believe is a minority splinter contingent.

Nothing in my list above is meant to excuse odious speech or behavior on the part of the candidate or any of his supporters.

But now, two conclusions I hope you will share with me: First, supporters of the new president-elect cannot be dismissed as a monolithic demonic army of hate-mongers. And second, to prevent the social disintegration we so deeply fear it is important that we not build walls that would escalate divisions and turn our beloved country into warring camps.

President Obama never fails to amaze me, and he and the First Lady, Michelle, are the examples I would have us take for our own. We need to do as they have always done and continue to do: to oppose bigotry and hatred at every opportunity, to continue to listen to others, to demand and bestow respect for and on human beings, and to model the behavior we want to see surrounding us. I hope and fervently pray that the hour and a half the president-elect spent with the president the other day will have a lasting and beneficial effect on the future behavior of the man who will next inhabit the White House. I also hope, (somewhat desperately, I must admit: these are ugly, frightening times) that the president-elect will be inspired speak out publicly to rein in the worst behavior of his supporters. The sooner, the better. In fact, I hope it will have already happened before this post goes online.

One Step Back

Let frustration get the upper hand, and you could soon be up to your eyebrows in regret.

It could have been much worse for me this week, however, which goes to show once more that many decisions are better for having been postponed. My last post here on this blog was an expression of frustration – frustration widely shared, apparently, because more than one person suggested, even requested, that I edit that piece down for publication in our county’s weekly newspaper or the daily paper in Traverse City. One request was especially fervent. What to do?

I was reluctant. I’d said what I had to say and was not looking for a wider audience. Would anything be gained?

“At least think about it! And would you call me back and let me know what you’ve decided?”

I spent the remainder of the evening paring down an original thousand words plus to a manageable three hundred. (I recommend this exercise, by the way. For a real wake-up call, edit yourself ruthlessly to a word limit. Can you say it in 800 words? 600? 400? Whole paragraphs reveal themselves as self-indulgent, unnecessary and/or redundant, while sentences purged of clutter emerge taut and clear.)

Finally more or less satisfied with the result, I pulled up an old letter I’d had published in a Traverse City weekly last year for comparison. The subject of the earlier letter was affordable housing, and I’d expressed myself to my satisfaction in 300 words.

But I was struck by the glaring contrast between the two pieces.

My older letter, a response to a previously published opinion article, focused on one particular issue and analyzed problems with the opinion writer’s statements. Our differences had to do with a situation and how to deal with it, and while he was clearly conservative and I obviously liberal on this issue, the disagreement was pragmatic rather than blindly partisan. The tone of my letter was – and not by accident -- reasoned, calm, and dispassionate.

The newer 300 words were entirely different. They contained no analysis and no new facts. The whole thing was nothing but finger-pointing.

Important question: What is the point of writing a letter to an editor or, if you’re the editor, writing an editorial? What is the point of writing an opinion piece? Why wade into those shark-infested waters at all unless you hope to open a few eyes and minds to a new way of seeing shared terrain?

Partisan finger-pointing, even absent name-calling (which I always try to avoid), will never change anyone’s mind. It is not reasoned argument and not presentation of new facts. Those who already agree with you will nod and cheer, while those on the other side turn away in self-righteous anger. Everything, unless made worse, remains as it was.

Many people in our country today do see politics as a war. True believers raise their voices ever louder in a kind of locker room hysteria – finger-jabbing, shouting, name-calling, metaphorically shoving and trampling their opponents. But to join in that fray, on that level, if this is what we oppose, is to become the enemy, to give up principles, to hand over victory.

I’m not saying I don’t still believe what I wrote about party politics at the county, state, and national level. What I’m saying is that saying it did no one any good. Putting my words “out there” temporarily relieved my unhappiness and gave a few others a brief sensation of solidarity. I expressed my frustration. But really, who cares? I gave in to basically useless self-expression. That’s all. Everything remains as it was. Not a single mind was changed or opened to change.

Instead of becoming more and more partisan, what we have to do in our county is to focus calmly on issues. Where facts are distorted, those distortions must be cleared away in a workmanlike manner. Where facts are absent, they must be brought forth. And as much as we talk, we all need to listen, especially where we disagree, because no one’s mind will be opened by being hectored or lectured or treated like an ignorant, willful child. Wouldn’t your blood pressure shoot through the roof if someone treated you like that?

So now, in the aftermath of my online outburst, I want to say that I think all the more highly of those in politics who can remain undistracted by frustration, who do not give in to it but keep their focus instead on the work at hand. You know who you are. Thank you for the work you do!

There is no way toward a civil discourse other than by adhering to civility. The next ten months will be a trying time, but that can be a good thing. Rising to challenges can be good for us all. I know all this. But how easily what we know can be forgotten in the heat of the moment!

Postscript: I was tempted to take down the previous post but am leaving it up, my moment of weakness exposed, as an example to others and reminder to myself of what is not worth doing.

Mom Reviews the Political Scene

Leelanau County, Michigan, is not the place it used to be.

There are fewer children in the county and fewer schools than were here a century ago, while at the same time there is a larger (and growing) population of older people in comfortable financial circumstances. Ironically, other than in the building trades, the rising number of retired “transplants” has not resulted in a matching increase of opportunities for full-time, year-round employment. It’s possible now, after all, to live in a specific geographic area almost anywhere in the world without being forced to support the local economy. Also, many officially “fulltime” retired residents spend several months a year traveling or in second homes elsewhere.

There have been other changes, as has been true in the United States at large.

Leelanau County these days has a different kind of Republican party from what was here even thirty years ago, and the local change mirrors that of the present Republican party across the United States. The county always had a conservative flavor, but old-time Republicans represented a wide spectrum of views. Recall that Governor Milliken was a Republican. Someone with Milliken’s moderate views could never even be nominated by the Republican Party these days, in Michigan or anywhere else in the country.

The current Leelanau County Board of Commissioners is a microcosm of broader American politics, with all the gridlock, hostility, and rejection of “working together” – at least on the part of the Republican commissioners -- implied by the comparison. I do not lay the blame on one party with any kind of partisan glee. Look through the glass sides of the fishbowl. Watch the fish. See what they do, and listen to what they say.

Party politics used to be close to irrelevant at the village, township, even the county level, and that was a good thing. Local politics was about getting things done, not about party allegiance. We are seeing the death throes of those good old ways.

Until quite recently, composition of the board was four Republicans and three Democrats. Then one of the Republicans stepped down. Known as “the swing vote” on the board, that member had earned the ire of many of her Republican constituents for whom bipartisanship is anathema. She occasionally voted “with” Democrats! Clearly, she was a traitor and a turncoat! There were efforts within her party to lead her to the light, but she tired of the wrangling and resigned rather than cave in to orthodoxy and right-wing political correctness.

From all appearances, there are only two “principles” at work today in the ideology of the Republican party. One is that whatever or whomever Democrats are for, Republicans must be against. This principle is not limited to matters of fiscal responsibility: even a measure that would cost nothing must be opposed by Republicans if brought forth by a Democrat. And a candidate with lifelong Republican credentials, should he or she stoop to bipartisanship on that or any other measure, must be drummed out of office and purged from the Party.

The other principle, the primary principle, the one that is the reason that adherence to other is demanded, is that government should not do anything – other than, of course, make war and police borders. But nothing else! And even that border policing, like policing in general, like schools, like prisons, would be done better, most Republicans are coming to believe, by private enterprise. Government is always the problem, never the solution!

One Republican member of the county board is pleased with the current 3:3 deadlock because it ensures that the board will be unable to do anything.

Stop and think about this for a moment. The phrase “do-nothing government” used to be harsh criticism. Today, from hard line Republicans, it is the highest praise. The right wing aspires to the establishment of do-nothing government.

A naive question may arise: If you think government is evil, why would you want to be part of government? Sadly, the question is easily answered: If the do-nothings were to give up control, government might once again be empowered to act! Hark back to an irony from the days of the Vietnam conflict: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”  Do-nothings must at all costs keep control of the paralyzed “village” (government) in order to ensure its power will not revive.

Can county and national politics be enjoyed simply as a clown show, as some suggest? Should we expect it to be and accept it as nothing but “sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

Our country has long proclaimed itself the leader of the free world. We promote our political system as an example to other countries, to peoples around the globe. Look what we can do! You could do it, too! That has been the lesson of our history, from 1776 onward.

What example, what lessons, do we hold forth to the world today? You, too, can make lethal weapons! You, too, can make war! You, too, can elect “leaders” determined to let nothing be done to improve your lives, and you can sell off government functions to the highest for-profit bidders! This is democracy, the best in the world!

Is it, really? Is this the best we can do?

NOW PLEASE GO READ THIS.

"Why Paris?"

In the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, France, talking heads keep asking, “Why Paris?” They ask if the reason is this or that or the other thing, everyone looking for a simple answer. But the world is complicated, not simple.

France, like the United States, has long been a nation of both native peoples and immigrants. Both countries also have legacies of imperialism, France with official colonies, the United States with de facto cheap labor satellites in service to American capitalism. In both countries, the past haunts the present, and the present in one place on earth touches the present in other places. 

France and the United States are very different when it comes to geographic area and neighbors. The U.S. shares borders only with Canada and Mexico, and the contiguous states between those two borders is immense, while France forms part of a much smaller continent, divided into numerous smaller nation-states, with much more porous borders since European Union.

Terrorism attacks, it should be remembered, have not been confined to France and the United States. They have taken place this month in Lebanon and Jordan; the bombing of a U.S. embassy in Kenya in 1998 killed 247 Kenyans (20 for every American who died); nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls between the ages of 16 and 18 were abducted in 2014.

Historically, “war” has meant the clash of armies. Sending troops to war meant they would go into battle against other armed troops. American troops in the Revolutionary War and Vietnamese troops in the last century adopted techniques of guerrilla warfare, rather than charging at each other across open fields, but they were still armed troops engaging other armed troops in what could be recognized and called battle – a deadly game, to be sure, with civilian casualties, but still with a few recognized rules.

No more. No rules. When and how (no doubt gradually) the changes came about can be argued, but the fact is indisputable.

Do we in the West care more, care disproportionately, about “our own” and ignore terrorism elsewhere? One Facebook post decried the lack of posts on Beiruit, at the same time Paris postings were everywhere. One reason for that, I think, is that we share the news we hear, and what we hear on American radio and read in our newspapers is by and large the news that touches Americans most directly. When I want news about Ethiopia, I have to seek it out; what’s happening in Paris is on the radio 24 hours a day. But I agree that it is important to look beyond the headlines to the rest of the world.

To the original question, “Why Paris?,” however, there is no simple answer. But after September 11, 2001, did anyone ask, “Why New York?” It seemed obvious, didn’t it?

Paris is obvious for the same reason.

Paris, like New York, has long been a dream city for people all over the world. It is a center of art and culture, of business and finance, of fashion and of government. It is, if you will, New York and Washington, D.C., combined. And it is beautiful. Many who live elsewhere hold it in their hearts as a second home, and many who have yet to see it for the first time hold it in their dreams.

It is important that we not forget victims and grief and fear in other parts of the world. Did you know that Beirut was once called “the Paris of the Middle East”? Even had it never been called that, the people of Beirut are as deserving of compassion as the people of Paris. At the same time, it’s only natural that our hearts are drawn to what is familiar, to the country President Obama rightly called “our oldest ally,” the city that welcomed American GIs and artists and writers and students, following World War II.

Paris, c’est une phare. Que la lumière sois jamais èteinte.