The Whole Story

“Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and they usually stink.”  Now that everyone else on the internet seems to have given their opinion on the situation in Ferguson, MO it’s probably as good a time as any that I bring my own to bear.  Nobody knows what they’re talking about.  I’m not trying to be flippant with what I say here, but it seems quite clear that throughout this whole debacle there has been a conscious effort to keep people from knowing all the details as well as the normal desired ignorance people choose to have about the world around them.  So with that as the foundation for the national discussion, it seems unsurprising to find that many, if not most, of the comments are ignorant to some extent at least.  Unfortunately, while I was enjoying Thanksgiving with my friends and family I did not find the time to peruse the four months worth of courtroom proceedings to get the full details of the case for myself; therefore, this post is likely to be about as ignorant of the truth as any other.  But seeing as that hasn’t stopped anyone else from making a pithy response, I might as well continue.

There are many divides in this country.  The divisions between class, race, region, political parties, religion, etc are often so deep and profound that a person could almost be forgiven for not recognizing the problems that face people outside of one’s own bubble.  Almost is the operative word though.  As much as we keep moving ourselves to areas that more closely reflect how we look or think, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that this is a large problem and just because you don’t experience a problem based on a minority status, doesn’t mean that others, whole groups of others within this country are not experiencing it on a daily basis.  This is why I find it particularly sad to see the same pattern emerge from stories like this and that of Trayvon Martin.

The black community in America faces many challenges, day in and day out.  The black community faces these challenges in near total silence.  The silent struggle that so many minority groups in this country is felt all the more painfully in the way that our nation has trended back toward segregation, even without the compulsion of a government force.  The fact that your zip code could nearly be attributed with a skin color is true throughout this country, and it is true in the communities in and around St Louis.  This is why when any kind of attention is finally shone on these communities they take it as the once in a lifetime opportunity it really is to expose the iniquity they face.  Sadly this means that if the story that brings the attention comes with even one asterisk, the whole opportunity is tarnished and the people ignored again once the next news cycle begins.

I do not know exactly what happened on the day that Michael Brown was shot to death, which is precisely the strategy of the Ferguson Police Department.  There was a deliberate effort made to shroud the details of what happened with doubt, only releasing those few details that corroborated the story of the man who walked away from the incident, whether they had any significance to the events that took place or not.  The release of the video of Michael Brown shoplifting some cigars was a deliberate attempt to justify his killing, even though the police originally claimed that the officer involved did not make any connection between that and the person he killed.  His story has recently changed to say that he did in fact make the connection, which benefits him regardless of the truth of the claim.  And even if it is true, in what context could the punishment of shoplifting with death be considered justice?

On the other hand, the grand jury, being the only people truly qualified to make the decision, did not find sufficient evidence to even bring an indictment for a crime onto this officer.  Their decision would seem to indicate that there may very well have been an imminent threat to the officer’s life in the moments that directly preceded Michael Brown’s death.  In the context of self defense, it should certainly seem understandable that the officer brought his firearm to bear.  But the reality of a grand jury and the lack of a survivor to give the other side of the story leaves us with many more questions, and more to the point it leaves those who were finally given a voice to talk about the problems they face with the feeling of desperation as once again the game seems unacceptably rigged against them.

This is why the protests and riots have gotten as fierce as they have.  When people lose all hope of justice through society, what tethers do they have to protecting that society?  If you believe that this decision was simply the final straw in the story that black lives are simply worth less than white lives, then it would seem understandable why people might get violent in their response.  And to people who are using these riots as an opportunity to impugn the entirety of the black community, or to claim that only black people get this violent with their riots, then the only appropriate words I can think to describe your character are synonyms of racist.

However, the simple fact that despair and the sense of nothing left to lose are understandable cannot be interpreted as condoning violence, destruction of property, vandalism, etc.  As I stated in my post “Better,” the only way to win fights for justice and morality is by being better, and in this case some people of Ferguson have lost that battle.  By giving into the most base feelings of hatred, these few have smeared the character and dignity of the whole, however unfair that may be.  For many people, the sight of smoke and fire in the streets signals the end of the conversation and not the beginning.  It is a sad but true fact, that unless something profound changes in the conduct of the campaign for justice and soon, the death of Michael Brown will not serve any significance to America other than a temporary opportunity for those in their own secure bubbles to mock and scorn those who live in a completely foreign world within our common national borders.

The world keeps turning, and the people who don’t live in Ferguson are already forgetting what they heard and what they saw, because they don’t live in Ferguson.  The news has already shifted, quite readily, to the stories of Black Friday deals and disasters.  The people would much rather move on from uncomfortable conversations and enjoy the holidays.  But our comfort has lead us unfeeling to those unable to escape reality so easily.  As we tuck into our Thanksgiving meals we do so pleasantly unaware of those going to bed hungry.  As we turn up the thermostat as the snow begins to fall, we do so secure in the ignorance that others huddle together for warmth.  As we change the channel to our favorite show, we do so blinded to all the stories and histories that need to be told.

You see, the whole story here in Ferguson is not understood by me or by Darren Wilson or by Al Sharpton or the grand jury or any other single person or group of people.  It is not understood because we remain steadfast in our conviction that the problems of this world can best be remedied by ignorance rather than action.  It is not understood because we choose the path that tells us that if a story isn’t on the 24 hour news networks, it isn’t worth talking about.  It is not understood because we would rather remain in our own personal bubbles: unchallenged by other ideas, unmoved by the plight of others, undisturbed by the issues we choose not to see.

Appearances

Every person who has gone through an interview has endured the shallow ritual of being asked what their biggest weakness is and responding with something that is clearly a veiled strength.  For example, “I’m just such a stickler for details I can’t finish with something until it’s perfect.”  This is done because people try very hard, when making first impressions at least, to put up a front of perfection.  We do this even though we all know that the perfect person doesn’t exist, with the possible exception of Stephen Fry.  However, if ever there was a person who actually could make a legitimate claim of having turned a strength into a serious flaw it would have to be President Barack Obama.  His no nonsense work ethic and unwillingness to focus energy on public relations has made his job almost impossible to do, he said as if it were possible to get anything done with the Republican opposition.

But I would contend that if he had focused a little more time on making people think he was getting the job done he would find it easier to do so.  Mr Obama is a logical thinker, who believes that it should be more than sufficient to simply get the job done, trouble is that politics is quite often illogical.  People remember President Reagan, not for the things he actually did, but for the image he created about himself.  Reagan raised taxes, granted amnesty to illegal immigrants, funded terrorist groups, did not actively pursue anti-gay policies, increased the deficit and debt greatly, etc.  But what people remember about him is not what he did, but what he seemed to do.  He seemed to be getting the job done, he seemed to have dismantled the Soviet Union, he seemed to have saved the economy, he seemed to reawaken a conservative wave within the nation, he seemed to have given a new morning to America.

Barack Obama has done much that is commendable in his presidency thus far.  He brought the economy out from the brink, decreased unemployment, brought about the end of DADT, empowered the LGBT rights movement, strengthened international relations, got an environmental deal with China, brought some common sense reforms to the immigration system, oversaw one of the most significant steps forward in terms of healthcare in American history, saved the American auto and banking industries, and put in place consumer protection reforms that were sorely needed to name just a few accomplishments thus far.  Trouble is that most Americans are either oblivious to these accomplishments or are somehow convinced that they are in fact nothing to be proud of.  And while I may think that there are many issues that Obama has either bungled or failed to address, if there is a single problem I would raise above the others it would be the lack of accolades around the progressive policies that he got through, which Americans are vastly in favor of.

The fact that he has allowed the public to come down so negatively on his tenure has everything to do with his persona as “No Drama Obama.”  To outsiders and insiders alike he can seem aloof or inattentive to the things that matter to people most, the personal touches.  He seems out of touch with the American people for going on vacations, even though he has taken fewer vacation days than either President Bush, Clinton, Reagan, etc.  He seems to be embroiled in scandal after scandal, even though each and every one from Benghazi to the IRS has been proven by even his critics as being baseless in reality.  He seems to be ashamed of the mess that is the ACA, even though more people have insurance than ever before, the website is working so well that even Kentuckians love it, etc.  In short he seems like the third and fourth terms of President Bush, even though the reality is quite the opposite in many ways.

I can’t help but think of a line from a pretty old television series adaptation of the novel ‘Shogun,’ wherein a character explains how he is able to succeed and be respected in feudal Japan, despite being a Portuguese trader.  “I am important because I act important.”  The impressions we have of people greatly affect how we treat them and how we can work with them.  For better or worse this is the way the world works and can often mean that the person who would actually be better for the job doesn’t get it because he or she doesn’t look or act the way the employer might like.  In a democracy like this, the people are the employer and competence is a much maligned virtue.  Many people would much rather have another cowboy ride us off a cliff in his attempt to ride off into the sunset, than they would have a technocrat actually fix problems and set up institutions that work.

President Obama has sadly made his job all the more difficult because he has allowed the perceptions that his critics crave to endure.  If he had made impassioned calls to the people explaining what he was doing and touting the tangible benefits they enjoy as a result of his work then the Republicans would have no incentive to block everything he does.  If he had put the conversation in the terms that say FDR did, he would have no problem securing majorities or even working from the minority.  People forget that FDR didn’t always have massive majorities in Congress because he had the people on his side.  In other words FDR always seemed to be in control.  And despite the fact that President Obama clearly is in control of a very effective White House, outside observers routinely give accolades such as “most influential person,” to laughable despots like Putin.

The appearance of power can actually change the reality of power, because let’s face it Russia is not the terrifying bear of the USSR.  Russia’s influence on the world is waning, which gives Putin the kind of paranoia to invade small, defenseless communities to feel big.  He reacts to sanctions with sanctions of his own, which only make his teetering economy at even greater risk of collapse.  But people assume that he is this terrible looming threat because he put on photo-ops of wrestling tigers and riding horses while shirtless.  It would seem laughable, and yet it also seems to be the case that his peacock persona has given him tangible power by sheer force of will.

Now I’m not going to come to some macho, frat-boy conclusion like say Bill O’Reilly and say that what Obama needs to do is speak with a deeper voice, spit, and grunt.  He doesn’t need to put on the airs of power, because he is the freaking leader of the free world.  What he does need to do, especially to secure wins for the Democratic Party in future is to genuinely speak with the American people about his accomplishments, why they were done, and how they are working right now.  He needs to tackle all the baseless assaults that are hurled against him and put the Republicans in a position where they feel the need to actually govern alongside him.

President Barack Obama simply needs to remind people why he is the president and not McCain, not Romney, and certainly not the leaders of the GOP.  He needs to show people a vision of America that not only works, but paints a vision of an America worth working for.  He needs to accompany his tireless work in governing with the kind of charm and charisma that we only see on the campaign trail.  In other words President Barack Obama needs to appear to be President Barack Obama.

At the Gate

President Obama’s decision to go forward with an executive order to push along some of the basic parts of immigration reform has caused something of a stir in the national political discussion.  At the very least that is what is being portrayed by the sensationalist media, which above all else loves a good fight.  It is true that the halls of Congress have become deafening with the amount of saber-rattling going on, but if this really were the tyrannical power grab that the Right wing critics want to paint it as, you’d think the people might be more than a little stirred up.  It is possible that people are simply better informed now and understand that this executive order comes after a long line of such orders on the exact same issue by presidents on all sides, notably Ronald Reagan.  I would hesitate to make that assumption though, because even after the most exhaustive partisan studies failed to find any wrong doing with the aftermath of the Benghazi attack, the American people’s opinion over the issue are largely unchanged.  It is the lack of quality information on these important issues that should be the headline news, but it’s so much easier to cover the fights that happen due to a lack of an informed populous.

When it comes to immigration, like most issues, there is blame enough to share over the inadequacy of our laws, the implementation of fair and effective policies, the lack of clarity over the reality of issues, etc.  But with immigration specifically, I think that there is an under-told story going on about what constitutes good policy and it is based largely on race.  It’s not simply a matter of institutionalized racism, though that is an important aspect, but about the internal reactions we have concerning race that make progress more difficult.  So let’s face facts, a lot of the problem of immigration comes from a lack of trust for people of different backgrounds.  The xenophobia surrounding these issues is not new, nor is it unique to the South as many commentators like to say in simplistic explanations.  The problems of the immigration issue are as universal as the people who come to make America their home.

Both of the main political parties have a serious problem with seeing issues as ‘either/or’ when issues like immigration demand a ‘both/and’ response.  The common wisdom about immigration tells us that either we can strictly enforce our borders to protect the real Americans, or we can see America effectively disappear as waves of illegal immigrants overtake us.  When the reality is that we must both make security that actually works to protect those living within our borders, and make America a cosmopolitan nation that takes the best of the whole world.  The problem Democrats have had is in convincing ‘real Americans,’ read ‘white men,’ that policies aimed at allowing more people into the country will actually secure more jobs instead of threatening existing ones.  The problem Republicans have had is in convincing people who think for more than five seconds about these issues that shooting on sight is legitimate policy.

America has had a longstanding unease of seeing waves of new immigrants coming ashore.  It is now almost a cliche to mention the plight of Irish immigrants specifically, but they are the rule and not the exception.  Every so often there is a discussion about whether we should make a law to establish English as the national language.  But this dates back to at least Benjamin Franklin, arguing that if they didn’t do as much then the tide of immigrants would lead to the whole country speaking German in just a few generations.  If you haven’t noticed, the vast majority of Americans don’t speak German nor Italian nor Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, or otherwise).  The various waves of immigrants that have come and do come to our shores do not threaten ‘real Americans,’ yet there is always the fear that they will take our jobs.

In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth.  It is because of immigration that our country is able to flourish and create new jobs.  Our great history of immigration has given us an unending supply of new labor, new ideas, new businesses, new dreams, and new cultures.  If nothing else, without all these waves of immigration we wouldn’t have the plethora of restaurants to choose from.  Consider for a moment that it is not the norm in most countries for a conversation about what to eat could boil down to, “Do you feel like Mexican or Chinese tonight?”  Consider that and then remember that you might also eat pizza or hamburgers or sushi, etc.  Food aside, it is only by having the kind of population growth that we’ve historically had that any economy can effectively grow.  So unless every family is prepared to start popping out about six kids each, we might want to ensure a consistent influx of immigrants to this nation.

And this gets to another point, Americans greatly overestimate how many immigrants there actually are in this country.  The common perception is that roughly a third of the American population are immigrants, when the real number is about 13%.  What I find interesting is that some of the places in this country that are furthest from reality in this perception are the people farthest away from the problem.  New Hampshire is more than 90% White, and has much less than the 13% average of immigrants in state and yet their politicians and electorate are among the most vocal about the need to enforce borders, halt illegal immigration, etc.  I could understand a person living in Texas being a little more concerned about border safety, but unless there is a hoard of Canadians prepared to jump the border, I can’t for the life of me understand what’s going on in New Hampshire.

There’s a lot of money to be made by stoking fears of the enemy at the gate, particularly if you are a politician with a platform of hawkish national defense.  This is why someone like Rick Perry can get standing ovations for sending the national guard to be in “prevention” positions as opposed to the “apprehension” policy of the Obama administration.  By this he means putting people and resources right at the border to keep people from crossing over, which seems to me an international crime.  If Mexico started shooting Texans who they feared were poised to cross the border, would Mr Perry be so quick to defend their “prevention?”  But it’s easy to pretend to be a strongman defending the people, if you don’t see those that you hurt as people.

So the conversations going on about immigration have been pretty backward for some time now and the promises to actually fix things are about as old.  The fact is that there hasn’t really been any impetus to get things done because it’s much more valuable for certain people to get to keep arguing over the problem rather than fixing it.  This is particularly true of the obstructionist GOP, who would do anything to keep the President from getting a win.  So they make a stink about granting “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, even though that’s not the case.  They make claims that President Obama is becoming an emperor for doing the same thing as the president before him, as the president before him, as the president before him.

Here’s the thing, I don’t particularly care what the history of executive orders is.  What I do care about is whether or not we are fixing the problems we face and making things better.  The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill in June of last year and the House never got around to it.  All the while there are people who are suffering because of the inadequacy of our immigration policy.  People who have been waiting for years to go through the proper channels to get things done the right way, people who have been living in fear because they were raised in America but found out that even though they were brought over as a kid they are too old for the DREAM Act to cover them, people who had to flee their homes because of insecurity and war but who aren’t given refugee status, etc.  President Obama urged Congress to finally settle this before their summer recess and they didn’t.  After seeing the utter impotence of his majority, even House and Senate Republicans had advised the president to act on his own, despite the legal action they had threatened earlier for similar executive orders.  Mr Obama finally made good on some of his pledges and decided that he would fix what he could in the mean time.

Now the GOP threatens to work with him even less, as if it were possible.  All I have left to say to them is that there is indeed a dangerous threat at our gates, but it’s not the people trying to make it into this country to improve their lives and thus the lot of this country.  No, the enemy at the gate is in fact the new wave of conservatives poised to take the Congress in January.

For the People

I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people want to do right by others and would rather work to making a world that works better for people, but the argument boils down to differences of opinion of how best to accomplish these common goals.  Sadly I can’t honestly say I give the same benefit of the doubt to the established politicians of the GOP.  There are invariably exceptions to these rules, and so there are decent elected Republicans out there, but I think the reason why so many big name Republicans have switched affiliations has a lot more to do with the caliber of person that gets elected in the Republican Party and a lot less to do with political expediency.  Because what I have come to realize is that although the Democratic Party does indeed serve corporate interests, their platform and officials still recognize living, breathing human beings as people, in stark contrast to the GOP.

It seemed a little telling back in 2011 that Mitt Romney was so comfortable saying, “corporations are people, my friend.”  His campaign was dogged by rumors of his detachment from the average American, or human being for that matter, and to so flippantly make that point certainly struck a chord with some people.  In the legal sense, this was an accurate position, as the Supreme Court can attest.  There is no reason why people and corporations could not technically both be people in a legal sense, but when you get down to brass tax that’s not what he seemed to be arguing for.  In the context of the larger GOP platform he may very well have said, ‘corporations are people… people on the other hand.”

You see, the Republican Party is very discriminating on the basis of what constitutes a person.  Fetuses are people, but the mother of the resulting child not so much.   The business that dodges taxes is a person, but the poor person who needs some assistance not so much. Some white guy who may have used a little more force than was necessary qualifies as people, but the black man on the other side of that unnecessary force not so much. The entity that is the Washington Redskins and its corporate partners are people, but the indigenous people of this country and continent whose identity was stolen for the sake of their logo not so much.

Personhood bills are frequently promoted and forced into the books of states across this country, to the point that there are currently six states with only a single abortion clinic within them.  Now I am perfectly willing to entertain arguments that this is a contentious issue with people of strong morals on either side, but if your position is that women do not deserve a safe abortion under any circumstances then you cannot claim to be pro-life.  The potential life of the fetus is seen as the only concern, as it is a person.  The actual life of the woman who may die as a result of childbirth, is not seen as a concern at all.  The lives of both the mother and child once born too are of apparently no concern to the Republican Party as they slash benefits that keep children and parents fed and healthy and housed.  Because above all else, if there is one group in the Republican Party that can never be seen as human it is the poor.

The position that we need to eliminate assistance programs is not only morally wrong, but fiscally wrong.  I would hope that it goes without saying that it is our most basic duty as a society to ensure that people do not die hungry and tired and cold and sick so long as we have the ability to keep it from happening.  I say that as a person who does not follow a religion, but if you are I dare say that there are ten passages that say as much for every one passage that even mentions sexuality.  But even if it weren’t a clear case of morality, it would still be the right thing to do because it is only by getting everyone to a state where they can contribute that the economy works best.  The more people we allow to go homeless and unemployed, the more people who are not contributing to the economy to the society and yes to the tax base.  But sadly the position of the GOP on any person who gets laid off, or who was born into a family of little means in a city with little prospects is “tough luck, you should have worked harder.”

This is in stark contrast to the way essentially any large corporate entity is treated.  Any person of great wealth is labelled as a job creator by the GOP, even if the jobs they create are in the sweatshops of third world countries.  Any corporation that uses loopholes to dodge taxes is viewed as making the smart move instead of being seen as a moocher, taking advantage of corporate welfare.  And the treatment of the workers in these companies is essentially a nonstarter.  If the workers are treated well, so much the better, and if the workers make so little that they still depend on food stamps then they should get a second job.  The endless sympathy for those on top without a moment’s thought of those on the bottom is beyond sickening, it’s inhuman.

We do need to learn how to wait a few extra minutes while all the facts get in before we make our verdicts on the guilt of people, but every time that there is an incident where a person “stands their ground,” why does the GOP always take the side of the person who walked away from the deadly incident?  I mean, we can set aside all the statistics that show how blacks particularly, and most racial minorities in general, are incarcerated more frequently than is just, and we will still be left to reckon with why the life of someone with less melanin is more valuable than someone with more.  And although there is blame to share on these issues, it seems that it is only the GOP that is prepared to remedy this situation by reinstating poll taxes, disguised as voter ID.

As far as the Washington Redskins are concerned, I honestly can’t claim to care too much about that franchise but I understand some people really do.  Some people are diehard fans of this team with a record that makes Cubs fans blush, but all that aside you have to recognize that the name and the logo might rub some people the wrong way.  And they’re a people who have been wronged time and again, so it might just seem like that last little insult.  But even that isn’t the problem I want to highlight with the political party that covers its eyes and pretends there is no issue.  The GOP is so dogmatic in its defense of the Keystone XL pipeline that they completely ignore the people whose lands seem destined to be affected.  All people, regardless of race or creed should have say over whether a pipeline gets put in their backyard, but to completely ignore the sovereignty of the Native American lands, such as they are, is particularly egregious.  All 221 Republican members of the House and 45 of the Senate have joined those 45 total Democrats in saying once again to the Native Americans, “this land is OUR land.”

There are so many good reasons not to vote for Republicans, and a few decent reasons to vote for Democrats but that’s neither here nor there.  There are so many ways where I would have to agree to disagree with my more conservative friends, but no matter what political persuasion best describes you, surely you need to vote for people who can actually recognize people.  It can’t have been so long ago that we forgot the profound insecurity of a nation, where at least half the political spectrum failed to see people as people.  It is perhaps all the more disturbing that the party at fault here was once the party that produced a truly decent leader. He once said that this “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.” But now I have to ask, “what people are we talking about?”

It’s Cold

As sure as Autumn signals the time when pumpkin spice will be sprinkled on absolutely everything, Winter signals the season for climate deniers.  Perhaps there are those who strictly hold to the astronomical calendar on this and say that winter doesn’t start until the 21st of December, but like the Christmas season for all practical purposes it might as well start the day after Halloween for a large portion of the US.  Actually if my memories of Minnesota serve me winter essentially begins in October and ends in April if you’re lucky, but that’s neither here nor there.  And with the recent series of large snowstorms hitting a fairly large swathe of states, even as far south as Georgia, the claim of climate deniers everywhere has already become a cliche.  “Global warming? Ha, it’s too cold for that to be true.”

I will grant you that right now it is quite cold, but the current weather patterns not only fail to refute the scientific consensus about climate change, they are pretty decent proof that we are already feeling the effects of significant climate change.  But before we get too deep into that, it might be nice to think of something a little bit warmer for a moment.  This passed summer was the hottest on record.  Record keeping of such things having begun in 1880, I’d say that is something of an important data point.  Particularly when this marked the 38th consecutive summer to have global temperatures above the historical average.  More to the point the year that 2014 took the record from was only 2010, and even with the recent cold weather this year is quite likely to be the warmest on record as a whole.

The weather right now is indeed cold, but the climate has had far-reaching effects that are indicative of a globe that is getting warmer.  I personally don’t like the term ‘global warming’ for the exact reason that it allows ignorant people to claim that it isn’t happening the moment a thermometer starts heading south, but there is no avoiding the facts that year after year global temperatures keep climbing.  The citizens of California are still in the midst of a cataclysmic drought.  Wildfires, though a natural part of the environment for much of the country, are generally getting more common and more devastating.  And although the recent hurricane season was, on par, rather lax this year, the trends show that hurricanes are also becoming more frequent and more severe.  But the story on everyone’s chapped lips right now is that it’s cold and it’s snowy and it’s a little miserable out here.

At least six people died as a result of this terrible snowstorm that hit the Buffalo area.  It is true that there have been exceptional snowstorms in American history, perhaps the biggest being back in 1888, but the 70 inches of lake-effect snow that dropped on us is not as exceptional as we would like.  The fact that our water sources are getting warmer means that when cold air does come in, the change in temperatures brings in a lot more precipitation.  And because the predictions are that these sources of water will only be getting warmer in future, we can expect that such lake-effect blizzards may become a somewhat regular occurrence overtime our hemisphere gets pointed away from the sun, i.e. winter.

Now let’s cut to brass tax, the drop in gas prices is seen as a godsend by nearly everyone, particularly those who use natural gas to keep warm in the winter.  Natural gas as compared with other fossil fuels is cleaner, the ‘er’ being fairly crucial.  Natural gas does emit less CO2 than other fossil fuels, but it still emits quite a bit, and when the byproducts of the production of natural gas are taken into account, it is far from a green technology.  None of this to mention the direct environmental impact of fracking.  However, natural gas and fossil fuels more broadly have one thing going for them, jobs.

The average person just trying to get by in life doesn’t necessarily care about what the longterm effects of an industry are when their wages, and by extension their family’s income, are at stake.  Natural gas specifically has indeed created many jobs in North Dakota and Texas to name the best publicized examples.  The discussion of the Keystone XL Pipeline came saturated in discussions about job creation.  Even though the unemployment rate is dropping, that is little consolation for the person still unemployed or working for a job that doesn’t pay the bills.  So a person who is dependent on these industries for a living could be forgiven for forgetting the heat of summer and instead focusing on the cold now to prove to themselves that their job isn’t hurting their posterity.

Here’s the sad irony of this discussion, in Louisiana the senate race is between two candidates who are both committed to the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  If you don’t see the sad irony there, let me start by reminding you of a little meteorological event that happened in 2005.  When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the devastation was unfathomable.  Some of the biggest cities of the region were decimated, flooded, and worse.  The tragic loss of life was only made worse by the way the remaining lives were treated in the aftermath of that storm.  Again storms do hit the Gulf Coast with some frequency, but the environmental damage to the natural barriers and the rising tides brought by the greenhouse effect made what might just have been a bad storm into a monster that still looms over the region in the form of businesses that never reopened and people who never got to come back.

And even if this were just a freak storm completely isolated from the effects of climate change, Louisiana and the Gulf states should still remember the direct effect that oil had on the livelihoods of countless people.  In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP, spilled about 5 million barrels of oil over 87 days into the Gulf of Mexico.  Aside from the coastal environmental damage, the oil spill ruined whole industries like fishing and tourism for years. But the people of Louisiana, like the two people in the runoff election, remain so profoundly addicted to this industry that directly hurts them right now, let alone the damage that will be done in years to come.  Each year Louisiana loses anywhere from 25 to 35 square miles of land every year due to coastal erosion and rising tides.  But yes by all means, let’s all just close our eyes and experience the cold that is hitting us at this moment.

We have now reached the time when it is no longer a question of if or when climate change might start affecting our lives, it is a fact of life.  The question over humanity’s role in the climate change has been a matter of scientific consensus for decades and even conservative think tank funded studies all conclude that climate change poses an immediate threat to our lives and the economy.  All the oil jobs in the world won’t count for much when we’ve made an all but uninhabitable planet to work in.  It’s not as if we are waiting for dramatic changes to technology to make alternatives viable either, and even countries that have a history of ignoring environmental issues as a matter of policy have recognized the urgency in cleaning things up now.  But still there are those who persist in claiming that there is nothing wrong as the house burns around them.

Yes it is cold, it is very cold and snowy, which should seem odd for the Carolinas.  “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing… after they’ve tried everything else.”  Churchill said that in the context of a World War, and we now face a global crisis that is no less demanding of us doing the right thing.  The first step in accomplishing the kind of change we need is to set aside the comfortable lies and half truths that allow us to perpetuate the problem.  It’s cold… in this one corner of the world at this particular moment, but it’s hot all over.  The climate is not the weather, and the sooner we learn to see the forest through the trees, the sooner we can do the work that needed to be done yesterday.

Fala

I sometimes wonder if the Right wing partisans, who make up an influential part of the modern Republican Party, would be able to get any more worked up about a threat than they have over so many imagined threats right now.  For instance, the economy is getting better, unemployment is down, gas prices are down, corporate profits and the stock market are booming; however, the common wisdom from the GOP is that President is a socialist tyrant who is single handedly dismantling our once great nation and economy.  So how would they react if Senator Bernie Sanders were to become president?  He has quite openly campaigned as a socialist and talks frequently about social injustice and income inequality.  Would their opposition to him be any greater than it has been to Obama?  Could it?

The vitriol that has been targeted against President Obama has a very serious longterm cost to the Right that they should spend some time thinking about.  In the short-term it seems quite logical that they would want to demonize their political opponents, and let’s face facts, it’s nothing all that new.  But the level of the rhetoric they use runs the risk of wearing out supporters after a while.  I mean, this is the same problem that came with the Homeland Security Advisory System.  If you recall what happened way back during the 43rd Presidency, there used to be a color-coded threat level to inform everyone of how secure or threatened we were.  In the years after 9/11 the threat level never seemed to dip beyond a high threat, though as you may remember we haven’t experienced that level of terrorism since.  When you went to the airport and heard that the current threat level was red or orange, you just kind of tuned it out because it had been so the year before and in all likelihood would be so in the year after.

We became desensitized to any threats that may or may not have existed because we were awash in the constant fear mongering of politicians and media sources alike.  Again it makes sense to them in the short-run because politicians generally fair better in atmospheres where people are afraid and crave leadership, and news networks can usually get people to keep watching when the tagline says that “you or your family may be at risk.”  But you run into the boy who cried wolf problem, because after a while people just get used to the new normal.  The strange thing is that even though people operate as if they don’t feel any risk, the message becomes engrained in how they respond to political questions.

Going into essentially every election since, polls show that people believe that the world is basically ready to end and that America is at as big a threat of terrorism as possible.  For a moment let’s set aside the fact that this simply isn’t true, and look at the way people conduct their lives.  In the aftermath of 9/11, when people legitimately feared for their lives, air travel plummeted as you’d expect.  Since then, the air industry hasn’t exactly been booming, but the average person isn’t in the least bit hesitant about flying anymore.  Even the TSA is getting pretty darn lax about security, what with the pre-check program and policy changes to hurry up the whole screening process.  In the aftermath of school shootings, some parents used to keep their children home for a few days to get over the scare.  Although there are certainly parents who continue to do this, for the most part we’ve come to accept the risks and send kids to schools regardless.

For a group of people who say they believe that the sky is falling, no one seems to be carrying an umbrella.  Here’s the problem with all the fear mongering that goes on, it’s not true.  And even if people still feel naive by admitting that they don’t actually feel threatened anymore, it’s proven by essentially every metric that right now is as safe a time in human history.  Violent crime statistics have been shooting down for a while now, wars are smaller and less frequent, people are living longer and healthier than ever before, etc.  Every time we have to add a grim new story like the Boston Marathon Bombing, it hits home, but we are nonetheless a much safer society.  So what would critics of Obama say if something on the level of 9/11 did happen today?

I would hope that they, like their Democratic colleagues in 2001, would join together with the president to fight the enemies of freedom, but I can’t help but feel like they’d just jump at the opportunity to say, “told you so.”  And if they did that it would be on the heels of the endless Benghazi hearings, which have pretty well proven that Obama did the best that anyone could do given the course of events.  It would be after years of attacking the work that was put into extending healthcare to Americans.  Incidentally I’ve always been a little impressed how Obama’s critics have been able to make ‘care’ a bad word in the form of Obamacare.  It would be after years of losing any and all credibility attacking the president over every little issue they could gin up.  After careful consideration I’ve come to the realization that this, if nothing else, should serve as proof of how good a president Barack Obama is.

September 1944, then President Franklin Roosevelt made a fairly famous speech to the International Teamsters Union.  In it, he joked how the endless stream of attacks lodged against him finally came to the paws of his dog, Fala.  Murray the Outlaw of Falahill, yes that’s the full name, was accused of bleeding an unknown number of millions of dollars from the American taxpayer when a naval destroyer was sent to pick him up after he had been left behind on a tour with the president.  FDR took the attacks in stride, and his tongue in cheek response serves as a reminder of what a great speaker and leader he was even in the last years of his life.  But perhaps more importantly, I think it speaks to the type of opposition you can expect when you are doing good work.

July 2010, then President Barack Obama was attacked with a similar story after word got out that he and his dog, Bo, were on different planes during a trip to Maine.  The truth is that they weren’t able to land the usual presidential jet at that airport so Bo went with the aides on an earlier flight and the president left with his staff on a small jet.  The story was that Obama had sent a V-22 Osprey for the sole purpose of transporting his dog after he had been left behind from Air Force One.  This, like the supposed $200 million a day trip he took to Asia are the fabricated accusations of an opposition with nothing to actually oppose.  It doesn’t matter what the facts are, just so long as we can paint the president as a Kenyan, elitist, socialist, Muslim dictator.

The slightly sad thing is that I can’t think of a single moment in Obama’s speeches that so brilliantly points out the pettiness of his opponents in the way that FDR’s Fala Speech did.  The profoundly sad thing is that there remains a great number of Americans who have yet to wake up to the fact that this is all utter nonsense.  The sad reality is that for many of them, the moment of realization may never come because their hatred is likely not because of anything President Obama has done or said, but because of what he is or at least what they think he is.  As we enter the season of new presidential candidates, hopefuls, and sideshows, the GOP is going to have a harder time convincing their base that the world is about to end if they can’t continue to whip up the frenzy they were able to create around Mr Obama.

This is, I suppose, a silver lining for the Democrats as they go into the next elections.  Perhaps more to the point, this is an opportunity to start fighting against the pettiness that has come to dominate American politics as a whole.  Whatever it means for the future, I think it should serve as a reminder to us all that if your opponents have to start attacking your dog, things must not be too bad.  Ok, maybe Checkers is the exception that proves the rule.

Better

Immorality is the luxury of the entitled.  Anyone can do immoral things, and generally everyone does at least something that others would consider immoral; however, society tends to forgive the improprieties of the privileged far more readily than those who still struggle for equality.  A Christian can say and any number of things that I would find reprehensible and still be embraced as mainstream, but an atheist activist merely has to stand up for his or her beliefs to be shouted down as ‘militant.’  A straight couple can suck face all day long in public with perhaps only the tiniest raise of an eyebrow from passersby, but a gay person can hardly acknowledge being in a relationship before there are claims that it is too much information.  And although it is not in the least bit fair, it behooves minority groups to simply be better as the fight goes on to earn those entitled luxuries.

Recently, the soon to be former governor of Texas, Rick Perry, spoke at Dartmouth College.  Aside from stoking suspicions that he is planning another comical run for the presidency, the news from that particular event concerned the lack of Southern hospitality in New Hampshire.  Someone, or a group of people, decided that it would be a good use of resources to lampoon Mr Perry’s ridiculous statements and policies about social issues by printing out a series of suggested questions for attendees to ask.  To drive home the point that Mr Perry’s defense of Texas’s anti-sodomy laws were disgusting, the questions themselves were less than cordial.  For example here is the first proposed question.  “In 2002, you supported Texas’s anti-sodomy law. Do you dislike booty sex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?”

Unfortunately this little stunt gave Mr Perry the ammo to create the argument that he was the victim, that people like him were the ones being oppressed.  This little stunt paints proponents of equality as childish, bitter, petulant, depraved, juvenile, or just undeserving of being treated with the simple dignity of a grown up.  I understand the logic that went into this, but as a gay man I don’t want this to be my rallying cry.  In moral fights, you win by being better than the opposition outright and not by proving their accusations in going dirty.  So despite the fact that Rick Perry: the man who went on a nationally televised debate high on painkillers, the man who compared homosexuality to alcoholism, the man who unapologetically asserts Christian chauvinism as a matter of political policy: is clearly the immoral person in the room at Dartmouth, he comes away from that smelling of roses and not of “poopy.”  Oops.

Recently, a teacher was fired because she had the absolute gall to seek in vitro fertilization.  The employers felt not simply entitled to exercise their religious beliefs in that way, but to claim that for them to even appear in court to settle whether they are at fault for this discriminatory firing would be an abuse of their freedom of religion.  The employer in question is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.  It’s perhaps laudable in its own right that a church like this, which was viewed as so suspicious even during the Kennedy election, has come so far as to be able to enjoy this luxury.  This is not to speak ill of Catholics in general, as most Catholics are like most people in simply wanting to get along in life.  This is not even to speak ill of all the Catholic hierarchy, as there have been attempts to fix the longstanding problems of the Church.  But, those few Catholics who do things like this and worse, spoil things for everyone.

In the ongoing fight over this, we are going to hear the same kinds of attacks on the personal character of this teacher as we hear every time an actually oppressed group stands up against the tyranny of an entitled group.  God forbid there is a single picture of this teacher celebrating a birthday party at a bar, absolutely any possible personal misgivings about the actual victim here will be used as an excuse for her termination regardless of how immaterial they are to the case.  The same has been true of any atheist arguing that religious monuments should not be constructed on public property.  The same was certainly true in arguments about whether birth control should be covered in the same way as viagra in healthcare plans, even those purchased by private businesses with “strongly held religious beliefs.”

Recently, a young man was shot dead in Ferguson, MO.  The grand jury decision concerning whether a full case will be brought forward is expected to be made shortly.  And there is definitely a moral problem at work here, because the governor of Missouri has declared a state of emergency in preparation for the aftermath of the decision being made.  Now, I cannot claim to know all the details of the proceedings, nor can I claim to have the full story of what actually happened on August 9th, so I have to cede decision of guilt to the people in the know.  But there has been some serious defamation of character throughout this whole process.

First there is the obvious defamation that was done by the police to make the death of Michael Brown seem justified.  They released a video of him shoplifting and looking menacing at the same time that they released a few details about what happened, even though that admitted that the officer involved had not made any connection between that incident and the person he killed.  The dissemination of any information from the police at that time came couched in unrelated details to make Michael Brown’s death seem justified.  Here’s the thing, if the officer’s story is true than that shouldn’t be necessary as he was merely defending himself.  But even a person who had committed a crime deserves justice, and the punishment for shoplifting should hardly be a death sentence even if these events had been connected.

But beyond this, there is another defamation of character at work and it comes from within the black community.  Whereas the larger black community has maintained its dignity and conducted peaceful protests, there is a select few within that community that gives people a sense of superiority over the whole lot through criminal acts of immorality.   The looting and vandalism that went on in the midst of the larger protests gave social conservatives ammo to paint the whole community as “race baiters,” “thugs,” etc.  The character of an entire race was again tarnished, and the only adequate response if to be better.

I know it’s not fair, it’s never fair that the people who are already working so hard are forced to work that much harder, but this is the world we live in.  It can seem at times that unless a fighter for justice is an absolute teetotaler that there will always be accusations against their character to stop them.  Even Jesus Christ was be called immoral for communing with prostitutes and tax collectors.  And as an atheist I have no problem in saying that the Christ standard should be sought for all who want to bring about real justice, real and lasting equality. The action that needs to be taken when we finally find out the verdict is peaceful confrontation that shows to everyone who truly holds the moral high ground.

It’s from the moral high ground that social activists win the war and it’s where we need to continue to make our stand.  If you are going to fight for the rights of the LGBT community, keep it classy.  If you are going to fight against discrimination, don’t give any ammo for supposed moral attacks.  If you march in the streets, keep the peace.  We’re all human, we’re all going to fail and have our misgivings.  We are all going to do something at some point that we are less than proud of, but we need to be able to earn our immorality before we give into it too much if we are going to win.  So let’s win, let’s do the work that needs to be done, and above all let’s be better.

Round Two

The Affordable Care Act is making some minor headlines again because we are now just into the second open enrollment period since it was passed.  What should be of no surprise to anyone who paid attention to the aftermath of the bungled first couple months, is that the website seems to be working just fine.  But reality be damned, the haters of Obamacare are hard at work to keep people believing that the world is at its end due to Americans being able to access affordable healthcare plans, as if humans ever got sick.  As ever, the defense of the ACA is nearly inaudible, in part because its proponents believe that it should speak for itself.  Indeed the reality of the ACA does speak for itself and if you break it down to people they overwhelmingly support it, yet that’s not what most people believe.

This is one of several issues that I feel a little odd talking about because it’s not necessarily what I would consider the ideal model and because there are some real problems with it.  However, I do view this as an important step forward and a marked improvement over what came before.  And since the opponents of Obamacare are vocal, I do feel duty bound to defend the greater good that is the ACA without the burden of clarifying the problems with it.  So if no one else is going to fight this one out, I will.

Let’s begin with the obvious, you and everyone you love will get sick.  It may not be today or even within the next year, but eventually everyone gets sick.  When you do finally lose that lottery of health, you damn well better have the means to pay for it.  Which brings up the second part, healthcare can be incredibly expensive depending on what exactly is wrong.  Insurance companies make their money by getting more money from customers who are not currently sick than they pay out to the customers who are.  This is why, until the ACA came around, a common practice was to use any excuse to get out of paying out, giving us the term ‘pre-existing condition.’  But because we are dead set on keeping the private healthcare system and not moving toward ‘socialized medicine,’ the healthcare insurance companies need to know that they aren’t just going to be shafted with the cost of actually providing healthcare.

Insurance companies, therefore, needed assurance that there would be more people, healthy as well as sick, who would be buying insurance.  This is where the mandate comes in.  Everyone in the United States needs to have insurance and this comes with a carrot and a stick to ensure that as many as possible actually do.  The carrot comes in the form of lower prices due to the fact that by having more people buy in, insurance companies can afford to drop costs.  And it’s already working, because in the last year healthcare prices rose by the smallest amount in over a decade.  Unfortunately the fact that in many places healthcare costs still have risen at all has given conservatives ammo to say that the ACA is raising prices as if they hadn’t been rising essentially every year in nearly every country.  But people might still make the choice not to buy cheaper insurance, particularly people who expect to remain healthy for a while.  This is why the stick of a 1% of income or $325 for those who choose to opt out exists, to ensure that prices overall remain low.

However, there will be people who cannot afford even the cheapest healthcare plans and would otherwise be saddled with an extra bill for being too poor.  This is why the ACA has an extension of Medicaid to cover the poorest in the country and subsidies in the form of healthcare exchanges to cover the remaining gap.  Medicaid generally doesn’t pay out as well as other insurance plans to hospitals, but they are willing to take that hit because they would otherwise get nothing for ER care when those same poor people showed up because they couldn’t afford preventative care and health insurance.  This system works quite well, particularly when compared to the nightmare that was the healthcare system before the ACA.  Regardless there are complaints and accusations hurled against the ACA that need to be shot down.

Some healthcare plans that existed before the ACA were discontinued because they failed to meet basic quality criteria.  The president assumed people would be ready and willing to drop those plans in favor of cheaper, higher quality plans.  Some people were discouraged to find that their plans had been discontinued, but only about 0.2% of those people do not qualify for better and cheaper plans.  But it is true that about 10 thousand of America’s over 300 million citizens have had to seek marginally more expensive plans that actually cover them when they get sick.  At the end of the day though, every single person who either had insurance before the ACA or the many that didn’t are better off because those healthcare plans can’t kick them off for ‘pre-existing conditions,’ and they cover more of the life saving and money saving preventative medicine than ever before.

And now to the complaint of some of my peers.  Young people, up to the age of 26, can stay on their parents’ healthcare plans.  After that, we are all required to purchase healthcare for ourselves if not covered by an employer.  Yes, the demographic least likely to get sick is also required to purchase healthcare, but I feel again the need to echo a point I began with.  You and everyone you love will get sick, and you don’t know when that is.  If you’re like me, you may have found out relatively young that you have a chronic disease like Crohn’s, in which case you might be more than a little reassured to know you can’t be essentially barred from purchasing insurance.  But maybe it’s not that, maybe it’s a burst appendix, a fractured leg, cancer, an STI, a cough that just won’t go away, or maybe even Ebola.  Let’s be frank, it won’t be Ebola, but you get my point.  You have no way of knowing when that crisis will hit, and when it does the last thing you want to be doing is waiting around for the next enrollment period to get access to lifesaving medicine.  While you’re waiting around, you don’t want to be amassing huge hospital bills that will ensure longterm financial trouble beyond simple illness.

This is what the ACA does, it allows and in some cases forces people to make the right decision.  If you’ve never seen pain in the eyes of someone you care about, if you’ve never held onto their hand as they endure it, if you’ve never felt the absolute lack of power in your inability to make that pain go away then I don’t know if you can grasp the full value of healthcare.  It’s at that time when life is at stake that people get taken advantage of, because at that time you will pay any price to make it stop.  We passed healthcare reform to make sure that when those times come, and hopefully they are incredibly rare, the people who need help will have it.  We passed healthcare reform because no one suffering the burden of illness should also suffer the burden of debt to pay their hospital bills on top of it.

The ACA has already saved lives and continues to do so.  More people in this country have access to healthcare than ever before, but the fact that people still go without insurance is the reason why we need to make it better and not make it go away.  I stand by the ACA as an important step in making this country truly work for the people.  There are places where the ACA works better and places where it works worse, the latter being states that chose not to fully implement it.  Even in Kentucky, Mitch McConnell had to acknowledge the popularity of the ACA and the websites that allow people to quickly figure out what plan works best for them.  And as this enrollment period continues and more people find out how well it works for them, regardless of the piss poor job that’s been done in promoting it, the ACA will win the fight to create a healthier, more prosperous, “more perfect union.”

Coal Miners

One of the big debates that we’re going to have to sit through in the coming weeks has to do with the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.  I find this interesting as part of a larger discussion about the convergence of fossil fuel industries, employment, and climate change.  More than anything else, though, this seems to be a perfect example of why the Democrats keep getting their asses handed to them, when the GOP should be routinely crushed at the polls.  The Democrats should have the better argument here and yet they allow the right wing to shift the conversation in a way that makes Democrats sound like job killers who are more concerned with small woodland creatures than actual Americans.

The Democratic Party needs to be clear in its conviction that it is for the worker even if the industry is, on the whole, bad.  As an example let’s look at Kentucky.  The senate election in Kentucky went solidly to the soon to be Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell.  There are many reasons why this ended up being the case, but I think a large part of it has to do with the Democratic candidate running scared on some key issues, like those that surround fossil fuels.  She was against new EPA regulations saying that they would cost jobs for Kentucky coal workers, but that’s the position of the GOP.  Without a clear distinction, why should Kentuckians vote against the devil they know?  Her goal should not have been to try and out Republican the Republicans, but stand up for the workers in the way that Democrats used to do.  In short she should have said, “I oppose the coal industry, but I will fight to the death for the coal workers.”

That distinction is key to future success because it builds on the populism that the Democratic Party used to count as its bread and butter, instead of trying to wear an elephant hide.  We oppose the further exploitation of fossil fuels because they make us reliant on sources of energy that are inherently limited, because they contaminate the land and the water and the air, because they threaten the future of our children via climate change, because they are dangerous industries that take lives of honest working people, etc.  You’ll notice in none of those reasons do we oppose fossil fuels because we want to make life harder for people, in fact we want to make the lives of all Americans better.  The trouble is the people that work in the coal mines, that work in oil refineries, that might build the Keystone XL pipeline an attack on these industries is seen as a direct attack on the paychecks that keep their family fed, housed, and healthy.

The people working in fossil fuel industries are putting in an honest day’s work for perhaps a little less than an honest day’s pay, but nonetheless are getting by.  The coal industry is the heritage and lifeblood of many families in this country, and when they hear talk against coal production of anything of the like, they understandably dig in deep to protect their families.  We aren’t the bad guys here, and we need to show that by putting forward legislation that doesn’t simply say we will slow consumption of fossil fuels, but that we will create pathways for workers out of increasingly outdated jobs and into new professions.  Progressive legislation for protecting the environment needs to be made under the the wider goal of protecting the people, both from the long term threats of climate change and the more short term threats of buying into a dying industry.

Because that’s ultimately where fossil fuels are headed, back in the ground.  China has already decreased their levels of coal consumption, though with as much coal as they consume at this point it’s a comparably small first step, important though it may be.  They, the United States, and Europe have all further made commitments to gear down fossil fuel consumption in the coming decades.  And what happens to all those people who remained dependent on fossil fuel industries so late?  Will the Republicans suddenly decide to shift policy, turn around all their fiscal rhetoric, and call for unprecedented growth in the social safety net?  Our goal, as ever, is to pay the comparably small price up front.  We do this by finding and creating employment to get coal workers out of the coal industry and working in green technologies, improving the infrastructure, or simply finding employment in other industries where they can earn a comparable wage to continue supporting their families.

It’s strange looking back at the history of the fossil fuel industry, because it was the progressive left that used to be able to count on the workers.  Certainly the British have a much more recent memory of Thatcher as a reminder of how much the conservative movement actually cares about the lives of real workers and their jobs.  In America too the workers who suffered in unsafe mines, toiled in unsafe factories used to know that it was the progressives who fought for them, their jobs, their rights, their wages.  The progressive movement got children out of the workplace and set up common sense rules like barring the practice of employers locking workers into the factories. The 40-hour workweek and even the concept of the weekend came from the united effort of progressives and the unions who stood up for the worker.

Today unions are vilified for defending the worker and progressives are seen as job killers, elitists, or ivory tower intellectuals.  The progressive movement lost the trust of the common worker for many reasons and we need to address these reasons to remedy them.  The progressive movement worked toward the goal of helping minorities, which made many workers think they were going to be torn down as a result, but this is a misconception.  Dr King pointed it out with his jailers that they themselves weren’t fairing well under the status quo and that they had everything to gain by joining the movement, and this is the reality.  The goal of all human rights movements is the betterment of all humanity.  But more than any specific issue that may have shifted the conversation, people just lost faith that the progressive movement cared about them and they felt taken for granted.  This above all is the reason why the progressive movement has stalled, particularly with white, working class men.

When I worked on the 2013 gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, the refrain I heard from countless black voters was the feeling of being taken for granted by the Democrats.  Too often we assume that since the GOP’s policies are so abrasive to the black community, that we can simply rely on turnout when election day comes.  It’s not that easy thought because people would much rather vote for a candidate than against a party.  In this passed election, the Republicans took about 60% of the white vote, even though like every other demographic the vast majority don’t profit from the Right’s voodoo economics.  Through the 20th century the Democrats just took for granted that the working and middle-class whites would simply vote for their interests, and now in the 21st century the Democrats are shocked to find that they aren’t faring well.

America can ill afford taking for granted real people and the Democratic Party’s first step in remedying this problem is to check the way we address issues that profoundly touch people.  In general the American people agree with the Democratic platform, but if you smack on the label of Obama’s Agenda or the Democratic Platform then people sour to it.  It is simply insufficient to do the job without talking with real people to remind them that you aren’t just tinkering with their lives.  We are the party of the coal miner and his or her family.  We are the party of the guy putting his life at risk on an oil derrick.  We are the party defending the rights of real people, all working people, all minorities and those in majority alike.  We are the party that cares about children and the world they inherit.  We are the party that represents what the American people actually want.  The only reason I keep coming to as to why it isn’t a blowout in each and every election is because the message coming out of the Democratic Party sucks.  It sounds condescending, it seems blind to the lives of working families, it looks ineffectual.  Our first step in winning the good fight needs to be by reclaiming the hard working people of America, and convincing them that not only do we actually care, we will put in the work to prove to everyone that it’s the truth.

What Happened?

I am not the kind of person to whitewash history and pretend that everything was hunky-dory back in the good ole days.  As much as we may romanticize the past and create great myths of heroic leaders or famous artists, every great age of history is, on par, worse than the present.  The fact that we are able to listen to music any time we want is a pretty recent luxury, the fact that most people can expect to see their 80s is a huge advancement, the fact that in most countries women have all the same rights as men is a sign of the great progress humanity has made over the history of civilization.  But having said that, there is something that sticks out in my mind we’ve lost from the past that is worth bringing back, progressivism.

Of course the movement toward gender equality, the advances of the LGBT community, the growing noise about income inequality are indications that progressive ideals have never died and in fact have become the foundation of the modern zeitgeist, but there is something missing.  The progressive movement used to be the great wave of people from all walks of life who not only dreamed of a better and more just world, but who actively worked to make it so.  Progressive movements and parties took many forms and tackled many issues, some less successful or important to others.  I mean, not for nothing, but the fact that the progressive movement spawned the temperance movement is an indication that progressives have made mistakes, even if they were made for a decent enough reason as wanting to no longer see friends and family suffer from the consequences of wide scale alcoholism.

However, the progressive movement as a whole is better remembered for bringing about universal suffrage, creating the social safety net, enforcing basic workers’ rights, slowing the destructive pollution of unregulated industry, and defending basic human principles like liberty and justice at home and abroad.  The progressive movement, as a piece of the larger human rights movement, is a shining example of real people changing the world for the better one step, one day, one vote, one bill, and one Act at a time.  The progressive movement gave us two Roosevelts in the White House, to say nothing of the countless local, state, and federal politicians who rewrote unjust laws, and set the stage for the kind of progress the world generally, and American specifically needed.

In 2014, where are the progressive heroes and heroines?  In 2014, where is the great tide of progressive fervor?  In 2014, what happened to the progressive movement?  To co-opt a phrase from a person whom I disagree with on many issues, “demographics is destiny.”  This is in some way a reaffirmation of what I indicated earlier that progressive ideals are indeed mainstream, so in the long run we are sure to see even the Republican Party calling for a higher minimum wage, full pay equity, and yes even the advocacy of marriage equality in the party platform.  But to wait for demographics to shift is first of all asking too much patience for people suffering now and secondly a dangerous tactic, because demographics can change and demographics are changing.

I know it should be entirely too early to talk about 2016 elections, but everyone else is already doing it.  So who are the likely choices on either side right now?  For the GOP they are looking at Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, and Jeb Bush to name a few.  On the Democratic side people are saying Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and?  But the difference here isn’t simply that there are fewer likely candidates on the Democratic side, it’s that the Democratic leadership and public faces are comparably older, the youngest of the names listed being 65 on the Democratic side and 44 on the GOP.  As ever there is a largely untapped base of very young support for progressivism in the form of 18 to 35 year olds, but they aren’t represented in actual elected positions.  In fact, the big story about a record breaking young election winner came from West Virginia and was for a Republican.  Though of course one anecdote hardly makes a trend.

Nonetheless for too long the common wisdom has come down hard on progressives, on young people, and hardest on young progressives.  People rehash Churchill quotes as if they were insightful in saying, “If you’re not liberal at 20 you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at 40 you have no brain.”  The very word liberal often comes with the descriptive “bleeding-heart” preceding it.  The idea of intellectualism and actual insight from those who study politics as an academic career is derided as elitist and out of touch.  Who’s fighting back?  What’s the opposing argument?

This, above all other reasons, is why the Democratic Party fails on a routine basis.  Democrats have all the brains, all the hearts, all the credibility, but none of the spine necessary to do the work set before them.  I love comedians, but we should have more in our arsenal than jokes about how insane the conservative position is, because without a viable alternative we have seen people will still vote Republican.  Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, etc are all great guys and people should never conflate comedy with a lazy mind, as the opposite is often closer to the truth, but they aren’t running for office and they aren’t writing laws and they aren’t a sufficient opposition to conservatism.  We are needed for that.

So here’s what happened to progressivism and the progressive movement, we got demoralized.  We saw that the War on Poverty wasn’t doing the trick, we saw that we couldn’t save everyone, we saw that the world remained unjust after all that work so we stayed home.  We saw the rising tide of conservatism in the form of Reaganism first and now Tea Partiers and it looked like too hard a fight so we backed down.  So now when we see people barely holding down multiple full-time jobs while still failing to keep their heads above water, we keep silent.  When we see injustice and inequality we turn our gaze and pretend it will get better on its own.  No more.

We don’t need a resurgence of the old progressive movement, what we do need is a new progressive movement for today and if the Democratic Party won’t do it naturally then we will have to make a a new party.  Whether it is a new Democratic Party that is made or a party under some new monicker, we need a new progressive party to actually stand up and call out the insanity of reactionaries in the states and in DC.  We need a party that will defend the great deeds of the progressive movement of the past, including the recent past, and pave the way toward that common goal of progress that all people, who see problems in the world, seek.

The progressive movement is dead, long live the progressive movement.  A progressive movement that says even one person without a home in this country is too many.  A progressive movement that says a quality education is the birthright of every American and its starts at pre-k and goes through college if the students prove they can get in.  A progressive movement that says if you are working a full time job, then you shouldn’t have to seek additional government assistance.  A progressive movement that says if you get sick in this country, you will not also go broke.  A progressive movement that says our diversity is our greatest asset and if you come into this country and you follow the rules and you work as hard as the rest of us than you deserve a clear cut path to citizenship.  A progressive movement that says we can’t work in a world destroyed by climate change and we need to do the work now to ensure that the world we pass on is better than we received it.  A progressive movement that combines intellect with compassion and the courage to see things through.  A progressive movement that works so well that when people look back on this era they say “What happened then and there that got things back on the right track?”