Back in the Boat!

Friday the 13th: cold, misting, the low hanging clouds obscuring views across Lake Washington, its waters lying still as glass. A drear, moody, ominous morning -- but a glorious day -- for I was back in the boat with my chums for the first time since August 16th (on recovery from my 3rd knee replacement.)  I requested bow seat out of caution in case the leg or shoulder had to have a rest.  But no problem; rusty, but so elated to be back on the water.

When a crew is in sync, there is nothing like it.  The boat runs whispering out from under you, the rhythmic "thunk" of release and crisp "splat" of catch metranomic as you focus to row well but also to match the swing and drop of the person in the seat ahead -- even when she or he is not rowing well.  When all are well it's a symphony of heart, mind and body; one is not in the boat but of the boat.  We had a couple of strokes almost of that ideal -- we're only master amateurs, after all, and most of us old farts at that.  Those almost moments bring silent joy.

Today was also our annual Christmas/Hanukkah pot luck luncheon.  We expressed gratitude to our coaches.  Then, I was stunned to be awarded The Cake Cutter Award for service to the club. (Cut-the-Cake is a drill focusing on matched blade heights and synchronized swings.)  I have gained so much more from Mt. Baker Rowing and Sailing Center than given to it....  I was humbled.  And to have my name listed there alongside role models like George Corkery!  George was in his eighties when I started crewing with him; he retired at 89.  So that's my goal -- another ten years of catch, drive, swing, release and the zen-like peace of being crew member, once again back in the boat, once more at one with the boat.  

Frank-ness, Restoration and Renewal

Site of the Elwha dam and Power House

Frank Novosel and I just returned from a brief road trip to the Elwha, the largest dam removal project in the nation.  One can only stare at an empty dam site for so long, i.e., the Lower Elwha, and they have closed off hiking access to the upper, the Glines Canyon dam site, because it's still too dangerous -- so we had plenty of time to explore some other wonders of the Olympic Peninsula, to relax in Bravo (the RV he and I lived in during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics,) to cook some great meals and to explore each other's thoughts.  Frank is a great talker; I am a good listener (my family members might disagree, but then....) And so our conversations rolled on, wandering from what we were seeing, to removal of obstructions, to metaphoric restorations and renewal, to personal histories, to fatherhood and husbanding, to any and everything that came to mind.  But renewal was the closed loop theme. 

A wee drop of single malt

Such conversation is too rare for me.  I make friends slowly, too superficially in the sense of not allowing time for candor and trust to ripen and self consciousness to wane.  And there are too few opportunities to just hang out for a few unscripted days and nights so that obstructions to openness melt away, reflection is restored, and renewal blossoms.  I think gals are quicker at this than guys; for guys, renewal of the spirit can't be rushed; it takes unscheduled time. 

The Elwha below Glines Canyon

The Elwha is not being restored but 

Crescent Beach

renewed. No one can predict how the river and the salmon will turn out.  It will take four or five years before success or failure can be measured.  But already signs are excitingly promising: five species of salmon have appeared in the river since the dams began to come down last year!  Whether their spawn will survive in the dark grey silt remains to be seen.  It covers everything outside the swift currents, is building a large new delta off Port Angeles, and is soiling the beaches of Crescent Bay well to the west.  But life abounds; mountain lion pug have been seen on Crescent Bay; deer, otter and mountain goat are ubiquitous; and Dungeness crab are turning up on the new Elwha delta.  Hurricane Ridge still looms over all. Geologists tell us it, too,  is constantly being renewed by subduction; the end result of that humans will never see. 

In the meantime, we wander about in the natural world (even cocooned in an RV) to unblock, remove obstructions, restore and hope for renewal.  

Hurricane Ridge  

PS: to see more pics of before, after and the removal process, Google Elwha Dam and click on the More Pictures screen.  It also will show the Glines Canyon dam which is really dramatic.

The Emasculation of the Presidency

I was born a year and a half into FDR's first term.  The magic 100 days had passed; the Supreme Court had not yet dismantled a number of his initiatives.  Though the country was still in the grip of depression, his actions and the confidence Roosevelt beamed from the White House had lifted Americans' spirit and revived, albeit tentatively, hope that we could find our way forward.

In adolescence, I was an avid fan of Mr. President, a serial radio drama in which Edward Arnold portrayed historical episodes from past Presidencies, revealing only in the last minute the name of the President being portrayed.  I read boy's biographies of Presidents.  I absorbed from my parents an automatic respect for and admiration of our President.

Meanwhile, for the next half century, the American Presidency steadily coalesced power; The Great Depression, WWII, the Atomic Age and Cold War, proliferation of regulatory agencies (authorized by Congress, mind),The Cuban Missile Crisis and Viet Nam, the secrecy of CIA and NSA all swung the pendulum of power toward the Executive and away from Congress.  Mainly, it was the Judiciary that kept the pendulum from over-swinging. 

So perhaps it's no surprise that I admire a President who can lead and speak for all of us, whom Congress respects, who generates awe and affection from our friends and awe and fear from our foes. 

But... for good or ill, the American Presidency is an institution in decline.

Hamilton wrote in Federalist #70 that "Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government."  And "A feeble executive is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government."

Surely, Hamilton and Madison would have been alarmed at the imbalance of power in the '40s, '50's and '60's.  But how would they react today, as the Presidency becomes increasingly toothless, on the verge of emasculation. 

In his landmark work, The American Presidency, Clinton Rossiter's first lecture enumerated the powers of the Presidency.  He listed five chartered by the Constitution; let's take a look.

·         Chief of State, i.e., the ceremonial head of government, who with real of feigned enthusiasm greets dignitaries, bestows medals, pardons turkeys, proclaims holidays, throws out first pitches, and all the rest.  What may seem frivolous is necessary to stay in touch with our people and generate empathy from them for what Rossiter called "a one-man distillation of the American People."  

Reagan played this role to the hilt.  But Clinton's peccadilloes and W's Texas swagger and entangled syntax weakened the role.  Has Obama, simply by illustrating the growing diversity of Americans, inherently fragmented any single father-figure image Chief of State?

·         Chief Executive, i.e., the supervisor of the government, through the powers to appoint and remove, in order -- as the Constitution demands -- to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."  With the explosion of independent regulatory agencies, increasingly complex bills coming out of Congress, signing statements from the White House, and an distressingly activist, reactionary court, can anyone be singly and confidently held accountable for what Hamilton called good administration: Federalist #68, "The true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration."   Remember "your doin' a heckuva job, Brownie"? 

·          Commander in Chief of the military might as well as of the vast and increasingly intrusive intelligence apparatus.  Has Obama weakened this role by his waffling over the "red line" in Syria?  Does anyone take him seriously that military options are still on the table?  Maybe in this case, it is for the best, but no one doubted Lincoln, as Commander in Chief, "clothed in immense power."  Is the Commander still Chief when his Intelligence czar and head of NSA get caught lying to Congress and us about what they are snooping into, and the President has not yet called them to account or fired anyone; is this role, too, being eaten away from within?

·         Chief Diplomat; the two elements of this are formulation of foreign policy and  the conduct of foreign affairs.  In Federalist #75, Hamilton explains the role of the executive as sole representative to foreign governments and of the Senate as constraint and contact with the will of the people.  Two Supreme Court decisions, in 1799 and 1936, confirm those roles.  Yet in recent years, more and more treaties lie languishing for lack of Senate action to either ratify or reject.  No fewer than nine human rights treaties await action, dating back to 1977, and countless other important items like Law of the Seas, environmental treaties, and trade treaties are blocked from consideration, usually by a minority of the Senate.  Moreover, junketing Representatives and Senators, e.g., Lindsey Graham and John McCain visiting with rebels in Syria, muck about in what should be Executive Branch domain. 

Another element of diplomacy is foreign respect.  Consider what has happened as America has screwed up Iraq, been befuddled in Afghanistan, looked rudderless in Syria, become the fall guy for all sides that the Arab Spring has sprouted, and been flaunted and lectured to by Vladmir Vladmirovitch.  

• ·         Chief Legislator.  Congress deals with such a complex myriad of issues, and represents so many conflicting interests, that the Constitutional charge that the President "shall from time to time give to Congress information on the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge expedient" (Article II, Section 3) has become a major function.  It is mentioned in passing in Federalist #77, but in such a way as to indicate it was then almost an afterthought to the authors.  It grew to be a critical role; Roosevelt, Johnson, even Eisenhower, put their stamp on legislation.  But today, Presidential budgets and legislative proposals are virtually DOA with Congress openly disdainful of the office. 

Rossiter  goes on to add five more roles of a President that over time and through the evolution of our democratic republic have become part of his or her job. 

• ·         Chief of The Party.  But look at Obama's inability to corral his own.   Democrats defy his appointments, lobby against candidates (e.g., Larry Summers) and set their own agenda.  Some think this fine, but Obama's unwillingness to play party boss and chief stroker has undermined his authority within his own ranks.
• ·         Voice of The People.  Lincoln and the Roosevelts established this role, but ever since, with easy access to media, many "voices of the people" have diminished the awe and respect for the voice of the President.  The networks sometimes decline to broadcast his oval office addresses.
• ·         Protector of the Peace: this stems from the power to declare emergencies and issue decrees.  The Emergency Banking Act, 1933, and Securities and Exchange Act, 1934, even give the President power to suspend financial activity.  But the concentration of financial power, lobbying pressure and campaign contributions have nullified such authority.  Yes, the President still can declare emergency in case of natural disasters, but not likely man-made ones.
• ·         Manager of Prosperity.  The Full Employment Act, the Council of Economic Advisors, the annual Economic Report and all the rest appear to create this role for him or her -- but it is, of course, an impossible expectation to be lived up to.  No President has the power today to "manage" our economy, and the more they try, the more impotent they appear.
• ·         Leader of the Free World.  Like it or not, sought or not, this role was thrust upon our President in 1945 and doubly so in 1989.  But today?  A mockery... a third of the world resists us, another third dislikes us and the rest is in doubt about our leadership after the Iran-Contra scandal, the humbling on 9/11, the Bush/Cheney folly of Iraq, the quagmire of Afghanistan, and the impressive rise of a China who appears able to get things done.

One might say that it is an impossible job.  But nonetheless, in all ten roles, the American Presidency is increasingly tarnished, increasingly emasculated.  To many, this is not unwelcome.  To my libertarian friends, all government is too powerful, Executive and Congress.  And they like the tilt of the Supreme Court (though they should beware its taste for corporate libertarians.)  But to others, it is a regrettable trend.  I, for one, am distressed.

Can this be reversed?  Yes, certainly the public's congenital willingness to embrace magnetic personalities means another avuncular Reagan might appear to reverse the decline, as he did our Nixon/Ford/Carter malaise.  A new national crisis might give rise to another Lincoln or FDR.  But in the meantime, the American Presidency is being emasculated by our political incapacity (gerrymandered safe seats and money politics), by self-inflicted wounds (like Bush/Cheney's vendetta against Saddam Hussein), by lack of understanding what a President must be and do (Obama?), and by world affairs beyond our ken (the Arab Spring, Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of China.) Are we satisfied with this -- to have a string of Buchanans or Hardings?

No.  The American Presidency is a unique institution, the finest creation of the Constitutional Convention.  We need to reverse the emasculation and restore the presidency in power and prestige for I believe an effective and energetic  President is necessary to the continuing productivity, confidence and unity of America. 

  

Decapitate Rejection

With but one exception, my post "Decapitate" has been met with opprobrium. (I love it when I can use a new word -- even better when in conversation.)  Anyway, yes -- strong rejection and disagreement.  Not just illegal and amoral, but also reducing ourselves to the lowest denominator tactics of our enemies; triggering a round of retribution attacks; encouraging distribution of WMD to terrorist organizations, undermining legitimacy of international justice organizations; earning distrust of allies and enemies, alike ... and so on.

In the cool light of day, my critics are probably right.  But they do not have counters to my arguments that any other response -- limited pinprick or change of regime campaign -- is worse.  Frankly, I hope Congress denies the President's request to embark on a self-defeating course.  I would rather stand down and plead impotency when it comes to sorting out or bringing sense to the chaos that is the Middle East today.

How satisfying it would be to decapitate the bastard ... but cooler heads should prevail.

Decapitate

Obama wants to make a punitive strike on Syria.  Stupid.  Syria didn't order its citizens gassed, Assad did. Obama wants it to be surgical and limited -- not to punish, after all, but in hope of sustaining what little credibility we still have with allies.  We have to strike because we said we would.  Perhaps Obama deserves a punishment for having made dumb red-line boasts. He used the phrase "shot across the bow."  A shot across the bow goes harmlessly into the sea.  No, misspoke: he means, some real hurt -- but of limited duration and extent. Like being half-pregnant? And any collateral damage will only strengthen Assad's moralistic outrage.  All a limited strike will do is underscore how limited are our options and how wary we are of taking risk. A pin-prick would not slow this or other Assad wanna-bes.

McCain wants a major military thrust to change the regime.  Equally stupid.  We ally ourselves with whom? Al-Qaeda?  We enter into a dirty civil war with extremists on every side, become enmeshed in another toxic swamp of Middle-East rivalries we don't begin to understand, spill blood and spend borrowed money in fruitless quest of regional stability.

The only strike that fits the crime (and Obama's need to be taken seriously) is decapitation.  When a tyrant gasses his own population, he should lose his head. Obama must have plenty of spooks -- ours or Israel's or Jordan's or somebody's who have a plan to accomplish it.  Unleash them.  If no plan is feasible with a high probability of success, fold our tent and withdraw from the Middle East.  We don't belong there, anyway.

Decapitation.  Illegal? Yes.  Immoral?  Less so than punitive strike or attempted regime change that would wound and kill innocent by-standers.  Playing God again?  We've already transgressed there.  Decapitate and don't look back. 

Wagner Blew It

Last Saturday, Ann and I entered the world of Wagner -- The Ring Cycle. A back-of-house tour; four operas (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday) sixteen hours in all, plus a three hour lecture ahead of each; a five hour seminar covering parodies of Wagner (including Bugs Bunny, of course), Wagner's antisemitism, leit-motifs and musical invention, comparison of Wagner and Verdi; a Q&A luncheon with the director; an evening with Speight Jenkins recalling his thirty years of presenting The Ring; plus entering a contest to create, in treatment form, a "fifth opera" of the cycle. (My entry, Erda's Lament, one of eight from the couple of hundred attendees, did not win.)

We were immersed in a sea of RingChasers. Seattle's quadrennial Ring Cycle is world renowned. Some folks have seen 25 and more Rings on every continent (save Antarctica; a penguin cast Ring, now that would be a kick!)  This was Ann's and my second Ring -- mere pikers.  These professional and dilettante Wagnerites are expert on every arcane nugget --when he wrote what; which philosophers were at the moment affecting him over the course of the 28 years it took him to complete the work, why he chose to use oboes here and clarinets there and to invent his own Wagner Tuba along the way, how his critics carped and complained, and on and on and on.  So my thoughts herein should be regarded as the musings of the rankish of amateurs -- and I am sure they are not unique.  Nonetheless...

... I can't help thinking Wagner blew it.  His set out not only to create a revolutionary new form of musical drama, but also to give the Germanic peoples (they were not yet a country) their unifying myth, as the Norse had in the Edda, the Greeks in Oresteia, the Romans in the Aeneid. (Do we have a unifying myth?  But that is for another ruminations.) He sought to give Germans a hero, one whose values reflect love, freedom, naturalness, and purity, one who does not depend upon intercession of Gods for success and fulfillment. Siegfried was this new hero.  But as Wagner's ideals mutated and changed, as his personal screw-ups and values warped, he let his hero become less and less so.

Siegfried is no hero.  Fearless, yes, as is any teenager; self-centered, arrogant, daring, insensitive to others, dismissive of authority, a braggart.  He slew a dragon not for gain but because it was there.  He had been told no one else could do so.  He braved the fires and awakened Brunhilde not out of love but because it was said only the bravest could do so.  He impulsively was smitten by this first woman he had ever seen, this Valkyrie daughter of Earth and the Supreme God, but despite her renouncing her godliness and teaching him all she knew about the Gods, the world, courage and cowardice, off he stupidly went, this self-proclaimed dragon-slayer, to be flattered, conned, awed by power and pomp, to renounce love and be used as a pawn. No model hero he.

Yet Wagner had his hero in hand all along. Brunhilde is our hero. She is all the prejudiced, embittered, revolutionary nationalist might have wanted. Perhaps he chose not to proclaim her as such, leaving it for us to discover on our own.  Perhaps he was bound by that 19thC presumption of male superiority and precedent. But I think he just got tired and wouldn't think outside his box any longer.  Brunhilde embodies the nadirs of both love and power, one independent and self-determined but aware of her relationship with her world, one compassionate but in touch with her own rights and emotions.

Brunhilde is the hero Wagner sought -- and gave us in spite of himself.            

My Death Is Certain

I have been studying a work by Stephen Batchelor, a notable Buddhist scholar and writer.  He poses this conundrum, which has captured my attention for the past month or so:

                "Since death alone is certain, and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?" 

This profoundly simple question beguiles me.  First, since having left the presidency of a couple of not-for-profits, I have more free time to enjoy and invest; and secondly, I am approaching the end of my eighth decade.  So, since death is certain but the time of mine uncertain, what shall I do?

My answers aren't the point, for one's answers are particular and individual, but I will share how I went about developing my answers.

First, I reviewed my mission statement. Yes, just as in corporate life, consultancy, and not-for-profits, where I helped enterprises clarify their missions, when I retired, I wrote a mission statement for Fletch Waller, thanks to Scott Okie's example. Basically, it's still relevant, but I did modify it in one respect.  Second, I renewed my resolve to stay in shape.  

Third, I thought through what principles or specs could guide me to "what I shall do."  There turned out to be eight of them:

1.  Be of Service to someone, something.   I have been very lucky; the world has treated me well.  I need to pay back in whatever small way I can.

2.  Associate With Good People who can lift me up, teach me, inspire me, provide models.  I don't have time to suck up to "the right people" whose ethics or values or behavior might be questionable.

 3. Work at What I Love; work is the operative word: expend effort.  And don't fart around, Fletch, with should dos or ought tos.

4.  Seek to Lead sounds arrogant, but given experiences and mistakes -- from a few of which I hope I've learned -- try to influence whatever person or group I become involved in.  Lead informally.

5.  Be Forward Looking instead of loitering in the caboose reflecting down the tracks on where you've been.  Stay in the present, mindful, alert, asking "what might this portend; what is coming next?"

6.  Empathize.  Try to imagine what the world looks like through the other's eyes.  Empathy is the essential bridge builder, the connective tissue of civilization.

7.  Make Amends to all ignored, harmed, hurt by me.  Don't check out with bills unpaid.

8.  Act; with apologies to Nike, "Just Do It" diligently, relentlessly.  No time for grand plans, no procrastination.

Try the question on for size.  Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should you do? 

PS re FISC

The NYT reported that the secret court received 1800 requests for warrants last year -- and issued 1800 warrants, some very sweeping dragnets not focused on a particular event or suspect.  Let's see: a year might be 50 weeks, a work-week five days, so 250 days; 1800 warrants, that's 7.2 per day, or nearly one per hour.  Quite a pace for careful jurisprudence by this secret court of eleven secret jurists. Feel safer?

McClatchy has brought a second item to light.  After young Spc. Manning dumped docs to WikiLeaks, Obama, in October of 2011, signed an Executive Order making it an offense for government employees not to inform on co-workers who display suspicious attitudes or behavior, employees who later come under investigation.  Called "Early Warning" or some such innocuous, positive name -- remind one of Stasi by chance?  No, perish the thought; our elected officials are so much more trustworthy than that, and it's for our own good, all in pursuit of security, right, right, right-oh, on we go!

Snowden Isn't the Story....

This Snowden kid has had me tongue-tied; I haven't blogged for a month because people keep asking me what I think, where I come out -- traitor or hero?  It's taken me time to take my eye off Snowden and look at the real story.

A novelist coming up with this plot would be laughed out of his editor's office.  Yet here is Snowden, on ice in Moscow, passport-less, cooling his heels in the Sheremetyevo Novotel's in-transit wing -- as deep in a freezer as the journalists' cell phones he demanded be checked into his hotel room refrigerator back in Hong Kong.  Bizarre....  No, he hasn't entered the Russian border their foreign secretary sanctimoniously assures us.  But you can bet his computers and thumb drives have crossed many a border -- seized. copied and cracked by China's MSB and Russia's SVR, FSB and FSO.

OK, so traitor or hero?

                                                                                                                        

Clearly, he is a traitor to his oaths, to his employers and their trust.  And among his employers to whom he swore oaths were the NSA and the CIA.  In releasing information about snooping on foreign governments -- friend and foe -- he has betrayed US government secrets.  His grand motive, he alleges, is to alert the US public to illegal snooping on us -- but that is quite different from his information on international snooping, which is merely unethical, immoral, embarrassing, unwise, self-damaging and stupid -- but not, unfortunately, illegal.  Now we learn that his real job was not system administrator but infrastructure analyst -- searching for ways to penetrate secure systems for intelligence gathering and, potentially, sabotage.  This, too, he has revealed.  So, yes, he is prima facie a traitor.  And his treachery has hurt the US -- with adversaries, allies and those on the sidelines simply keen on indulging their schadenfreude at our expense.

Hero?  Hardly.  Nothing heroic about this self-absorbed computer geek anointing himself as defender of truth.  His allegations about his plans, his job history, his course work at Johns Hopkins, his adoption of Buddhism in Japan while not liking their culture, running off to Hong Kong because of their dedication to liberty??? What kind of naif is this? Facebooking about his sexual prowess; unable to finish high school or community college; claiming he broke his leg in special forces training in the Army Reserve (there isn't such a thing -- there are two National Guard special forces units, otherwise the only five others are regular Army.)   No, no hero is this Snowden.

What of redemption?  

Well, perhaps he has performed a public service if -- a big if -- the public ire is finally aroused to demand a wholesale change, a dismantling of the intelligence-contractor-congressional complex.  Whatever happens to Snowden will be punishment -- whether put on trial here, eking out a living in Ecuador, accepting asylum in Russia, being a pawn in the game of let's embarrass the United States.  Whatever happens to Snowden is not the story.

The story is how our government has prostituted its values in the name of security.   Abraham Lincoln said "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."  The intelligence-contractor-congressional system of circular authorizations bolstered by sweeping warrants granted by a secret judiciary is no different than the star chamber justice of Tudor England.  That was finally overturned in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and we reiterated our rejection  of such process in 1789.

I could rant several more pages about the intelligence swamp we are hip deep in: about the contractors who hire geeks like Snowden despite a crazy personal and professional history, and pay him twice what a comparable civil service post can pay; about 850,000 people or more with top secret clearance, of whom 1 in 3 work for for-profit contractors rather than for the taxpayer; about Defense Secretary Gates testifying that  "I can't get a number on how many contractors work for the Office of the Secretary of Defense;" about the training of CIA spies being contracted out to a for-profit company.  But I won't indulge ....

Suffice to say that information empowers.  And many believe that withholding information empowers absolutely, despite that information is fungible and eventually -- always -- leaks.  Yes power corrupts, but more to the point, John Adams warned that “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak."  We have seen it over and over -- the beguiling quality of "secrets" whether wielded by J. Edgar Hoover tempting the Kennedys, or IRS files tempting Johnson, or CIA tempting Nixon, and on and on.  The Frank Church hearings in 1976 restored some constraint on the Executive Branch, but it leaked away again in Iran Contra under Reagan, and again after 9/11 under Bush, Cheney and Obama.  I'm shocked to list Obama in that set but the hubris is the same.  In 2004, we learned of domestic spying; in 2010, The Washington Post explored the runaway intelligence establishment.  Haven't we come to see that these intelligence czars are just as self-anointed as Snowden, thinking alike that they know what's best for us?  When will we learn to distrust any and all of them?  They don't have souls any greater than yours and mine.

The American public accepts this pernicious intrusion because they've been sold a "War on Terror."  There's the root of the problem:  the paradigm of war, that sense of imminent danger which allows those empowered by information to trade us "security" in return for giving up our rights.  But they didn't forestall the Boston Marathon bombers or the guy who tried to blow up Times Square or the guy wearing explosive jockey shorts.  There is no such thing as "security."  And now, the administrations' (plural) lies and wholesale snooping are naked before us.  James Madison wrote "no nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" but that's what we've been sold -- and we have been losing our freedom.  Talk to those denied airline flights with neither explanation nor recourse.  Madison was talking about the danger of concentrating power in the executive long before NSA, CIA, DIA and a hundred other snoop bureaucracies were even dreamed of.

  

Snowden isn't the story.  The story is we are overdue for a sweeping change in what rights we cede to our government and how it accounts for its protection of our rights and its constraint of them.  Now is the time to begin writing that story....

2ndtermitis

Obama has caught 2ndtermitis, that so-often self-inflicted malady that has derailed every 20th Century US President and his administration who were rewarded with a second term.  The only ways to avoid it were not to seek or fail to win a second term.  Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge,Truman and Johnson chose not to seek. Roosevelt and Coolidge went out on a high, Truman and Johnson were driven out on an exhausted low. Harding and Kennedy died.  The re-election bids of Taft, Hoover, Ford, Carter, and Bush 41 were rejected.  Otherwise, the record is daunting:

• Wilson: League of Nations rejection; stroke
• Roosevelt:  Supreme Court packing, AFL/CIO divorce
• Eisenhower:  Sherman Adams' mink, Gary Power's U2, Little Rock
• Nixon:  Archibald Cox, Watergate tapes, Cambodia
• Reagan:  Irangate
• Clinton:  Lewinsky, impeachment
• Bush:  Valerie Plame, waterboarding

You wonder that any President chooses to run for a second term. Their hair turns white; wrinkles deepen; hopes and plans are highjacked by hubris, fate, embittered opposition, and/or stupid and venal subordinates.  

Guys: if it ain't over in four, declare victory, retire, and do good deeds with your well-earned fame.

What's On Our Minds? or Train Wreck; Avert Your Eyes!

The New York Times on-line has a feature I find quite revealing: their ten Most E-Mailed items.  So here we are, faced with serious problems in economic recovery, debt management, education, infrastructure and so on.  Meanwhile, the paper is full of Justice Dept. snoops, IRS snoops, Benghazi cover-ups, sectarian violence and Israeli raids on Syria.  And the public's confidence in our political leaders is in free-fall.

Today's ten Most E-Mailed ?
1. Germs in our gut
2. Salt in the diet
3. Pastrami
4. The 7 minute workout
5. Mastectomy
6. How to fry chicken
7. Getting kids into college
8. Horses on the farm
9. Yoga for middle age
and
10.  Moving to Latin America or the Caribbean

The order changes all the time, but doesn't this tell us our fellow citizens -- at least my fellow NYT readers  -- just can't deal with and/or don't want to share reality? Train wreck: avert your eyes!
  

Mother's Day -- Adult Sons' Style

Saturday eve, May 11, voice mail: "Mom, could you come over and baby-sit tomorrow so we can go furniture shopping?"

Sunday morning, May 12, cell phone text message: "Fletch, tell Mom Happy Mothers Day and that I will call her later."

Yes, I told her, and told her as well that she was and is a terrific Mom....

How Do We Look From Here?

France has been wonderful to us these past few weeks.  The Dordogne's beauty and fare beguiled and Paris, despite crowds and unseasonably cool weather, charms as always.  Ann's new interest in the history of Western Civ has been gratified at every turn.

After three weeks of getting our news via web from the NYT and Seattle Times; from TV via BBC, Sky, France Anglais, and Al Jazeera (which maintains the most consistent focus on news); and from what we can make of headlines (my three years of French half-a-century ago long since failed me) clear impressions form.

First, all the western democracies are in reactive mode, and overwhelmingly reacting to internal strains rather than externalities. While Xi and Putin are each looking outward, toward consolidating their natural hegemonies, the US is only partially looking out, and that in reaction to mid-east turmoils, North Pacific tensions, and entanglement in Afghanistan. But the Europeans? Entirely inward (with exception of Hollande's transparent and feeble attempt to distract the French public by mis-adventure in Mali, which only underscored France's weakness.) In light of Europe's unemployment highs (more than half-again as high as in the States, and in Southern Europe, higher than levels of the Great Depression,) persistent banking crises, and the public's eroding confidence in the concept of a United Europe, the US doesn't look so bad. But none of the Western Democracies is proactively addressing its challenges and opportunities.


Second, our Boston tragedy evokes sympathy but also a slight schadenfreude since terrorists have struck here more often and usually with larger body counts, not to mention the daily horrifics in the mid-East and Pakistan. The Europeans follow our gun debate with the same morbid, fascinated revulsion one indulges in at the county fair freak show. Our Congressional dysfunction doesn't merit much comment here, not given the political burlesque in Italy, rising  jingoism in many EU countries, bickering with Brussels, incessant second-guessing by shadow governments in Germany and the UK, and the steadily deteriorating Euro.

So, relatively, we don't look so bad but the point is that the unity and strength of Western democracies is thin gruel compared to what once was. With its self-inflicted wound of austerity, Europe is quietly becoming more and more dependent upon the strengths of the US economy and US military. One hears questions being raised at home about the equity and affordability of this dependency; whither goest NATO?

Whither goest France?  Deeply troubled, but still important.  Important for their gifts to the West: Lascaux; religious tolerance (finally, after horrific lessons of intolerance); The Enlightenment philosophers; the ideals of Egalite', Fraternite', Liberte'; esteem for artists, writers, musicians, dramatists; the romance of romance ... and wine, bread and cheese.  Important still, for they know wines, breads and cheeses.

A Political PS:

Is Europe's malaise a precursor for us? No, our economy, our demographics, our immigration will keep leading us out. But given that Obama has abandoned the fight to change the way Washington works (not that he ever launched it) and has given up on a democratic republic and embraced the funder republic, as "Lester" Lessig terms it, there is little promise of our soon becoming proactive. Congress' day-before-flying-home reversal of FAA cuts exemplifys the self-interest that drives our representatives.  Can we expect those who care more about their party than their country to rein in K St., reform campaign financing, address education and inequality, work to make health care real, or re-size and restrict the too-big-to-manage/too-big-to-fail banks? Not likely; not this bunch.

So, how do we look from here? Well, maybe better than Europe, but not so damn hot.

"...the goal of living is to grow..."

Spring is in the air. Daffodil spears are poking upwards, and last month marked the end of my presidency of Horizon House, a wonderful, two-year learning experience from which I received much more than I delivered.  (“President” might mislead, the role perhaps better described as chair of the board.)

For those who know it not, Horizon House is a vibrant community of 500-some retirees who live in a complex of apartments in downtown Seattle. The campus sits between a cluster of medical facilities known colloquially as “pill hill” and Seattle’s unique Freeway Park, a water and garden expanse built on a lid over the Interstate that cuts through the heart of our city. The site offers easy walking access, via that park, to the artistic, cultural, dining and shopping core of Seattle.

Horizon House is the leading retirement community in the region because of three coherent but individual strengths – its residents, its professional staff, and its board of trustees. Well, every retirement community has residents, staff and directors; what’s so special? What have ours taught me about success?

First, the residents: they are a highly diverse group, ethnically, socially, religiously, but who share two attitudes – a commitment to participate in urban life and a determination to age creatively and actively in community with others. They do not seek withdrawal in retirement. I learned from them the value of neighborhood, of organizing and aggressively seeking to have an impact on their surroundings, of assertively taking charge of their lives. Our residents have their own independent non-profit organization funded through their own operated thrift shop, and run over 60 programs and special interest clubs. They volunteer around town, and also do not hesitate to badger management to support their interests and civic concerns. I learned from them the truth of e e cumming’s

       in time of daffodils
       who know the goal of living is to grow
       forgetting why
       remember how

The result of that attitude? Our residents outlive actuarial expectations because of the stimulation of true community, because they are determined to extend their springs. And Horizon House, thereby, is given its distinctive character – a vibrancy and energy unlike any other community I have visited.

Staff: not-for-profit service organizations likely have a smaller pool of talents on which to draw than do for-profit enterprises but that does not mean lesser talents. The professionals who choose the not-for-profit world are among the best. I’ve been fortunate to have worked under two outstanding corporate leaders, Bill Marriott and Jim McFarland (of General Mills.) What made them great? Their ability to balance a vision of the long term with attention to immediate details; their upbeat delegation to and support of subordinates; their personal exemplification of the corporation’s values; and their willingness to admit mistakes and move on rather than fear admission as threat to their authority. Bob Anderson, CEO of Horizon House, shares those qualities. Though the scale of his operation is but a fraction of that of a Marriott or a General Mills, he stands beside them as an outstanding builder and leader of an enterprise. 

Trustees: I feel honored to have been chosen to chair such a superb board. How often I felt humbled in the face of the deep experience and talent gathered around the table. Of the 16 trustees (one is a non-voting representative of the UCC, out of which Horizon House was grown,) one third are residents. This is virtually unique among retirement communities, which typically allow none to serve or perhaps one to “represent” residents. Our resident trustees are chosen for their talents and experience; each is trustee first, resident second. It is a working board, the work done in committees made up of trustees, residents, non-resident experts from the community, staffed by relevant department heads. We strive for board productivity through use of advance briefs, consent agendas to minimize time for status reports, workshop-style discussion of anticipated issues, and rigorous self-assessment. The board is intentionally diverse in experience, perspective and talent; trustees are term limited. Horizon House has taught me the value of experimenting and continually seeking ways to make one’s board a substantive source of guidance and insight. The goal is to balance fiduciary, policy, and generative energy and attention.

Another element: mission. A not-for-profit enterprise can be truly mission-driven, undeterred and undistracted by demands of quarterly earnings goals, analysts’ opinions, stock price and the rest. From Horizon House, I have learned how to tie annual budgets, objectives and action plans directly to strategies aimed at long term goals that, in turn, are rooted in mission. This format for strategic planning and annual action is better than any I worked with in industry (where long range strategic plans too often gather dust on the shelf), Marriott and General Mills included. It’s a model, developed by former trustee Neil McReynolds, one that Jim Collins would applaud and one that should be applied to any enterprise, for or not-for profit.

One other learning: the babies of 1946 will turn 75 in 2021. And when that wave hits, the demand for aging services will begin to overwhelm their and our collective financial resources. In the next five years, this industry must challenge itself to develop new ways to facilitate healthy aging, to encourage community and combat isolation, and to cushion the social and financial impact of a huge increase in the elders of our tribe. At the same time, there will be "echo" growth in school-age population; we will face a competition for resources between education and aging.  In ten years, this will be the most pressing political and social issue our nation will be dealing with. The aging issue will be even more pressing than here in China, Europe, and Japan, potentially a most destabilizing force to be reckoned with.

PS: I have a great action slide showing age cohorts moving through the population in five year increments, 1950 - 2050, but Blogspot won't let me insert that format.  If you want it, I will e-mail it to you.

How to Redeem Congress? Reform REDS

Is this frozen Congress beginning to show signs of a spring thaw: Republicans dining at the White House; Lindsey Graham talking about revenue; Obama posting Medicare reforms on the web?  Is the ice getting rotten?


The most unpopular Congress in decades is badly in need of redemption. Now, perhaps, is the time to Reform REDS – reform revenues, reform entitlements, reform discretionary spending. If Congress could do all three at once, everyone will be upset about one or another part, but the whole would boost our credit,
credibility and redeem Congress and politics in the eyes of the public.

The key is all three at once – an almost insurmountable goal if the usual committee fragmentation allows special interests to lobby item by item, piece by piece. But Congressional leaders can by-pass that process and risk by appointing a panel – Senate and House -- to make a deal

• on three or four revenue items (e.g., carried interest, estate tax, foreign corporate tax shelters),
• two entitlement matters (e.g., social security and medicare tax lids, means testing medicare, changing inflation indexing),
• and three or four discretionary spending cuts (e.g., Defense, rationalizing the runaway intelligence contracts, reducing the cabinet by merging Education back into a HEW department or Labor with Commerce.)

The deal could be unamended and subject to an up and down. Likely? No. Possible? Yes.

If Congress does not reform REDS in one combination, it won’t happen. But the ice is thawing and getting mushy; now is the time for a bold break-through.

The Coming of The Common Sense Party

The time is coming when the Republican party will join the Whigs in the archives of American political history.

In 1852, the Whigs, for forty years a major political force, had been torn asunder by the Clay and Douglas compromise of 1850, a package of bills which kicked down the road the can of slavery in new territories. In'52, Whigs won only four of 31 states. In '54, disaffected northern Whigs split off to found a new party they named "Republican". In the election of '56, Republican Fremont finished a respectable second out of four, and in '60, the six year old party placed Lincoln in the White House with a solid plurality.

As were those 19thC Whigs, today's Republicans are in zerrissenheit, the state of "torn aparted-ness”, rent between family- value ideologues and fiscal conservatives. And therein lies this opportunity to create a new, potentially powerful political party -- The Common Sense Party.

The Common Sense Party will appeal to and serve the interests of urban, educated people (especially women) and those already in or aspiring to the upper middle class. The party's mission will be to improve America by focusing on solutions to its problems and realization of its new potentialities. The party's values are Civility, Knowledge, and Pragmatism; it will eschew mindless ideology and seek workable consensus.

The party will be formed and energized by moderate Republican dissenters, especially mayors and governors; independents like Michael Bloomberg; and business and financial leaders bolstered by celebrities. It will focus on the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and California.

Over two presidential election cycles, it will secure the White House, enjoy a working swing bloc in the Senate, and be challenging for the plurality of the House.

How are pragmatism and knowledge reflected in its platform? The Common Sense Party intends:
In Foreign Policy
~To progressively reduce foreign arms sales to zero

• Counter balancing with subsidized sale of peaceful development ware, e.g., water treatment plants, hospitals and clinics, schools, irrigation equipment, emission control and scrubber equipment

~To support abroad the rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of assembly, and equal opportunities for women

• Subordinating a focus on elections; freedoms come first

~To revoke the Bush doctrine of preemptive war

~To progressively seek diplomatic engagement with hostile states

~To increase State Dept. funding to progressively larger % of Defense Dept. funding

In Defense
~To progressively reduce the defense establishment to under 3% of GDP

~To follow Joint Chiefs weapons requests

• Eliminating Congressional weapons overrides of JC

~To acknowledge natural spheres of influence

• reducing NATO presence
• reducing overseas troop commitments
• Forcing European Community, NATO, So. Korea and Japan to take on more of their own defense
• Strengthening our response capabilities and reaffirming mutual defense commitments in Europe and Asia, but as second responder rather than first-line presence

In Intelligence
~To dismantle the bloated national intelligence bureaucracy

• Removing CIA from offensive, covert military actions, e.g., drone attacks, and focusing on foreign Intel
• Assigning to DOD all military, special forces and covert operations
• Assigning the FBI all domestic Intel
• Renouncing “war on terror” language and treating terrorism as a criminal conspiracy
• Quantifying and reducing the intelligence contractor community
• Dismantling the Dept. of Homeland Security
• Assigning National Security Advisor the task of consolidating CIA, Pentagon and FBI information for Executive Branch digestion

In Budgets, Debt and Deficits
~To reduce entitlement load

• Increasing cap on payroll tax, and apply means test to sustain Social Security net
• Funding Medicaid until incomes rise and the demographic bulge passes, reducing citizens’ reliance
• Continuing to expand medical insurance access
• Supporting home care, home health care, and efforts to reduce hospital admission recidivism

~To progressively reduce agriculture subsidies to zero

•  Relying on market dynamics
• Using food exports as commerce and as foreign policy mechanisms

~To merge the departments of Labor and Commerce

~To eliminate foreign registered-US based corporate tax advantages

~To end depletion allowance and special income treatments, e.g., carried interest

~To adopt a carbon tax

~To veto tax “bills of attainder”

~To increase infrastructure spending to create entry level and trade employment opportunities

~To study and determine whether value added tax coupled with upper income taxation would fairly generate revenues while simplifying tax collection and filing

~To set a national goal of reducing income inequality to 1960’s levels

• Strengthening the progressive tax system
• Reestablishing upper rates at Reagan-era levels
• Developing an immigration work permit program and pathway to citizenship
• Promulgating the Dream Act 
• To achieve balanced federal budgets by 2024

In Environment
~To enforce EPA responsibility for CO2 emissions

~To develop social and externality cost accounting and incorporate it in industrial and utility permitting processes

~To adopt progressive excise tax on gasoline to balance increased mpg performance

• Using gasoline excise taxes to fund development of mass transit and emission reduction options

~To restore traditional funding for National Parks and establish a new version of Civilian Conservation Corps

In Education
~To fund research and development of programs to reduce male high school dropout rates and prepare and motivate males to enter college

~To fund and reward community college/industry joint ventures to develop needed high-wage skilled labor

~To revoke “no child left behind” and other Federal mandates

• leaving standards, achievement testing, and teacher evaluation to states and localities

~To reduce the Dept. of Education staffing and budget

In Civil Society
~To reduce prevalence and accessibility of weapons, especially of hand guns

• Promoting that guns make all less safe, not more
• Banning sale and use of high capacity magazines
• Mandating universal background checks on gun purchasers
• Banning public sale of body armor and highly lethal ammunition
• Imposing high excise taxes on ammunition, using funds for gun education programs

~To adopt a universal service regimen at age 18

• Option: two years in military, with college subsidy after service
• Or one year in neo-CCC or other qualified social services
• Or two years social service after college

~To eliminate Federal Government intrusion into matters of sex, marriage, abortion and recreational drug use

• Leaving social regulations entirely to states
• Delegating gun sales control to states and localities so long as consistent with 2nd Amendment

~To intensify anti-trust monitoring and aggressively represent consumer interest in mergers and acquisitions

~To reduce incarcerations by funding drug treatment programs and sentencing guidlines

~To increase funding for FDA and USDA inspection and monitoring

In Governance
~To test levels of government funding of elections with a view to equalizing access

• Studying provision of free air time to candidates as a provision of broadcasting license
• while encouraging premium pricing for PACs

~To sell lobbyist registrations, in effect a lobby license, to fund election support

~To attack and remove obstacles to voting

~At state level, to work to reduce “safe seat” districting

~To limit campaign donations to constituents only

~To close the 501(c)(4) loophole providing anonymity to PAC contributors

~To prohibit public service unions from political donations to officials of organizations with which they negotiate labor agreements and contracts

~To make unionized public services open shops



My son, Steve, observes that civility is a currency, i.e., a medium of exchange; the more you spend it, he says, the easier and more valuable exchanges become