Meals From The Marketplace

            Christine O’Donnell is not a witch.  She may have been one in another stage of her life, but she isn’t one now.  No, she’s “you,” as she brazenly declared in a crazy campaign ad that attempted to refute a clip from an old “Politically Incorrect” TV show that Bill Maher (the host of that show) aired on his current HBO program last month.

            On the old clip, from a show originally broadcast in 1998, Ms. O’Donnell is shown telling the host and his other guests that she “dabbled” in witchcraft in her youth (presumably her late teens or early 20s, since she was only 28 when the original show aired). 

            But now she is a candidate for the U.S. Senate, carrying the Republican banner in Delaware for the seat formerly held by Vice-President Joe Biden.  And, as she has more recently revealed, she is not all that clear on what the First Amendment to the Constitution says.  In a debate with her opponent earlier this month, the winsome Ms. O’Donnell expressed what appeared to be true surprise when informed that the amendment did, indeed, guarantee a separation of church and state.

            And so how fitting that Ms. O’Donnell is intent on identifying in her campaign ads with “you,” by which she means, of course, all of the Americans who also don’t know what is contained in the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution that is the supreme law of the land they proclaim to love so dearly.  And have no doubt about it, she is truly representative of the dumbing down of America and is as real, and as scary, as a heart attack.

            Susan Jacoby explores this phenomenon (catastrophe would actually be the more appropriate word) in “The Age of American Unreason” (Pantheon Books, 2008).  In her presentation of the current state of the country’s antipathy for intellectualism, Ms. Jacoby reviews the constant battle between enlightenment and ignorance that has checkered the country’s history.

            Suffice to say, she does not paint a pretty picture, of either the country’s heritage or its current state.  As a nation of many mini-cultures, America has always had a sizeable number of residents who have held all forms of intellectual pursuit in disdain.  It has taken a multitude of forms, sometimes cloaked in religious dogma, sometimes in political ideology, sometimes in anti-establishment rebellion.  But whatever its guise, those who have looked askance at intellectualism have done so with intense hostility.

            But at the same time, throughout the history of the same country, there has been a near reverence for knowledge, for the attainment of intellectual superiority, for scientific achievements and for literary and artistic excellence.  As marked by its election of leaders, this aspect of the country was ascendant, as Ms. Jacoby notes, until most recently.

            Only in the last thirty years, beginning with Ronald Reagan, have presidential candidates attempted to sound like “regular folks.”  Reagan was a master at it, whether as a well-developed act (was he really a closet intellectual?) or a person who turned his absolute ignorance into a political asset (or was he really tethered to the daily horoscope readings?). 

            Bill Clinton was as brilliant (probably as serious about the intellectual requirements of his job as any president since Kennedy) as he was bubba, which worked well until the bubba in him made him forget to keep his pants on.

            But George W. Bush surely did both of his predecessors one better (or one worse) by eschewing all trappings of intellectualism.  Bush blatantly acknowledged that he didn’t like to read newspapers or briefing memos. 

            At the same time, over the 30 years that these men held the nation’s highest office, the country’s culture devolved noticeably.  It probably began with the introduction of the USA Today form of print journalism, marked by short snippets of news reports presented with a minimum of deep reporting, the People magazine elevation of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately the talk radio/cable news networks’ destruction of serious political discourse.

            At the same time, a revival of Christian fundamentalism, initially inspired by the seemingly unreligious Reagan and then fostered by the born-again-and-ever-so-proud-of-it Bush, led to the anti-science revolution that has conflated the lay and scientific definitions of “theory,” such that pseudo-scientific doctrines like “intelligent design,” for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence, can be forced on institutions of public education throughout the country on a par with evolution.  “Hey, evolution is only a theory,” say the more polished advocates of this kind of “religidiocy,” while the Christine O’Donnells of the movement question why, if evolution is real, apes aren’t changing into humans now (another dumbfounding “Politically Incorrect” clip that the candidate has not, as yet, refuted).

            That the battle (between intellectualism and ignorance) is tilting heavily towards the know-nothing side of the equation is exemplified by the rise of the Tea Party movement.  If Sarah Palin or Sharron Angle or Michelle Bachman or the irrepressible Ms. O’Donnell say something extremely stupid, as they all have, their legion of supporters only love them all the more, especially if they are castigated by the “liberal media” or their political opponents for it.

            “Down with the elitists,” is the cry, as if the last thing a public servant should be is educated or even intelligent.  And so is Barack Obama, far too educated and intelligent, pictured as Adolf Hitler or called a socialist, sometimes at the same time.  (“Hey, wasn’t Hitler a socialist?” asked an ignorant sign-holder at one Tea Party rally.)

            The ascendency of ignorance bodes well for the Republican Party, which will ride the rebellion against intellectualism to a massive victory in next week’s elections.  It really shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Economic crises often produce demagogues seeking power for their own purposes. 

            The Republican leadership is not ignorant.  It knows what it wants, and it will happily use the Tea Party movement to get it.  It will move to restore the control to the mega-corporations and the military-industrial complex.  Thereafter, it will seek to consolidate its control over the entire country. 

            Hitler was no more conniving.

            In his 1987 film, “Radio Days,” Woody Allen weaves in a small story that really has nothing to do with the movie’s plot, such as it is.  Over twenty years later, that small story results in the one scene from the film that is truly memorable. 

            The film itself is Allen’s homage to the era in American history when radio broadcasts were the principal form of stay-at-home entertainment.  The era lasted no more than 30 years, from the early 1920s to the early 1950s, and the film focuses on the middle of that period, in the years leading up to the second world war.

            The small story that still resonates at first seems almost a throwaway tidbit.  The community where Allen’s character (a young boy here) lives is suddenly caught up in the drama of a little child who has fallen into one of those narrow wells somewhere in Texas (as I recall).  The radio reports the news of the attempted rescue, as frantic efforts are undertaken to extricate the child.

            The story recedes as the main plot continues; then it returns when a news broadcast, this time with an eyewitness reporter, crackles on the family radios in Allen’s community.  The scene shows parents seated by their radios (the big, clunky consoles of old) while children play on the floor or mill around aimlessly.

            Again, the little story recedes.  But it returns a few scenes later, this time with more gravitas.  The on-scene reporter is telling his listening audience that the rescue crew is now very close to the child.  Allen’s camera now focuses on one of his characters, a father (played by Michael Tucker).  The father is seated by the radio, holding his own little son in his arms.

            Now the reporter announces the news.  The little child has been recovered, and she is – lifeless.  Tucker cries openly, as he hugs his child ever more tightly.

            That scene was repeated with a different set of circumstances last week as the world (literally, with reports of one billion viewers) watched the rescue of the Chilean miners.  This time the ending was a happy one, but the feelings were no less meaningful, and the universal connection that took place as one miner after another emerged from the depths of the earth was no less real.

            Enough has been written about the story, to be sure, and many had followed the drama from the first days of the mine collapse that trapped the 33 miners almost a half mile beneath the surface.  For seventeen days, their fate was unknown, with many fearing, if not assuming, the worst. 

            Then, on that seventeenth day, they were found, almost miraculously, as a small hole broke through to their cavern.  They were all alive, and, with food and water quickly sent down through the hole, they could remain alive for a foreseeable period, while a national commitment (by the Chilean president) began to get them all out.

            During the nearly two months it took to drill the escape route, the news was a mix of hope and anxiety.  Could all of these men (ranging in age from 19 to 63) really survive such isolation?  Wouldn’t they eventually be overwhelmed with claustrophobia, if not downright depression?  How could anyone live in those kinds of conditions for so long?

            And then, finally, the night of deliverance arrived.  As the capsule went down for the first time, many of those billion viewers undoubtedly said a prayer, maybe many prayers, for men they had never met, would never know, and wouldn’t have ever thought of in any way had they not been stuck 2000 feet underground for 70 days.

            And it didn’t matter that some of the 33 may well be scoundrels, heathens, reprobates or even just plain evil.  All we wanted (“we” here meaning the rest of humanity) was to know that they had been rescued and would survive to resume their normal lives until some other fate brought their lives to an end.

            But not to die now, that was the hope, the prayer.  To be saved from that fate this time, that was the wish, the dream. 

            What is it that brings human beings of all stripes, irrespective of ethnic, nationalistic, religious, gender, age, skin color, cultural, geographic, or any other kinds of differences, together at a time like the one we all experienced last week with the rescue of the Chilean miners?  Can it be that there is some common bond that transcends ideology and everything else that all too often have us hating or at least ignoring each other?

            I suppose the answer is obvious.  We’re all human; we all understand, on some innate level, that we are born to die, that we have only so long to experience the known reality of our existence, that before we know it, in the seeming blink of an eye, the years given to us have passed and we are no more.

            And so, if we see a few of our number saved from the destiny we all share, saved through some seeming miracle of fate, saved, dare we say it, by the grace of God, we rejoice, as if we have conquered the inevitable, at least for a moment.

            That’s the happy side of the universal experience we all shared last week.  The less sanguine side is the fact that we all too quickly return to our “normal” state of disinterest with those who aren’t in our immediate circle of concern, to the self-centered lives that create apathy (or even disgust) for those less fortunate, less blessed than us.

            And, in our selfishness, we grow impatient with our leaders, distrustful of our neighbors, and downright disdainful of those who seem opposed to what we believe, what we want, what we think is right.

            The miners were just like the rest of us, struggling to survive.  For a few precious months we cared about them, and in their rescue, we rejoiced with them, almost as if they were family. 

            If only we could always feel that way.

            I suppose if you hear a lie often enough, especially if it is never contradicted, you can be forgiven if you finally come to believe that it’s true.  That tactic certainly appears to be working well for the Republican Party as it closes in on a large, if not gigantic, election night in a few weeks.

            Republicans have run a few lies very effectively for the last year and a half, and the one that has become almost a mantra is slowly being accepted, even by those whose own experience should tell them it’s a lie.

            “No government program ever created a single job,” is the lie that has become an accepted economic truism throughout the country.  And, of course, it isn’t true.  In fact, it isn’t even close to being true, and you don’t have to have a Harvard MBA, as does our former president, to know it isn’t true.

            Rather, all you have to have is a job as a fire-fighter or a law enforcement officer or a sanitation worker or a school teacher to know that government programs absolutely create jobs.  Or you could have one of the three million jobs in the military branches of our armed forces (either in uniform or in a civilian capacity) to know the same thing. 

            In fact, everyone who works in the semi-private U.S. Postal Service or at the U.S. Department of Agriculture or for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or on a state or federal highway (toll collectors, maintenance workers, clerical personnel) is holding down a job that was created by a government program.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to jobs created by government programs.

            But to hard core conservatives and their tea party compatriots, many of those jobs are sullied by the fact that they are paid for with taxpayer dollars.  So let’s reflect on the number of private sector jobs (meaning jobs that represent employment by privately-owned companies) that are also created by government programs.

            For openers, consider the military-industrial complex, as accurately identified by Dwight Eisenhower in his last year as president.  The industrial part of that duopoly is well represented by the aeronautics industry and by munitions factories and by the companies whose sole business is to build the transport vehicles that move our combat forces in battle.

            But might the war-making function of the federal government and the programs adopted pursuant to it be the exception that proves the rule?  Not hardly. 

            Consider for a moment the textbook publishers or the soft drink companies that provide the text books and soft drinks to our public schools.  Or the pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs that are provided to Medicare patients.  Or the chemical companies that produce the pesticides that local governments order to be sprayed to save croplands from infestation.

            Still not convinced?  What about the private contractors who secure government contracts to repair bridges and roads?  Are the workers in those companies, all receiving private industry paychecks, also not representative of jobs created by government programs?  Would those roads and bridges have been repaired in the absence of a government program?

            Okay, so I think, even bereft of a Harvard MBA, I’ve exposed this big lie for what it is.  Now let me try to divine just why it is that this Republican mantra has been so effective with the electorate this year.

            Several factors are at play, and not the least of them is the total ineptitude of President Obama and his economic team to explain why government stimulus of the economy is exactly the right thing to do in times of economic recession.

            If, indeed, as the above examples clearly prove, government programs can and do create jobs, then what role can and should government play when the private sector is unable or unwilling to do the same?  And the answer (again, no Harvard MBA required) is to enact programs that will create jobs.

            Amazing things happen to an economy when people are working and receiving a paycheck, irrespective of where that paycheck comes from.  The earners of those paychecks spend the dollars they earn. 

            They spend it on necessities first, of course—food, clothing, shelter—but even money spent on those items will have a ripple effect.  If more food is purchased at the local super market, more employees are needed to stock the food and collect the money from the purchasers of the food.

            But, of course, wage earners go beyond the basics; it’s one of the benefits of being a wage earner.  And so, they take their families to the movies, or they go bowling, or they take in a ballgame, or they install a cable TV system, or they take a vacation.  And, guess what?  All of these purchases also have a ripple effect.  And so, as more money flows, more jobs are created.

            Simple enough?  Why then did the massive amount of money spent by the Obama administration fail to rescue the flailing U.S. economy?

            First of all, it didn’t fail.  To the extent that another Great Depression was avoided, the TARP, initiated by the Bush administration, and Obama’s stimulus package, and the bailouts of the auto and financial industries most definitely did rescue the slide toward depression the U.S. economy was on.

            But it didn’t do more because it wasn’t big enough.  In fact, of the $787 billion in the stimulus package that barely passed through Congress in Obama’s first year, less than a third went to real job creating programs (“shovel-ready” infrastructure projects being the most obvious).  The rest went to local governments (there largely to be used to pay down debt) and to the minimal tax rebates that were frittered away in the span of several months.

            So here are the lessons to be learned from this little primer: first, government programs can and do create jobs; second, federal spending on job-creating programs has been too small, not too big; and third, conservatives lie about these first two points because they hate governments, even those that are trying to save the very system they love.

            Madeleine Albright’s appearance at the Mondavi Center (on the campus of U.C. Davis) marked the opening of the venue’s ninth season of providing artistic performances.  Each season has also included a distinguished speaker’s series, and with Ms. Albright as the opening act, so to speak, that series and the whole season got off to an impressive start.

            The former Secretary of State (she served in that office for the full second term of Bill Clinton’s presidency) responded to questions posed by Davis Political Science Professor Larry Berman and took a few from the capacity audience as well.  During the course of the 90-minute exchange, she offered her views on many of the major foreign policy issues of the day, and much of her commentary reflected none too well on the presidency of George W. Bush.

            In particular, she made clear that she regards the decision to invade Iraq as a major blunder, one that she called “one of the worst symbols of American power.”  She claimed that, in addition to resulting in a loss of focus on the hunt for Osama bin Ladin specifically and the war against al Qaeda generally, the war in Iraq also benefitted Iran immeasurably by removing a counter-force in the region in the form of Saddam Hussein.

            Her views on that particular subject and on the consequences (mostly negative in her view) of the Bush presidency raise the same kind of “what if” question that haunted many Americans at the height of the Viet Nam war in the 1960s. 

            That war was dramatically escalated by Lyndon Johnson, who became president when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963.  From approximately 15,000 military advisers the United States had “training” South Vietnamese forces when Johnson assumed office, the American involvement in Viet Nam reached a peak of 550,000 combat troops by the end of his presidency in January of 1969. 

            Richard Nixon, upon assuming the presidency, began a slow withdrawal, under a plan he dubbed “Vietnamization.”  But he also escalated the U.S. offensive to include bombings of Hanoi, North Viet Nam’s capital city, and the mining of key harbors, a form of attempted blockade.

            The United States was torn apart by the war, which left over 50,000 Americans soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands scarred physically and emotionally from the military efforts to defeat the North Vietnamese insurgency.  That effort ultimately failed, as South Viet Nam finally fell in 1975, following the U.S. withdrawal from the battlefield two years earlier.  The country is now united as Viet Nam, and has become a fairly stable, if not prosperous, independent communist state.

            But what would Kennedy have done?  That question was frequently asked during Johnson’s prosecution of the war.  It was asked less during Nixon’s tenure in office, but a related question was whether Nixon would have ever been elected were it not for Kennedy’s assassination.

            Of course, answers to both questions are purely speculative.  As to the first, evidence suggests Kennedy would have been far less aggressive in escalating the U.S. presence in Viet Nam.  He was a cold warrior in his opposition to Soviet dominance, but he had not sided with the military in the Cuban missile crisis, suggesting that he understood, perhaps better than Johnson, the perils of all war.

            As to the latter question, Nixon barely beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968 as many Democrats, angry at  Johnson (whose vice-president was Humphrey), sat out the election.  Had Viet Nam not been the dominant issue it was and had Nixon not been able to present himself as the “peace candidate” (with a claimed “secret plan” to end the war), the strong likelihood is that the Democrats would have prevailed in that election.

            Of such imponderables are many history books filled.  But the reality of what happened cannot be changed, nor can the future that that reality led to.

            Still, when a Madeleine Albright presents a compelling case that a specific decision was a major mistake, the imponderable question must be asked.

            And so, if only for a brief moment of reflection, let’s consider what the course of our history might/could/would have been if Al Gore and not George Bush had won the 2000 presidential election, and if, as a result, the United States had not invaded Iraq and had instead remained engaged with the large coalition of international forces against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

            It is surely fair to say that Iraq would still be a brutal dictatorship, but it would be isolated and essentially sequestered from the rest of the Middle East, a threat in only theoretical terms to those in the region and not at all to the West.  Why?  Because, as Albright emphasized, Hussein’s Iraq was boxed in at the time of the invasion.  It had no military capability to wage war and would not have attained any such ability so long as the United Nations sanctions remained in place.

            As for bin Ladin, al Qaeda and Afghanistan, with the focus properly on that war from 2003 on, instead of it being essentially ignored as it was until only recently, the great likelihood is that bin Ladin would have either been captured or killed and his network of terrorist cells left disorganized, if not destroyed.  To think otherwise is to concede that he and his gang of terrorist thugs are unbeatable, which then leads to an entirely different calculus in terms of many decisions made and unmade by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

            I’ll leave that imponderable (of whether bin Ladin and al Qaeda can ever be defeated) for another day.  Suffice to say that the course of America’s history was unalterably affected by the Bush decision to make war in Iraq. 

            Whether it was based on the best available evidence or, as seems increasingly more likely, was just a bad decision, it has left the United States still on the hunt for bin Ladin nine years and counting after 9/11 and probably no less at risk of another attack than it was in March of 2003 when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq.

            Oh, and as for the other question that arose following Kennedy’s assassination, it’s highly unlikely that Barack Obama would have risen from relative obscurity to win the presidency had the U.S. not invaded Iraq.