The initial post for this blog on September 11, 2007 attempts to set the stage for the general approach that subsequent posts will take. To the point, while there are some facts and solid objects out there, they tend to be beheld through a wide variety of eyes, ears, noses, mouths, skin surfaces, experiences, beliefs, values and an array of other influences. Even more to the point, when we listen to or read someone's opinion on something, we usually learn a lot more about the opinionator than about the object of his or her attention.
Case in point: some readers read that last sentence, and thought, "Well, du-uh," and others thought, "Wow! I never realized that before. Cool!" Actually neither of these is completely true, since I'm not sure enough people read this to validate my use of the phrase "some readers."
Be all that as it may, Barack Obama spoke about race last Tuesday, and if you haven't listened to or read his speech, you can do so, respectively through the appropriate linked words in this sentence. Much has been written and spoken about the senator's speech over the past week, and my Catholic elementary school side feels a bit of guilt about adding to the cyber talk, but as I mature, I'm letting more and more of that guilt go, so here goes.
Most columnists and pundits that I've read or listened to have spoken as if the speech were a fact or a solid object--they seem to know what it means and what it is. I believe it's safe to say that Senator Obama, after lengthy preparation, vibrated his vocal cords in specific patterns, and his vibrations found our inner ears, which also vibrated, and we interpreted those vibrations according to a set of criteria that most of us don't understand ourselves. Okay, that's an oversimplification, and it ignores the transcript, but it's more-or-less true in its attempt to summarize the speaking-listening-interpreting process.
Disclaimer: I subscribe to and read the New York Times. Because lots of people think it's a prime example of "the liberal press," and lots of others think it has become too moderate--even conservative, it seems to be balanced in that it annoys people across the political spectrum. I'm going to limit my comments here to recent columns in the Times and one other source, not because the Times covers the whole spectrum (which is not my goal), but because they essentially prove that Barack Obama delivered not one, but many, many speeches on March 18.
William Kristol, whom some readers (there I go again, ever the optimist) may recall is a leading neo-conservative, architect of the Iraq War, and Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, commented on one of these March 18 speeches in his March 24 Times column. He delivered a Marc-Antony-riles-the-Plebians-against-Brutus-and-Cassius-while-seeming-to-praise-both-men type column, poking Obama with praise as "accomplished orator," "able politician," and "ambitious man," before "shuddering" at the prospect of a "heated national conversation about race," when what the country needs "are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling." As a reader, I assume that Mr. Kristol includes the Iraq debacle under "economics [how else we might spend our money], social mobility [who goes to war and who sends them], education [how, who, and to do what for whom], and family policy [especially with regard to the families of the 4,000 dead and over 20,000 maimed Americans, who served in Iraq]."
Contrast this with the speech that Maureen Dowd heard and commented on in her March 19 Times column. She begins by calling the speech she heard "[i]n many ways...momentous and edifying," but after pointing out her evidence for those adjectives, Dowd uses other modifiers--"naïve and willful," in reference to Obama's refusal at first to address the issues around Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko. She suggests that in the face of "ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity," the senator stepped down from the pedestal amid a talk on black and white, and recognized the gray area--a recognition that will, in her estimation, strengthen him as a candidate.
But strengthen him in whose hearts, eyes, and ears? While I haven't read their blogs and columns, I sense that those colorful characters featured in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Spring 2008 Intelligence Report might have heard or read a speech other than what Ms. Dowd or Mr. Kristol commented on, but as Mr. Kristol notes in his column, "Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain." If I had more time, I'd spend it with those two sentences, as they come from a wealthy, powerful white guy. Suffice it to say that I'm sure the 888 active hate groups identified in the SPLC report would agree with him.
Finally, Times columnist Bob Herbert, in his March 25 Times column, calls the speech he heard "Powerful..." and suggested that it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country — and in as many other venues as possible." Herbert acknowledges that the speech was political, but also "legitmate and powerful," and that "it ought to resonate with fair-minded Americans, regardless of whether they support Mr. Obama for president," where it seems that "fair-minded" refers to Americans who heard the same speech as Mr. Herbert (as opposed to what Mr. Kristol heard, or even Ms. Dowd).
What speech did you hear or read?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Dance Band on the Titanic
I thought this posting would emerge from an almost-finished draft that deals with the gender and race issues in the Democratic presidential campaign, and the gender issue concerning the "proper" role of the spouse (i.e. wife) in the latest edition of the powerful-politician-goes-sexually-astray story.
As important as these issues are, however, and I believe they are very important, this post will address money and how we spend it (or how it is spent by others for us).
More to the point, the Iraq war's inevitably costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion, and the federal government's bailout of the financial world's private sector, beginning with Bear Stearns and ending...who know knows where, when or with whom, are coming out of my (our collective) pocket. I'm almost embarrassed to add those now trivially obvious and tedious tidbits: our peerless leaders choose to spend our money as they do and not on the 40+ million Americans who don't have access to affordable, competent health care and the continuing third-rate public education that is available to many children in these United States.
To paraphrase the late Harry Chapin, the president and legislators from both parties comprise an off-tune dance band on the Titanic, and most of us are content to dance along or watch as wallflowers as the band plays on. Who do we think we are and what in the world are we doing?
Two years ago I published This Open Eye, a collection of poems that marked the third anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad. The longest poem in the book, "Common Thread," provides five perspectives on America. To mark the 5th anniversary of the hit tune, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I've posted the poem below--one perspective for each year. The blog formatting doesn't allow some of the indents and line breaks that the poem should have, but I'll live with that:
Common Thread
1. Gulf War Vet
I deploy to Iraq in ’91 to get that
bastard Hussein out of Kuwait and we
rain hell on Baghdad forty days and
forty nights nonstop though we never
do get him. A desert
storm for sure.
A dozen years later and
I’m dyin’, and find out I got killed over there—
Reagan says Hussein is cool, sells him
choppers, bombs and dual-use hardware,
Rumsfeld shakes his hand, and in ’84, my
CIA pals help him gas Iranians. Commerce
okays 21 batches of anthrax,
and in ’86 only my country refuses
to condemn Iraq’s chemical warfare.
Now
I’m dyin’, creatin’ half-orphans and a widow, and
can’t get a straight answer about
depleted uranium in my own ammo.
My country—
‘tis of thee, I sing.
2. Baghdad Doctor
I was 28 when Saddam purged the Baaths
and Communists in 1979. I healed people,
protected my family. When
Saddam attacked Iran in 1980, the
Americans removed us from their list
of terrorists—even opened
diplomatic relations, gave us loans,
subsidies and military intelligence. When
Saddam slaughtered the Kurds between
1987 and 1989, the presidents,
Reagan and Bush, barely blinked.
When they finally chased Saddam’s
army from Kuwait, the Americans bombed
my city day and night for more than a month—
targeted our water, electrical plants, hospitals
and roadways—
killed two of my children.
Their sanctions killed individual Iraqis over
half a million times with starvation, malnutrition
dirty water and lack of medical supplies.
American
and British planes bombed my country almost
every week for the next decade. Clinton’s
missiles killed Layla al-Attar, our beloved
artist, and her husband, creating wounded
orphans.
The world envies America’s six- and
seven-figure incomes, while American taxes
bring Iraq the need for six- and seven-figure
body bags.
Never satisfied with what
they’ve created or destroyed, the Americans
attacked my country again in 2003, killing more
thousands of civilians—my wife this time. The
American general says they don’t do body counts.
Since they captured Saddam my country
remains a war zone—
if this quarter century
is a taste of freedom and American democracy,
I’d prefer to have my children and wife back
under the dictator. I hate him, but at least
we were safe. At least there was order. In
the 1960s, an American Army veteran wrote
that freedom really means nothing
left to lose. I guess my country
and I are just about free. Americans
slaughtered each other almost a century
after their own independence—an independence
they had fought for freely. How can they think
they can force democracy here—
even if some
of us do want it?
3. Teheran Teacher
The American cowboy president says
my country turns on the axis of evil. Twenty
years ago his father sold Saddam Hussein
mustard gas and anthrax, which he
used against my people and his own.
His father sold Saddam helicopters and
cannons, and the presidents before him
protected our corrupt Shah, and
now the Americans look at the mess they’ve
made in Iraq—and they say the Iraqi people
must clean it up themselves. I pray
the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq
live in peace. My anger is with Saddam and
Reagan and the Shah and the Bushes—people
like them—who are these men and women
who order killing so easily?
4. Kurdish Rebel
From 1973 through 1975, America, Israel and Iran
supported our fight against Iraq, but when Saddam and
the Iranian Shah agreed to close their borders against
us, the Americans cut off their aid, and watched as
Saddam destroyed villages and slaughtered 100,000
of my people with chemicals. After the Americans
removed him from Kuwait, they encouraged us to rise
up against him, but denied us access to captured
weapons. U.S. warplanes circled above as Saddam’s
helicopters slaughtered my brothers. Why
did the Americans do this?
5. Vietnam Vet
Somehow, Charlie’s rounds missed me—
I survived Tet in ’68 and two tours with
Agent Orange.
Lost eight years on my discharge
to Jack, José, and Mary Jane, but
got lucky with a consolation named
philosophy and a woman named
Sophia and brought JoAnn, Nick
and Chris into the world.
Actually—
into New York. When Y2K
fizzled, JoAnn was a semester from
her MSW, Nick and Chris were a
year apart at St. John’s, and
Sophia and I immersed ourselves
in good fortune.
Actually—she
immersed herself. I couldn’t believe
it, but I soaked up what I could
until
the second jet hit the south tower
and cremation by fireball left
nothing of Sophia to put in an urn
or a coffin or the ground, and left
three half-orphans and a hole in
my heart that I’ll never fill or
close
but through which I’ve
seen for the first time the millions
of holes that I helped leave in
the hearts and landscape of
Vietnam, and the holes in the
hearts and landscape of Iraq,
and the holes in the hearts of
young Americans and their
families
and I want to disinter
Johnson, Nixon and Reagan,
grab McNamara, Clinton, Cheney,
bin Laden, the Bushes, Hussein,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice
and the rest by their throats, and drag
each one through every heart that’s ever
been stopped or broken by their
distant orders to kill in the name of
freedom, royalty, democracy, oil, or a
God they have never known despite
their claims to the contrary.
Fightin’ infidelity.
Fightin’ Communism. Fightin’
terrorism.
Let me tell you—
I’ve been there and never once
held a concept in my crosshairs—
never once saw a soldier’s or
civilian’s body broken by a 60-
millimeter idea, rocket-propelled
precept or bunker-busting belief.
Yeah, I survived Charlie and Dow
Chemical, got lucky with Sophia’s
love and my heart broken open with
her incineration, and now I live with
knowing it took a hole in my own heart to
see the holes in the hearts of others,
and what I wish for my kids—for
JoAnn, Nick and Chris—what I wish for
what survives of Sophia on this earth—
rather than endorse more slaughter
in their anger and fear, in their loss
and despair—what I wish for my
kids and your kids and all kids—
is that they can take
their own broken hearts and help
open the hearts of others—
before they’re broken
or stopped by
those of us who kill
so easily.
As important as these issues are, however, and I believe they are very important, this post will address money and how we spend it (or how it is spent by others for us).
More to the point, the Iraq war's inevitably costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion, and the federal government's bailout of the financial world's private sector, beginning with Bear Stearns and ending...who know knows where, when or with whom, are coming out of my (our collective) pocket. I'm almost embarrassed to add those now trivially obvious and tedious tidbits: our peerless leaders choose to spend our money as they do and not on the 40+ million Americans who don't have access to affordable, competent health care and the continuing third-rate public education that is available to many children in these United States.
To paraphrase the late Harry Chapin, the president and legislators from both parties comprise an off-tune dance band on the Titanic, and most of us are content to dance along or watch as wallflowers as the band plays on. Who do we think we are and what in the world are we doing?
Two years ago I published This Open Eye, a collection of poems that marked the third anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad. The longest poem in the book, "Common Thread," provides five perspectives on America. To mark the 5th anniversary of the hit tune, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I've posted the poem below--one perspective for each year. The blog formatting doesn't allow some of the indents and line breaks that the poem should have, but I'll live with that:
Common Thread
1. Gulf War Vet
I deploy to Iraq in ’91 to get that
bastard Hussein out of Kuwait and we
rain hell on Baghdad forty days and
forty nights nonstop though we never
do get him. A desert
storm for sure.
A dozen years later and
I’m dyin’, and find out I got killed over there—
Reagan says Hussein is cool, sells him
choppers, bombs and dual-use hardware,
Rumsfeld shakes his hand, and in ’84, my
CIA pals help him gas Iranians. Commerce
okays 21 batches of anthrax,
and in ’86 only my country refuses
to condemn Iraq’s chemical warfare.
Now
I’m dyin’, creatin’ half-orphans and a widow, and
can’t get a straight answer about
depleted uranium in my own ammo.
My country—
‘tis of thee, I sing.
2. Baghdad Doctor
I was 28 when Saddam purged the Baaths
and Communists in 1979. I healed people,
protected my family. When
Saddam attacked Iran in 1980, the
Americans removed us from their list
of terrorists—even opened
diplomatic relations, gave us loans,
subsidies and military intelligence. When
Saddam slaughtered the Kurds between
1987 and 1989, the presidents,
Reagan and Bush, barely blinked.
When they finally chased Saddam’s
army from Kuwait, the Americans bombed
my city day and night for more than a month—
targeted our water, electrical plants, hospitals
and roadways—
killed two of my children.
Their sanctions killed individual Iraqis over
half a million times with starvation, malnutrition
dirty water and lack of medical supplies.
American
and British planes bombed my country almost
every week for the next decade. Clinton’s
missiles killed Layla al-Attar, our beloved
artist, and her husband, creating wounded
orphans.
The world envies America’s six- and
seven-figure incomes, while American taxes
bring Iraq the need for six- and seven-figure
body bags.
Never satisfied with what
they’ve created or destroyed, the Americans
attacked my country again in 2003, killing more
thousands of civilians—my wife this time. The
American general says they don’t do body counts.
Since they captured Saddam my country
remains a war zone—
if this quarter century
is a taste of freedom and American democracy,
I’d prefer to have my children and wife back
under the dictator. I hate him, but at least
we were safe. At least there was order. In
the 1960s, an American Army veteran wrote
that freedom really means nothing
left to lose. I guess my country
and I are just about free. Americans
slaughtered each other almost a century
after their own independence—an independence
they had fought for freely. How can they think
they can force democracy here—
even if some
of us do want it?
3. Teheran Teacher
The American cowboy president says
my country turns on the axis of evil. Twenty
years ago his father sold Saddam Hussein
mustard gas and anthrax, which he
used against my people and his own.
His father sold Saddam helicopters and
cannons, and the presidents before him
protected our corrupt Shah, and
now the Americans look at the mess they’ve
made in Iraq—and they say the Iraqi people
must clean it up themselves. I pray
the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq
live in peace. My anger is with Saddam and
Reagan and the Shah and the Bushes—people
like them—who are these men and women
who order killing so easily?
4. Kurdish Rebel
From 1973 through 1975, America, Israel and Iran
supported our fight against Iraq, but when Saddam and
the Iranian Shah agreed to close their borders against
us, the Americans cut off their aid, and watched as
Saddam destroyed villages and slaughtered 100,000
of my people with chemicals. After the Americans
removed him from Kuwait, they encouraged us to rise
up against him, but denied us access to captured
weapons. U.S. warplanes circled above as Saddam’s
helicopters slaughtered my brothers. Why
did the Americans do this?
5. Vietnam Vet
Somehow, Charlie’s rounds missed me—
I survived Tet in ’68 and two tours with
Agent Orange.
Lost eight years on my discharge
to Jack, José, and Mary Jane, but
got lucky with a consolation named
philosophy and a woman named
Sophia and brought JoAnn, Nick
and Chris into the world.
Actually—
into New York. When Y2K
fizzled, JoAnn was a semester from
her MSW, Nick and Chris were a
year apart at St. John’s, and
Sophia and I immersed ourselves
in good fortune.
Actually—she
immersed herself. I couldn’t believe
it, but I soaked up what I could
until
the second jet hit the south tower
and cremation by fireball left
nothing of Sophia to put in an urn
or a coffin or the ground, and left
three half-orphans and a hole in
my heart that I’ll never fill or
close
but through which I’ve
seen for the first time the millions
of holes that I helped leave in
the hearts and landscape of
Vietnam, and the holes in the
hearts and landscape of Iraq,
and the holes in the hearts of
young Americans and their
families
and I want to disinter
Johnson, Nixon and Reagan,
grab McNamara, Clinton, Cheney,
bin Laden, the Bushes, Hussein,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice
and the rest by their throats, and drag
each one through every heart that’s ever
been stopped or broken by their
distant orders to kill in the name of
freedom, royalty, democracy, oil, or a
God they have never known despite
their claims to the contrary.
Fightin’ infidelity.
Fightin’ Communism. Fightin’
terrorism.
Let me tell you—
I’ve been there and never once
held a concept in my crosshairs—
never once saw a soldier’s or
civilian’s body broken by a 60-
millimeter idea, rocket-propelled
precept or bunker-busting belief.
Yeah, I survived Charlie and Dow
Chemical, got lucky with Sophia’s
love and my heart broken open with
her incineration, and now I live with
knowing it took a hole in my own heart to
see the holes in the hearts of others,
and what I wish for my kids—for
JoAnn, Nick and Chris—what I wish for
what survives of Sophia on this earth—
rather than endorse more slaughter
in their anger and fear, in their loss
and despair—what I wish for my
kids and your kids and all kids—
is that they can take
their own broken hearts and help
open the hearts of others—
before they’re broken
or stopped by
those of us who kill
so easily.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC
Now that Eliot Spitzer has submitted his application for partnership with Clinton, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, his book deal and lecture tour won't be far behind. While much has been made of Mr. Spitzer's falling from grace around the same time that the Vatican validated new ways to fall for the 21st century, evidence seems to indicate that the revised Catholic sin catalog will have little impact on his secular, albeit Jewish, worldview.
The New York governor's application to the firm has led some to believe that should he be accepted, the partnership's name would become Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, moving the newest member ahead of two of the three established partners. Unnamed partnership sources have attributed this likelihood to "the absence of both sexual misconduct and a graduate degree on former Connecticut governor Rowland's resume" and "you know, that whole gay thing with the Jersey boy, who should feel lucky just to be here."
Mr. McGreevey's agent, however, contends that the former New Jersey governor's name should remain second even if Spitzer makes the cut, citing McGreevey's two graduate degrees (to Spitzer's one) and pointing out that "it takes quite a bit more courage and chutzpa to masquerade as a heterosexual husband, father and public servant while having a homosexual affair with a political appointee than it does to simply sneak around with high-priced call girls."
While Mr. Rowland had no comment and the Spitzer entourage was still engaged in damage control, Rowland's agent referred to the prospective change as a typical Democratic political move. When asked if he had any advice for New York's falling leader, Mr. Clinton smiled and suggested that he knew all too well what "waiting to exhale" feels like, perhaps inadvertantly citing Terry McMillan's novel in his attempt to depict his common experience with Mr. Spitzer.
Elsewhere, both the Big East and the Ivy League merchandising departments were positioning themselves to reap the inevitable profits from this latest limited liability culprit. On the undergraduate level, the two leagues are tied: Rowland and Clinton graduated from Villanova and Georgetown, respectively, while Spitzer and McGreevey earned their degrees from Princeton and Columbia. On the graduate level, Spitzer graced Harvard Law, McGreevey both Georgetown Law and he earned a degree in Education from Harvard, and Clinton attended Oxford and received his J.D. from Yale--giving the Ivies a 3 to 1 edge over the Big East.
University College at Oxford has not commented.
The prevalent rumor that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are considering seceding from the United States in order to form the Tri-State Democratic Republic has not been corroborated.
The New York governor's application to the firm has led some to believe that should he be accepted, the partnership's name would become Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, moving the newest member ahead of two of the three established partners. Unnamed partnership sources have attributed this likelihood to "the absence of both sexual misconduct and a graduate degree on former Connecticut governor Rowland's resume" and "you know, that whole gay thing with the Jersey boy, who should feel lucky just to be here."
Mr. McGreevey's agent, however, contends that the former New Jersey governor's name should remain second even if Spitzer makes the cut, citing McGreevey's two graduate degrees (to Spitzer's one) and pointing out that "it takes quite a bit more courage and chutzpa to masquerade as a heterosexual husband, father and public servant while having a homosexual affair with a political appointee than it does to simply sneak around with high-priced call girls."
While Mr. Rowland had no comment and the Spitzer entourage was still engaged in damage control, Rowland's agent referred to the prospective change as a typical Democratic political move. When asked if he had any advice for New York's falling leader, Mr. Clinton smiled and suggested that he knew all too well what "waiting to exhale" feels like, perhaps inadvertantly citing Terry McMillan's novel in his attempt to depict his common experience with Mr. Spitzer.
Elsewhere, both the Big East and the Ivy League merchandising departments were positioning themselves to reap the inevitable profits from this latest limited liability culprit. On the undergraduate level, the two leagues are tied: Rowland and Clinton graduated from Villanova and Georgetown, respectively, while Spitzer and McGreevey earned their degrees from Princeton and Columbia. On the graduate level, Spitzer graced Harvard Law, McGreevey both Georgetown Law and he earned a degree in Education from Harvard, and Clinton attended Oxford and received his J.D. from Yale--giving the Ivies a 3 to 1 edge over the Big East.
University College at Oxford has not commented.
The prevalent rumor that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are considering seceding from the United States in order to form the Tri-State Democratic Republic has not been corroborated.
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