It's been insufferable to sit through countless condemnations of Jimmy Carter - who, a few days ago, said simply what everyone else in the country already believes - which all take the exact same shape: "Jimmy Carter, look in the mirror." "Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?" "Carter belongs in peanut gallery."
In fact, Carter was a fine president, inasmuch as that means anything. That he is not considered one speaks volumes about what we consider "great" in our presidents.
Look at the usual reasons for consigning Carter to the dustbin.
"He was only elected to one term." So what? Grant was elected to two terms, and no one considers him a great president. And Lincoln, our greatest president, only served a month over four years. This means nothing.
"What about the economic situation?" FDR governed during a far worse economic crisis that lasted at least until his third term. In addition, the crisis began during Nixon's administration and continued through Reagan's first term.
"He didn't get anything accomplished." Carter, a Washington outsider, was deeply unpopular with his own party. Despite the fact that the Democrats controlled Congress, they refused to work with Carter and constantly belittled him to the press. It's telling that everyone remembers Carter's embarrassing "fight" with a rabbit, but no one remembers Reagan joking that he had outlawed Russia "forever," and "we begin bombing in five minutes." Despite these obstacles, he retained a relatively modest foreign policy and managed to secure a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt.
"He allowed the overthrow of the Shah." This convenient untruth allows us to blame Carter for the current Iran "crisis." The truth is, the Shah was a tyrant who was overwhelmingly unpopular in Iran. One doesn't have to approve of the Ayatollah Khomeini to believe that the U.S. had no more right to prevent his taking power than Iran would have the right to overthrow President Bush.
"What about the hostage crisis?" Well, what about it? What was he supposed to do, declare war on Iran? In fact, Carter handled the kidnapping with dignity, considering he was under assault from all sides for not starting a war.
Alas, this crisis probably sealed Carter's historical fate. Giuliani, in the first Republican debate this year, told a flat-out lie: “[Iranian President Ahmadinjad] has to look at an American President and he has to see Ronald Reagan. Remember, they looked in Ronald Reagan’s eyes, and in two minutes, they released the hostages.”
In fact, Carter had secured the release of the hostages by working nonstop on his last night in office. Unfortunately, their release coincided with Reagan's inauguration, leading many to believe, falsely, that the Iranians had been alarmed by the election of an old movie star whose biggest coup during the campaign had been to chuckle a harmless-old-codger laugh at Carter and quip, "There you go again!"
In fact, speaking of Ronald Reagan, who expanded the power of the president back to pre-Watergate days, hacked brutally at the welfare state and cast countless Americans into poverty and darkness, cracked down on civil liberties and popular government in a manner that even Nixon never dared, unnecessarily revived the receding Cold War and did his best to stave off its end (the myth that Reagan and Gorbachev share credit for the fall of the Soviet Union is just that - a myth; as one Gorbachev aide has said, the U.S.'s flailing show of fake-aggressiveness only gave ammunition to the hard-liners in the Kremlin), and finally sold weapons to Iran so he could illegally finance a private war in Nicaragua - compared to that, Carter was a bad president?
But perhaps it's true. Carter wasn't a great president. He is something much more important: He is a great citizen.
When Carter bid farewell to the Oval Office on January 14, 1981, he said this:
"In a few days, I will lay down my official responsibilities in this office -- to take up once more the only title in our democracy superior to that of president, the title of citizen."
In the years since 1981, Carter has been one of the most outspoken and honorable people to hold that honorable title. May he serve as an example for many years to come.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Just because you've mastered the art of "foreign policy" talk doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. One thing I've noticed about over-reaching discussions of foreign affairs - and I mean serious journals as much as blogs - is that vague air of unreality that hangs about them. It's as if the writers aren't talking about real places where real people live, but about abstract entities - "Iran" as a concept, not "Iran" the complicated real-world place where inconvenient facts pile up to interfere with your theory-making.
Nothing proves this more than the persistent myth that American foreign policy is forever torn between two philosophies: "idealism" and "realism." Nothing in American history supports the view that these are our only two options, or even that they are particularly different options. Yet year after year, scholars and pundits and politicians alike continue to pontificate on the epic struggle between the starry-eyed idealists and cold, reasoning realists who dictate which countries we are to bomb this year, and which countries we are to merely enact punishing embargoes against.
Just look at this review, in the New York Times, of a new biography of George Kennan, the State Department hack whose notorious 8,000 word 1946 telegram gave the Washington oligarchs ammunition to start the Cold War. The reviewer, James Traub, bends over backwards to praise Kennan. He is possessed of an "extraordinarily fine-grained and exacting sensibility," "a penetrating and lucid intellect," with "the great Protestant virtues" deeply ingrained in him, and yet full of "humility." He also writes "magisterial prose" on the level of Hemingway. The review closes by praising his "courage" and "the greatness of his character." When the biographer, an even bigger fan, claims that Kennan is "a better writer and a better thinker" than Henry Adams, Traub allows only that it "may be true."
So it comes as something of a shock, near the end, to learn this:
Kennan made no secret of his low regard for the wisdom of the common man, and thus for the practice of a so-called democratic, as opposed to a professional, foreign policy. But Lukacs also notes that in the late ’30s — as Hitler’s Germany rose to power — Kennan began writing a book proposing that America adopt a more authoritarian model of government in which both immigration and suffrage would be curtailed. Kennan could not bring himself to despise Germany before, during or after the war. . . . The predicament of ordinary people seems not to have moved him much.
It can't be much of a coincidence that the universally admired "architect of the Cold War," who ushered in an era that saw free politics smashed and honest citizens deprived of their jobs for daring to disagree with the oligarchs' foreign policy, that saw anti-communism elevated to the level of a state religion, that paved the road for Senator McCarthy's demagogy, "could not bring himself to despise" Nazi Germany. Like the Washington insiders of the 1930s who clamored for a "Mussolini" to step in and take charge, he thought we could even have learned a thing or two from them. Such is the stuff of "realism"!
As Traub has it, it was disagreement with the "realist" policy represented by Kennan - and, later, Henry Kissinger, that has led so many to support President Bush's "policy of democracy promotion." This leads Traub to a truly stunning conclusion, though he presents it as if it were a well-known fact:
Many of the president’s harshest detractors accept the legitimacy of this mission . . . even if they doubt the methods. Wilsonian idealism, as Kissinger himself once recognized, is America’s default foreign policy. Kennan’s “realism” — the policy of prudence and self-restraint — is the path usually not taken.
The fact is that Americans knew nothing of "Wilsonian idealism" until Wilson himself forced it on them. Americans had been cheerfully minding their own business since the birth of the republic. But as Walter Karp ruefully observed: "Nothing in America's political experience as a nation had prepared Americans for Woodrow Wilson." It was no coincidence, either, that Wilson's triumph over his fellow Americans expressed itself not just in dragging them off to Europe to fight in a war they had no stake in save "making the world safe for democracy," but also in destroying democracy at home. Anyone overheard criticizing the war, or even the president, was liable to wind up in prison. By the time Wilson went off to Europe to help his fellow conquerors carve up the defeated nations, democracy had been crushed in America. All that was left to America's silenced, bullied, embittered citizens was to kick Wilson's successor out of office by one of the largest landslides in history.
Thus two great moments in American foreign policy, one led by "idealists," the other by "realists." Consider that when President Bush decided to declare war on Iraq, he was praised for being both a realist and an idealist, wisely acting on behalf of America's "interests" and nobly setting out to save an oppressed people from a dictator. It was a foreign policy pundit's dream come true.
Now that the war has turned into an ignoble occupation, pundits and politicians call for a healthy dose of "realism" to save us from Bush's reckless idealism. Good old Henry Kissinger never would've gotten us into this mess! It's hard to imagine a more bankrupt, pathetic pretense.
Nothing proves this more than the persistent myth that American foreign policy is forever torn between two philosophies: "idealism" and "realism." Nothing in American history supports the view that these are our only two options, or even that they are particularly different options. Yet year after year, scholars and pundits and politicians alike continue to pontificate on the epic struggle between the starry-eyed idealists and cold, reasoning realists who dictate which countries we are to bomb this year, and which countries we are to merely enact punishing embargoes against.
Just look at this review, in the New York Times, of a new biography of George Kennan, the State Department hack whose notorious 8,000 word 1946 telegram gave the Washington oligarchs ammunition to start the Cold War. The reviewer, James Traub, bends over backwards to praise Kennan. He is possessed of an "extraordinarily fine-grained and exacting sensibility," "a penetrating and lucid intellect," with "the great Protestant virtues" deeply ingrained in him, and yet full of "humility." He also writes "magisterial prose" on the level of Hemingway. The review closes by praising his "courage" and "the greatness of his character." When the biographer, an even bigger fan, claims that Kennan is "a better writer and a better thinker" than Henry Adams, Traub allows only that it "may be true."
So it comes as something of a shock, near the end, to learn this:
Kennan made no secret of his low regard for the wisdom of the common man, and thus for the practice of a so-called democratic, as opposed to a professional, foreign policy. But Lukacs also notes that in the late ’30s — as Hitler’s Germany rose to power — Kennan began writing a book proposing that America adopt a more authoritarian model of government in which both immigration and suffrage would be curtailed. Kennan could not bring himself to despise Germany before, during or after the war. . . . The predicament of ordinary people seems not to have moved him much.
It can't be much of a coincidence that the universally admired "architect of the Cold War," who ushered in an era that saw free politics smashed and honest citizens deprived of their jobs for daring to disagree with the oligarchs' foreign policy, that saw anti-communism elevated to the level of a state religion, that paved the road for Senator McCarthy's demagogy, "could not bring himself to despise" Nazi Germany. Like the Washington insiders of the 1930s who clamored for a "Mussolini" to step in and take charge, he thought we could even have learned a thing or two from them. Such is the stuff of "realism"!
As Traub has it, it was disagreement with the "realist" policy represented by Kennan - and, later, Henry Kissinger, that has led so many to support President Bush's "policy of democracy promotion." This leads Traub to a truly stunning conclusion, though he presents it as if it were a well-known fact:
Many of the president’s harshest detractors accept the legitimacy of this mission . . . even if they doubt the methods. Wilsonian idealism, as Kissinger himself once recognized, is America’s default foreign policy. Kennan’s “realism” — the policy of prudence and self-restraint — is the path usually not taken.
The fact is that Americans knew nothing of "Wilsonian idealism" until Wilson himself forced it on them. Americans had been cheerfully minding their own business since the birth of the republic. But as Walter Karp ruefully observed: "Nothing in America's political experience as a nation had prepared Americans for Woodrow Wilson." It was no coincidence, either, that Wilson's triumph over his fellow Americans expressed itself not just in dragging them off to Europe to fight in a war they had no stake in save "making the world safe for democracy," but also in destroying democracy at home. Anyone overheard criticizing the war, or even the president, was liable to wind up in prison. By the time Wilson went off to Europe to help his fellow conquerors carve up the defeated nations, democracy had been crushed in America. All that was left to America's silenced, bullied, embittered citizens was to kick Wilson's successor out of office by one of the largest landslides in history.
Thus two great moments in American foreign policy, one led by "idealists," the other by "realists." Consider that when President Bush decided to declare war on Iraq, he was praised for being both a realist and an idealist, wisely acting on behalf of America's "interests" and nobly setting out to save an oppressed people from a dictator. It was a foreign policy pundit's dream come true.
Now that the war has turned into an ignoble occupation, pundits and politicians call for a healthy dose of "realism" to save us from Bush's reckless idealism. Good old Henry Kissinger never would've gotten us into this mess! It's hard to imagine a more bankrupt, pathetic pretense.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I stumbled on this great article exploring the link between Tony Blair and Britpop; both ascendant in 1997, and now, a decade later, both buried in history's dustbin. The only real complain I have about the article is its description of "Live Forever" and "Wonderwall" as songs of "infinite cheer." Disappointment and failure were what Oasis were born to; their vainglorious refusal to accept that as their lot in life, that determined arrogance and swagger that was so bemusing to Americans, made perfect sense at home.
As the article notes: "The proudly working-class [Noel] Gallagher was the kind of apathetic young person that 18 years of Conservative rule had created." Labour's triumph, briefly, made many feel that something different was possible. With Blair about to plod out of office in more-or-less disgrace, it's poignant to read something like this:
In February 1996, Blair attended the Brit Awards. When Oasis sauntered onstage to accept an award, a blissful Gallagher exclaimed, "There are seven people in this room tonight who are giving a little bit of hope." He named all five members of the band, the president of their label, and Blair. "If you got anything about you, you go up and shake Tony Blair's hand. Power to the people!"
Maybe Blair was just hitching a ride on a star, as Harold Wilson had done with The Beatles. But the whole country was along for the ride.
As the article notes: "The proudly working-class [Noel] Gallagher was the kind of apathetic young person that 18 years of Conservative rule had created." Labour's triumph, briefly, made many feel that something different was possible. With Blair about to plod out of office in more-or-less disgrace, it's poignant to read something like this:
In February 1996, Blair attended the Brit Awards. When Oasis sauntered onstage to accept an award, a blissful Gallagher exclaimed, "There are seven people in this room tonight who are giving a little bit of hope." He named all five members of the band, the president of their label, and Blair. "If you got anything about you, you go up and shake Tony Blair's hand. Power to the people!"
Maybe Blair was just hitching a ride on a star, as Harold Wilson had done with The Beatles. But the whole country was along for the ride.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
I usually manage to find a way to avoid candidates' debates, despite that familiar tugging feeling that I really should watch them. But when my girlfriend and I stumbled across the second Republican debate while flipping channels at about 12:30 a.m. tonight, we were sucked in immediately. From moment to moment, as the questions rolled on and the camera flashed from candidate to candidate, we grew more and more appalled and disheartened.
It wasn't so much the opinions on display; it was, all things considered, a more diverse mix than you'd expect. There was just something ugly going on. A question about a possible terrorist scenario unleashed some genuinely creepy responses. I braced myself for the inevitable, unbearable "24" reference, and I didn't have to wait long. John McCain, to his credit, stood firmly against torture. But his plea for the importance of decency to your enemies didn't make much of a dent; the others took it as an opportunity to bleat about presidential responsibility. Mitt Romney's sneering machismo left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.
Then one of the moderators turned to Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who hadn't said much during the evening. "Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq," he noted. "Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?"
Paul responded with an astonishing defense of the Republican Party's ancient tradition of "a noninterventionist foreign policy." When the moderator asked if Sept. 11 hadn't made that ancient tradition irrelevant, he continued: "There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.
"Just think of the tremendous improvement - relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution."
Paul even brought up the sacred name of the party saint, Ronald Reagan, recalling his warning against meddling in "the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics," which had inevitably stirred up the venomous sentiments that gave ammunition to bin Laden's vicious henchmen. After all, he asked, what would we think "if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."
It was a truly startling moment. Paul couldn't have wrecked the mood more if he'd simply heaved a bomb into the hall. His crime, of course, was to take the supposed precepts of the Republican Party - a modest-sized federal government, a foreign policy without imperial ambitions and adherence to the beliefs of the Founders - seriously. He was speaking a different language than any of the other candidates, and you could feel the entire room slow to a halt, trying to absorb what had just been said.
"Holy shit," I muttered to Alyson, barely able to believe what I'd just heard.
Then Rudy Giuliani ("Mayor Giuliani," the moderator kept calling him, reminding me of the judge who kept calling William Jennings Bryan "Colonel" in Inherit the Wind) stepped in to rescue the moment. He'd been hanging back so far in the debate, keeping a straight face and choosing his words carefully. But his liberal social policies weren't doing so well with this South Carolina audience, so he leaped on Paul's words like a starving man going after a freshly grilled steak.
"That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.” Giuliani blurted out the first words of his rebuttal; by the end, as the applause swelled about him, he seemed as imperious as Mussolini. All you had to do was mention That Day, and the great man felt himself to be a Great Man again; sweep all that complicated business away and revel in the presence of the savior of a city. If only you would let him be the savior of a nation!
Then he stuck the knife in: "I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that." A bully's taunt, and an especially vicious one coming from the party frontrunner and aimed at a virtual unknown.
But Paul didn't back down: “I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists, and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.”
Giuliani sputtered. But the moderator quickly changed the subject, sensing that a truly vicious storm was about to be unleashed, sweeping the carefully arranged debate off its tracks and plunging it into total chaos. For party debates were not designed to argue over the very purpose of the party itself. To question the president is one thing; to suggest that the party itself has gone astray - that is truly unforgivable.
As the debate ended and Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes presided over the postdebate debate, the official line was that Rudy Giuliani had stolen the show with his dazzling retort to the contemptuous Ron Paul. His response was "from the heart," Giuliani burbled to the grinning twosome. Giuliani's response was "excellent," said John McCain, on next - after all, America was at war with an "evil force," he added. Another commentator popped on, citing results he'd garnered from talking to people in the crowd, whom he couldn't name, of course; the consensus, he said, was that Paul had disgraced himself by suggesting that "America" was responsible for 9/11.
At the bottom of the screen, a number invited the viewer to text-message their vote for the winner of the debate. Shortly after 11 p.m., the first results of the text-message poll came in. In the lead, with 30 percent, was none other than Ron Paul.
It wasn't so much the opinions on display; it was, all things considered, a more diverse mix than you'd expect. There was just something ugly going on. A question about a possible terrorist scenario unleashed some genuinely creepy responses. I braced myself for the inevitable, unbearable "24" reference, and I didn't have to wait long. John McCain, to his credit, stood firmly against torture. But his plea for the importance of decency to your enemies didn't make much of a dent; the others took it as an opportunity to bleat about presidential responsibility. Mitt Romney's sneering machismo left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.
Then one of the moderators turned to Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who hadn't said much during the evening. "Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq," he noted. "Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?"
Paul responded with an astonishing defense of the Republican Party's ancient tradition of "a noninterventionist foreign policy." When the moderator asked if Sept. 11 hadn't made that ancient tradition irrelevant, he continued: "There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.
"Just think of the tremendous improvement - relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution."
Paul even brought up the sacred name of the party saint, Ronald Reagan, recalling his warning against meddling in "the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics," which had inevitably stirred up the venomous sentiments that gave ammunition to bin Laden's vicious henchmen. After all, he asked, what would we think "if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."
It was a truly startling moment. Paul couldn't have wrecked the mood more if he'd simply heaved a bomb into the hall. His crime, of course, was to take the supposed precepts of the Republican Party - a modest-sized federal government, a foreign policy without imperial ambitions and adherence to the beliefs of the Founders - seriously. He was speaking a different language than any of the other candidates, and you could feel the entire room slow to a halt, trying to absorb what had just been said.
"Holy shit," I muttered to Alyson, barely able to believe what I'd just heard.
Then Rudy Giuliani ("Mayor Giuliani," the moderator kept calling him, reminding me of the judge who kept calling William Jennings Bryan "Colonel" in Inherit the Wind) stepped in to rescue the moment. He'd been hanging back so far in the debate, keeping a straight face and choosing his words carefully. But his liberal social policies weren't doing so well with this South Carolina audience, so he leaped on Paul's words like a starving man going after a freshly grilled steak.
"That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.” Giuliani blurted out the first words of his rebuttal; by the end, as the applause swelled about him, he seemed as imperious as Mussolini. All you had to do was mention That Day, and the great man felt himself to be a Great Man again; sweep all that complicated business away and revel in the presence of the savior of a city. If only you would let him be the savior of a nation!
Then he stuck the knife in: "I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that." A bully's taunt, and an especially vicious one coming from the party frontrunner and aimed at a virtual unknown.
But Paul didn't back down: “I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists, and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.”
Giuliani sputtered. But the moderator quickly changed the subject, sensing that a truly vicious storm was about to be unleashed, sweeping the carefully arranged debate off its tracks and plunging it into total chaos. For party debates were not designed to argue over the very purpose of the party itself. To question the president is one thing; to suggest that the party itself has gone astray - that is truly unforgivable.
As the debate ended and Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes presided over the postdebate debate, the official line was that Rudy Giuliani had stolen the show with his dazzling retort to the contemptuous Ron Paul. His response was "from the heart," Giuliani burbled to the grinning twosome. Giuliani's response was "excellent," said John McCain, on next - after all, America was at war with an "evil force," he added. Another commentator popped on, citing results he'd garnered from talking to people in the crowd, whom he couldn't name, of course; the consensus, he said, was that Paul had disgraced himself by suggesting that "America" was responsible for 9/11.
At the bottom of the screen, a number invited the viewer to text-message their vote for the winner of the debate. Shortly after 11 p.m., the first results of the text-message poll came in. In the lead, with 30 percent, was none other than Ron Paul.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The American Republic is not a phrase you hear thrown around much these days.
One nation, under God. Remember that? We recited that every morning, without much thinking about it, putting our hands on our hearts. I remember a few guys in second grade liked to salute, but I always preferred the hand-on-heart gesture. I remember being weirded out by the "under God" part, since no one in school ever mentioned God, and yet no one seemed to notice that he was right there smack in the middle of something every kid had to say every day! It was an early lesson in not-thinking-about-what-you're-saying, a technique that's gotten me through more group presentations than I can count.
A few years ago, when some showoff atheist tried to get the offending phrase banned, several people expressed their disgust with the fellow. When I pointed out how weird it was that we even make our kids pledge allegiance to the country every morning, they shrugged: That's the way it's always been. You can't change it.
So it is with the American Nation. Its emblems - the flag, the pledge, the eagle, the trappings of militarism and jingoism - are meant to look everlasting and omnipresent. They've always been here, they seem to declare. They'll always be here. You can't change it; you might as well try to pull down a mountain.
And yet. The nation is not the whole story. The pledge mentions not just a "nation," but the republic, for which [the flag] stands. The Republic is what stands behind the shrieking avian chorus of presidents and senators and pundits and talk-show hosts; the Republic is what politicians praise in one breath and betray in the next; the Republic is what America is. Founded on a slew of propositions - "conceived in liberty," "all men are created equal," "of the people, by the people, for the people" - that represented the best impulses of the Enlightenment, brought down to earth in a commonwealth of small republics that had set out to create the freest country in the world.
The Republic is founded on the notion of constant change. If you don't like your mayor, kick him out and vote yourself a new one. If you don't like a law, petition to get it changed. In theory, at least, each citizen has the power to effect change, and this dangerous fact lies behind much of our politics. The struggle between the "friends of liberty," in Madison's phrase, and those who seek to safeguard the Nation's power to look invincible and forever out of reach, may not be the only story worth telling in our Republic, but it is the most interesting story.
This blog is a lone citizen's attempt to revive the kind of talk you heard in the old days, the kind of language that reveals the degraded political discourse of our day as nonstop apologies for corrupt power and gutless pandering, the kind of writing that makes you want to go out and do something. At least, that's what I hope it will be. The political writers I like - Jefferson, Madison, Gibbon, Machiavelli, Tocqueville - did that for me; hopefully I can do it for someone else.
You won't find many of the things here you might expect to find in a political blog. I'm not interested in why some people think Barack Obama "isn't really black" because he grew up in Hawaii. Nor will you find diligent explanations of how "the free market" cures all ills. Nor will you hear all our problems consigned to a drawer and dismissed as the inevitable legacy of "imperialism," "entrenched racism," "institutionalized capitalism," or whatever other empty phrases people like to use as an excuse for not thinking about politics, for the most important thing anyone needs to know about politics is that people, not "institutions," govern our lives. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise has succumbed to the first pretext of cynicism, that what people do doesn't really matter. And if you don't think widespread cynicism serves the interests of our leaders far better than "political naivete" or "idealism" ever could, you haven't been paying attention.
Of course, I'll probably talk about other things, too. That's the way I am.
One nation, under God. Remember that? We recited that every morning, without much thinking about it, putting our hands on our hearts. I remember a few guys in second grade liked to salute, but I always preferred the hand-on-heart gesture. I remember being weirded out by the "under God" part, since no one in school ever mentioned God, and yet no one seemed to notice that he was right there smack in the middle of something every kid had to say every day! It was an early lesson in not-thinking-about-what-you're-saying, a technique that's gotten me through more group presentations than I can count.
A few years ago, when some showoff atheist tried to get the offending phrase banned, several people expressed their disgust with the fellow. When I pointed out how weird it was that we even make our kids pledge allegiance to the country every morning, they shrugged: That's the way it's always been. You can't change it.
So it is with the American Nation. Its emblems - the flag, the pledge, the eagle, the trappings of militarism and jingoism - are meant to look everlasting and omnipresent. They've always been here, they seem to declare. They'll always be here. You can't change it; you might as well try to pull down a mountain.
And yet. The nation is not the whole story. The pledge mentions not just a "nation," but the republic, for which [the flag] stands. The Republic is what stands behind the shrieking avian chorus of presidents and senators and pundits and talk-show hosts; the Republic is what politicians praise in one breath and betray in the next; the Republic is what America is. Founded on a slew of propositions - "conceived in liberty," "all men are created equal," "of the people, by the people, for the people" - that represented the best impulses of the Enlightenment, brought down to earth in a commonwealth of small republics that had set out to create the freest country in the world.
The Republic is founded on the notion of constant change. If you don't like your mayor, kick him out and vote yourself a new one. If you don't like a law, petition to get it changed. In theory, at least, each citizen has the power to effect change, and this dangerous fact lies behind much of our politics. The struggle between the "friends of liberty," in Madison's phrase, and those who seek to safeguard the Nation's power to look invincible and forever out of reach, may not be the only story worth telling in our Republic, but it is the most interesting story.
This blog is a lone citizen's attempt to revive the kind of talk you heard in the old days, the kind of language that reveals the degraded political discourse of our day as nonstop apologies for corrupt power and gutless pandering, the kind of writing that makes you want to go out and do something. At least, that's what I hope it will be. The political writers I like - Jefferson, Madison, Gibbon, Machiavelli, Tocqueville - did that for me; hopefully I can do it for someone else.
You won't find many of the things here you might expect to find in a political blog. I'm not interested in why some people think Barack Obama "isn't really black" because he grew up in Hawaii. Nor will you find diligent explanations of how "the free market" cures all ills. Nor will you hear all our problems consigned to a drawer and dismissed as the inevitable legacy of "imperialism," "entrenched racism," "institutionalized capitalism," or whatever other empty phrases people like to use as an excuse for not thinking about politics, for the most important thing anyone needs to know about politics is that people, not "institutions," govern our lives. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise has succumbed to the first pretext of cynicism, that what people do doesn't really matter. And if you don't think widespread cynicism serves the interests of our leaders far better than "political naivete" or "idealism" ever could, you haven't been paying attention.
Of course, I'll probably talk about other things, too. That's the way I am.
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