The Other Side of the Wall

I wasn’t aware that there was a wall that divided a few Americans from the rest of us until I went to college. For the first time, I met up with people who had already passed to the dark side of this unseen wall. They had already developed a hunger for money and power. The first step was to go to the proper school where they could make a suitable marriage.  It was quite amusing to watch good looking girls pursuing sometimes very unappealing, but rich students. And the reverse was true as well.  These goings on were sources of amusement for those of us who weren’t part of the game.

This experience got me to thinking about what this kind of life would be like for those who chose to pursue wealth and power. Success in this highly competitive life choice demanded constant planning, calculation, and wariness. After all, each of them would always be surrounded by rivals. Anything that promoted their upward climb was good, any restraints on conduct were bad. 

In the upward struggle, it was difficult to have close friendships. Everyone understood that they were tools in some rival’s upward climb. To win each skirmish, truth, personal honor, trust, honesty were useless baggage.

This is the world that Mitt Romney comes from. He made his fortune by being more ruthless than his competitors. There are some really good articles on his business practices should you want to read up on the subject.  He was blessed with the good looks and slick charm that lulled victims into a false sense of security and promoted his rise to riches.  With each conquest came the thrill of victory that muted any guilt over unethical practices.

Most American voters should find these alternate rules for life, and those who practice them offensive. There are many people who have become very rich and powerful without leaving the world of ethical standards, concern for others, honesty. They would not resort to the behind-the-wall standard, “Cheat to win.” Most of us are happy with the life choices we have made. We may not be rich or powerful, but we have lived by the moral and ethical standards our religions have taught us. That is something to be proud of.

Now that Gov. Romney has too much money to spend, he has set his sights on power. Being governor wasn’t sufficient. There was a higher prize to reach for. So now he would be president.

There is one obstacle to overcome. Mitt’s experience is very foreign to the vast majority of Americans.  He has to employ all the tools of his trade to con us out of the only thing he needs us for, our votes. He strongly believes that he will succeed as he has so many times before.

If we pay attention, we can see past practices trotted out for the campaign. On the other side of the wall, information is as carefully guarded as a state secret. And he is still keeping much important information from voters. Have we seen sufficient tax return to understand what he does with his money? Has he told us clearly and in detail how he would govern?

Even more worrisome, the moral and ethical constraints most of us live by, as we have been taught by our religions, don’t exist for the folks on the other side of the wall. And they don’t exist for Gov. Romney either.  Take truth for example. We have all noticed that lies fall easily from his tongue. His smooth and confident appearance makes it hard for us to detect his lies from his truths.

Thankfully, we got to take a look at the other side of the wall in the video from his fundraiser with his friends. His contempt for those who live on this side was clearly exposed. He has no respect for those who haven’t played his game, for people hampered by ideas of honor and virtue and service. And he believes that he is so smart and so skillful that he can convince us that he is just like us. We can safely vote for him.

Last night in the debate, we saw the smooth liar in action. Little of what he had to say was true, but he believes that we will buy the lies he delivered so convincingly. He believes that he can lie and pay no price.

I don’t know about you, but when someone lies to me, I cease to believe anything he says. We all know the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

We must use our ultimate power as  voters to soundly reject this man from the other side of the wall. We must teach Gov. Romney that truth and honesty do matter very much to us.

From One Pocket to Another - Redistributing Wealth

From One Pocket to Another - Redistributing Wealth

Wealth, the lack of it, and the shifting of it from one pocket to another seems to be quite the topic of conversation today.  It is also a subject I have thought about many times for many years.

There is one basic thing about income redistribution that everyone should understand. EVERY action of government shifts money from one pocket to another. We tend to think of taxes as the way money moves around, but it isn’t the only way government actions affect our individual assets. Every law moves money about.

Let me give you a personal example. My husband owned a small business supplying products for the American shoe industry.  We were able to live a comfortable middle class existence for many years.  In the early years of the Reagan administration, Congress passed and President Reagan signed a small bit of legislation that removed a tariff on shoes manufactured in China. With that act of government, our income disappeared as surely as it would have had a thief put his hand into our pockets.

My husband and I had worked hard, raised 6 wonderful children, given back to our church and our community. Yet, by no fault of our own, but by act of Congress, we would face the last of decade of our working lives suddenly terribly poor. Sadly, we weren’t alone. Most of the American shoe industry faded away at the same time.

Our money disappeared, but I recognized right away that it hadn’t disappeared totally, merely shifted to other pockets. The poor people in China suddenly had jobs. American importers saw their business options and their profits soar.  All Americans now had access to a wide variety of cheaper shoes. They could spend the money they saved on products of other companies.

While I was shivering in my cold house, I had to face the fact that the government action that was so devastating to us might actually have produced more benefit than loss. I was willing to accept that. But I also thought that the government had an obligation to notice that what they had done was very painful for us and many other long term workers in the American shoe industry. Fortunately for many workers there was unemployment to help ease a transition to other work, a government helping hand. Since my husband owned his own small business which had failed, he wasn’t entitled to such assistance. We were almost entirely on our own.

Still, the government funded other small projects, one of which actually did help us. It subsidized a program that gave money to small private companies to provide services to homebound senior citizens. So I was able to get a job cleaning homes and apartments for the needy elderly in my area. It was the only job I could get quickly, a government supported job, and I was grateful to have it.  But I didn’t make enough to restore us to the middle class.

So what did I learn from this painful experience? Government actions always transfer money from one pocket to another, they always have, and they always will. This principle applies as well to general legislation as it does to tax laws.

The key issue isn’t that government does this. Nothing we do can affect this reality. The key issue is who or what any law benefits and whether or not government actions help more citizens than they harm.  Surely, as a country, we should have some sympathy, and perhaps a helping hand for those the government decided to damage. 

For decades, government has been ignoring this vital principle in most of their actions. Leaders have listened to the interests of the few who are rich and powerful and ignored their obligations to the majority of Americans who are neither rich nor powerful.

This November, we can actually make  government listen to us. We must vote in overwhelming numbers, and we must vote only for candidates who understand their obligations to those without wealth or power. We must ensure that when government reaches into our pockets, they act only for the greater good.

The Horrid Burden of Hate

The Horrid Burden of Hate

This week we have all witnessed hate exploding into violent action.  We have seen clenched fists, twisted faces, and rioting mobs. We have mourned its victims.

I learned about hate many years ago. As a child, I lived in a place where racial hate was sanctioned by government actions and by the silence of religious people who hated while they taught that hate was a sin. People could be hated, not because of their anger or their cruelty but because the essence of their beings came wrapped in a dark package.

During these early years, I only encountered black people on sidewalks and in busses, brief encounters that didn’t give time for hate to fester.  Besides, I knew that hate was a sin. But I was very much afraid of them, at least until I actually came to know one of them. One morning, I was shocked to find a young black woman in my house. Mary had come to clean, and would return every week from then on. Once I got over my fear, I found that Mary was kind, and patient with me. She smiled a lot as she worked away during our hot Maryland summers. No matter how hard she was working, she always had time to answer questions from this pesky child. She banished my fears, and I came to love her. As I could never hate Mary, I could never hate her sisters and brothers because they too were black.

But when I was starting seventh grade in the University Park School, I did learn to hate. For the first time in my life, I learned what a powerful feeling hate provoked in me.  That year a new student named Herbert arrived in my school, a tall dark haired boy, a smart student, but there was something odd about his manner. He smiled a lot, but there was no humor in him. He preferred to annoy the girls at recess than to play baseball with the boys. He projected a sense of superiority and entitlement.

All of this was annoying, but no more. Irritation began to grow into a much more intense and dangerous feeling the minute Miss Burdett moved Herbert to the seat behind me. Immediately, the harassment began. First it was nasty and scornful comments whispered in my ear. Then the attacks became physical. Herbert delighted in pulling my braids so hard that my head would be yanked violently in an unexpected direction and my scalp would hurt. I didn’t dare report this to Miss Burdett as it was clear to all of us that she didn’t want to hear anything bad about Herbert.

I hated Herbert. I recognized this new feeling for what it was, but I didn’t know how to deal with this overwhelming new emotion. It was as strong in me as love. It came with me wherever I went. It even brought me pleasure. I enjoyed thinking of all the bad things I would do to Herbert or accidents that would make him suffer.

For a while, hate seemed like fun, a way to exact revenge. But slowly I realized that the other pleasures of my life, my puzzles, my books, my piano, could be ruined by a passing thought of Herbert or something that reminded me of the sound of his voice, or a word he frequently used. Finally, I realized that my hate for Herbert had given him control over my life, my joys. Hate was becoming a horrid burden. The only way I could get my life back was to give up my hate. I knew that banishing hate would take hard work, that it would require me to use my brain to subdue this emotion. But if I succeeded I would be free of Herbert’s power. This would be my ultimate victory.

This experience took place may autumns ago. But, as you can see, I have never forgotten Herbert.  How could I forget the critical lesson that I learned from the time we spent together. I hated Herbert for his cruelty and meanness. Others in our class hated Herbert not for his skin color but for his religion, the same sort of hatred that has been on display this week. 

But hatred for skin color is still on display as well. We have but to look at the hatred directed toward our black president. Haters now are more subtle than they were during my childhood. Now they excuse their hatred on the grounds that it isn’t based on his race, but on what is inside him, on what is the character of his heart. He is a cheater who lied his way to power; he is a traitor who loves and supports our enemies; he is a weak and stupid leader for these hard times.

Most Americans know that this portrait of President Obama is a fictitious invention, designed to give the gullible permission to hate him. But lying about President Obama is a useful tactic. By rousing such an intense emotion, people can to motivated to act from passion rather than careful thought. The people of our country can be divided into hostile groups. Then, leaders lacking an ethical or moral core can rise to positions of power.

Now is the time for all of us to cast aside the horrid hate, be it religious or racial, that is flowing across our country. I know it is possible to push hate away. I learned that in elementary school when I met Herbert. I know all of you who carry the burden of hate can do so as well. We can do nothing else that will be more personally liberating or beneficial for our country.

A Beloved Politician

A Beloved Politician

I have been thinking a lot about John Martin today. This day marks the passage of 200 years since he took his first breaths in a small Irish cottage in the townland of Loughorne in County Down. John was the much desired heir of a prosperous Presbyterian family.

While this might be interesting information for those of us who share parts of his family tree, this anniversary would seem to be of little interest to the general public. But the terrible years through which he lived and how he conducted himself provide clear lessons for us in our painful times.

Let me explain how he deserved the title of “Beloved Politician” that I have given him as well as the title by which he was known during his life, “Honest John Martin.”  If it hadn’t been for the Irish Famine that devastated Ireland when he was a young man, he would have remained a private small landowner, much loved and admired by his friends, neighbors and tenants for his kindness and generosity. When he saw his nation’s need, he gave up all he cherished to help.

John was a man of strong principles that governed his life, principles that are useful to remember today.

He believed in doing the right thing, not just when doing so was easy, but especially when doing so was very hard, when the price for doing so very high. Ireland was ruled by the English Parliament, and the laws to deal with the Famine were passed in London with little influence from the Irish. First John protested, then John joined those who were actively resisting British laws. The English government considered him a great threat, had him arrested and charged with treason. He was convicted in a rigged trial and sent off to exile in Tasmania.  This injustice did not make him bitter. He knew he had done his best to do the right thing for his country. He only regretted that he hadn’t succeeded.

John believed in the obligations of citizenship. He was first a landlord with responsibilities to the tenants who worked his farm. He would not allow them to starve during the Famine though paying for their food forced him to mortgage his land, reducing him from financial comfort to financial distress the rest of his life. 

For him, citizenship meant more than a call to serve his friends, and neighbors. It was an obligation to country as well, to serve his country, not fight for power. There came a time late in his life when he was the most powerful and most respected man in Ireland. For a few months, he enjoyed the acclamation of his countrymen. But when others stepped forward, he stepped back. But he didn’t step away. He continued to explain the Irish point of view in the English Parliament of which he was then a member.

Finally, John believed in the obligation to lead a moral and ethical life. No one could ever provide a better example. Like many others, he was an active member of his Presbyterian church, but he always went the extra mile. When the church needed land to build a manse for their minister, John gave them the land. He followed his religion’s call to serve the needy, using his medical training to provide free medical care for the poor.

This belief guided his political career as well. He would never participate in any project that wasn’t ethical. So people recognized that whatever project John Martin participated in was a worthy one. He never hated his opponents, even those who had attacked and belittled him. When he ran for a seat in Parliament, elections were bought by the powerful. John required his supporters to run a totally honest election, no bribery, no intimidation of voters, no slandering of his opponent. His victory shocked England, Ireland and America.

I often think about the leaders of today, and how much better we would all be if they followed John Martin’s pathway, leaders who did the right thing, leaders who believed in the obligations of citizenship, and who always strove to lead moral and ethical lives.

So Happy Birthday John. How I wish I could have spent an hour in your presence. How I wish that I could have given you just one hug. On this special day, as we remember you, I make you a promise. Those who so admire you will never allow you and your exemplary life to be forgotten.

Jobs, the Romney Plan

 

Romney has promised to create millions of good jobs if he is elected. Wonderful news.

But how will he do that? If creating jobs were that easy, surely the Democrats would have created them themselves.

From the little information that Romney has provided, the Romney plan is the son of the Bush plan, and the grandson of the Reagan plan. It has three parts, reduce taxes on the rich “job creators”, free them from intrusive regulations, and increase military spending. Oh, and they will cut away government programs to end the budget deficit.

Reagan followed this same plan. There weren’t millions of new jobs then. Even though he signed tax increase legislation, which no Republican would do now, the national debt increased dramatically.

Twenty years later, George Bush was elected president on the same platform. And he came through as promised. He gave huge tax reductions to the “job creators.” He let them roam unfettered in their economic world. And he fought two wars, one without cause. So military spending went up hugely.  And so did the deficit.

So now Romney is promising to return to the good old days of Reagan and Bush. The problem he has to face is that we know how these plans turned out. There weren’t millions of new jobs, only trillions of dollars of new debt and a huge financial crisis. It turns out that the “job creators” weren’t careful managers of any finances but their own.

There is one different element this time. Romney and the GOP now promise they are very concerned about the debt they created. Now they really promise to carry out their three economic ideas and reduce the budget deficit at the same time.  If they actually carry out their plans, the cuts they would have to make to just dent the deficit would be disastrous for most of us. The last time this plan was implemented in 2001, we were in a very different place with a balanced budget and many years of surplus revenue awaiting. Now with Americans still suffering from the huge financial loses we experienced in the great financial collapse, this might not be a good time for a third try.

You don’t have to take my word about the dangers and pitfalls of the Romney plan. We have but to look to Europe to see how the old plan works in our new situation. Countries there piloted the GOP austerity plans Not surprisingly, jobs have decreased and the economic options have shrunk. Unemployment has increased to double digits.  Even worse, their economies are again in recession.

Copying Europe as the Romney job plan intends to do would produce similar results here. More government jobs would be cut to reduce government red ink. Services that provide a lifeline for the newly unemployed teachers, police, food inspectors, highway workers would have to be cut away to make up for reduced federal revenue and reduced federal spending.

Those people made richer by the Romney plan are already wealthy. They could already be investing in new businesses that would create jobs. But they recognize that there are too few middle class customers to make new businesses a wise investment. The Romney plan would reduce the number of middle class jobs, and so reduce the pool of available customers.  

Despite conflicting evidence, the Romney plan expects the private sector to create jobs, so it will drastically reduce the role that government plays in job creation or in helping those already suffering. We would be left to sink or swim as we are. This hands off approach would actually increase unemployment almost immediately and would push a return to prosperity many years into the future.

This is the Republican plan, the Romney plan. It sounds to me rather like standing about, waiting for a forest fire to burn itself out.

Now the Democratic Convention is getting underway. I’m most interested to see what their job program for the next four years will look like.

We’ll talk again after the last gavel falls in the Democratic convention.

Republican National Convention

Republican National Convention

Soon after I accepted the reality that I would never be a movie actress, famous or otherwise, I turned to a new ambition that seemed slightly more realistic. I wanted to attend a Republican National Convention.

Back in those days, political conventions were very exciting events, something to look forward to every four years. Granted, they weren’t very democratic affairs. There was a great deal of deal making that took place in unseen quiet rooms. But they were very exciting to listen to and later watch, because we didn’t know how they would turn out.

I tried to organize my days to max out my time hunched by the radio, or later on peering into the tiny black and white TV screen in my living room. The speeches from people I admired were always interesting, they gave me a sense of what new ideas the Republicans had come up with.

All of these preliminary steps led up to the call of the role of the state delegations. This was truly time to bite the nails. I always tried to keep track of the votes as each state chairman gave them, but I usually fell behind along the way.  Pundit predictions had a way of falling apart as the actual voting took place as well.

Most often, there was no winner on the first round of voting. A recess would take place for more negotiating. The minutes before the next roll call would seem endless The Philadelphia convention in 1940 was the first one I can remember. There were 6 dramatic rounds of balloting before Wendell Willkie was nominated. This was high drama indeed. My ambition to attend one day was alive and well.

But conventions of both parties are very different today. They are mainly glitzy infomericals with little substance. Rich and powerful men, at least mostly men, meet with candidates for office in lavish private gatherings that most delegates aren’t invited to attend.

My desire to attend has long faded into oblivion. So I intend to find something else more important to do than watch the 3 hours that will be televised. I have some books I could read, or packing dishes for the move I will soon make. Both will be more interesting than the convention.

But I suggest a challenge for voters who do watch the Republican Convention or the Democratic Convention that will follow. It is a sort of test. When the last balloon has been captured or popped, see if you can remember even 3 policies important to you that either party convention promised voters, concrete actions we will get if we vote their way.

Remember, promising millions of jobs, uniting our country, or creating a grand future America doesn’t count.

Death of a Proud Tradition

The Death of a Proud Tradition

I’m just back to my computer after a trip to Ireland. While I was there, I chatted with a number of friends and family members. All of them were most interested in our election and hungered for assurance that Romney would not win. They have experienced with great pain the contractionary  policies the Republicans are planning to enact in America. If we copy Europe, we will make any kind of recovery here and there more difficult.

The down side of pleasant weeks in Ireland is a long, dull airplane trip home. On the plus side of hours spent crunched into a small space and uncomfortable seat, I had a lot of time for contemplation. Most of that thinking was centered on a puzzling and distressing change that came after the 2008 election. Let me share with you my thinking as it formed up by the time my Aer Lingus flight began its approach to Boston.

I have lived through a number of shattering episodes of national crisis. The attack on our country on 9/11 is just one example.  We have always come together as one nation, as a united people at such dire times. No matter which party controlled the government in Washington, the opposition party and its supporters always joined with the majority to face the problems with the strength of a unified country.

When the election took place in November 2008, our country was facing one of the worst challenges of my lifetime. Our financial system was in collapse. Hundreds of thousands of middle class workers were suddenly losing their jobs every month. Families, used to a life style where a house, a vacation, education for their children were not impossible achievements, were discovering these goals had become wild fantasies. Too many of them had lost their homes and began living in their cars. Children went to bed hungry. If ever our tradition of unity was needed, this was clearly the time.

But this time was different. This time the Republicans decided that something was more important than uniting to help our struggling citizens and strengthening our country. They would ignore their absolute ethical obligation to help repair the economic disaster their policies had created.  The radical right Republicans had such a hunger for power that our suffering people and endangered country did not matter.

Tossing aside this critical tradition seemed of no importance to many members of this party. They were deeply shocked that the majority of American people would ever vote to elect a black man with a foreign sounding name President of the United States. Disbelief was followed quickly by fury. It was totally unacceptable to them that a black family should occupy the White House. So President Obama must fail no matter the cost to our country. These racists were new Republicans, refugees from the segregationist Democrats of my childhood.

At this critical moment, I expected Republican leaders would come forward to help these new members overcome their historic intolerance. Instead, the leaders of the Republican party fell silent, and then fell in line. There would be no leaders in the party to bring these new outliers of the party back to reality.

These words are painful for me to write of the party I have always supported. But the intense efforts of Congress to defeat every action of the President, no matter the extent of the suffering of so many of our fellow citizens, are well documented. They opposed measures they had always supported, great ideas that came from an earlier version of their own party. All Lincoln Republicans must face reality.

Now we are facing the most critical election of my lifetime.  The Republicans are running on one issue, that the President has failed.  They bleat endlessly about the failure of the President’s policies, policies that they made sure would never be enacted. They tell us little about what they would do if the voters fall for this line. They recognize that if voters knew what they planned, they would lose the election. So all we know is that they will cut taxes on the rich, free the powerful from regulations, and increase spending for defense. This was the platform they ran on in 1980 and enacted when they gained power. These were the years when our national debt began to get out of hand.

These ideas didn’t work any better in the first decade of this new century. Republicans enacted tax cuts, reduced regulations, increased military spending as they promised. But they turned a budget surplus into a huge deficit, and vastly increased the national debt in the process. And worst of all, their policies produced our terrible financial crisis. Now they are trying to win on the notion that this time their principles will produce millions of jobs and prosperity for all.

These are the actions of a Party not fit to lead in good times, never mind ones that are so dangerous.  These people truly believe that government is the enemy, so shrinking its ability to act on our behalf is a good thing. They want to ruin the government that the efforts of millions of Americans over many centuries have created.

In the last two years since the radical Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, we have gotten a clear picture of what our future would be like if they win control in Washington in November. By violating all the norms of good governing, they have frozen government in place. They have discovered that a gridlocked government is almost as useful as one they actually run. Compromise is the life-blood of a democracy. Yet, the radical right Republicans view compromise as an unproductive weakness. No government can function when either party believes this extreme idea.

This election, voters must reunite to send a clear message to this new radical party, “We reject you and your ruinous plans. We need a functioning government that will act for the middle class, not one that serves only the rich and powerful.”

To achieve this, we must vote in historic numbers, and we must vote to remove these Republicans from office. The next election may be too late.