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.