Americans Afraid of Americans

I have a friend who was director of a gun violence prevention organization, Cease Fire Pa. She told me she stood outside of malls passing out Cease Fire literature. Women, she said, would tell her in low voices that they agreed with her movement, but couldn’t support it – because they were afraid. I asked my friend if the reason they were afraid was that they thought some gun rights fanatic would find their homes, ring her their door bells and shoot them, they said “yes”.

I am reminded of that conversation discussing among my colleagues at the Woman’s National Democratic Club what we should do about the March gun rights fanatics are planning for July 4. An ex Marine, Adam Kokesh, wants to bring his group, with loaded rifles slung on their backs, to march around the Capitol and the White House. The point, he is quoted as saying, is “to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated.” To do this he would have to break a number of laws and DC Police Chief Lanier has said they won’t be let into the District.

Still, maybe they would get into the District. We thought about how we would push back and protest the protest. We thought of going up to the marchers wearing placards saying “I am a teacher, I work for the government….I am a diplomat, I work for the government… I am a fire fighter…. I work for the government….why are you threatening ME?” Then, finally, what about putting flowers into their rifle butts?
–Elizabeth Spiro Clark

 

THE NRA: MOLDING OUR CHILDREN TO ACCEPT AUTHORITARIANISM AND MILITARISM?

Former congressman Asa Hutchinson appeared at the National Press Club on April 2 to present a plan, “National School Shield,” that came out of a NRA funded task force, but was supposedly independent of the NRA. The only significant distance from the NRA’s previously announced proposals was to back off plans to protect schools with armed vigilantes. Otherwise, the pro gun agenda called for training and arming paid guards and school staff, at least one in every school. Assault weapons, high capacity magazine clips, background checks, and even making gun trafficking a federal crime are all assumed to be off the table by Hutchinson and the NRA.

More appalling than the plan, however, was reporting on the boot stomping atmosphere surrounding the press conference. At least 20 NRA security men, some with visible guns in holsters, patrolled the room, ordering photographers not to take pictures, and reporters to get out into the lobby. They inspected reporters’ brief cases. Clearly the gun friendly medium was the message.

When asked about common ground with gun control advocates, Hutchinson said his plan was it. If so, columnist Dana Milbank said, “American school children may grow accustomed to the sort of scene Hutchinson caused Tuesday protected by more armed guards than a Third World dictator (WP op-ed, 4/2).”

We must think about what the school environment Hutchinson wants means concretely. What kind of a “scene” are our children going to get accustomed to? Picture kids talking about the latest variety of assault weapon as “cool”. Look to social pressure on kids to join gun clubs. Assume kids will be afraid to take unpopular positions. Assume a world where critical thinking is dangerous.

A gun culture, which we already have, implies you can only get your way if you back it up with lethal power, and must have the lethal power to protect yourselves. You are a target of disrespect otherwise. People, in this worldview, who say they admire the tradition of non violent protest must be weaklings.

We must fight back against pro gun plans, not only to stop our horrific gun homicide rates, but in order to live in a society based on ethical principles and in a democracy.

 

Don’t Make Solving Super Partisanship Central to Obama’s Vision: It Isn’t

Now that the tsunami of punditry on the President’s inaugural address has washed over us, the main conclusion of both his fans and detractors is left standing. He was aggressive in laying out his vision and did not so much as tip his hat to finding common ground with Republicans.

The Kansas Methodist, Rev. Adam Hamilton, chosen to preach at the National Cathedral Inaugural service, lauded the president for “a gift unlike any other President we have ever had” to cast a vision. However, Hamilton’s real message to Obama seemed to be when he told PBS news hour audiences that working across the partisan aisle should be Obama’s vision. Find issues, he counseled him, where you can work together and then build on that step by step to overcome the bitter partisan divide.

What does Hamilton’s vision mean in practice? All say Republicans and Democrats may be able to come together on an immigration policy. But then, why would anyone think they could move on to cure America’s partisan divide, or even reach agreement on any other issue. Is immigration reform the vision we are looking for? Do we just drop climate change, investing in education, gun control, equal opportunity economy, among other elements of Obama’s vision?

Finding common ground with Republicans should not be the centerpiece of Obama’s vision. As Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein told us a year ago in “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks,” America’s problem isn’t political polarization, it is the takeover of one party, the Republicans, by extremists. Those who are pushing to find consensus at all costs are elevating partisan rancor to the vision level and dignifying and validating extremism. To comment on the President’s Inaugural address, as Speaker Boehner did, that the President’s goal is to “annihilate” Republicans was a completely commonplace Republican statement―but extreme nonetheless.

Obama should not see his goal as finding common ground with extremists. Obama’s aggressive promotion of his vision is just that. If Republicans want to take it as aggression against them, they are wrong. He cares about his vision―not about annihilating Republicans. Republicans hate big government; they must hate politicians whose profession is mastering the art of governing. They are the last to say Obama should care more about placating partisan enemies than he does about succeeding in implementing his vision. He is prepared to leave all calls for nonpartisanship aside and go talk to the American people and get their direct support for his vision. What could be more American, more democratic?

Obama’s vision, in its whole and in its parts, should be what we are all talking about and not debating whether he has crossed some red line of the Republicans, who are so leaderless they don’t even have anyone to draw the red lines.

We must clearly separate America’s political dysfunction from a vision for America. Political dysfunction will get cured when the debate is on the vision. Honest disagreements on elements in a vision are welcomed. However, we should reject those who tell us that the President is aggressive and partisan and that his vision should placate the most extremely disaffected among us. That is not a recipe for success. Moving only where there is common ground is a recipe for disaster.
– Elizabeth Spiro Clark

 

Newtown Massacre: What “Conversation” ?

We live in political times of extreme intolerance for the views of others. The media increasingly negotiate the resulting political minefields and dodge the  sniper fire by framing what they are doing as reporting on “the debate” or “conversation” or on calls for “having a conversation”, “having a debate”.  The implication is always clear that “having a conversation” is a practical way to reach a middle ground, solve problems, find a compromise that both sides can agree on.

But is it? Is there any middle ground between the NRA and advocates for the regulation of firearms, for example? Where is the conversation when, following the Newtown massacre,  NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre stated that getting more guns in the hands of individuals was the solution to gun violence.

Where is the middle ground when Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, says that the main reason for owning guns is to defend ourselves against the government.  In this thinking, the American government is not America. For Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) the US doesn’t  have a gun problem, it has a people problem.  Anyone who disagrees (in this “debate”) is pushing a political agenda. Huelskamp says he doesn’t exactly approve of children playing video games, but “I am not saying to pass a  single law about that because it would be politicizing the issue.”

It is unacceptable to say that passing laws is “politicizing” an issue.  “Passing laws” is why our founding fathers created an elected legislative body. That is democracy.  At its heart Republican extremism is an authoritarian movement. It is no accident that neither Wayne LaPierre nor the NRA President David Keene would take  questions at their press conferences. Accountability is a core value of democracy, not authoritarianism. A debate shouldn’t be about whether we want to be a democracy.

For the media endless talk about “debate” it is a way to cover themselves. They don’t have to expose that one side, and one side only, is incapable of moving off an extreme agenda.  We shouldn’t, however, avert our eyes from the clear meaning of what is being said just because it exposes the limits of “conversation” and “debate”.

“Having the debate” also means getting out of calling the facts.  The Violence Policy Center conducts research that finds “states with low gun ownership rates and strong gun laws have the lowest rates of gun deaths”: The NRA says that “gun free zones” have higher gun death rates. For the NRA, gun free zones are the problem.  It’s presented as a debate, except it isn’t.

It is important to follow other stories that just follow the facts. For example, the profit gun manufacturers (and hedge fund mangers) make off weapons sales.  LaPierre, in effect, opened a new business opportunity when he said the NRA would finance and fund a program called the “National Model School Shield Program” to train school guards.  This at a time when the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has no workable data base of gun owners and registered guns because NRA will not let Congress pass the necessary appropriations.  The NRA doesn’t want to make Americans safer, it wants to make them less safe – for profit.

We don’t need a “conversation” with far right extremists, we need to talk about what they are saying.  What does it mean to say you need guns to defend yourself against (your) government? What is sedition? What constitutes incitement to violence? What is treason? And finally, what about exposing a right wing conspiracy to change America through cover organizations, funded by right wing billionaires, that push anti democracy laws in state legislatures and gett them passed. The American Legislative Exchange Council may drop pushing “Stand Your Ground” legislation after the killing of Trayyvon Martin last year and Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus hedge fund may drop Freedom Group Inc. gun manufacturers after Newtown.  But how many more are still out there pulling strings? We need information, not “debate”.

 

Who Are the Real “Gift Takers”?

The Republicans have invented the idea that the election was bought by gifts from the government to “urban” voters― that 47 percent of the population who are “takers” as opposed to Republicans, who are the “makers” of jobs and goods, the wealth creators. For Republicans the reality that tax breaks for the rich don’t create trickle-down economic growth is just another deniable piece of objective evidence invented by the liberal press, just like the polls that said Obama was going to win the election.  But in “reality” it is the rich who are the real takers of gifts. By some alchemy they get to turn their income artificially into capital gains and thereby save fortunes from significantly lower taxes.

The “makers” obviously don’t see it this way. They may think they didn’t get a gift from the government, but rather as good businessmen incurred a business expense, buying this, that, or the other lawmaker. They paid for their tax gifts. They also paid for state legislators to redistrict their states or to pass voter suppression laws to artificially raise the number of Republicans in Congress.

Despite the dismal return on their money in November’s election, Republicans don’t appear to be giving these ideas up. So rather than turning our heads in embarrassment, we need to chase these ideas down every drain pipe until they are flushed out of our system.

We could start with the drains in Sea Gate, a gated community on Coney Island.  The community is asking for government help to rebuild after super storm Sandy.  Sea Gate started out as a retreat for Vanderbilts and Morgans in the 19^th century. Current residents are described as middle class. According to a NYT report (11/27/12), whether middle class or super rich, they have chosen to live apart from their neighbor communities―with a vengeance.  They have ringed themselves with barbed wire and armed security check points. Sea Gate and other private communities can apply to get their streets taken off city maps (demapping), at which point such streets become privately owned, the communities assuming responsibilities for infrastructure, including roads, sewers, parks, and even policing.  This is the price for being left alone. Post-Sandy, however, Sea Gate has decided it cannot afford the infrastructure rebuilding costs, so it is asking for city, state, and federal assistance.

 

Sea Gate should get the help it is asking for. NYC’s deputy for operations is probably correct to say, “It’s in everyone’s interest to get these communities back.  If they’re successful, the city is successful.” Maybe some members of Sea Gate are embarrassed they are letting the Romney/Ryan team down by accepting government gifts.  If I were them, I would be more embarrassed by the barbed wire.

 

Obama and American Pragmatism

President Obama talks of his vision of change for America.  Many commentators put down his talk in vague criticisms that seemed to call for him to hit back at the hyper-individualism/small government ideology of the Republicans in a more “ideological” way.  The President is not ideological, but he does represent a philosophy that America invented: pragmatism. He wants to find solutions that will work; he has found some and will find more.  The Affordable Care Act isn’t the ideology of “socialism,” as Republicans would have it, it is what will work to reduce health care costs, make Americans healthier and contribute to economic growth.

As Obama said in his victory speech last night:   “I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”   — President Obama, Victory Speech

November 7, 2012

 

 

The Election: Press wants a “Tossup”, but it isn’t

The Sunday before the elections, readers of the New York Times and the Washington Post got the strong message that the election was a “tossup”.   This was explicit in the case of the Post, which listed Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida and Ohio as tossup states.  Meanwhile in the New York Times, Nate Silver and his FiveThirtyEight blog was absent from the Sunday edition, which led with an “equally tight” theme for the Presidential race (“competitive states that right to the end are producing equal shares of hope and fear among conflicting signals about the outcome.”)

If you go online to FiveThirtyEight, the most detailed and authoritative analysis of election polling, you would have to ask what equal “shares of hope and fear” are they talking about? Of the argument the election is “too close to call,” Silver says:  “It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.”

Of the Post’s seven “tossup” states, Silver lists only one – Florida – as a “tossup”.  In addition, Silver has Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Wisconsin as not just “leaning” Obama, but  as “likely” Obama (i.e. 80-90%).  Silver gives Obama an 85.1% of winning the Electoral vote.

The Post rather gives away its game with a chart where Obama needs from the “tossup” column only Ohio plus either Wisconsin or Colorado (or Ohio plus “likelies” Iowa and NH). The Post ignored its own giveaway sentence – buried in the text on ‘tossup” Ohio – that “virtually every public poll in the last 10 days shows Obama with an advantage.” But then, the Post needs its “tossup” states to make its story “entertainment”.

Is there a reason why the Post and the Times took this “dead heat” approach? Suspense  sells, but is it also that an entrenched “balanced reporting” imperative  trumps any objective analysis, just when objective reporting counts the most? (Note: to see what objective analysis means go to http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nov-2-for-romney-to-win-state-polls-must-be-statistically-biased/#more-37099).