24 December 2009

A Christmas Message

As the holiday season reaches a crescendo, let’s take a moment in the midst of assembled families and celebrations of faith to evaluate what religion means to us and, moreover, what we mean to religion.  As my brief bio states, “I am non-aligned ... I belong to no one party, religion, or ideology.”  But, not ‘belonging’ doesn’t mean the trinity of head, heart and power doesn’t fascinate me, or that I don’t grant each their due respect.  In fact, they are what I study every day. My doctoral research examines the effects of religious convictions on US foreign policy over the transom of presidential ideology.  And, not ‘belonging’ allows me the advantage of indifference – my interpretations of the historical record and today’s events endure no predestination (sorry St. Augustine). 

            In the American experience, dominated by Christianity, three tenets emerged that inform much of our American identity.  Individualism rose from the Protestant Reformation to grant the individual primacy over institutions. Rights became intrinsic to humans rather than bestowed by monarchs or churches.  Perfectibility, or the belief that humans could make the world right in advance of a Second Coming gave us hope and a reason for the “pursuit of happiness.” And, exceptionalism rose from a belief first uttered by John Winthrop as his ship, the Arbella, approached the coast of modern-day Massachusetts, that “we shall be as a city upon a hill” – a chosen people in a promised land – the new Israel.

            Each of these tenets has found expression in and out of the private, public, and political spheres.  At times, they remain more or less dormant; at others, they seem prominent.  They ebb and flow. Our American religious convictions remained away from the political sphere after they were shamed to the sidelines during the Scopes trial in 1925.  They found new expression in the public sphere during the 1950s as a point of differentiation to ‘godless communism’ and as a center of socialization while the suburbanization of America got underway.  Then, they entered the political sphere in the late 1950s and early 1960s, providing compelling arguments for civil rights and anti-war sentiments. By the late 1970s religion was completely ensconced in the political sphere providing a political whipping-post for casting social judgment and filling the coffers of televangelists.   Finally, more recently, they have provided cover for the hubristic projection of power to remake the world in our own image.

            These tenets can be both beneficial and/or dangerous depending on their application.  They are double-edged swords.  In their benign state – where each is pursued and expressed with both confidence and humility – they act separately and collectively to build stronger citizens and a cohesive, powerful, and compassionate nation.  In the last thirty years or so, they have been twisted and torqued reaching a level of perversion that threatens the future of our country and those upon whom we project our power. Our individualism has morphed into narcissism, perfectibility into entitlement, and exceptionalism into hubris.  Our national self-righteousness has been deluded by its first cousin – self-deception – producing a decade of deceit beyond the values of any religion, or the expectations of any god.

            In this season of celebration and reflection allow me a personal appeal – my hope for you and America.  May we set aside judgment in favor of service, choose reflection over projection, and turn our evangelical zeal inward – that we might be exemplars of our beliefs and convictions rather than agents of their demise.  If we don’t take care of our head, heart, and power our souls may be lost forever.

             Finally, I share with you something I wrote years ago. It seems to still make sense – maybe now more than ever.

Your Gift

            We arrive in this world by circumstance and spend much of our life trying to reconcile the gift.  We endure our struggles and ascribe our lot with the certainty of burden.  Between the jubilation, pain and occasional humility we scrape a path that is ours, alone.  In the seam of these struggles life offers brilliance; the warmth of late summer’s sun quenching our shoulders as we gaze across a horizon of promise; the magical touch of a child’s hand who clasps ours for comfort; the flash of a smile from a heart who loves ours, too.  We are placed here by chance to express a life all our own.  Tear away the wrapping … therein lies the gift.

            Every morning offers beauty.  Every day arrives as a clean slate, if we look past the indelible erasures.  When the sky is dark, the wind unyielding and the news dire, there is reason to smile.  We each possess the promise of greatness; to thrust our spirit into the light where our gift can shine.  The choice is ours, in this moment and every moment that follows.  Look into your own eyes and accept your gift.  Draw those near who nourish your soul.  Let others pass.

            This season, take a morning walk in the silence of new-fallen snow; lift a child upon your knee and tell him/her a story about your grandfather; sit outside at night until the sky throws a star your way.

Listen.
Love.
Laugh.

Celebrate.



16 December 2009

Taking Stock: The Uh-Oh Years


In June 2002, I wrote an essay titled “The Uh-Oh Years” that was later published in my collection, American Avenue: Rhythm & Reason (2007).  “Uh-Oh” was my duo-toned neume to represent a double-zero decade that appeared to be headed in a perilous direction after the dot-com bust and 9/11.  At the time I wrote:

I fear the pain is just beginning.  Our capital markets drift lower still; world leaders listen to our counsel with blank stares while their people learn it’s okay, perhaps even stylish, to hate America.  Lessons in humility are painful, but we were long overdue.  Since the mid-1980s we have been perfecting our swagger, dispatching it with greater flare each year, cocksure we had earned our arrogance while unaware of the slimy trail our flowing robes left behind.  All the evidence is there, anywhere you dare look – in politics, religion, business, sport, and entertainment – Americans have lost their sense of right and wrong.  Volume, vanity, violence, and vice are the values that guide us.  Dante would be proud.

            Seven years have passed and we all know the story.  Unfortunately, “Uh-Oh” proved an understatement.  A medley of hubris, fear, and avarice squandered America’s hard-won preeminence and placed America in crisis, both financially and morally.  However, I sense a turn – (hopefully) for the better – as we come to terms with our collapse of exceptionalism in often personal and painful terms.  We are, as Americans are so apt to do, reinventing our identity around new terms of fulfillment.  We are forging new relationships with new knowledge and remodeled identities that allow us to persevere and prosper.  We are realizing that a life of abundance – a full life – is not as fulfilling as being full of life. 

            The last two lines of a poem, written by Michael Earnest Henley in 1875, are on a stamped piece of metal that hangs on a chain around my neck – together with a compass rose.  The poem speaks volumes to me.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

           
            As we face the holiday season and year-end with all its disorientations and pretense, we must remain forever vigilant about whom we are and what we mean to others; we must take stock of the year and past decade and take our share of responsibility.  It is only then that hope can manifest its promises.  It is only then we can master our fate, and captain our soul.

           

13 December 2009

Human Rights: War and Righteousness


Human rights scholars and advocates were busy last week.

            While President Obama reconciled security, morality, and human rights in his speech in Oslo, members of Congress were tied to an effort to incarcerate and/or execute homosexuals in Uganda.  In Obama’s remarks at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, he identified one of the principal tensions our leaders must wrestle with as they uphold their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States: between assuring our security and protecting human rights. Throughout most of American history security has held primacy over morality as the modal framework of foreign policy. As a result, human rights, based in a moral precept of liberty, have been occasionally compromised to achieve security. But, as Obama pointed out in his elocution of the contradiction of waging war to achieve peace, “We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend.” He argued that the “United States of America must remain the standard bearer in the conduct of war” to serve its dual aims of security and morality.[1]  In these words he rejected the advocacy of realpolitik prominent during the Nixon-Kissinger era, as well as the hyper-exceptionalism of the George W. Bush era, for a nuanced hybrid of realism and idealism – waging war with moral compass in-hand – an ideological approximation of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Christian realism.”[2]

            Meanwhile, a few senators and congressmen waged their own war against Ugandans by supporting its leaders who are about to pass an anti-gay law that would deprive suspected homosexuals of their freedom and, under certain circumstances, their lives.[3]  Why are these senators, who presumably have a grasp of the American concept of human rights, supporting leaders in Uganda who are trying to legalize the incarceration and execution of homosexuals?  The short answer: because they can.  Their motive and means reveal the dark side of a network of powerful fundamentalists – of a dubious and power-centric theology – who wield influence saturated by righteousness and bigotry. Their common bond with the president of Uganda: they are all members of “the Family.”[4]

            The Family is an informal network of Christian fundamentalists that has existed in the United States for many years.  They are also referred to as the “Fellowship,” or “Fellowship Foundation” and sponsor the annual National Prayer Breakfast, attended each year by numerous politicians including the President of the United States.  They own and operate residences in the Washington DC area for the care and fellowship of members, including members of Congress.  Their “man in Africa” according to Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, is Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda. The relationship between Museveni and the Family dates back many years and includes business and moral ‘development.’ 

            Uganda has become the sandbox of righteousness for members of the Family who believe their particular interpretation of the Bible is supreme to the laws of man. Their ‘life equation’ according to their leader, Doug Coe, is Jesus + 0 = X.[5] Jesus plus nothing is everything.  Jesus is all you need.  And, not surprisingly, homosexuals are evil.  In Uganda, they have twisted the concept of God’s love with such abandon they have morphed it into hate. Personal liberties, as conceived by the Founding Fathers, are no match for their righteousness. Their concept of separation of church and state is a “myth” that, when ‘properly’ interpreted, only prohibits the state from influencing the church.[6]  Their concept of human rights includes the ‘right’ to imprison and execute ‘humans’ who don’t conform to their beliefs.
           
            Human rights are likely more safe than they were under Bush with Obama’s contemplation of foreign policy.  But, human rights remain in peril every day as religious fundamentalists, like those who claim membership in the Family and occupy seats in Congress, operate as rogue warriors waging hate.

           


[1] Barack Obama, December 11, 2009, “Obama’s Nobel Remarks,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com.
[2] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.)  
[3] Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has been on this story for several days now. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34345821/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/
[4] For a comprehensive study of the Family, see Jeff Sharlet, The Family (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008).
[5] Ibid., p. 58.
[6] Ibid., p. 339.      

06 December 2009

The Delusion of Choice

Freedom of choice is a basic American liberty fought for by generations of Americans who had little choice themselves.  As America rose to super power status and won the Cold War, freedom of choice took an interesting turn to what sociologist Barry Schwartz termed the “paradox of choice”: an abundance of wealth gave us so many choices we became paralyzed by “anxiety and perpetual stress.”[1]  Today, however, we have reached a new locus in the evolution of choice in America: the delusion of choice.

            Choice, once scarce, achieved ubiquity as our fight for liberty colluded with natural resources, technology, and luck to produce unimaginable fortunes that assured a seemingly endless range of options.  America arrived at a place where the impossible became mundane and each roll of the dice faced less and less risk.  However, consequences are also ubiquitous, even though they seem to disappear in the fog of wealth.  Too many choices not only produce stress, as Schwatrz observes, it slowly degrades our capacity for critical thinking – of discernment.  Firing our guns requires less aim when both ammunition and targets are abundant.  And, the illusion of permanence – of never-ending limitless options – finds easy residence in the lap of denial. 
           
            For the first time in roughly twenty-five years we are facing, once again, limits of choice.  Preferred options are unavailable due to scarcity of resources and will.  Yet, we face healthcare reform with the stubbornness of a spoiled child – we are determined to spend more and cover more without facing the reality that the system remains unchanged … financially and morally unsustainable.  We delude ourselves that the so-called ‘reforms’ will actually reduce the deficit and result in no new taxes.  We double our bet in the intractable quagmire in Afghanistan while having no definition of victory and no prospective government to steward our investment once we leave the table – a bet, incidentally,  financed by an emerging loan shark called China.  We read reams of data on climate change and chant “Drill, baby, DRILL!” Popular illusions are quickly becoming delusions.

            Our freedom of choice became a paradox of choice and, finally, our favorite delusion.  Discipline, discernment, and responsibility will return in time, however, as crisis wins its arm wrestle with denial.  Each of us need to question decisions made, votes cast, and resources expended to reign in delusion.  We need to face the obviousness of our circumstances with a renewed commitment to curiosity, humility, and resolve to wrest our future liberties from those who unwittingly place them in peril.


[1] Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice, (New York: HarperCollins, 2004). See also, Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox, (New York: Random House, 2003).

28 November 2009

Lyle Lovett Begs the Question


Lyle Lovett’s poetry, sung with a rasp that suggests he’s had more than one dusty ride in the back of a pickup, tugs at the soul of America – reminding us of a heritage that must silently wonder what-the-hell we Americans are doing today.

            My wife, daughter, and I, enjoyed Lyle and his Large Band at Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas on Thanksgiving eve. Lyle – a national treasure – performed at Bass Hall – a Texas treasure. It was the end of a long tour for Lyle and his band, and it was brilliant. They sang, played, told stories on each other, and reminded us of those who had passed on. One lyric, however, stood above the rest.

            In Natural Forces, the title song of Lyle’s new album, Lyle begs the question we should all stop and consider as we watch tens of thousands more troops line up for deployment to Afghanistan. He sings,
           
And now as I sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Light and the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and war
Lord I pray that I’m worth fighting for …

            As we debate the decisions of our president and military leaders, invoking patriotic rhetoric and thumping the bible of American exceptionalism, those of us who stay home with our “cold Coors Light and the TV on” have a duty too. Let’s make sure we’re "worth fighting for."

23 November 2009

America's Growing (In)Security State


The United States has arrived at a precarious position in its pursuit of national security; finally the world’s predominant military power – a goal that took fifty years to achieve – it must face a new reality: the rest of the world has adapted and effectively changed the rules of the game.  The arms race is over.  The brains race is on. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) delivered by brainwashed, networked, religious radicals, or controlling another nation’s debt, are just two mind-based examples of new power strategies. 

Today’s battles will be won or lost in new venues – in the hearts and minds of populations who have become free agents and/or the financial balance sheets of rivals.  In the development and distribution of clean fuels and/or the deployment of untraceable computer viruses.  Networked power is replacing the uniformed coercive power of states, and the US is stuck in an old, increasingly irrelevant narrative – debating troop levels and slinging invective in partisan debates … dithering or deliberation?  Freeing ourselves from our own trap will determine whether the US stays on top, or joins the short, albeit impressive list of former super powers.

The debate today ought to be about the questions not the answers. As the world adapts around our power, will the decisions we make today make a difference?  As culturalist, Robert Wright, points out, should we “kill the terrorists” or “kill the terrorist meme?”[1]  Should we be investing in bigger bombs and more troops, or fuel independence and smarter networks?  We must rethink our debates and question all the old ‘givens’ from our Cold War mentality. 

Our military industrial complex is obsolete. We must build an intelligence complex that is both effective and highly adaptive if we are to succeed in a world where the enemy is unseen and alliances are self-executing based on instantaneous calculations of relative benefit.  And, we must realize that the power of attraction now trumps the power of coercion in a new game of paper, rock, scissors, and fire.


[1] Robert Wright, “Who Created Major Hasan?” New York Times, November 22, 2009.

16 November 2009

Celebrating Crisis


White Windsor collars on crisp colored shirts, banded by Hermes cravats and striped suspenders, offered the mousse-laden coif of Gordon Gekko an air of elite credibility as he unabashedly granted greed the seal of morality twenty years ago … “Greed is good!”  Today, while the sequel to Wall Street is in production, our sense of what is good is changing – at least on Main Street.  The rest of the world is learning – slowly and painfully – that crisis is good too, even as the mantra of greed continues its reign of primacy in the shadow of Trinity Church in downtown New York.  As Goldman Sachs conjures a new bubble-market to inflate and exploit, crisis brings hope in the most unlikely places.

            In the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, which was demolished and left as rubble by the many government agencies who swore to rebuild it, crisis offers a vacuum of opportunity.  Wayne Curtis reports (The Atlantic, November 2009) “New Orleans is seeing an unexpected boom in architectural experimentation.”  In the Lower Ninth the new dream homes are also green. Simple, yet high design is combined with solar power to make the electric meter “run backwards” and building materials are reclaimed from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. If the Corp of Engineers does their job re-building the levy (for real this time), what had become a cesspool in the Lower Ninth Ward will be one of the most advanced new neighborhoods in America.

            Then there’s the case of ‘biochar.’  While Al Gore promotes environmental apocalypse (justified by his own Hobbesian view of brutish man) and is challenged by less vocal but brilliant scientists like Princeton’s Dr. Freeman Dyson, the nearly unknown Danny Day is busy solving the problem beyond the hue and cry of politicized climate change.  Mr. Day is founder and president of Eprida (www.eprida.com).  Eprida applies old technologies first used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon Basin to convert biomass to build  “sustainable food and energy production.”  Biological charcoal (‘biochar’) is made from organic waste that keeps harmful carbons ‘locked-in’ providing a new form of highly effective organic fertilizer and storage of harmful carbon for many millennia. Clean up the air while increasing crop yields – a two-for-one piece of creative elegance.

            Finally, while our elected leaders wrestle with their temperamental paramours in the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Jay Parkinson is executing his own healthcare reform by renegotiating the relationship between patient and healthcare provider. At hellohealth.com, the patient manages his or her healthcare where they can find a physician, schedule an appointment, handle ‘simple’ visits online, and manage their prescriptions and medical records. HelloHealth utilizes a combination of health savings accounts and catastrophic insurance to provide coverage, while reducing the enormous waste of time and paper associated with most patient/physician interactions.  Many of the appointments are completed online using instant messaging with the patient’s records in front of the physician as digital files.  The only thing missing are all the tattered back-issues of People magazine in the waiting room full of wheezing patients.

            If these three cases suggest anything it is that crisis may indeed be as good, or better, than Gekko’s greed.  Americans have an uncanny capacity to experiment, innovate, and prevail. Maybe, just maybe, this crisis will prove really, really good.

10 November 2009

The Dark Side of Religion


When things don’t make sense – and as ‘rational’ humans we need them to – we make them make sense.  Our mental health depends on it.  When reason doesn’t provide answers we invite faith to fill the void. This is, at a cognitive level, one of the principal functions of religion.  We accept what our theistic traditions offer to reconcile knowns and unknowns and justify our response to a complex world that too often defies reason.

            In David Brooks’ column in the New York Times (10 November 2009) titled “The Rush to Therapy” he points out “The stories we select help us … to interpret the world. They guide us to pay attention to certain things and ignore others. The most important power we have is to select the lens through which we see reality.” Mr. Brooks gets that part right, then he chooses the wrong lens – of Judeo-Christian American exceptionalism – through which he interprets the case of Army Major Nidal Hasan, the shooter at Fort Hood, Texas.

            Army Major Nidal Hasan, is an American Muslim and, undoubtedly, a murderer.  He suffered demons we may never fully understand.  Islamic extremists who wage violence throughout the world may have radicalized him.  While we have much more to learn about his story, those with their own agenda or point of view have preemptively written it.  Hasan and his victims have become fodder for our relentless pursuit of a truth that fits our preferred narrative, which serves our innocence while reconciling dissonance to keep us sane. In his column, Brooks writes his version while criticizing those who wait to know more.

            Mr. Brooks proceeds by outlining the danger of “malevolent narrative” that has “…emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world … that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other.”  He then offers criticism of those of us who chose restraint over judgment in the case of Major Hasan, producing a “…shroud of political correctness [that] settled the conversation” and characterizes it as “patronizing” and a “willful flight from reality.” He claims evidence that proves Hasan “…chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.”  In so doing, Brooks reveals his lens of Judeo-Christian American exceptionalism.

            Mr. Brooks’ narrative about Islam waging war on Christianity and Judaism could easily be exchanged word-for-word by a columnist at al-Jazeera to criticize moderate Muslims who exercise restraint – crafting an inverse narrative of Christianity and Judaism’s war on Islam.  But Brooks – who is blinded by his lens of exceptionalism – totally, and uncharacteristically, misses this.  He could have led us forward to a higher level of understanding – pointing to the dangers inherent in all religions that allow us to not only make sense of the world, but which also justify violence, oppression, and murder.

            All religions claim they are religions of peace.  Few meet the standard.  Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are not among the few.  As long as we believe our particular religious traditions are exceptional – that rise above all others – we will forever remain in the same trap as Brooks – feeling better in the moment, and forever in danger.

05 November 2009

The Real “T” Party: the Transcendents


While tea parties and so-called tea-baggers grab headlines and microphones, it appears their appeal is as thin as their fear-based rhetoric.  The rogue republicans who attempted to hijack what’s left of the Republican Party were handed a dose of electoral realism in the twenty-third congressional district in New York State – it was won by a democrat for the first time since the nineteenth century, even though rogue poster-woman Sarah Palin, wannabe president Fred Thompson, and re-tread republican Dick Armey tried their best to get their fellow tea-man elected.  And, the news was arguably worse for democrats. They lost two state houses in Virginia and New Jersey due to uninspired campaigns and the promise of change that, as yet, has produced more rhetoric than substance.  The larger story here is both parties lost. Enter the Transcendents.

Transcendents are the bulging center of the population who have been disenfranchised by our two-party system where reds and blues have money without ideas and slogans without action – stuck in a narrative of insular certitude that more often is falling on deaf ears.  Transcendents are not independent, as both republicans and democrats prefer to pejoratively cast them; rather they are highly dependent on a system that has failed them.  Nor are they libertarian; they actually believe that government plays an important and selective role that must be bound by fiscal discipline and common sense.

Transcendents, driven by the effects of economic crisis and concerned about the future of the American dream, are rising above the rabble of established politicos – who are more interested in profile than production – to make voting choices based on pragmatism, not party identity.  They believe both Wall Street and DC are rigged games.  They look for ways to work around every assumption and rule to solve problems on their own.  In this way they are social, economic, and political entrepreneurs.

  The question now is which party will realize the reality illustrated by the “T” party and change their ways to attract more votes for their candidates.  They would do well to take off their red and blue lenses and start seeing things as they are, not as their traditions wish them to be. Transcendents are now the majority who will decide which party, if either, will prevail.  Republicans may realize this first, since they’re more desperate, but they need leadership to quell the rogue-ies.  Democrats have more at stake because they risk losing their mandate, but their problem is age-old – they’re the party of factions who identify themselves through narrow interests – unity is an oxymoron.

The encouraging news is the voice of reason may be creeping back into the process as Transcendents represent electoral value to those who wish to hold power. The lesson of this week is clear – if you don’t listen and act, or represent the rogue fringe – you’re gone.

30 October 2009

Trillion Dollar Decisions


There are two trillion dollar decisions bouncing around our nation’s capital these days: healthcare and Afghanistan.  While each is significant in its own right, they are chapters in a larger story: the re-definition of American identity.

Ironically, one initiative intends to improve and save lives while the other wages death and destruction – achieving as yet unspecified objectives.  Both cost about the same within their projected ‘lives’ per the Congressional Budget Office and estimates leaking out of the Pentagon and the White House. While no one is suggesting it’s an either/or choice – the sublime notion of fiscal discipline notwithstanding – these choices illustrate what is likely a transformational time in American history.  Do we continue to assert our hegemony in the global system (with or without the cover of national security), or do we turn inward and take care of our own house?  

Even if we succeed at each – admittedly a foolish assumption – even if we actually take our healthcare system back from the stranglehold of the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, state-based fiefdoms, malpractice attorneys, et al, and achieve affordable, accessible healthcare for all; or that we crush al-Qaeda, the Taliban, build a democracy in Afghanistan, or whomever/whatever it is we’re fighting for today … is it worth two trillion dollars and thousands of lives?  Are hegemony and/or healthcare the right priorities?  What about education, energy, climate change, economic development, scientific research, human rights, international law, or the dependability of the global financial system (to name a few other choices)? 

The larger issue is what makes a nation powerful and successful today –cherished by its people and envied by the world?  Which of the laundry list of initiatives collectively succeed in meeting this standard?  Which America will emerge in the next five years … ten years? What does it mean for our children and grandchildren? Will there be any trillions left for them to spend? Will they even be spending dollars?  Are we staring at the sunset of the American empire or its re-birth?  Do our leaders understand the enormity of the moment?  Is Obama the next Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, or Reagan; presidents who transformed our national identity and kept the American dream alive?  Or, are we destined to fumble our way recklessly forward toward a crisis where we are defined by powers, elements, and interests beyond our control?

The moment is Obama’s, notwithstanding the march of members of congress to the lectern to grab their seconds of fame, or the pundits who fan the flames of absurdity to claim the title of last loudmouth standing.  (They’ll still be there second-guessing everyone when this sequel is written.)  It’s time for Obama to sit alone and contemplate the larger issue: how to keep America on top … cherished by her own and envied my many more … keeping the American dream alive.  The answer may or may not include healthcare and Afghanistan.

23 October 2009

America in Wonderland


Have we fallen down the rabbit hole?  Have we, like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland, imbibed the concoction labeled “Drink me”?  Alice’s journey, read today, is hardly fantastic.  What was once considered a work of glorious creative madness seems now benign, even mundane.  Our collective sensibilities have been warped well beyond anything the Mad Hatter doles out at his tea party.  We have been slowly but surely Alice-ed.  But Alice woke up from her dream. Will we?

        America is Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty – teetering on a wall of debt and deceit, tempting a rogue gust of wind to send it careening beyond the help of all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.  Many, including economists who should know better, argue that deficit spending marks the path to stability and wealth, turning an ignorant eye on the savings and investment that built America.  Our leaders claim they are reforming healthcare while expanding it and re-binding us to a failed system.  We seriously consider doubling-down in Afghanistan to fight an enemy who is no longer there because we lack the political will to admit our mistakes and come home.  We sit around whining while smart folks took our money, saved their companies, and turned our tax dollars into their bonuses.  Our public education system is broken, and our power grid and transportation infrastructure is crumbling, while many of us honestly believe climate change is just another hoax and our future is assured if we’d just “Drill baby, DRILL!”  Our ‘reality shows’ are unreal, spawning nut-jobs who turn their families into hoax machines to feed an insatiable appetite for fame.  Our so-called news channels long ago chose opinion and invective over journalism leaving us all to decide between fiction ... and fiction ...  anchored at extremes of egotism.  The rest of the world sees us as vain and dangerous, but they have little to fear, the harm we do now is largely inflicted on ourselves.  We have become our own victim.

       Our unique drink – much stronger and more dangerous than Alice’s – is one part illusion, one part narcissism, and one part certitude.  We see things as they are and blithely re-interpret facts to bolster our myth of exceptionalism.  We look in the mirror and proclaim “I love me some ME!”  We allow faith to trump reason, trading intelligence for alchemy.  Yet, in spite of the volume, vanity, and vice, there is a solution in Carroll’s Wonderland.  In Wonderland resides the essence of greatness – that special mix of discipline and madness that just might save us from ourselves.

       We need a new drink. Keep the illusion, but trade narcissism for modesty and certitude for curiosity – and add a dash of sweat.  Let creative madness do its thing without allowing public parasites to bilk its treasure.  Set the White Rabbit’s clock back.  Return saving and investment to the altar of wealth.  Celebrate individualism without staring at our navels. Quit ‘tweeting’ and ‘YouTubing.’  And, turn off the damn cameras.  We’re not as clever or pretty as we think. Solve the problem, or shut up and get out of the way.

        As Alice’s Golden Afternoon ended, Carroll wrote,

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out –
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

May Lewis Carroll’s creative madness be ours.

07 October 2009

Afghanistan: Let’s Get Real


History suggests, and our own experience confirms, that waging war in Afghanistan is a fool’s bet.  Two great powers have come before us and failed – the British in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 20th.  We went there eight years ago with a defined mission: destroy Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda base of operations responsible for terrorist attacks on the United States. We failed, perhaps because we decided Saddam Hussein and Iraq were the larger threat (or satisfied other ambitions), yet we failed nonetheless.

          We now have 69,000 troops in Afghanistan. By all accounts, including most recently that of Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, we’re failing still.  The government we supported to replace the Taliban, which we displaced prior to taking on Iraq, is corrupt and unable to maintain security. Afghans view the Karzai government as illegitimate. The Taliban has taken control of the border areas with Pakistan and virtually all areas outside the capital of Kabul. And, al-Qaeda operations now flourish in Pakistan – a state with 50 nuclear warheads. As a Taliban commander recently claimed in an interview with Richard Engel of NBC News, there’s little difference between us [Taliban] and al-Qaeda: “We both want to kill Americans.” Yet, the only Americans they have killed since 9/11 are the ones we’ve placed there, in harms way.

          Many argue the reason to commit more troops (40,000 more is the latest estimate by General McChrystal) is to, as Senator McCain argues, “protect the 69,000 who are there.” Others predict that not finishing the job means more 9/11s. But wouldn’t coming home better protect those troops? Is prevention of terrorist attacks less expensive than expanding efforts at counterinsurgency 7,000 miles away? And, what is “the job”? 

          The mission today has not been articulated beyond a stubborn resolve to “never give up.”  No compelling argument has been made that defeating the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan will stop, or even curb the activities of terrorists – of those who hate us (for whatever reason).  Even once those definitions and arguments are successfully made, another critical decision must be made: is it worth more troop fatalities and billions of dollars?  Are there better opportunities to invest the talents of our troops and financial resources?  Does it serve the best/highest interests of the United States of America?

          Absent a fully articulated plan and cost/benefit analysis that proves more compelling than addressing other objectives like healthcare, education, alternative fuels, etc., perhaps we should set our stubbornness aside and come home.






05 October 2009

From ‘Super’ to ‘Default’ (and Back?)



Scholars and pundits love to spar over the nature and magnitude of American power in the global system.  In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Josef Joffe, co-editor of Die Zeit and senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies takes up the side of American prowess against those he suggests subscribe to “declinism.”  He argues “every ten years, it is decline time in the United States.”  He makes his case for continued American unipolar dominance by pounding the keys of his calculator against traditional metrics of military spending, gross domestic product, and demographics – although he leaves the pesky issue of debt out of his analysis.  (Apparently his calculator doesn’t have a minus key.)  He dismisses “false idols” like China suggesting it is no more a threat than Japan was in the 1980s.  He wades somewhat clumsily into elements of soft power claiming America’s “unmatched research and higher education establishment” … “warrior culture” … and “convening power” (the capacity to call a meeting and have people show up) provide additional evidence of power.  In the end, just in case these arguments don’t stick, he anchors his case with the ‘default’ concept: whom else would any of us want “to take over as housekeeper of the world”?  His case reads like an evangelical running out of prophecies: from boisterous to breathless.  What he succeeds in, if anything, is surely unintended.  He paints a picture of a nation that is still winning a game that many aren’t playing anymore, and those that are play by different metrics. Maybe the world doesn’t want or need a housekeeper.

          The question Joffe ignores, or doesn’t see, is what does it mean when the player who is still ‘winning’ is doing so from a position of both relative and absolute decline?  Isn’t it possible that both the game (the model) and the way score is kept (the metrics) are what are really changing?  Is the United States the “last man standing,” as Joffe argues, because others don’t want to stand there anyway?  Is the state-centric model where power is measured by guns, money, land, and headcount, passé?  Is there anything about the Cold War bipolar vernacular that still applies in an asymmetric networked world where many of the key actors are neither elected nor bejeweled?  Joffe may be locked in an argument he may win and still lose, simply because it’s the wrong argument – on both sides.  He and the ‘declinists’ may be wrestling over the last claim on a mountain without gold – the right to win nothing.

          I’ll wager that what’s ahead for the global system and the way power is acquired, expressed, and distributed has little to do with historical models or calculations. Guns, money, land, and headcount may not matter as much. The rules of attraction and persuasion are changing.  America is well positioned to play this game.  But it needs to decide to play, and in so doing shift its priorities and resources away from old-school metrics.  It needs to set its sights on innovation and inspiration where intelligence gains primacy and empowerment at home and throughout the global system brings America back – from ‘default’ to ‘super’ again.

28 September 2009

When Less is More.



The time has come to get less out of our government. That’s right, less.

Societies operate in an invisible web of social contracts that define our mutual expectations in the pursuit of public goods through collective action.  We endeavor to capture the benefits of specialization and distributed authority in a manner where all of us are better off.  We reject schemes of isolation and independence by granting our proxy to others so that we might all enjoy greater security in our individual pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.  Today, our biggest contract – between the people and their government – is in a perpetual state of breach: all are not better off.  And, we all share culpability.

This social contract, facilitated by taxation and representation, has been compromised by a combination of neglect and over-expansion.  This is arguably a bi-product of prosperity. Fewer of us hold our representatives accountable.  Most of us don’t even vote.  We’ve come to expect too much; our cradle-to-grave concept of social services is unsustainable.  Most of what we argue about in public fora today was never contemplated in the bargain our Founding Fathers struck with the colonies.  It’s time to rollback our expectations and take our future back.

While the Republicans rail about waste, the Democrats cite inequities.  While the Republicans want to privatize public services, the Democrats implore us to expect more out of our government.  Both parties are wrong. The path forward starts by retrieving our resources and reclaiming authority to re-deploy them in new structures and processes.  In the old days, we called these communities.  Today, we can do even better.  Objective-specific networks comprised of individuals, companies, and non-governmental organizations must take advantage of new technologies to solve problems and produce public goods.  I call them “amoeba networks,” fashioned after that single-cell, highly adaptive organism.  Imagine layers of amoebic networks that span many issues – open, transparent, and free of ideological hyperbole.  Many of the issues related to healthcare, education, and the development of alternative energy would be better served under networks unencumbered by laws that hinder innovation and entrenched, archaic systems of distribution. 

Call your congressperson today.  Ask him or her to promise less.  Tell them we’ll fend for ourselves.  By retrieving our resources and reclaiming authority we can all be better off. Less can be more.  The alternative staring us in the face is simply unacceptable: where more and more becomes less and less.

21 September 2009

The Anger Party: Bring on Devolution!?


Last week, while I was watching a YouTube video of the September 12 “Tea Party” march on Washington  – between my amusement and disgust – I was struck by more than the ignorance, racism, and piety ... I was most impressed by the anger.[1]  The marchers were not minorities, young radicals, or those who have marched for the rights of gays or the unborn – not like we’re used to seeing. They were Boomers and Brokaw’s ‘Greatest Generation.’  They were against anything with President Obama’s name attached to it and took extreme liberties in modifying his name on their placards and posters. But it was not at all clear what they wanted – what they were for.  When interviewed they mostly stumbled to take a position or articulate a point of view on any issue.  They were just plain mad.  They were white and over fifty. They were like me. Well, sort of.

Introducing: The Anger Party – committed to devolution!?  Notwithstanding a few bigots, racists, and evangelical misfits, these are mostly good people – patriots chanting “U-S-A” who are concerned about the future of America and, moreover, their position in it.  They represent the angry margin that was once the center of American culture.  The country they knew, or thought they knew, has changed.  And they’re scared.  They blanch at the term ‘revolution’ although they embrace the notion of the ‘Tea Party.’ What they want is devolution – they want power taken away from our federal government and things put back the way they were.  Most claimed the Republican Party, but many more claimed no party. They are the newly disenfranchised. They are the Anger Party.

Our Founding Fathers worried about this and struggled to produce an organic Constitution to allow for self-correction.  They strived to protect us from our ‘errant selves’ and warned us of the danger of ‘factions.’[2]  More recently, Fareed Zakaria illustrated our slide toward an illiberal democracy in The Future of Freedom and argued for a rebalancing of liberty and democracy before restoration becomes impossible.[3]  It was clear to him, as it is to more of us now, that our form of collective action –our government – serves the few at the expense of many.  The Anger Party just wants to be put back on the list of ‘the few.’

While it is unlikely The Anger Party will prevail – especially without any sense of mission – the sentiment they represent (when you strip out the ugliness) is real.  It’s legitimate.  And, it’s a harbinger of things to come.  More people will become angrier more often as those who help themselves continue to ignore that they were elected to help others too.







[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&feature=player_embedded#t=11
[2] See The Federalist Papers – particularly the writings of James Madison.
[3] Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003).

08 September 2009

The Spending Myth


In George Cooper’s The Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles and the Efficient Market Fallacy, he credits a relatively prolific Norwegian-American economist, Thorstein Veblen, for coining the term “conspicuous consumption.”  Veblen studied the “leisure class” at the turn of the 20th century and used the term to identify markets where demand actually increased as price increased for the same amount and quality of goods – suggesting that markets were, perhaps, far from perfect.  He was one of the first to suggest that the tidy models of economic behavior were false; they ignored man’s capacity to make irrational choices – an appetite of irrationality that would prove insatiable and cause Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan – many years later – to, reluctantly, warn of “irrational exuberance.”  Of course, this irrationality was largely contained in Veblen’s day by the small number of people who had the financial capacity to behave irrationally, ergo the “leisure class” – a pleasing term for those with more money than sense. But that would change.
                  As the 20th century unfolded and American power expanded after each of the first two World Wars, the numbers of those reaching a level of affluence rose steadily together with a hubristic claim to perception of value defined more frequently than not by price. More people had more money and, therefore, the capacity to make irrational assessments of price and value.  We segued from “conspicuous consumption” to “Keeping up with the Joneses” – a phrase originated by Arthur R. "Pop" Momand in a comic strip of the same name in the latter years of World War I.  The expansion of the “leisure class” meant our answer to the question, “What is wealth?” would be defined not by savings or investment – by Robber Barons’ tally of track miles or oil wells – rather, by consumption.
                  Cultural anthropologists must salivate about where we are today.  They have more than one hundred years’ evidence of our ingenuity and stupidity.  A perfect storm of brilliance and madness – frequently quelled by theological innovations replacing Calvinist notions of sacrifice with televangelist’s promotion of prosperity as the new benchmark of piety.  We traded the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) for Luke’s prescription to enjoy the fattened calf (Luke 15:23) – let the feast begin!  We embraced consumption – how much we spend – as the definitive yardstick of wealth. No money?  No problem – just charge it.  In doing so we placed our future in the hands of those who find value not in price, but in our debt.  We tethered the future of our children and grandchildren to a pirate ship.  We are betting on mercy where ingenuity and innovation once stood. We have succumbed to our perversion of price and value.
                  This is the unique, albeit shameful legacy of my generation – of those who rose to the challenge of Sputnik; found freedom at Woodstock; and embraced the alchemy of Reagan, swagger of Clinton, and hubris of Bush. Our masterpiece of contrivance was papering the world with ether-backed credit default swaps – vapor paper – trillions of dollars of securitized myth that makes Bernie Madoff look like rounding error. Our current prescription? Spend more! We continue to measure our prowess by total spending rather than savings and investment.  Our military is presumed to be most powerful because we outspend the rest of the world, combined.  Yet, suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices bring us to our knees.  We believe we have the greatest healthcare and education systems because we spend more than anyone else, while forty-plus million go without care and our high school rankings in math and science plummet. Every data point we stare at to forecast an economic recovery is fathered by spending. As the economy sputters, we contemplate more “stimulus.”  After all, it got us where we are and that can’t be all bad, right?  Wrong.
                  It is time to straighten the irons.  It is time to change the discourse of wealth.  It is time to return consumption to the altar of avarice and rebuild America. It is time to save, invest, and yes, sacrifice.  Wealth enables spending; spending does not create wealth.

06 September 2009

Healthcare: What to Read

The healthcare issue is complex (to say the least), which is a significant contributor to its vulnerability to subterfuge.  For those of us interested in understanding it - who want to know what the fuss is all about and maybe even form our own informed opinion - I offer two articles and one study I believe tell you all you need to know.
They are:
1) "The Cost Conundrum" by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker, June 1, 2009, available at www.newyorker.com.
2) "How American Healthcare Killed My Father" by David Goldhill in The Atlantic, September 2009, available at www.theatlantic.com.
3) "Bending the Curve: Effective Steps to Addressing Long-Term Health care Spending Growth" by 9 smart people, available at www.brookings.edu/reports.

Moving on (from healthcare) ... next up ... My Generation's Special Contribution to American Mythology: Spending is Wealth.

04 September 2009

Mr. Brooks 'n Me

My wife has often suggested, after reading David Brooks' column in the New York Times, that there is a synaptic circuit - a telemetric loop that runs between Brooks' mind and mine.  In his column today, 'Let's Get Fundamental' (www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html) he argues, citing David Goldhill's piece in The Atlantic (see 'Let the Numbers Speak' post, below) and a research report from the Brookings Institute, that it is time, as I suggested (see 'RIP-Teddy' post, below), to go for it - all out reform - to swing for the fences.

Brooks is more eloquent than I and has just a few million more readers.  I hope he gets his message across before it's too late.  I hope he gets his hour with Obama to offer guidance before next week's address to Congress.  (I'm relatively certain I won't.)  I hope we actually do accomplish reform rather than, as Brooks warns, just "essentially cement the present system in place."  But, maybe I hope too much.  And, maybe Obama is all hoped-out.

As Brooks, I, and the Brookings Institute study agree: the problem is fixable.  The resources are there.  The financial imperative couldn't be more obvious.  The outstanding question: do we have the will?

02 September 2009

Healthcare: Time to Address the Real Question


There’s a great scene in Disclosure, the 1994 movie starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. (Okay there’s more than one.) The one I’m referring to is when Douglas’ character, who has been compromised by Demi Moore’s character via a sexual liaison, realizes he’s solving the wrong problem. Douglas is quietly implored by an undisclosed supporter to ‘solve the problem.’ Douglas, of course, thinks he is solving the problem but subsequently realizes it was the wrong problem. When he finally figures this out he prevails. It all reminds me of how the Democrats and the White House are approaching the healthcare debate: they’re addressing the issue by arguing about the wrong things – albeit ably – and allowing a discussion about what is and always has been a public good to be framed in a construct of an individualistic meritocracy.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Thomas Frank identifies the same strategic error in ‘Why Democrats Are Losing on Health Care.’ Frank argues it’s ‘the big questions that are tripping them up.’ Understanding that the very nature of insurance is a cooperative, subsidized construct; that there’s no such thing as a truly individualistic healthcare choice; that the connection between merit and healthiness ‘is almost as risible’; and that ‘healthcare is not an individual commodity to be bought and enjoyed like other products … that the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us.’ (Just wait for H1N1’s return this fall.) In short, the Democrats have fallen into the wrong discussion – a battle they can win and still lose the war.
The larger issue is (see 8/31 blog), who are Americans? Do we believe in public goods, like security, safe water, law enforcement, etc.? Answer: yes. Is healthcare a public good? Answer: yes. When most of us have too much healthcare, some have none, and the providers are rewarded for over-serving those of us who have insurance – bankrupting our future – everyone loses in the long run. And the long run isn’t so far away.
It’s time to put the larger questions on the table and stop playing able technocrats. It’s time to agree on who we are and what we believe in. Then, the question of 'how' gets much easier.

Healthcare: Let the Numbers Speak

If pictures are worth a thousand words, then numbers are worth five hundred. Here are a few numbers to provide perspective on the healthcare debate.
Surely we can do better than this…
From David Goldhill’s article in The Atlantic:
Number of deaths each year from patients infected while in the hospital: 100,000 (more than twice than from motor vehicle accidents).
Number of deaths from blood clots following surgery: 200,000.
Exploding costs…
Also from Goldhill in The Atlantic:
Percentage of Medicare & Medicaid spending to  total government spending in 1966: 1%. Today: 20% (and rising).
‘The federal government spends 8 times more on healthcare as it does education, 12 times what it spends on food aid … 30 times what it spends on law enforcement, 78 times what it spends on land management and conservation, 87 times what it spends on water supply, and 830 times what it spends on energy conservation.’
The cost of power…
From Matt Taibbi’s article in Rolling Stone:
Amount of financial support from the health sector each of the republicans in the senate’s ‘group of six’ – considered the defacto key actors in the senate on healthcare reform – have received.
Grassley - $2,034,000.
Snowe - $756,000.
Enzi - $627,000.

31 August 2009

Healthcare: A Matter of Identity & Destiny

In the midst of cries of socialism and death panels on one side, and predictions of national bankruptcy and moral appeals on the other, lies a tug-of-war of historic proportions to settle a larger issue: who are Americans? American identity has always been a contested issue. Lest we forget there were both ‘Federalists’ and ‘Anti-federalists.’ Occasionally, a seminal issue bubbles to the surface that re-fashions identity. Sometimes they are moral issues like slavery, at other times they are political issues like imperialism (circa 1900), and other times economic – New Deal or no deal? The current debate on healthcare is such an issue – not just because of its underlying moral nature – because it defines our future economic stability.

Ironically, when we ignore the town hall loudmouths and fears of collapse-by-taxes we find a challenge in healthcare that is imminently fixable. It is, quite simply, a big distribution problem: who gets what, when and how ... and, who pays? The good news is there is plenty of money in the system. We know this because we see other countries accomplish more than we do with much less money. We know that what they do is scaleable too – size is not an issue. As actuaries know, size should actually allow us to do better for less. We also know that we have plenty of non-financial resources … hospitals, doctors, technicians, equipment, drugs, etc. And, even though they may be unevenly distributed, remember: there’s plenty of money in the system – we can fix that too.

The fact is many of us have too much healthcare – are ‘over-served’ – while others have none. Many of us have ready access to medical care, albeit with many unnecessary tests and treatments. Others have none and/or are forced into overcrowded emergency rooms, which makes the system even less efficient. Those of us who are over sixty-five, employed by a medium to large company, can afford it on our own anyway, or are a child who qualifies for S-CHIP are covered. Some forty to fifty million others (depending who you believe) have none.

So, all we need to do is hire a bunch of those IBM-ers to sort out a new distribution system, right? But, that’s not really what we are fighting about. If we fail it will be over a larger question: who are Americans? We must decide if we are a nation that believes our government should design basic support systems that address the bottom rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or are we a nation that believes exclusively in self-determination and private enterprise? Is healthcare a utility like power, water, and security; or, is it an industry free to serve its customers for as much money as the market will bear? Most of the world sees Americans as selfish and powerful. Are they right? Or, are we a misunderstood nation of rugged individualists? The reality is messy – as realities are. We are neither. We are somewhere in-between.

Unfortunately, staying the course assures disaster. One thing we cannot continue to afford is the financial reality. We have thirteen trillion dollars in current debt and fifty-three trillion in unfunded liabilities (principally from healthcare and social security). We know we can’t meet those obligations, especially as the states that have been buying our debt are already pursuing other investment strategies away from the dollar (like China). We may not agree to smooth out our distribution system with a team of IBM-ers, but we must deal with at least this: we must get more for our healthcare dollar by restructuring the ‘over-served’ problem. The patient must have a stake so discipline is introduced into the system. Patients must question tests and procedures and maybe even embrace the concept of diet and exercise. Those of us who have healthcare must step back from our sense of entitlement and realize that we do not need all those tests and that maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with all those ‘ask your doctor about _____’ advertisements.

We may not decide to serve those who have none, although I hope we are better than that. (I think the IBM-ers can prove all can be served for less.) But, at the minimum, we must decide we cannot continue to serve ourselves the way we have. If we don’t, our identity may be defined for us – as a one-time superpower that met its demise at its own hand; still selfish, but not so powerful.