Guns and Cynicism: Two Strains of Anti-Americanism

Today’s most recent outrage involving guns reminds me of one of the greatest ironies in contemporary American life: gun owners claim to be the most patriotic citizens in our nation.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. Only loving one of the Bill of Rights does not make you a patriot, it makes you a cynic - and it makes you un-American.

Here’s why.

One, a functioning democracy is based on trust. Americans trust their fellow citizens to collectively pick our leaders and decision makers every two to four years.  But you have to trust you fellow Americans with that power and authority.

Two, America is an act of faith.  Faith in people’s better nature, faith in your fellow citizens’ ability to choose good leaders, faith that if you work hard you will get ahead no matter where you started.  More importantly, faith that the shared values enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and our laws – as opposed to an Old World shared blood, ethnicity or religion – and institutions will result in the kind of society where everyone’s rights are protected and you can enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

Owning a gun conflicts with both trust and faith (let alone life and happiness). 

Gun owners do not trust their fellow citizens with their own safety. They justify gun ownership, at least hand gun ownership, with the paranoia that they could be attacked by their fellow citizens AT ANY TIME. 

If you don’t trust someone with your day-to-day wellbeing and safety, why would you trust them with the vote or any profound decision making? 

On faith, gun owners have absolutely no faith in American society, ideals and institutions. In addition to needing a gun to protect themselves from their neighbors, gun owners argue that they need protection from the government or other large forces (usually the UN, not Exxon or Monsanto).  Do they really have so little faith in U.S. laws, courts, the press, citizens groups – let alone their elected officials – that their only recourse is to arm themselves?  Are they that cynical about our democratic institutions that they think our elected officials or decision makers are capricious dictators - or kings or despots - who will eventually attack or arrest them?

Institutions like the police or military have often stumbled in our republic’s history; ask any African or Native American.  But in 21^st century America our institutions and democracy are strong, and can be trusted. That’s why gun ownership should be limited to law enforcement and the military; that’s what a mature democracy would look like.

Obviously, especially now with Obama, many right-wing nuts who love guns more than Jesus – who was against violence in any form, by the way – or money no longer think that we have a democracy or rights. 

They have absolutely no faith or trust in America.  Their cynicism toward their country is both sickening and too often deadly.  And it is un-American. 

3 headlines/reasons why people don't read the paper

Three pretty depressing headlines in yesterday's Post, one ridiculous - the return of football - and two important and especially depressing - stagnation on the job front, and the President abandoning the regulation of ozone pollution.  Of those two, hard to decide where to start, or which one is worse.

I guess I'll start with the news of no new job growth in August and persistent 9 percent unemployment (though the Sierra Club is hiring!). Those numbing stats came out on Friday, September 2nd.  So bad news for the president, the country and of course workers and the unemployed.  

But who is doing fine? An under reported story last week (August 26th) pointed out that corporations are doing great. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis corporate profits AND cash on hand increased in the second quarter.  And the profits were pretty hefty: $57.3 billion in the second quarter, according to the BEA, after growing $19 billion in the first quarter.  So more than $70 billion in profits, profits hefty enough to in theory give companies confidence to re-enter the job market.

Increasing hiring is a tangible step these profitable corporations should take. And you would think it would be in their interests to do so.  I'll paraphrase a quote every American has heard from Henry Ford: "I want people who have the money to afford my products."

Consumers drive the U.S. economy, but why aren't corporations hiring and thus creating more consumers? 

But I guess it is the height of naivete to question why corporations can't understand the larger stakes here, beyond creating more consumers.  I'm referring to the need to act in the common good.

Before you make fun of my naivete, I'd like to remind folks that the notion of the common good helped guide the United States in the post war years and especially during the cold war. The U.S. and the west needed to show the world that our system was better than the communist one.

So, among other things: workers were allowed to unionize and as a result wages went up and the middle class exploded; the civil rights movement overturned legal segregation; government safety nets such as Medicare, Medicaid and landmark environmental bill were passed; trillions were poured into public universities, etc.

And by and large corporations went along. They offered health insurance, did not move factories and jobs to Mexico or China or wherever, and pay scales were much more proportionate and not nearly as grotesque as they are now, where CEOs make 50 to 100 times more than their employees.  They understood that their profits were a result of operating in a stable, progressive, democratic state, and they benefited from contributing to the common good.

The common good buy-in started to erode under Reagan and the anti-tax movements that hatched in California in the late 70s (remember Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that turned California from the promised land to a failed state? Makes sense that narcissistic politics would start near Hollywood) but really picked up steam once Communism collapsed.  

After the Berlin Wall fell, the narrative became 'capitalism wins!' rather than the more honest, accurate and complex assessment that 'a shared government-corporate commitment to building a huge middle class' won.  Our system was better because government - via laws and programs, and a progressive tax code - and corporations - by paying their taxes AND hiring Americans and paying their workers middle class wages - democratized capital.

As we now know, democratizing capital is no longer a common good. Companies don't care about that or the middle class.  The cold war ended as globalization was getting a foot hold, and corporations abandoned the U.S. and shipped the working class jobs abroad.  Union membership went down, wages tumbled, but corporate profits went up.  Various bubbles in housing, the internet, etc. allowed us to ignore those trends for a while.  But a bursting housing bubble - fed by the repeal of Glass-Steagle and other consumer protections - exposed the tenuous ground many middle class Americans were standing on.

Keynesian economics call for governments to prime the pump when corporations can not, such as in the Depression, or WILL not, like now.  That won't happen any time soon.

Unfortunately, corporations have a key ally in the modern Republican party.  They too have abandoned the middle class in favor of the corporate class - insidiously using social issues and working class votes to do so.  Republicans would rather cut taxes for the wealthy rather than spend tax money on the middle class or on another stimulus or infrastructure bank. And they'd rather see the country suffer than see the President succeed. 

  

Speaking of the President, how depressing to have Obama - not Bush - suspend plans to more tightly regulate ozone pollution. There is no way to sugar coat any aspect of this decision.

One, the decision means more air pollution.  Clean air is NOT a boutique issue that you can chuck or in this case suspend during tough economic times.  Seniors and children will suffer as a result of the White House's decision.

Two, it undercuts the EPA and Administrator Jackson, the best member of the Obama cabinet.

Three, the President is giving in to lobbying pressure from polluters. Giving in to the oil industry does not match the rhetoric of 'the audacity of hope' or 'the fierce urgency of now.'

Four, it is simply terrible politics and yet another capitulation to the Republicans. Cleaner air is not a burdensome regulation, no matter what Rick Perry or John Boehner say.  First it was extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, then it was linking increasing the debt ceiling to budget cuts without increasing revenue, and now opposing cleaner air.  

I could have mentioned not supporting a single payer, Medicare-for-all style health care system, but we new that as a candidate he did not support that style of reform.  

But rehashing candidate Obama's quotes DOES remind you how compelling he was two years ago. Now he seems determined to cave on core and important issues that would benefit the country and yes the common good.  Instead, the President is doing things that benefit the wealthy, big oil, and the Tea Party.

Maybe it will help him get reelected.  What on earth are the Rs going to complain about, they've gotten a lot of what they've asked for!  

But we expected and hoped for so much more from President Obama.  I wish the guy from 2 years ago would reappear.

Finally, the reappearance of football season for me always stinks.  I do not like the way TV and the paper pivots away from baseball to report on every little detail about pro and college football.  Baseball and the nation deserve better, from sports and from the President.

OK, my rant is over.  Here's hoping next week is better.

Gary Williams and Osama bin Laden

Two huge stories in DC this week.  

I don't have much to add to the Osama bin Laden story.  I'm happy we got him, and ecstatic that Obama got him in particular.  It's hard to overstate how significant decapitating Al QaedaOsama was good at putting together such an effective network.   is; I imagine putting together that kind of terrorist network is hard to do (ditto building the Third Reich, or maintaining Jim Crow for 75 years, wiping out Native American culture, etc.), and that for all his venality

We should not expect Al Qaeda to wither and die, but the good news is Osama should be hard to replace.  

And the way Obama and the U.S. pursued Osama - instructing the CIA to reinvigorate the search for Osama once he took office, walking back leads on possible Al Qaeda couriers, putting the house in Pakistan under surveillance starting in August, then pulling the trigger on the mission to get Osama over the weekend - displays the kind of competent  executive leadership this nation often lacks.

Great work, and great news for the country, the planet, and the President.

As big as getting Osama, the Gary Williams retirement is almost as big of news here in Washington.  More on that later.

Looking to 2010

Looking ahead to 2010, past the college basketball national championship (but you should still vote in the poll) and the debut of Steven Strasburg, to the mid-term elections I think things will eventually turn out well for President Obama and the nation.


This non-sports blog was prompted by yesterday's Frank Rich column, The Missing Link from Killeen to Kabul.  The column was about the double standard conservatives apply to the war on terror and how the United States relates to Muslims, both in the U.S. and in south Asia and the Middle East.  On one hand conservatives see the killings at Ft. Hood as proof that we can never work with or help Muslims.  On the other, they say they want more troops in Afghanistan, but those troops would be deployed to work with and help Muslims.


So which one is it? If conservatives think working with Muslims is hopeless, they should support pulling out all of troops - from both Iraq and Afghanistan (and I assume from Bosnia, where I think we still have troops, and Egypt, too).


But Rich's column reminded me of John McNamara's book "In Retrospective."  I remember reading that book on the beach in Cape Hatteras one summer and feeling equal parts sympathy and disgust for McNamara as he tried to deflect the blame for Vietnam.


However, Rich's column did not prompt me to blog about the parallel's between Afghanistan and Vietnam, though there are some obvious ones: long meandering wars initially supported by a public that eventually elects a president who pledges to end it - though in fairness that would make Obama Nixon even though Obama pledged to get us out of Iraq NOT Afghanistan; in order to win, we end up pushing the war into a neighboring country, Cambodia/Pakistan, with terrible consequences.  


For a number of reasons let's hope none of THAT happens, especially to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country with a moderate and modern Muslim majority.


Of course, the big difference is that Vietnam wanted to be modern, and post-war integrated itself into the world economy so fast that the country is now full of factories cranking out sneakers for Nike and linens for Crate and Barrel.  Whereas many Afghans think the west is out to destroy Islam and therefore want nothing to do with us or any other infidels (silly Taliban; the only infidels are folks who root against the Tar Heels!  Had to get the Heels in here somewhere).


Anyway, back to McNamara's book.  One thing he noted, an item I have repeated ever since, is that politics is physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  In "In Retrospective" McNamara claims that around 1967 LBJ and the administration had concluded that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, and that we should start to pull our troops out and reduce the aerial bombing of North Vietnam.  


But when the President floated this idea with members of Congress, hawks like John Stennis and others on the Armed Services committee teamed up with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to resist.  They pushed back even though they did not have a plan to win the war.  They did not want to stop fighting it - Stennis wanted to escalate the bombings, which the US did after Nixon was elected in 1968 - even though we were not winning the war.  


The Johnson Administration was afraid Congressional hawks would call a peaceful retreat from Vietnam a defeat, America's first lost war. The President did not have the stomach for that political fight, did not withdraw our troops, and the war went on for another 5 years.   


I'm certainly not eloquent enough to blog about how tragic Johnson's decision to continue the war - even though his team of advisors knew we were losing - was.   But remember that half the names on the Vietnam Memorial, half of the 56,000 dead Americans, happened AFTER 1968.  As John Kerry asked in 1971, "how do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?"


I hope President Obama has the political courage to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.  There will be a fierce reaction from hawks like Cheney, Beck and others.  But it is the right thing to do.  We've been mired in Afghanistan for eight years, with almost nothing to show for it.  I agree with Vice President Biden, who has proposed drastically drawing down troop levels but actively pursuing the Taliban and other terrorists there using Special Forces, the CIA, etc.  


Pulling our troops out would also force the Afghans to fix their politics - something the South Vietnamese never did. 


Finally, pulling out is good politics.  The public is way ahead of Washington on this one, and I think the unease about Obama is coming as much from the NPR left as it is from the loony right.  I'm confident that the Obama folks will remember that, and nothing helps an elected official remember like an election.  


So do not be surprised if the President announces drastic troop reductions for both Iraq and Afghanistan next summer, a summer than may end up putting a punctuation mark on two good years for the Obama Administration. Health care will likely pass in December 2009, a green jobs/climate bill in the spring, and hopefully after six months of economic growth folks will start hiring enough to put a meaningful dent in the unemployment rate (Carolina and Hellenic Blue's business plan, for instance, calls for expansion in the summer 2010 so dust off your resumes!).


Doing the right thing in Afghanistan and Iraq a few months before the mid-year elections may be cynical but it is still the right thing to do, and what a democracy should do.

Signing Ceremony for Omnibus Lands bill

Below is my first blog post - at least on this blog - entirely about work. I wrote it today for Sierra Club's Treehugger blog (it's not just a slur, it's a blog!) regarding yesterday's signing ceremony for the Omnibus Lands bill.

March 31, 2009

Flanked by environmental champions, and in front of an audience of environmentalists, hunters and anglers, and outdoor industry groups, President Obama signed the Omnibus Lands Bill into law yesterday. The bill signing was a big win for America’s wild places, and for the Sierra Club.

The bill, which protects more than 2 million acres of public land, has been a priority for the Sierra Club for the last two years. But some parts of the bill, such as the Owyhee wilderness, had been a chapter priority for more than a decade. Any way you look at it, the Omnibus Lands bill is the largest public lands bill to pass Congress in almost 20 years.

The best way for me to describe the bill signing ceremony is fun, about as much fun a Sierra Club lobbyist or activist can have in DC. Everyone there – and there was quite a bit of mingling prior to the ceremony - was in a fantastic mood. Members of Congress, hard-working Congressional staff, and enviros were back-slapping and were grinning gorp-eating grins.

The actual ceremony took place in the East Room. The last time I was in that room was in early January 2001, when then-President Clinton gave us some good news – that he was establishing the Missouri Breaks National Monument in Montana - but mainly bad news: that he was NOT going to name the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a monument. While happy about the Missouri Breaks, almost all of us left that ceremony disappointed and worried about the looming anti-environmental presidency of George Bush.

We survived the Bush years, and for instance won votes to keep the Arctic Refuge off limits. But those were votes to stop something bad. How great to revisit that room 8 years later – I practically was sitting in the same seat - to watch a president like Barack Obama sign a bill that we loved, a bill that protects more than 2 million acres of wilderness? Words can’t describe how good it felt to be on hand to see a great bill signed into law, a bill that makes things better as opposed to stopping a bill to make things worse.

It was proof that with Obama as president, we can be aspirational again, that we have a chance to make our country and planet better.

That was the other thing that struck me about yesterday’s ceremony. President Obama was introduced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who gave a great speech reminding everyone that in moments of national peril, American presidents and people have often looked at the land to bring us together and “fuel our spirit.” The Secretary’s speech touched on Lincoln protecting Yosemite during the Civil War, on Teddy Roosevelt expanding the national park system at the dawn of the 20th century, and how Franklin Roosevelt, as the nation struggled during the Depression, gave millions of Americans jobs through Civilian Conservation Corps. The speech concluded with Secretary Salazar saying “for America’s national character - our optimism, our dreams, our shared stories – are rooted in our landscapes.”

President Obama and Secretary Salazar were flanked by Congressional leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and environmental champs like Reps. Nick Rahall, Raul Grijalva, Dina Titus, and Senator Jeff Bingaman. It was unbelievable to be reminded that those are the people in charge of the country. That environmental policy is being made my leaders such as Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, folks who think like we do when it comes to America’s special places. Unbelievable.

As I left the ceremony - but after I got to personally thank Speaker Pelosi - I turned to my friend Tiernan Sittenfeld from the League of Conservation Voters, and wondered if our kids will look back at this era as the golden age of environmentalism. Hopefully, yesterday’s bill signing is just the start of that era, one that starts with leaders like Obama, Salazar, Pelosi and Reid but ends long after my kids and Tiernan’s kids have had kids - and grandkids - of their own.