December 2008

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December 31 - Illusions shatter in 2008

Some glimpses at the world in 2008:  In the African country of Zimbabwe almost a third of the population is dying as the country implodes due to the intransigence of Robert Mugabe, a former freedom fighter against white oppression who has become a tyrant willing to sacrifice his own population to protect his ego.  Although this crisis has been building for nearly a decade, with tremendous inflation and injustice, now children are literally wasting away as food scarcity grows and the government denies anything is wrong.

In Gaza a population suffering malnutrition, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chaos now faces an assault from Israel.  The Israelis are angry about rockets being shot at their citizens by a Hamas, an extremist militia.   The situation is complex, but one thing is true on both sides: the people who suffer the most are the innocents who happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the US people are reeling from the onset of an economic crisis so severe that 2008 may be remembered alongside 1929 in terms of heralding a deep recession.  Events in September and October led to a financial crisis that has no easy way out.   This crisis is not just about banks or credit, but 30 years of unsustainable economic policies that need to be rebalanced.

2008 was also the year when the US finally recognized that its long term plans for a democratic Iraq as an American ally and model for the region was not achievable, and decided to cut its loses and find a way out.

In Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent, al qaeda still operative, and most NATO countries are reducing their contribution.   While the US is likely to increase its forces in the country, there is no military solution for Afghanistan, the country is too large and US military options limited.

In 2008 the American public, sensing that things have gone very wrong in recent years, embraced a change in politics, building on the shift to the Democrats and the left started in 2006.  Barack Hussein Obama, a relatively inexperienced Senator from Illinois, a black man with a funny name, was elected President.   His calm, confident and intelligent demeanor inspired trust and hope, something the American people haven’t had for their political leaders for some time.   Obama’s election also surprised much of the world, he is so different from the kind of leader Americans usually embrace.   After President Bush’s earlier “with us or against us” errors of bluster and arrogance (which he himself stepped back from), Obama’s election creates a bit of good will internationally.

Obama’s election was also part of a year of wild political news, ranging from John McCain’s improbable comeback to win the GOP nomination, the long drawn out and sometimes bitter fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination (ending with Clinton as Obama’s choice to be Secretary of State), and the weird but entertaining choice of Sarah Palin to be McCain’s running mate.   To top off all this political drama, disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich just chose Roland Burris to replace Obama in the Senate, defying Democratic party leaders who did not want him to make a choice.  I think the Senate should seat Burris, who has done nothing wrong, but egos are involved and expect the drama to continue.

2008 saw wild swings in the price of oil.   Production is level, and demand is inelastic.  That means that slight changes in demand not caused by changes in supply can yield rapid and dramatic price fluctuations.   That certainly happened this year!   The high prices earlier put us on notice that oil production cannot rise as fast as demand at stable prices — if the economy grows, oil prices will go up dramatically.   The recession gives us a respite, but it doesn’t make the problem go away.

The year also had it’s share of natural disaster — my first WordPress blog entry was about Nargis, a storm which hit Burma back in May, causing massive death and destruction.

So the year was historic, dramatic, with its share of bad news.  It was the perfect year to start a blog about ‘an era of crisis and transformation.’   The theme of 2008 to me is the shattering of illusions.  To be sure, some of these illusions were dispelled in 2006 and 2007, but in 2008 the process reached its peak, people realize we live in a different world than we thought, and so much of the past 20 years or so has been built on unsustainable practices.  The illusions now shattered:

1) The fundamentals of the economy are strong.  No.  The fundamentals have been wildly out of balance for almost three decades, and rebalancing will be painful and force the US to start producing again, and living within our means;

2) The US is the dominant world power.  No.  The US has had to define success way down in Iraq in order to create the chance for a face saving way out, and in Afghanistan seven years after the war started the Taliban is resurgent and NATO speaks of the possibility of defeat.  Both of these would have been seen as absurdly defeatist if predicted five years ago.  The US has a strong military, but in an era of terrorism and asymmetrical warfare, our capacity to win wars against large armies is overshadowed by the inability of military power to shape political results.   This isn’t anything against our military — they are tremendously effective at what they are trained to do.    But winning wars is different than nation building, and military power is only one dimension of effective counter-terrorism.

Given that and the prominence of economic factors, the world is now multipolar rather than unipolar, and globalization is trumping sovereignty.  Americans are slowly grasping that we can’t hold ourselves aloof from the world or comfort ourselves with myths that we’re better than others and they’re just jealous.  That illusion was dangerous.

3) Americans could never vote for an urbane, intellectual black candidate for President, especially if his name contains “Hussein” and rhymes with Osama.   The American people have never been on the “talk radio right” the way it seemed to many in recent years, nor are they partisan Democrats.  Despite the red-blue map most Americans are purple — centrist and pragmatic.  (And as a Minnesota Vikings fan, I like purple).

For all the drama and turmoil of the last year, 2008 is almost certain to be remembered as the start of a major transformation of US and perhaps world politics.   We have been brought back to reality, we now recognize the limits of our power, and the foolishness of living a debt-based existence beyond our means.  We realize that while our values are strong, we haven’t really being following them, seduced into a hyper-consumerist nationalist orgy of arrogance and denial.

The transition is just beginning.  The left hasn’t quite figured out how to reconcile their ambitious social agenda with a weakened economy.  They need to put interest-group oriented politics aside and work for pragmatic compromises with the right.   The right hasn’t figured out how to let go of the conservative populism of people like Limbaugh and Hannity, and recognize the need for multi-lateralism and pragmatism.  2009 is a year both political parties will need to reconstruct themselves to face reality.

And, though we face a recession, severe foreign policy challenges, and a world still riddled with crisis and instability, there is something cathartic about realizing that we at least started to put misguiding illusions aside and are beginning to understand the challenges ahead.    To solve any problem one first has to admit there is a problem.    Our illusions allowed us to live in denial for far too long.  That time is over.

December 29 - Israel’s Dangerous Gamble

Hamas is a brutal, radical terrorist organization whose ideals are contrary to both mainstream Islam and almost all rational conceptions of human rights.  That Israel (as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan) wants to elminate Hamas is understandable.  A Palestine without Hamas would have a better chance at peace and the risk of a Mideast war spiraling out of control would decrease dramatically.

However, massive attacks that kill over 300 so far, including at least 51 civilians according to the UN, is a very dangerous gamble, likely to  fail.  Whether it’s more like the long term failure following the Lebanon invasion of 1982, which led to the rise of Hezbollah, or the catastrophe of the summer of 2006, when Israel was humiliated in its failure to destroy Hezbollah or get kidnapped troops back, is still unclear.

It is important to understand why Israel unleashed such an assault, with a ground invasion likely soon.  Hamas has proven unwilling to moderate its demands or retreat from its threat to try to destroy Israel.  Hamas controls the Gaza strip, and has routinely fired rockets into Israeli territory, killing and wounding some Israeli citizens (though nothing of the magnitude of Palestinians killed in these current attacks).   Israel recognizes that it’s long term security requires a Palestinian state that can be dealt with, and which recognizes Israel’s right to exist.  Israeli officials know that Fatah moderates in the West Bank are willing to try to make that happen.   Moreover, Israel’s experience in the battle against Hezbollah was sobering.  It created existential concerns about the future of the Israeli state, especially with Iran moving forward on trying to produce nuclear weapons.

It boils down to this: long term Israeli security requires building a viable Palestine alongside a secure Israel.   Palestinian leaders outside Hamas want this too, aPalestinian-Israeli peace is not as unthinkable as it might seem.   If they could reach an agreement, they could undercut Hezbollah threats (the Palestinians are not Shi’ites, nor are they religious extremists), and give Arab governments a chance to prop up and help sustain the new Palestinian state.  It can be done, and could even happen quickly.

The one thing standing in the way: Hamas.    With Hamas controlling Gaza, nothing can move forward.  The Israelis are forced to watch Hezbollah strengthen, Iran move forward, and Hamas arm itself, feeling as if the clock is ticking against them.   Moreover, Israelis now feel a certain lack of self-confidence since the 2006 war; they know they are indeed vulnerable.

This could not have been an easy decision for Prime Minister Olmert, whose days as leader of Israel are numbered (he resigned due to a scandal, but stays on because no other coalition could be formed, and elections aren’t due until February).   It’s a gamble likely to have two parts: a) attempt to crush Hamas and destroy its leadership and organizational core; and b) aggressively promote Palestinian statehood through negotiation with moderate Palestinians.

It won’t work.  First of all, the emotion caused on each side by the violence will only embolden the extremists, and Hamas is adept at adapting and surviving.   They’ll lose hundreds, maybe thousands of fighters, but the pool of willing and angry young Palestinians will grow, and anger will increase in the West Bank as well.   Palestinians can count.  They know that the Israeli military is killing far more innocents than Hamas kills, and even if Palestinians don’t like Hamas, their rage will directed at Israel.

One reason this is the case is that these kinds of wars are not traditional military confrontations, or even basic asymmetrical warfare.  It’s also a media event, with the Arab world as the primary audience.  Arab governments relatively friendly to Israel (many unofficially) have breathed a sigh of relief as the Americans gave up their effort to control Iraq.   The pressure on them from below was finally starting to let up.  This new round of violence is certain to bring about anger in the Arab worlds, forcing Arab governments like Egypt’s to become more hostile to Israel, and could increase internal instability in states across the regoin.

Israelis (and Americans) often don’t comprehend how profound and counter productive the killing of large numbers of civilians can be.  Their logic is that Hamas started the attack, Israel must defend its citizens, and the Israeli military is (unlike Hamas) trying to avoid civilian casualties.   But Gaza is densely populated, and people die in war.  Since they started the attacks, Hamas is responsible for those deaths.    That logic is, however, irrelevant.   Whether or not Israel’s response is justified in philosophical or legal terms is also irrelevant.   The emotional response of Palestinians (and many Israelis, to be sure) is one of outrage over the killing of innocents.   Images of bloody and dead children and civilians will be beamed around the world and throughout the Arab world, creating a powerful backlash.  The likely result will be that Hamas will survive, Israel’s internal divisions will increase, and the country will be in a more precarious situation than before.

Obviously, that likelihood must be painfully clear to the Israeli military and Prime Minister Olmert — they aren’t dummies.   No doubt they decided that there is no alternative.  They won’t speak with Hamas until Hamas moderates its demands, and Hamas says it will meet no preconditions before talking with Israel.  And, though Egypt is renewing efforts to try to reconcile Fatah and Hamas, there is no love lost between the two Palestinian organizations either.   The only alternative left seemed to be to use the awesome power of the Israeli military to eliminate the main obstacle to stability in the Mideast.

However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be exacerbated by continuing the cycle of violence.  Hamas will survive and strike back, peace negotiations with Fatah will be jeopardized, and as the cycle continues, Israel’s very existence could be in question.  Ultimately, Israel needs to find a political way out of this, attacking Gaza plays into the hands of the extremists who find the idea of peace with the other side abhorrent.    Direct or indirect talks with Hamas, starting with a cease fire are necessary.   Hamas can’t be wished away, nor can it simply be crushed.  The PLO and Egypt went from wanting Israel’s destruction to accepting its existence;  Hamas either has to be brought to that same place, or be gradually weakened by waning support.

Many don’t like that kind of approach.   It sounds more concrete to say “destroy Hamas and the main obstacle to peace is gone.”  But while one likes to imagine problems can simply be destroyed with violence, it rarely works that way.   And given the nature of this battle — a powerful military machine fighting an adaptable popular militia in a media age where photos are as powerful as bullets — Israel is likely to end up in a worse situation than before.   True, there is a possibility the gamble will pay off.  But there is the possibility that it will start a spiral into all out, devastating, Mideast war.

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December 28 - From Fear to Hope

In the movie Bowling for Columbine film maker Michael Moore makes a very interesting, and often missed, argument.  Many see the film as an anti-gun movie, but it really isn’t.  He directly compares the US to Canada and notes that Canada has lots and lots of guns — but few murders.  In fact, here in Maine we are a ‘gun-tooting’ state.  Hunting is prevalent, back when I lived in Augusta more than once I saw hunters with guns walking past my house.  Yet Maine is the safest US state.  We have low crime rates, and murder is extremely rare.

No, Moore argued that the main problem in the US is fear: we are a society gripped in fear, and that leads us to aggression and paranoia.  Consider Y2K, the aftermath of 9-11, and the way some people still seem genuinely afraid that somehow if the US cooperates with the UN or tries to talk with countries like Iran it will cause “our enemies” to gain strength and us to “look weak.”   Often these fearful people seem most afraid about what others will think of us, that we will back down or lose face.  The mark of a fearful person lacking self-esteem is an overarching concern about what others think, rather than ones’ own real situation.  That seems to be a cultural problem here — though it could be changing.

The US spends half the world’s military budget.  No country could possibly invade or conquer the US.  Some say we have to keep trade lanes open with our navy.  Well, who is attacking our trade lanes besides rogue Somali pirates?  And doesn’t everyone in the world have a shared interest in protecting trade, not just the US?   One can point to terrorists, but even there the fear is way out of proportion to the threat.   People imagine all sorts of scenarios, but the fact is that fewer people have been killed in the US by terrorists than are killed in car accidents every few months.   9-11 killed 3000, we have about 12,000 domestic gun murders each year.

While downing the twin towers was a spectacle, our military destroys more property, buildings, and kills more civilians than terrorists ever have.  But, some protest, what about what terrorists might do — one imagines nuclear terror, biological weapons, and other nightmare scenarios.

The irony of fear is that if you act out of fear of something, you increase the chances you will experience it.  Invading Afghanistan and Iraq only made the US more hated and disrespected, and has helped worsen a fundamentally imbalanced economy.  To the rest of the world we look like people who would rather kill than negotiate, who see anything other than ‘our way or no way’ as weakness, and arrogantly mourn our own loses while mocking the loses of others, including those we cause.

Would be terrorists would not target the US because they “hate our freedoms.”  That’s an absurd and dishonest claim, even though some play on the igornace of the population to argue such things.   It’s also not because of Islamic extremism.  In fact, the reverse is true — western and American policies have helped the Muslim extremists gain popularity and support in especially the Arab world.  And when Americans engage in Islamophobia — hatred of Islam bred by fear — it creates ugly images overseas which only exacerbates the problem.  Our fear is our greatest weakness.  It may be trite, but FDR was right: we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But it’s not just foreign policy or domestic homicides.  It’s also in our every day lives.   In the last election campaign one could see visceral hatred on each side of the spectrum, people tend to ridicule and insult the other side rather than engage.  Democrats fear the right, Republicans consider the left un-American and dangerous.  Fear permeates every aspect of American life.  Another good movie, this one from over 15 years ago, is from Albert Brooks, called Defending Your Life. That movie is set in Judgement City, where people go after their death to determine if they have to go back to earth, where people are bound by their fears, or if they have overcome their fears enough to move on in the universe.  The earth is portrayed as a rather forlorn place of suffering, inhabited by spiritually unadvanced souls.

Regardless of what one thinks of that scenario, the underlying theme is that fear is what holds us down in life — that when we are afraid we don’t take chances, we don’t appreciate the good things as they happen, and we create more problems for ourselves.    Fear makes it impossible to live a truly free and fruitful life.

Still, I sense a change lately.   People had been beaten down by the drumbeat of media inspired fear.   The biggest story before the 9-11 attack had been shark attacks in the southeast.   A sensationalistic media has been playing on fear for decades.  The American people bought it, fearing Saddam, Osama, the Russians, the Iranians, Muslims, Blacks, the MRSA virus and a host of other things out there.  Common media teases are things like “what common food may be a killer lurking in your refrigerator…watch at 11:00 to find out.”   We had to be stronger than every other country (what if every country felt that way?) because we were afraid not to.  We had to attack because we were afraid of being attacked.  We didn’t try to see other perspectives, negotiation was weakness, we were good, they were evil.

But after awhile reality breaks through.  The failure in Iraq, the on going problems in Afghanistan, the reality of what war means, and the lies from political leaders cause people to reconsider what kind of country we are, and realize that fear ultimately is self-defeating.

I believe the reason that Barack Obama was able to come on so strong and take the Presidency was not his oratory, style, policies, ideology, or even campaign tactics.  Rather, the American people are sick of fear, and want to move towards hope.  Instead of lashing out against others, we’re ready to talk, compromise, and recognize that most people are good, and want a peaceful world.  Yes, there are the cases like Israel and Hamas, or al qaeda, where people certainly want to use violence to destroy enemies.  But to many the US looked strangely similar, as we choose massive destruction, rationalized by the fact that due to our technology we could kill more innocents while saying we’re doing more than anyone else to try not to.  Blinded by fear, we didn’t see the hypocrisy or the arrogance in our behavior.

That seems to be changing.  The American spirit is not one of on going fear, but a strong belief in our ability to shape the future and make it better.   We’re at base pragmatists rather than ideologues, we believe there is no contradiction between individualism and concerns about the community and social justice.   Perhaps the current multi-leveled crisis, from foreign policy to economic policy, is an opportunity to go from fear to hope.  That would seem ironic — to have our culture lost in a media inspired fear while times were good, only to overcome that fear when things get bad.   But that’s because fear isn’t really the fundamental American value.  It was stoked by a sensationalist media, talk radio, and politicians who realized fear could get the emotional response that would yield votes.   Hope takes more work than fear.  It requires imagination, confidence, and even some risk taking.  But ultimately fear is self-defeating, and hope leads to greater rewards.

2008 was an historic year.  It might ultimately be remembered as akin to 1929, the year the economy started into a major long term crisis that would end in war.  Or, perhaps, it could be remembered as the year that the American people had enough of the fear mongers, and turned to hope.

December 24 - Thoughts on Christmas

If being a Christian were, say, the same as being a Freudian, Keynesian, Hegelian or Kantian, I could call myself a Christian.   In those cases it simply means ones basic outlook on the world in inspired by and close to that of a great thinker.  It doesn’t mean absolute agreement, nor does it mean one treats the words of the great thinker as infallible and sacred.

However, I do not believe Jesus was a unique son of God, nor do I believe one has to believe that he is in order to have eternal life.  Moreover, I find the idea that a loving God would require belief in a particular story line and person in order to judge to be self-contradictory.  That would not be a loving God.  So in a religious sense, I am not a Christian.  Jesus was for me a wise spiritual teacher, comparable to Gandhi and other spiritual thinkers, not supernatural.

Yet on Christmas, I wholeheartedly agree with this as a day to celebrate the birth and life of Jesus Christ.   First, Christianity is one of the world’s great religions, that should be honored.  Just as wishing a Jew “Happy Hanukkah” is not something one must avoid, wishing a Christian “Merry Christmas” is to show that person respect.  However, for me it goes beyond that — I really believe and respect the fundamental moral principles of Christianity as enunciated in the New Testament by Jesus and Paul.

So to me Christmas is to respect Christianity, show my belief in the fundamental moral principles put forth by the person of Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the spirit of the season: love, goodwill, a desire for peace, kindness to others, joy, and a sense of magic.  It is that time of the year we celebrate the best of humanity, and suspend our disbelief enough to know that there is a power to love and a sense of mystery about the world that we cannot know, but can open our hearts to feel.   And, somehow, I think that spirit transcends both the teacher and the faith he started, and can inspire people of all faiths or secular beliefs.

And so, despite the fact that in a religious sense I am not a Christian, I want to honor these teachings from the Sermon on the Mount which ring true to me, and are the spirit of the teachings of Jesus, a spirit that one can honor and grasp even if one doesn’t believe the story that Jesus is the one true and only son of  God.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
…

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”   But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
 

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
 

Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

…

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”    But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
…

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.   But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

…

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own

…

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
 

…

In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

December 22 - A Best Case Scenario

Lately my posts on the economy have been full of gloom and doom, so as a change, why not look at it from the other side — what is a best case scenario?  To be sure, it has to be a realistic best case scenario, simply fantasizing that suddenly all the fundamental problems will go away makes no sense.  It also has to take into account that this is no ordinary recession; not since the 1930s has there been such a global rebalancing of an out of whack economy.  But it need not be like the 1930s.   What can turn things around?

First, it did not have to get this bad.  If the economic fundamentals were dealt with earlier, either after the 1992 recession or more likely after the 2001 recession, we could have rebalanced in an easier manner.  It would have been painful, much like 1979 - 82, but it could have been done.  Instead the bubble economy, built on a stock bubble followed by a property bubble, created a false sense of prosperity alongside a belief that all was well.  Speculative bubbles create their own imbalances which, alongside the current accounts deficit and increasing public and private debt make this a very difficult economic crisis to bounce back from.  What must be done?

Few emphasize that back in the 1930s there was an answer.  If the world had embraced the kind of increased free trade and stable currency markets that were ultimately created after the war in the Bretton Woods system, we might have pulled out of the depression early and avoided World War II.  If Briand and Streseman’s ideas of a kind of European economic bloc had been tried in 1929 instead of 1958, perhaps fascism could have been avoided.  Some say the war ended the depression, but that’s baloney.   If not for the dramatic shift in economic thinking heralded by the Bretton Woods system (fixed exchange rates based on the gold standard — which lasted in some form until 1971 — and a free trade regime, which persists today), the war could have fostered either a return to depression or, more likely, socialist revolutions in the West.

So let’s assume that there is an answer.  The answer is not within our current realm of conventional wisdom, and may not be seen as feasible; a call for a Bretton Woods like system would have been laughed at by most in the 30s as a political pipe dream — we needed a war to get people to move beyond their own thinking.  But it’s a different era than the 30s, the information and technology revolution is real, and globalization is much farther along.  The kind of nationalist wars of conquest promoted by Japan and Germany are obsolete.  Only the US has remotely tried such a thing, and it has proven to be a costly failure.

So maybe we can be forward thinking now.  One thing a solution would have to be is global, and inclusive.  In other words, we would need the kind of shift away from parochial nationalist economic thinking that we had with Bretton Woods.  This means an even more intense embrace of multilaterialist ideas, and a recognition that success has to be more than just success of the West — only an economic system that truly gives hope and prosperity to those in the third world who currently suffer poverty and malnutrition can work.

That means two shifts: go into negotiations without national interests (and interest groups) in mind, and see third world development as necessary for renewed first world growth.    Moreover, the US would have to recognize the unviability of the old “leaving beyond our means.”  Increasing debt and trade deficits made us seem much better off than we were.  We have to accept that the public and government will have to make major concessions in terms of expectations.

Luckily, we have the capacity to do that.  The fake economy of the last 26 years has created pockets of fat that can be trimmed in order to transition to a sustainable system.  That fat is in corporate and financial sectors, and the wealthy need to be taxed far more than they have been, with loop holes cut.  In the past, tax increases on the wealthy have been rejected because that will decrease investment, and we need investment to grow.  But that investment turned out in recent years to be mostly illusary paper gains based on financial speculation, and NOT efforts to build economic capacity and production.  Government will have to take a more active role in making sure investment is directed into productive sectors.  Those sectors should not be government run, but the market left to its own devices ends up serving those few who are able to manipulate information and regulation.

The latter means that Washington will have to do business differently.  Transparency rather than inside deals with lobbyists needs to become the stanard operating procedure.    The budget must be cut even as we try to increase production.  That means redoing the budget from the ground up, completely restructuring the United States governmental bureaucracy to be more efficient and less encompassing.   Most importantly military spending, mislabeled defense spending (we don’t need much to defend ourselves from invasion), needs to be slashed.  This will be politically difficult, but in times of economic crisis things can be done that otherwise would not have been politically possible.  Someone like Obama could pull it off.

So Internationally: a major international agreement designed to increase supranational regulation of credit markets, hold global financial and corporate actors accountable, create rules that transcend borders (to end a race to the bottom and companies shopping for governments who will deregulate and reduce taxes), and emphasize pathways for third world development.  That will require a political aspect to induce effective governance in corrupt third world states.  It won’t be easy, but third world development is a long term project, it only has to begin for the economy to start forward.   This absolutely necessitates the US being willing to compromise on previously unacceptable matters, embracing a level of internationalism that had been anathema to most Americans in the past.

Domestically, a reorganization of government, with a focus of government resources on developing productive capacity, taxing wealtheir folk and ending a regulatory set up based on powerful and wealthy lobbyists is necessary.   At the same time the American people will need to accept a decreased standard of living (since the old standard was built on debt and foreign labor/trade deficits), but one that can be made acceptable by undoing the massive increase in the maldistribution of wealth over the last quarter century.  The recession need not be as painful overall if the cost is paid fairly.  Technology to deal with global climate change and long term energy concerns could be key to helping reshape the American economy.

All that together sounds politically impossible.  Our thinking would have to change dramatically, the break from the past would have to be profound.  But who would have thought that a black man who had a Kenyan father and grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, with the name Barack Hussein Obama, could be President?   Unlike past politicians, Obama has the capacity to make a major break with the past, and do so in a way that doesn’t lead the old elite to torpedo his changes.  Hence its important to have the Clintons, Jimmy Buffet and other current elites on board.   And the recession and war in Iraq have caused Americans already to question the conventional wisdom of the last 25 years.  I’ve heard many times in conversation and the media that “this is a different world than the one we’re used to.”  That recognition that this is a new world is the first step to embracing a new kind of thinking.

And, if done well, we could find that by the end of Obama’s first administration the global economy could be showing signs of promise few could have imagined in the dark days of late 2008.   And you know, it is possible.  Not just because of Barack Obama, but because of what his election represents: an American public ready for real change.  Remember, things are always darkest before the dawn.

December 18 -From Bad to Worse

This week the federal reserve lowered interest rates to “near zero,” (a range of 0 to .25%) in an effort to stimulate the economy and borrowing.  I think this is a dangerous action since one of the problems of recent years has been unsustainable debt and low levels of savings.   Given the deflationary numbers on consumer prices out (the largest drop in consumer prices ever, I believe), it’s understandable.  But we could be on the verge of this crisis getting yet another level deeper.

In a post last month, “What’s Up with the Dollar” I warned that the dollar was at unsustainable levels.   A dollar collapse isn’t inevitable, but the combination of increased spending and cheap credit in an already debt ridden economy could ultimately cause a loss of confidence in the dollar.   Then the dollar was at about $1.25 per Euro.  It hoovered around there, but after the Fed’s rate reduction  it has plummeted to $1.44 per Euro.  That’s still better than it’s lows earlier this year, and it’s still not a crash, but we may be inching towards the next stage of the crisis.

Most observers believe the dollar will remain reasonably strong because there is no alternative.  The Euro doesn’t have the track record of the dollar, and European economies are also week.  Moreover, the US still dominates the financial markets and most investors have no choice but to put significant amounts of money in US markets.  And while one can imagine an alternative to the dollar being developed, it would take time and for now the dollar will keep value despite and in part because of the slide to global recession.

I believe there may be two flaws to this argument.  First, markets may be unpredictable but they react to demand.  There is a demand for securities and investments that are not dollar based, and more quickly than one can imagine alternate investment possibilities may spread globally, especially in Asia where economies are not in as severe straights at this point.  Second, the fundamentals are against the dollar.  I tend to go with the fundamentals over speculation on what investors are going to do.

If credit is dirt cheap — the Fed is even talking about direct lending to make access to credit easier — the money supply expands.  That should make the dollar less valuable.   Although the trade deficit is finally starting to contract, and we’re off our highs in our current accounts deficit, we still are out of balance, with a dollar artificially high in value.  The collapse of the bubble economy makes it harder to defy those fundamentals.  High debt, cheap credit, high trade deficits are a triple whammy against a currency.

The result could be a contracting economy suffering inflation.  The inflation would come from foreign goods — the kind we’ve been over-consuming — going up in price due to the increasingly less dear dollar.  It also would lead to a tightening of the money supply as the feds would have to battle inflation as well as  a recession.   The practical effect on our society would be a markedly decreased standard of living and rising unemployment.

Believe it or not, if that happens, it may be the start of a recovery.  At a point where foreign goods become expensive, American goods will be able to compete.  The trick will be to find a way to capitalize new production of actual goods that people want.  Here, inflation would be our friend.  There would be lucrative foreign markets that could suddenly use cheap American goods.   As the US starts exporting more the current account would come into balance, and soon the growth in the export sectors would start spreading and the US could begin a real recovery.

It will not be a return to the heady 1990s.  As the global economy rebalances, the US will no longer have the capacity to party at the expense of others.   Rather than consuming far more than we produce, we’ll have to have balance.

Such a rebalancing doesn’t happen overnight.  We could see unemployment hit 15%, be vulnerable to terror attacks by those seduced by the thought of bringing down a wobbling economy, and we’d have to treat China carefully, given its ability to dump American currency and assetts in a manner that would devastate the US.  It would hurt China too, so it’s likely we can convince them not to, but we’d be the weaker party in the relationship.  We could see a recession last long enough that the “D” word becomes more common than the “R” word.

But absent a political crisis that severely destabilizes the planet, this rebalancing is simply necessary — and does give us some respite from potential oil shortfalls and global warming.   US demand for oil was down 12% last year, a record drop.   That also means fewer CO2 emissions, and just as sudden jumps in demand can trigger quick oil price spikes, sudden drops in demand have an opposite effect.  Demand for oil is inelastic, so changes in demand not based on changes of supply  can have a quick and dramatic effect on the price.

However, this is going to very hard on the lives of real people, many of whom never dreamed they’d be facing the kinds of conditions and choices they face.  One question: can we as a society do things, either through policy, volunteering, or in communities to avoid families and lives being destroyed by economic crisis?   This kind of suffering may not be as dramatic as that in a war, but it can a severe psychological shock that scars people and their families even long after the crisis has past.  That will be the subject of future blog entries.

December 16 - Ducking Shoes

President Bush is a man everyone loves to, if not hate, at least mock.   The snickers surrounding the latest incident when an Iraqi journalist, overjoyed at being liberated, hurled shoes at President Bush and called him a dog (by the way, both are really insulting in the Muslim world) was just part of a long drawn out episode of Schadenfreude over the failure of this President.  Everyone is joining in.  Senator McCain’s campaign openly lambasted President Bush, and the Republicans tried to steer clear of him as if he were as toxic as those subprime mortgage backed financial securities.

Faced with such reactions, Bill Clinton would have  steamed, and tried frantically to improve his reputation.  Richard Nixon was in such a position, and became melancholy and prone to drunkenness and depression.   But somehow, President Bush, the guy known as a clueless idiot, has the ability to understand his situation and not let it consume him.   I view the President with more sympathy now than any time during his term; I don’t think he’s a bad man, but he did make some bad choices.

His first poor choice was to pick Dick Cheney to be his running mate.  Back in 2000 I was somewhat intrigued by the ‘compassionate conservatism’ and ‘ownership society’ rhetoric of George W. Bush.   Was he going to finally lead the Republicans out of the hateful Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich style of hardball politics?

But when I heard that Cheney would be the Vice Presidential nominee, I was horrified.   I had studied Cheney’s role in the first Gulf War, when he wanted to ignore Congress, coalesce power in his Department of Defense, and engage in a far more militarist policy.  He opposed the efforts of Gen. Schwarzkopf and Powell to build a massive force, believing they were over-estimating the opposition.  When that 1991 war went easily, he felt vindicated.  I knew Cheney was an avid advocate of intensified Presidential power and limiting the role of Congress.   That is completely contrary to my philosophy of transparent and decentralized power.  Once Bush chose Cheney, I opposed that ticket completely.

I believe that choice led to many other poor choices early in the Administration.  Many of the neo-conservatives brought into the Department of Defense and the White House were through Cheney’s influence.  They dominated the advice given the President, playing on his duty to “protect America” and desire to “spread democracy” to launch a very aggressive effort to reshape the Middle East and expand American power.  Bush certainly wasn’t a naive idealist in all this, but a President is only as good as the advice he gets.  A President is insulated and dependent on his team.  He had a team that wanted war, distrusted Congress, and looked disspassionately at the suffering of civilians — it was worth it, they would rationalize, if we gave them democracy.

President Bush shifted policy in 2005.  Most of the neo-conservatives were gone.  Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates brought a new realism to US foreign policy.  The tone of US diplomacy went from “you’re with us or against us,” to “OK, let’s rebuild our relationships.”   He gave up just about every policy goal of the first four years — reshaping the Mideast, spreading democracy, a long term presence in Iraq, and even dedication to win in Afghanistan.  He dropped most of his domestic agenda.  First the wars, and then the political winds shifted against him.  By 2008 he was a different President, surrounded by better advisors, and arguably making better decisions.  Moreover, he was able to change course dramatically without appearing unstable.

The fundamental error made by President Bush and members of both parties is to have overestimated US power both in terms of military reach and economic stability.  The booms of the 90s created a kind of cocky “we’re the unipolar power, baby, get used to it” attitude early in the new millenium.   Idealist dreams of spreading human rights and freedom seemed to mesh with raw self-interest in securing oil supplies and protecting us from terrorism.  The American public had an inflated view of American strength and the universal appeal of our ideals.

President Bush thus strikes me as a kind of tragic symbol, but in some ways a hopeful one.  He first  represents the errors made due to our arrogance at the end of the Cold War.  I don’t mean that as a partisan attack.   He represents the average American who believed that we were number one, and that our ideals and power were strong and well intentioned.  We Americans were willing to be told “this will  defend our values and liberate others.”   We wanted to believe, and thus most Americans supported the war in Iraq early on.

Americans are pragmatic and in general good at adjusting when things go wrong.  The hopeful side of President Bush as a symbol is he also reflected the ability to change policy direction even as it turns out assumptions were wrong, and a foreign policy crisis is joined by an economic one.   Bush sat back and watched events unfold, intervening when he deemed necessary, but not in a way designed to hog the spotlight or undercut the candidates for his job.  In that sense, Bush is a transition figure to the new kind of thinking President-elect Obama represents.  Rather than the stark break seen by some, there is a continuity.  The cowboy world of President Bush isn’t really as far removed as the urbane world of Barack Obama.

And the dislike people have for President Bush?  Besides the usual partisan stuff you’ll see against any politician, much of it is a way for people to avoid admitting their own errors in assessing US power and policy.  Better to blame Bush for screwing it up, than really thinking about why his choices didn’t work.   For some this allows them to hold on to their illusions — the unregulated economy really can work, we really can militarily win in the Mideast, we just need better leaders — but for others they can shift their views without too much cognitive dissonance.

Don’t get me wrong.  My opposition to the policies of this administration is intense on many levels.  But I’m not going to join in the personal attacks on President Bush or the joy many have in seeing him leave in virtual disgrace.  The lessons we as a society have learned — and are still in the process of learning — are difficult, our country is not what we thought it was ten years ago.  Without President Bush, we’d not be ready for a President Obama.    Without learning painful lessons about our society and its vulnerabilities, we’d not be ready to try a new approach.

And the shoes?  To me that symbolized the disdain most Iraqis have for what has been done to their country and its people in the name of “liberation” by the US.   We all need to duck, even those of us who opposed the war from the beginning.  President Bush symbolized a way of thinking about America that felt good and was embraced by most, but turned out to be wrong.  Now we need to figure out how to move forward and transform the US without losing sight of our core values.

December 14  - Something for Nothing

You don’t get something for nothing
You can’t have freedom for free
You won’t get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be

- Neil Peart, (Rush), from the album 2112, 1976

In all the gnashing of teeth and moaning about the economy and the deep recession we find ourselves falling head first into, the clear solution is easy to ignore.   We have to make stuff.

A society is prosperous if it produces.  In the last twenty or so years, the emphasis has shifted from producing stuff we could trade and sell to, bluntly, trying to get something for nothing.   In part this is reflected in the tremendous growth of the service sector.  While the service part of the economy is important, the shift away from production to service became, in recent years, unsustainable.  It was in essence a fake economy.   Much of the service sector was in trying to make a quick buck — mortgage brokers, financial operators, and in general people working in the fields of credit and investment.

Don’t get me wrong.  Credit and investment are essential to economic growth; we need those sectors of the economy or we won’t have a functioning economy.  In recent years those sectors themselves bubbled as the “wealth effect” fooled people into thinking all you needed to do to make money is be clever and take advantage of short term circumstances.

A case in point: Pistol.  I don’t know who Pistol was.  I “talked” with him (or her?) back in the late 90s in internet debates.  Pistol was a statistician who had quit his/her job to make money in the stock market.  Pistol bragged about the amount of money made and said only stupid people aren’t getting rich.  Anybody with a basic income base (or credit) could get into the stock market and then simply grow assetts and life off a portion of that growth.  It literally was something for nothing — you need not produce, you need not even serve, just speculate.

That bubble burst, but the same thing happened with property.  People earning $30,000 a year might reasonably have said that they couldn’t afford a $100,000 house.  But when told by mortgage brokers that if they could manage to get that loan and buy that house, its value would increase to $150,000 or so in just a couple of years.  Free money!  But only if you can find a way to get a loan.  So it was made easy — high interest rates because of low income, but the first couple years could be planned to be interest only or some low starter rate.  Then, before the rates would rise, one could refinance using equity in the home to get a lower rate.  That scheme, which made banks, mortgage brokers and others a lot of money, led to the subprime mortgage collapse, which was the first part of the ‘fake economy’ of recent years to fail.   And, of course, we know that many others in the financial sector bundled these mortgages into securities and made money on them — again, something for nothing — sending toxicity into the global financial system.

We in America, enjoying trade deficits (others making stuff for us cheap, while we didn’t have to reciprocate thanks to our dominance of global finance) and budget deficits (borrowing from our childrent o party today), also were in the pursuit of something for nothing.   Our savings rates plummeted as consumption increased.  More! Now!  If we can’t drive the car off the lot today, well that’s unacceptable.  Personal debt skyrocketed, credit card debt went from just over $200 billion in 2002 to over $900 billion now.  People borrowed against the increasing value of their homes to live a lifestyle beyond their means.

In short, we were caught up in an orgy of consumption, believing that we can have what we want with no sacrifice.  Getting something for nothing became a kind of national delusion.

That’s shattering all around us.   Like after a wild party where one drinks and eats far too much, the hangover from this consumption binge is causing real pain.  And, just as those who overconsume food and drink for decades end up with diseases that threaten ones’ life and physical capacity, this over consumption has created a weaker, debilitated economic system.  Trying to get something for nothing may seem to work for awhile, but ultimately we pay the price.  Unfortunately in a social system like ours the price isn’t always paid by the same people who indulged — I’ll address that issue of social justice another time.

Just as an alcoholic or morbidly obese person can recover and change their lives, so can we as a society recover from our binge.  The first lesson to learn is that we don’t get something for nothing.  We need to produce.  Yes, we need banks, credit markets, mortgage brokers and the like.  But to work to help those who produce build their lives, not as a route to cheap quick wealth.  Investing in infrastructure the way President elect Obama plans can be a useful first step, but only if it’s part of an effort to get America producing stuff people want, not just enjoying cheap goods from abroad.

Ultimately, we can’t prosper by valuing consumption over production.  Our status as a superpower and our dominance of the financial sector made it seem we could for the last quarter century.  I’m not sure how we recast our economy, especially given how we are starting in immense governmental and private debt.  But as complex as the problem is, the answer is crystal clear: produce.  Reject the idea that we can get something for nothing.

Shoveling Water

Today is the last day of classes, and a one half snow day.  Last night the first big winter storm of the season hit, and it was the kind of storm I hate.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love snow.  Winter is a beautiful season, skiing is an almost religious experience, and living in the Maine woods is exhilirating.  But we live on a dirt road, and our driveway is wide.  Moreover, the road heads down a hill, so in winter if I don’t have my winter tires on, I’m often stuck.   Yesterday I had those tires put on, and I was excited that snow was finally on the way.  We’d be back in our winter wonderland (nothing against the woods in summer!), with Mt. Titcomb, the local ski spot, which relies mostly on natural snow, getting close to opening.  Snow is coming!

I went to bed happy, as I saw the snow come down.  Like a kid, I was planning how much fun I’d have at home with the boys if it were a snow day.  So I made sure the generator had gas in case of a power outage, and was in a great mood at bed time.   There’s something about snow that can push aside the otherwise dreary daily routine.

When I woke up at 5:50 I headed to the phone to call the cancellation line.  There I got the bad news: we would have classes today, starting at noon.   Then I looked outside.  Slush.  Yuck.  Rain falling on slush.  Double yuck.  Huge puddles standing beside our house.  Triple yuck.  Our basement hasn’t flooded yet, but how much can it take?

Alas, no day home with the boys.  Ryan’s school was canceled but he and Dana headed to day care.  I had to go shovel.  For an hour and a half I shoveled water.  Some snow was mixed in, but it was heavy and wet.  The snowblower helped a little, but we have a wide driveway.  I became totally drenched.  Shoes, socks, jeans…it was raining on me as I often waded in water, trying to clear the slush.

If I lived down south aways, I’d just figure that the slush would melt.  But temperatures are predicted to fall tonight to near zero.  That means the slush will freeze.  We are going to get ice.  I couldn’t get all the puddles of water away.  But if the snow and slush weren’t cleared, it would be horrible.   And, of course, the deck.  We don’t use it much in winter, but I don’t want a foot of ice at the bottom.  At least I got a good work out in today!

I think this is a record; two blog posts in a row about my personal life, rather than focused on politics, economics, philosophy or something else.   But shoveling is a time when my mind works in a different ways.  It’s monotonous and difficult (especially wet snow…or really, chunky water), and yet despite the rain and grey, it’s usually beautiful in its own way.  (There’s an old Ray Stevens song in my head now…’everything is beautiful, in it’s own way…)

When it rains, it’s no work.  You just let the water run its course and trust the drainage systems.  And, of course, if one relies on well water as we do, it assures a steady water supply.  When it snows, the work is real, but doesn’t take long.  For bad storms there’s the snow blower, but usually shoveling is a good work out, and I love the crisp feel of tossing clean white snow aside.   But mix the two, and things are bad.  Ice forms, power gets knocked out, the snow is super heavy, and being out shoveling is to get drenched in water as cold as that of the north Atlantic.

Life is sort of that way too.  When things are going normally, there’s no work.  You just get into a routine and let things run their course.  When there is a clear and obvious problem, there’s work.  It can be personal, professional, relational, but if a problem emerges, one can identify it and work on it.  And that’s satisfying.  Problem solving gives a sense of accomplishment, just like looking at a newly cleared driveway and thinking, “ah, my work paid off.”

But sometimes we have to shovel water.  Life seems a bit off.  The routine may be too dull, there’s no excitement or pizzazz.   There’s no problem really to solve, but the routine is unsatisfying.   The snow is saturated, it needs to be removed.

We can avoid it.  We can find distractions.  There’s consumerism, alcohol, drugs, television, and the internet.  One can lose oneself in a cause or ideology.   Some distractions are even quite virtuous: work out, read a good novel, or do work around the house.   And, to be sure, distractions — especially the virtuous ones — have a place in life.  But when life is really in a point of boredom, the ‘quiet desperation’ of the modern world, where it feels like existence rather than life, the work is the hardest.

We have to examine ourselves and our habits, and change what is blocking us from doing what we need to.  We have to reach out to friends, develop creative new approaches, and shatter old patterns of thought.  I’ve always thought that a good way to know what’s going on inside me is to look at what is around me, that my external circumstances give me hints about what I need internally.   As I was shoveling today I realized that during this hyper busy semester I’ve felt a bit disconnected.   Not unhappy.  No big problems.  Just too caught up in routine and daily trivia.  So busy that life has been one task after another, with my blog my creative release.    That’s not enough.  Life is beautiful, life has meaning.  It’s not meant to be whittled away in routine and little tasks.  It’s Christmas time, time for joy.   I need to look inside, appreciate the people and circumstances around me, and shovel water.

December 11 - Oprah and Me

For those reading my blog, used to all the political opinions and analysis expressed during the election, I apologize that for the time being I’m a bit exhausted by politics.  However, if you want my reaction to the Blogojevich scandal, I think my post from June on Power and Politics gives a sense of how I look at that kind of thing.

And for those who read interested in my views on the economy, you might wonder why I haven’t spoken out about the Automobile industry bailout bill.  Part of it is that I’ve been unbelievably busy dealing with a crisis at work.   Not a personal problem, but I’m head of the faculty union and we’ve got a kind of institutional crisis that is keeping me too busy to follow the news.   Also, all this bail out stuff is getting out of hand.  My view: either let the industry go into bankruptcy, or else nationalize it in the short term, go through the books, put things in order, and then re-privatize when times are a bit better.  But don’t keep it nationalized!

No, today I want to talk about a problem I have in common with Oprah.  Like her, I tend to gain and lose weight.  I’m 6 feet tall and going over the last 20 years, I weighed 205 in 1988, 183 in 1990, 200 in 1992, 180 in 1993, 210 in 1995, 185 in 1996, 211 in 1998, 180 in 1999, 215 in 2003, 184 in 2005, and earlier this year I hit 216.  Now I’m at 207 and am working out daily trying to lose weight.  So when I read about Oprah’s admittedly larger weight swings, I had to empathize.

My closet is full of clothes I can’t wear right now.  Almost all my pants are too tight, and over half of my shirts can’t be worn.  It’s not so much that they are way too small (my pants are, some of them would burst) but that they are too tight and my gut would stick out.   At the upper end of my weight swing I wear lose shirts with a tie, at the lower end I’ll wear Henley’s.   I do know I’ll wear those clothes again.  Look at my track record.  While I always put the pounds back on, I also always take them off.  We have a work out room in the basement with a bow flex, step machine (mine) and elliptical (my wife’s).  We both are using them.   In fact, we tend to mirror each other’s weight patterns, either reinforcing decisions to go for that dessert, it’s OK…or on the positive side, her doing a work out tonight got me to put my work aside and get on the step machine.

So why can’t I keep the weight off for good when I lose it?  Why can’t Oprah? The problem is probably the same: love of food that is unhealthy.  I can’t resist sugar, dairy fat, pasta and pizza.  Even when I diet that’s my diet — food I like, but in small controlled doses.   My wife actually follows diets like the South Beach diet or tries to prepare healthy low fat food…I just make my portions smaller, skip snacks and desserts, and exercise.

The trouble is, while I can easily get myself into a weight loss groove, I can’t turn it off and moderate my portions to hold a lower weight.  I can for a couple months, but then stress, kids, or a couple weeks of indulgence gets me into a slow climb.  I think I can stop the climb and get back down…oops, I gained 5, gotta take it back off…now it’s 7..11…15, yikes I’m back up over 200!  Then it’s calorie counting time.   Last time it was the birth of my second son Dana, now almost three.  Two kids take a lot of time, and I got out of the workout mode for awhile.

But in recent blogs the wonderful third eve, whose blogs are some of the most interesting and thought provoking I’ve read, has been talking about life patterns — and certainly this weight loss and gain is a pattern for me.  I first lost 30 pounds when I was 15 after being teased (and that’s putting it mildly) mercilessly for being chubby.  I think one reason I keep taking it back off is I probably never let go of that body image paranoia.

Yet what I aspire to is the kind of on going wellness Ron Byrnes in his Wellness Writ Large embraces.  His talk of marathons and biking (though his blog is eclectic, covering politics, education, and all sorts of issues) demonstrate a wellness life style that I should try to develop.  I’m an older dad, I owe it to my kids to stay fit!   So I’m down 9 pounds now, and on a roll.  Will I finally break the pattern this time — lose and figure out how to stay healthy?  Will I figure out what this external pattern reflects from my inner self?  Or will the pattern repeat?   Now I just have to stay away from the Special K bars I prepared for my class.  Special K may be a healthy cereal, but not when mixed with sugar, corn syrup, peanut butter, and melted chocolate and butterscotch chips.

At least I know that this is a problem I share with Oprah.

December 9 - Believe

In my blog I’ve often noted a crisis of spirit in the modern world.  Organized religions of the past can’t stand the scrutiny of logic and reason, while logic and reason can’t really give a sense of meaning to life.  There seems to be something more, but our modern minds tell us to disregard anything not provable through some kind of logical, evidentiary manner, so we need up having to choose between holding on to traditional religious beliefs, or simply rejecting all that as superstition and embrace materialism and rationality.  But since reason can be used to undermine itself (first noticed by the fideists, then perfected by post-modernists) we’re left with really nothing to believe.

Believe.  That brings me to the movie The Polar Express.  Movies move me on various levels.  Some, like Hotel Rwanda confront real life human tragedy and cruelty, others deal with emotions and dilemmas.  I’m not at all afraid to be teary eyed, I’ll willingly throw myself into the experience and wrap myself into the film while it’s taking place.  The best are ones that move me at a deep, philosophical or even spiritual level.  Where I get tears in my eyes not from the emotions or actions on the screen, but from the deep message that gets conveyed. The Polar Express is one of them.

On it’s face it’s a film about a boy who is doubting the existence of Santa Claus.  He’s told his sister all the rational reasons why Santa doesn’t exist — he’d have to fly faster than the speed of light, the size of his sled would be greater than a number of ocean liners, etc. — and is staying up to test whether or not Santa really comes, listening for the sleigh bells and trying to stay awake.  Then suddenly a train whistle blares in his room and the room shakes.  A huge train is outside his house.  He gets aboard and after a variety of adventures ends up at the North Pole, developing friendships with a few other children and getting strange assistance from a ghostly hobo who disappears as soon as he aids the boy.  Through it all he can’t hear the sleigh bells other children can.  At the end, as he learns the magic of Christmas, he hears them, and is chosen by Santa to get the first gift of the year.  He chooses a sleigh bell.  He loses it from a hole in his pocket, only to find it the next morning in a gift box from Santa.  His parents can’t hear its ring, but he and his sister can.  In the end, as the narrator — an older version of the boy — notes how over time all his friends and even his sister came to no longer be able to hear the bell.  But he still could.

On its face, a nice little story about the magic of Christmas.  And perhaps that’s all it’s intended to be.  But I read into it a fable about our modern dilemma.  The key word in the film — the one ultimately punched on the boy’s ticket — is believe.  To me the dilemma about Santa Claus faced by the boy is the dilemma we face when thinking about religion or spiritual ideas of life.  We want to believe there is more than just this material existence, we want to see the world as somewhat magical and with meaning, yet all the evidence we see points to a flawed human nature, and our lives as wisps of sand thrown about by chance and circumstance.  The good often suffer, the bad often prosper, and life seems to have no meaning, other than that which we manage to construct for ourselves in our short dance on this planet.  But even that is transient and ultimately meaningless — and since the sun will go nova and the universe will keep expanding, we confront the fact there is nothing grounding us or providing ultimate meaning.

And what is the magic?  Well, the ghostly hobo on the train Santa Claus are played by the same person (Tom Hanks).  He is also the conductor of the train who guides the children to the North Pole…and he also is boy (albeit with a voice from someone else).  The animation uses real characters as a basis for creating others, so they look difference, though the resemblance is real.  The magic comes from friendship — how the boy stops the train to let another “lonely boy” in, who resists their efforts until he bonds with the boy and a girl who seems to have an intuitive sense of what to do.  To me the message ends up being that the magic is real, you simply have to believe.  And this doesn’t mean believing in a particular God or faith, but in life.  To see the power in oneself and the connections to others.  That if one believes in life as more than just a dreary material existence, if one avoids getting caught up in politics, sports, and gossip as somehow the essential aspect of life, and looks at the world as a beautiful, magical place full of opportunity, then it becomes that way.

Of course, there are numerous arguments against this.  I teach units on the Rwandan and Cambodian genocide, look at third world poverty and famine, and we see wars, children soldiers, and a host of horrors that defy this nice magical picture from a children’s movie about Christmas.   Yet even in those horrors, we see a sense of greater meaning.  Romeo Dallaire and Paul Rusesabagina in Rwanda, the experiences of survivors in Cambodia and their actions afterwards, all speak to the great nobility possible in people to choose to rise above the expectations of the moment, defy the collective sense of reality and believe in something higher.   These horrors show what happens when we lose sight of the connection we have with others, and cut ourselves off from the beauty of life, only to get lost in the ugliness of hate, ideology, and greed — an unquenchable greed that destroys those who fall victim to it.  That’s what makes the stories of those who rise above it so powerful.

So I find a balance.  Confront the horrors and learn from them, but to nonetheless believe.  To always believe.  To keep strong that part of myself that says that no matter what happens, life is beautiful, there is joy, and every day and minute is an opportunity to discover and experience it.  To get lost in worries about the transient trivialities of daily life is a waste of time; we should live, not just exist.  So I’ll put Polar Express up alongside other favorite movies, such as Mary Poppins and What Dreams May Come.   Somehow we need to find a way as a culture to embrace the power of belief, love, and connection without having to at the same time embrace divisive religious structures.  We need to find a way to accept the power of the tools of reason and logic without then deriding that which lies beyond reason and evidence as naive, soft, or superstitious.  I’m not sure how to do it, we just have to feel it.  And a movie like Polar Express helps me feel it, even if I don’t completely understand it.

December 7 - History and Life Appreciation

I am always amazed at the lack of knowledge of history by most Americans, as well as disdain many have for cultural history the arts.    Virtually no one remembers or knows about the Cambodian genocide, especially people under 30.  Knowledge of the great wars and ideological battles of the 20th century is meager at best — a “Cold War” that appears a bit ridiculous to today’s youth, and world wars that now seem more to be entertainment for the History Channel than real.

Today is one such day.  December 7th is Pearl Harbor day, commemorating a day that for a time was as emotionally powerful as 9-11 is today.  There have been movies like Tora, Tora, Tora or more recently Pearl Harbor, a Hollywood blockbuster.  But ask around what ‘happened on this day’, especially to people under 30 and not especially interested in world affairs and you’ll often get a blank stare.  People do not remember the ‘day that will live in infamy.’

I suppose that could be dismissed as no big deal — forgetting a date doesn’t mean one doesn’t know what happened, and memorizing dates doesn’t lead to real understanding.  I disagree — I have always found the ‘don’t memorize dates’ mantra of some to be misguided, learning dates allows one to create a chronological map in ones head.  Knowing that Germany attacked the Soviet Union almost half a year before Pearl Harbor is important to know.  Yet I think the problem is deeper, our culture has become so obsessed with the present and the future that the past is seen at best as an interesting story, but not necessarily important.

To be sure, you’ll always have ‘history buffs,’ folk who immerse themselves in history, often focusing on particular eras like the civil war, military history, or Nazi Germany.  There’s a reason why so many of the popular history books are about war.   And a lot of people are truly fascinated by learning of what life was like in the past.  To me, knowledge of history gives one a different perspective of life.

For instance, I find myself often thinking, as I drive to work, how this landscape might have looked in the past, imagine it with Indians, early settlers, or even in the recent past.  I think about how it might change, and view even my own little corner of the world as a point not only in space, but in time.  The more I learn about the past, the more real that is to me.  When I’m with travel courses in Italy and can convey the history, the experience changes.  Venice, for instance, is more than just a beautiful, romantic tourist trap, but the buildings and layout have meaning, one can feel as if one is walking through time.  When I took a class to Wittenberg, Germany to talk about the impact of the reformation on European politics, being there made a huge difference, students noted it clearly in their journals.  Connecting to history is important not just to learn lessons or honor the past, but also to enrich our own appreciation of this life we have.  It protects us from falling into the trap of living superficially, so focused on the bills, problems and conflicts of the day that we don’t fully appreciate what life means.  If we don’t live with appreciation of our social-historical context, we are going through life with blinders, focused on a small and usually unsatisfying aspect of this existence.

Similarly, people tend not to connect with the arts and our cultural history. I co-teach courses with Steve Pane, a renowned pianist and music historian, and Sarah Maline, an art historian.   It’s clear that if one looks at art or listens to music without understanding the social political context in which that art was created, the experience is less.  When Steve and I co-taught a section that dealt with The Marraige of Figaro, not only did we go through the details of the French revolution and the impact of the enlightenment, but Steve also recalled a “confrontation” (albeit friendly) between himself and Sarah.  Focused on Italian history, Steve had a rather benign view of Napoleon, who had in many ways made life better for the Italians and set up the later Risorgimento.  Sarah, who has done considerable work on Spanish art history, saw Napoleon as a horrible perpetrator of war crimes and atrocities — the Italian and Spanish experiences of Napoleonic rule differ, as does its impact on various art forms.

If music from the classical or romantic era is just some nice stuff played on NPR, and paintings are just interesting things you might feel compelled to go see at the Louvre in Paris, then one can be forgiven for thinking a lot of this “culture” is boring.  Compared to our fast paced world of action epics and frenetic video games, it does seem rather bland.  When one learns not only about art and music history, but connects it to the changes in culture, politics, and human thought, it suddenly means so much more.  Co-teaching with colleagues the last decade has enriched my life more than I could imagine.  My Children and War course with Mellisa has led me to reshape my future research direction, while learning more about the arts has affected both my research and my personal enjoyment of life.  Learning something new brings real benefits!

Alas, as much as Steve has taught me to appreciate about music, he needs my help to overcome one obstacle: he doesn’t like musicals.  He wouldn’t use those words (he does not want to sound judgmental), he’d say he finds them “uninteresting,” I guess like I might find Dunkin Donuts coffee.  Friday night I went to a concert by a singer of whom I am becoming a big fan: Dennis St. Pierre. He gave a great concert with his colleagues Devin Dukes and Jason Hersom, half broadway musical songs, half Christmas music.   Last summer I saw Dennis St. Pierre in Les Miserables at the Maine State Music Theater, and I blogged about it in an entry “Compassion.”  Because of the internet I found I could e-mail him, so I send him a link to the blog entry, where I described the profound meaning the performance had for me.  I was amazed/delighted when he wrote back that he had shared my blog with the entire cast.  Wow.  What a treat to be able to actually communicate to artists how much their work means!  Anyway, I got on his mailing list and hence found out about the concert last night. It was great.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get Steve to get over his aversion to musicals and learn to really appreciate them, but I’ll try, maybe cajoling him over espresso at the “piazza” in the arts department.   And to be fair to Steve, since I’m teasing him here, he amazes me with his eclectic capacity to engage not only wide ranges of music from Radiohead to world sounds, but his interest in politics, philosophy, popular culture, etc.   I guess we all have our version of Dunkin Donuts coffee.

I tell students nothing is more important in writing than transitions, but I don’t know how I can get back to Pearl Harbor day from that aside, so I’ll just shift gears.   Most people will bemoan the lack of knowledge of what December 7th means by criticizing the youth for not knowing the importance of the WWII, or understanding the struggle to defeat fascism and Japanese militarism.   Most will see it from the standpoint of a ‘date all citizens should know.’  That is a valid point.  But more fundamental: as a culture disconnecting from history or the arts, we hurt ourselves on many levels — including how we appreciate everyday life.

December 4 - Abstraction is the Root of all Evil

In the course Children and War we showed a movie today called “The Invisible Children,” documenting a 2003 journey of some young Americans first to Sudan and then Uganda to find out what is going on in that part of the world.   The film was powerful; not only do we see how three apparently average young adults (early 20s, I’d guess) suddenly decide to head to Africa to learn about the violence and unrest there, but it’s recorded on their camcorder, not an official documentary.

In it we meet the children affected by the war in Uganda.  That war has been going on for over 20 years, with tens of thousands of children abducted in order to fight in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a group that claims to be “inspired by the Holy Spirit” but in reality is a hyper violent rebel force in northern Uganda.   The film documents the hundreds of children who, without adult assistance, walk miles every night to sleep in relatively safety in the bigger towns, taking shelter so that they are not kidnapped by the rebels.   Many are former child soldiers who have committed atrocities but are now trying to build a new life, others simply want to survive.  They have little, they live in squalor, and there are no schools or long term hope.

The film was graphic and moving.   We got to know the children by name as the film makers conducted in depth interviews.  They also showed numerous scenes of children dancing, praying, singing praises to God (they are mostly Christian) for having survived another day, and playing.  Somehow, despite the horror, the children do experience a lot of joy in their lives.

Yet the most riveting parts of the film were the points where children talked about their experiences, their dead siblings or family members, and their fears.   When the film was over, we were going to have class discussion.   As I looked at the class I saw that everyone was in tears, even five minutes after the film was over the faces of the students looked traumatized, as they were unable to talk.   Even the other instructor was unable to say anything.   A couple of students who had seen it before were less affected, as was a student from Nigeria.  But the rest simply stared out and continued to grab for tissues.

I then asked the class a question.  I note that I’ve talked about the conflict in Uganda to other classes.  I’ve given the number of child soldiers, talked about the war in southern Sudan (not to be confused with Darfur) for years, and even mentioned the children who have to commute to safety every night.  But never has any class reacted like this.  Why?   One woman, who would remain after class still in tears, finally said “we didn’t know them.”

In my classes I often use films and novels to go along with facts about a conflict or intense poverty.   When you get to know the names of children and see what their lives are like, it is much more gripping than being handed statistics.

I tried for awhile to get discussion going.  I related these emotions back to the Chris Hedges book we read earlier in the semester, War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, where he gives a graphic account of his years as a Pulitzer prize winning war reporter, showing how the myth of war and its enticing and addictive character hides the utter horror of its reality.  In the end he argues that love is the only force that can truly give us meaning that matters.   (I had a blog entry based on Hedges’ book last month.)

The students were saddened and sickened by the film because they saw other humans like themselves, children like their siblings or themselves a few years ago, living lives that should not be wished upon anyone.   They connected with the experience; even in a brief one hour film, these kids were real.  I pointed out that one cannot love a statistic or an abstraction.  Saying “there are 25,000 child soldiers in Uganada” is meaningless.  You can make a note of it, or think, “gee, that sucks,” but there is no emotional connection.  The same goes for war.   You can say “over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the last five years,” but that won’t get near the emotional reaction as having a young man or woman from ones’ hometown become a casualty of war.  One you know; the others are abstractions.

Abstraction is the root of all evil.  It allows one to see others are objects, irrelevant and disconnected from oneself.  This happens unconsciously, one doesn’t overtly say “I don’t think Ugandan children matter,” one simply doesn’t notice their humanity.  It is only a number.    We often hear rationalizations for that lack of concern.  You can’t compare Africa to America.  They don’t value their lives as much as we value ours.  They are savage or primitive.   Their culture is just different.

Those rationalizations only work when you remain disconnected.  In all cultures and societies, once you start learning about the people themselves and their conditions, you quickly understand that we humans are, indeed, all the same species.  We share a common core of psychological and physical needs; the continuities across cultures are far more powerful than the variances between cultures at basic human levels.   One cannot watch three 12 year olds trying to study in the darkness while they are barely surviving poverty in a war zone and dismiss them as primitive or not valuing life.  One can’t hear their stories (we also read Ishmael Beah’s book Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier) and learn their perspectives while holding on to a notion that we really are fundamentally different or more valuable.

We live our lives in a world of abstractions.  Other humans are labels, objects to be competed against, or villains trying to rob us of our freedom and happiness.  Thus it is easy to lay blame, avoid responsibility, and rationalize our wants, desires, and acts that do harm.   We all do it.   Sometimes we imagine traits to others that are caricatures (’that car that just cut me off is being driven by some arrogant asshole who showed total disrespect for me by nudging in front, damn it, I’ll pass him now!), other times we simply look away.  We become very adept at living in and as abstractions.  Reason and rational thought are powerful tools, and are quite at home with an abstraction based view of reality.

But in those moments where we are confronted with the reality of other peoples’ pain, suffering, and humanness, the abstractions fall apart.  We cry.   We hurt.   We look at our own lives and realize how pathetically petty we are in fretting about trivialities while others fight to survive and endure hardship after hardship.   Emotion connects us with our humanity.   But not just any emotion; as noted a few days ago, fascism relies on emotion for its appeal and ability to manipulate the public.  Advertisers know emotion sells far more than making an argument on why one needs a product.   No, emotion that connects us with humanity is that which breaks through the abstractions and causes us to honestly empathize with the perspective and experience of another, without judgment or distance.  That emotion is love, not a romantic love, not even an agape selfless giving love.  Rather, it is feeling that others are truly as important as oneself, with the same inherent value and life.   It transcends reason and rational discourse.

Today as I saw the looks on those faces, I realized that the class had experienced that strength of emotion — of love for others — through a one hour film put together by three young men who traveled to Africa with a camcorder to just try to learn what was going on.   That, combined with the scenes they had of African children dancing, praying and singing gives me a strong sense of hope.   Books and films can changes ones’ whole perspective on life and the world through evoking the emotion of love, even if it doesn’t feel like one expects love to feel.   In a world afflicted with problems that, if taken as a whole, seem horribly depressing and brutally unsolvable, hope matters.   Small steps matter.   Acts of kindness matter, even if one doesn’t see the results right away.

And, when the rational voice speaks up saying, “look, those problems are everywhere, don’t worry about it, you can’t change the world anyway, your actions don’t matter, donate a little to an organization and forget about the problem so you can focus on your day to day world,” recognize the rationality of that statement.  And then smash those abstractions away.   Saving the world may not be possible and isn’t necessary.   But to ignore the humanity of others and deny any connection is to deny ourselves of real love.  And that hurts everybody.

December 3 - Beer, Coffee, and Travel

After I returned from a year studying in Italy I learned the lesson all travel lovers learn.  First, the travel experience is so rewarding and meaningful to ones’ life that one wants to talk about it a lot.  Second, unless one is talking to a ‘fellow traveler’ all the talk of foreign destinations and different customs can be annoying to others.  It can sound snobbish, “well, in Italy I was at a cafe along the Venetian canal when…”   We don’t mean to sound that way, it’s just that it’s hard not to talk about travel experiences, they change lives and perspectives.

However, in terms of beer and coffee, travel has turned me to a snob.   I don’t like American beers or American style coffee.   I’ll drink coffee for the caffeine here, but I get little taste satisfaction from the experience.  Except for rare occasions I’ll just forego beer and go for wine instead.

Today I stopped by a local convenience store, Ron’s Market, because someone said it had a good selection of beers.  I’ve driven by it many times, but it’s not close to where I live and looked like just another of those dime a dozen convenience stores.  I walked in and headed to the beer section.  Whoa!  I could not believe my eyes, they had Schneider Weisse, a Munich wheat beer that has since 1983 been my favorite beer in the world.   They also had other Weissbiere (wheat beers): Ayinger and Franziskaner, both quality beers, but it’s rare to find Schneider Weisse here in the US.  They had two.   I bought two.  And I told the woman at the register that if they keep getting that brand, they’ll have me as a loyal customer.   To be sure, at $4 a bottle it may be only one or two a week.  But what a treat!

Tastes are interesting things.  There can, of course, be no “best” beer, coffee or pasta sauce.  People like different tastes, smells and textures.  Moreover, taste can also connect to emotion.   Back when I visited my pen pal Gabi in Eichstätt, Bavaria (coming up from Bologna, Italy, where I was studying) I made a lot of friends. I also was introduced to Hefe-Weizen, a Bavarian wheat beer or Weissbier which I loved immediately.  Unlike the bland American beers I was used to (my favorites had been “Old Style” and “Strohs”), it was rich, full, had a thick foamy head, and color was clouded by yeast sediment that gave the beer a yeasty taste and smell.  It was sweet, delicious, and in trying different brands I finally decided that Schneider Weisse, which I tried in Munich at the Schneider Weisse beer garden, was the best.

When I open a Weissbier I am transported back to Germany and that year when I was first discovering travel in foreign lands.  Before 1982 I had never been outside of the US except to skim through Canada on a spur of the moment college jaunt from Sioux Falls to New York City. Then after getting into the MA program at Johns Hopkins SAIS,with the first year in Bologna, Italy, I headed off alone to Europe, not really knowing what to expect.  I would learn new languages, new cultures, and new tastes.  Smell and the taste are more than an experience of the senses, it connects one with the past — I connect with the feelings and excitement I had that year in Europe.   When I drink a Weissbier, part of me is in the past, with friends in a beer garden; I can almost taste the Weisswurst and sausages that might go along with the experience.

American beers have no chance.  While other European beers — Oktoberfest beer, Pils, Kolsch, and some from outside Germany — are enjoyable, they all connect with my travels in some way.  They are special tastes, I’m not just drinking a beer, part of me is traveling.  But American beer?  If I can find an “Old Style” (not sold in Maine), I may connect with college, but otherwise, they’re just bland and sometimes refreshing.  But not really worth drinking much of — why have those empty calories?  So, I’m a beer snob.

The same goes with coffee.  All that year in Italy (where I actually lived) I drank espresso.  Now, in Italy espresso is the normal thing you get when you order coffee.  You don’t have an option for an American style of watery weak coffee.  You can have a latte (with hot milk) or cappacino (a breakfast coffee with frothed hot milk), and a few other variants (I like the macchiato, espresso with a drop of milk).  I’ve now done four travel courses to Italy, and we faculty who go on those really love espresso.

Again, it’s an experience.  When I smell espresso, and taste the rich coffee (with sugar), I’m back in Italy, at least a bit.  Espresso, contrary to popular belief, does not have more caffeine than a cup of American coffee.  Dark roasted coffees have less caffeine, and espresso is drunk in very small quantities — you’ll get a lot more of a caffeine buzz from your local Starbucks brew.  I do like other coffees.  When I traveled all too briefly to Greece and Turkey, I got hooked on Turkish coffee (which the Greeks, of course, call Greek coffee).  On flavor and taste, Turkish coffee beats Espresso.  But while I still remember being entranced by Istanbul in the brief four days there (a city I really want to revisit, though I think it’s doubled in size since I was there in 1985), Espresso and Italy are so deep in my memories and experience that when I think of coffee, I think of espresso first.

American coffee?  I’ll drink it for the caffeine if needed.  I can drink it cold, I can drink it old (my joke with the Provost’s AA after, to her horror, I once drank coffee that had been sitting and getting heavily concentrated all day, is that if I have meeting scheduled to just leave the coffee out all night so I can have day old coffee at the meeting).  It doesn’t matter because, well, it’s just bland American coffee.  And those who love Dunkin Donuts?  WHY?  (Yikes, that’s the snobby part coming out).  McDonalds coffee tastes weird to me.

For those Dunkin Donut coffee lovers out there thinking of avoiding travel so as not to lose your connection to your current favorite coffee, don’t worry.  Each person experiences travel differently and brings home some connection with another culture.  Italian gelato is another favorite (though I still love good old American Dairy Queen cones), German breads (yet I still love almost all kinds of bread), and Belgian chocolates top the list.  Travel changes a person because it alters perspective and gets you to look at the world differently.  The special tastes and connections we bring back, whether with coffee, food, or art, reflect our inner desire not to let go of that experience, to remain at least in part, a traveler.

So tonight, when my work (and work out) is done, I’ll relax.  I’ll get a tall Weissbier glass, and poor the Schneiderweisse slowly in, enjoying the smell and the look of my favorite beer.  Maybe I’ll put on a Udo Lindenberg or Konstantin Wecker CD, or perhaps a German film like Lola Rennt.  Maybe I’ll listen to the songs popular when I was there the first time: Nena’s 99 Luftballons, or Falco’s Der Kommissaer. But I’ll sip that beer, and part of me will be not only back in Germany, but back in time, remembering the emotions of those travels long ago.

December 1 - Fascism, American Style

In the past I compared the crisis we are now facing to that of the old Roman Republic in its last days.  Corrupted from within, political and economic systems facing crisis, the Republic gave way to an empire, as Julius Ceasar took power, and Augustus consolidated it.  Looking at the corrupt and broken Italian political landscape in the early 20th Century, Benito Mussolini looked back to Ceasar as inspiration for a new form of politics: fascism.  Mussolini believed that fascism would bridge the class divide, unite the people and provide stable, effective rule.

Of course, German fascism, defined by racism and genocide, made the term off limits, the thing you call someone when the time for rational discourse is over.  Yet the ideas behind fascism are persistent.  And, looking at the current economic crisis, and the possibility of a dollar collapse creating intense inflation down the line, one has to wonder if the US isn’t destined for a fascist future.  In many ways our Republic has, like Rome, moved towards empire already in its foreign policy.   Yet the economic crisis (discussed here) is showing fundamental weaknesses in the core structure of our economy, with our prosperity and current patterns of consumption unsustainable.  That suggests a looming political crisis.   No party is going to openly proclaim itself fascist; if it comes, fascism will arrive in the guise of something else.  So what would fascism, American style, look like?

Many believe it’s already here.  Some look at the rhetoric and fear inspired by the McCain-Palin campaign and see inklings of fascist nationalism and xenophobia.  Others look at the Democrats taking virtual single party rule and Obama’s intense popularity and see fascism there.   Are our political parties already moving in that direction?  How would we tell if they were?

Political fascism does not have to be racist and genocidal.  If it hadn’t been for Hitler, we might have more thriving openly fascist parties around today.  But it tends to: a) try to eliminate the relevance of class differences (though not their reality) to create a sense of societal unity; b) appeal to the emotions of the public for support; c) distrust democracy since the public tends to be uneducated about the matters of governance; d) emphasize a single ruler around whom society can unite; and e) distrust intellectuals and others who might question the kind of social unity fascism aspires to.  Both of our parties do, indeed, share some of these attributes.

First, the Democrats.  I noted last July that our consumer society already has attributes of fascism, and that the Obama campaign was based very much on a marketing strategy.  After all, most Americans do not understand the issues before the country, that’s why the debates focused on talking points and simple, repeated messages by both candidates.  That’s marketing.  Democracy has already ceased to be about determining the proper policy for the country, it’s about which team we trust in power, and Americans tend to make that judgment with their gut not their head.   Talk about Obama as “the one,” his ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through small contributions, and the celebrations around the country after his election are virtually unprecedented in American politics.

At a time of crisis with the Democrats fully in power, the Obama Administration could re-make the American system, giving more power to government bureaucracies.  Moreover, while communism had the government run everything, fascism was an alliance of government with big money (business and finance).  Already the Democrats are courting major American corporations, and the style President Bush used for the “bailout” is designed to give the government increased leverage in the financial markets.  No one thinks that we’re going to go the socialist route; but a close business-government alliance is not hard to imagine, it’s been building for decades.

But Americans are sick of war — surely they wouldn’t buy the hyper nationalism of fascism?  Probably not.  The lessons of Iraq sting, and Americans have learned humility.  But looking not at Hitler but back to Augustus, the Roman Empire’s holdings almost all came from before the Republic became an Empire.  Britain was added later, as were a few areas on the periphery, but until Rome actually started to collapse, the cost and pain of Roman wars was less for the Empire than it had been for the Republic.   If Obama’s new foreign policy team is able to recast US foreign policy in a way to sustain influence but not be so aggressive, it could maintain a powerful position globally, even without so much military spending.

But Obama?  Aren’t the Republicans closer to fascism?   Fascism is usually on the “right” after all.   And, indeed, one sees fascist ideas and tactics within the GOP as well.  Fascists usually have an “internal enemy,” some group weakening society from within.  For Hitler it was the Jews (and intellectuals, pacifists, socialists, liberals, etc.), and Mussolini focused on anti-Communism.   The way in which some in the GOP take an emotional anti-immigration stance (build a fence to keep ‘em out!) with xenophobia hidden only by a lame “we’re talking only illegal immigration here” excuse was enough to scuttle a real immigration reform attempt in 2007.  Like most emotional causes it quickly faded, but clearly there is a fear of outsiders coming in — Fox’s John Gibson even argued that whites should have more babies since ‘others’ are breeding more rapidly and making whites of European origin soon a minority in America.  Fascists claim to be defending ‘traditional values’ from the hedonistic amorality of modernism — campaigns against gay marriage and some social conservative rhetoric (especially some of what Pat Robertson has said) sounds similar to fascist propaganda.

The attempts to demonize Obama, raise fears about Rev. Wright, William Ayres, or call Obama a socialist are all the kind of tactics one would expect from fascists — though such tactics have also been pretty common in American politics for some time.   The hypernationalists in the Republican party, engaging in hero worship for the military, making excuses for failures, and lashing out at ‘the liberals’ and the ‘the left,’ probably don’t realize how much their rhetoric mirrors that of fascists in Germany and Italy during their rise to power.   Talk radio is very Goebbelesque in its twisting of quotes and efforts to simplify issues into clear emotional themes, ignoring facts that might get in the way of their ’cause.’

After 9-11 the US was quick to focus on emotional reactions to the attacks.  If one tried to analyze why they happened or what motivated the terrorists, that was derided as ‘making excuses’ for clear evil, and people found themselves under attack in ways we hadn’t seen since the McCarthy era.   Some politicians said we should threaten to bomb Mecca, a popular pundit said we should conquer them (the Muslim world) and convert them to Christianity.  Gen. Wesley Clark said he saw a list of up to seven countries the US was planning to invade, believing our military power could reshape the region.  For awhile, people were afraid to question this new nationalism.  Speakers were booed off stage when doubting the sincerity of the mission, the Dixie Chicks were boycotted for criticizing the President.  Here at UMF when students and staff were reading names of victims of the Iraq war, noting both the names of Iraqis and of American soldiers, one delivery service driver got so angry he lept from his truck and started shouting at people in the group.  How dare one put Iraqi lives on the same level as our soldiers!   One shouldn’t think, criticize or offer alternatives, just wave the flag and unite for the country as we lash back against “them.”  That faded rather quickly, but gave Americans a quick glance at what fascism feels like.

In short, on both the left and the right, there are inklings of what one would expect in a kind of fascism.   It wouldn’t be the Hitlerian kind, but rather more like Julius and Augustus, replacing a dysfunctional Republic with a centralized elite rule, using media and campaigns to keep the public emotionally satisfied.   Mix a bit of the idealist appeal of Obama with the fear from the right, and politicians might learn to strike a balance that gains them long term political support.

However, there are limits to how ‘fascistic’ American politics can become.  First, the constitution and a democratic civil society are entrenched, and people are not going to throw away elections in order to follow a popular leader.  This means that there will continue to be campaigns and shifts of power, and as power goes from one leader to another, and especially one party to another, there is a check on how out of control or corrupt the government can become.   Our civil society cherishes freedom and individual rights; that creates a cultural limit on what any government can do.  Events like the McCarthy era or post-9-11 fervor are short lived, our core values last.   Second, Americans have strong state and local governments, all of which function closer to the ideal of democracy than our federal government.  These also act on a check of centralized power, and in fact could be an alternative to increased federal power in coming years.   It is unlikely that the federal government could truly control state and local actions.  Third, as tattered as it is in this era of sensationalism, we do have the media.   There are also blogs — even though the political blogs often sound the most fascistic in that they tend to be hyper partisan and emotion-based — and ways of communicating to other groups.  This suggests a kind of grass roots resistance to and knowledge of elite activity.

Still, it’s important to recognize that the stuff of fascism is still the stuff of moden politics, even if the term has become discredited.  We see signs of it in both parties, and in crisis the temptation to mix centralized power with creating an emotionally satisfied public is obvious.  Rather than deny it, or simply see it as a problem the “other side” has, we have to with open eyes recognize the dangers our system faces, and work hard to try to avoid falling into the traps of apathy and a partisanship so intense that the other side is assumed simply “wrong” or “evil,” and ones’ own side “good.”  That’s emotion.  That’s when politicians try to fill your “void” with their own meaning, making you easier to manipulate.  As long as we don’t fall for that, and hang on to our core American values, we should be able to keep our Republic despite the current crisis.