One of the few real patriots who served in the Bush administration was Larry Wilkerson, aide to Colin Powell during Bush's first term. He's been a real "speak truth to power" guy ever since.
I Get SO Irritated
A Republican friend of mine just sent me one of those emails that periodically make the rounds, spewing faux outrage about the other party’s shenanigans. (I’m sure the far left does this too, but I’m evidently not on their email list.)
The Pollyanna Perspective
I was always grateful I didn’t have to live through the Great Depression. But as I look at the current status of the United States and world economies, I think my gratitude may have been—how shall we say it?—premature.
These are the times that try a control-freak’s soul. The vast majority of us can do little or nothing to repair the wounds inflicted by the private greed and public incompetence of our most recent “gilded age.” We are reduced to reading the analyses of self-proclaimed “experts” and patently self-interested spokespersons for this or that interest group, and wondering who is right. Is Obama a “socialist” bent upon turning the U.S. into a—horrors!—European welfare state?? (And if he is, why would that be so terrible?) Or is he a pragmatist, using whatever tools seem most likely to cure what ails us? And if that is correct, is he choosing the right tools? Who knows?
Then there are the fears that run deepest among marginalized communities. In bad economic times, people have always looked for someone to blame, someone to hate. (Think of the conditions in Germany that gave rise to Hitler!) Already, there are indications of upticks in anti-Semitism, long on the decline. The election of Obama marked great progress in race relations, but has also occasioned eruptions of really psychotic racism. If the downturn continues and deepens, what will that mean for attitudes toward Jews, blacks, immigrants, gays and lesbians?
The answer to all these questions is unknowable at this point. So, rather than wallow in fear of potential disasters that may never come, I choose to focus on rosy possibilities that may also never come, but comfort me with their promise.
As Rahm Emmanuel said shortly after the election, every crisis is also an opportunity. It’s a sentiment that has been echoed by President Obama, and it has the virtue of being true. As dangerous and depressing as the current situation is, it allows us to take stock of what we’ve done wrong and correct our course. Bad times may encourage inter-group tensions, but they may also lead to the tardy realization that we are all on this planet together, and our differences are far less than our similarities.
What are the opportunities, the potential “upsides,” for the gay community?
Probably the most significant is the promise of universal healthcare. Back in 2006, I wrote the following in my June Word column:
“One reason recognizing gay marriage or civil unions is so important is health insurance: currently, if you are gay and don’t work for an enlightened employer, you cannot put your partner (or your partner’s children unless you have somehow established a legal relationship with them—itself not easy) on your health insurance.
Of course, that assumes your employer even offers health insurance. And the number of employers who do is declining.
The bottom line is that
If access to affordable health insurance didn’t depend upon where you worked, but instead was treated as a right that comes with citizenship (much as it is in those retrograde European countries), what a difference that would make! Equality would immediately be enhanced, because gay families would no longer face barriers to medical care that straight citizens don’t face.
Fixing our broken health care system would probably be the most important positive change we might anticipate, but it’s far from the only one. In a crisis, sound leadership (which, thankfully, has replaced the manifest incompetence of the Bush Administration) requires the use of the very best talent available. That means that we don’t turn away people with the skills we need just because they happen to be openly gay. Obama has already staffed his administration with several “out” gay people, and he has promised to repeal the ridiculous and counterproductive “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And of course, addressing the very real threat of global warming is a priority for everyone on the planet, not just straight folks. Rescuing our constitutional liberties similarly benefits us all.
I can go on, but you get the picture. As long as change is inevitable—and it is—why not be Pollyannaish? Why not envision the changes that would make life better for all Americans, including gay Americans?
After all, wasn’t electing Barack Obama all about replacing fear with hope?
Going Galt
If you’ve been following the financial news (and these days, who hasn’t?), you’ve probably come across stories about various wealthy and well-connected folks who are so incensed about Obama’s intention to let Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy expire that they are threatening to “go Galt.”
The reference is to John Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand’s monumental book, Atlas Shrugged. In the book, Galt and other highly productive members of society decide to simply withdraw from participation in an economic system that has—in Rand’s view—become corrupted. The economic environment in Atlas Shrugged is highly politicized, with the result that it takes from those who are productive and honorable, and gives to those who are intellectually dishonest and morally defective. Rand characterizes the latter as “looters” and as “pull-peddlers” (what we would call “influence peddlers”)—people who know how to work the system to gain advantage over those who play by the rules.
What is so ironic, of course, about these publicized threats to “go Galt”—which in this case means to cut back on work in order to keep one’s taxable income under $250,000—is that they are being made by folks who have a lot more in common with Rand’s “looters” than with John Galt. These rants and threats are coming from people who have been prospering by doing all the things Rand (and Galt) hated. They are the people who were born into privilege, the people whose companies benefitted from favorable tax breaks, lax regulation, and the ability to hire lobbyists to skew the system in their favor, rather than through the production of anything of value. To those of us who have actually read the book, they look a lot more like James Taggert, the slimy, politically-connected, perpetually whining brother of the heroine Dagny Taggert.
It isn’t only Atlas Shrugged that the “don’t raise the tax on my marginal income another three percent” folks are mischaracterizing. As the noted economist Amartya Sen pointed out in a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, these self-righteous, self-proclaimed “pro-business” types have also been playing fast and loose with Adam Smith and the “Wealth of Nations.”
As Sen points out, Smith viewed markets and capital as doing good work “within their own sphere,” but he also explicitly recognized that markets required “restraint and correction” by other institutions–including well-devised government regulations and state assistance for the poor–in order to prevent “instability, inequity and injustice.” Smith—who was not an economist, but a Professor of Moral Philosophy—also recognized that “commercial exchange could not effectively take place until business morality made contractual behavior sustainable and inexpensive–not requiring constant suing of defaulting contractors, for example.”
It’s bad enough that extremists on the political right have insisted upon highly selective readings of both the bible and the constitution. Now they are selectively reading both Ayn Rand and Adam Smith, as well.
Or maybe they haven’t actually read any of them. That really would explain a lot.
Legislative Fiddling
The one thing that Republicans, Democrats and Independents all seem to agree on these days is that the country is in a big mess, and business as usual isn’t going to fix it.
As bad as things are nationally, states are arguably swimming in even more treacherous waters, because most state constitutions—including Indiana’s—require balanced budgets, a requirement that gives state lawmakers very little maneuvering room in times of economic duress. So we might expect our state legislators to forgo the usual efforts to protect their fellow partisans and ingratiate themselves with narrow constituencies, and instead work in a bipartisan manner to solve the very difficult fiscal problems we face.
We might expect that, but we would be wrong.
So far this session we have seen efforts to designate a state pie (harmless enough, but really! Choosing an official state pie couldn’t wait?); a bill to allow students at state universities to carry guns on campus (in addition to the mayhem this would promote, if you think we have grade inflation now—how many of us faculty types would give poor marks, no matter how richly deserved, to students “packing heat?”); and yet another effort to amend the state constitution by inserting a ban on same-sex marriages (never mind that such unions are already illegal in Indiana, and that the prospect of Adam and Steve filing joint tax returns isn’t exactly topping Hoosier worry lists these days).
And then there’s State Senator David Long. If you think solving the problem of gun violence by arming more adolescents is counter-intuitive, to put it mildly, what is there to say about Long’s effort to have government restructuring decided by local referenda? Leaving aside the obvious cowardice of this effort to avoid casting a vote that will make some people unhappy, this is a suggestion absolutely guaranteed to make an already bad situation even worse.
The problem with Indiana government right now is that we have too many overlapping and duplicative units of government, and far too many elected officials. These multiple layers of government are inefficient, they make it difficult for citizens to know who is responsible for what, and they are all being paid for with tax dollars desperately needed for service delivery. (In a very real sense, we are being asked to choose between paved roads and township trustees.) The Kernan-Shepard report identified a number of problems stemming directly from the crazy quilt that is Indiana government.
If each county held a referendum to vote whether or not to streamline government in that county, we would be addressing the problems that have been caused by one incoherent patchwork by creating an even bigger, even more incoherent patchwork. This is like treating a cold by taking bird flu virus.
Is it too much to ask our state legislators to stop fiddling while Indiana burns? To put aside the game playing, pandering and politics as usual, at least for the duration of the economic crisis? We citizens would sure appreciate it.