The Simpleton Dreamer's Foreign Policy

The talking heads and those Republican clowns have made much about our "failed" foreign policy.  Even friends question whether we have one.  In this month's Foreign Affairs, Edelstein and Krebs argue that we shouldn't bother with having one; that the world is too chaotic, competitions too multi-faceted, for any effective foreign policy other than just reactive pragmatism[1]. 

 Obama's "don't do stupid shit" is fine as far as it goes, but he has taken it no further, leaving us in a purely reactive mode, responding to events over which we neither have control nor apparently anticipation.  A "no policy" policy is not enough. That aimless reactionism has led to fourteen years of mucking around in the Mid-East (thanks to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Rice and the like who fed 43's ego and impulsiveness.)  Now we're in a here-we-go-again mode as Obama reacts to Congressional, political, popular and military pressures to "do something about those bastards."

In order to "win", by which I mean achieve success, one must decide which games to play in, and which not; determine what success looks like in each; determine the policies to guide one's plays; and then make tactical moves that play to your strengths.

 

Certain policy principles logically can lead to desirable but highly improbable, un-feasible, wishful outcomes.  But identifying the far-out sometimes triggers ideas which, upon reflection, turn out to be feasible after-all, reachable mile-posts on the way to success.  So, in keeping with that, the simpleton makes these suggestions of where to play, of how to define success, of policies, and of some far-out tactical moves:

1. .       Halt the foreign "war on terror" and begin to treat international terrorism just as we do domestic terrorism, as police and criminal justice matters.  Share info and fully cooperate with international police efforts -- allies or not.
2.            Re-position the CIA as a spy and analysis agency and withdraw them from special ops.  Their extra-judicial assassinations generate order-of-magnitude more terrorists for every one they kill.  Use the military to do militaristic things; hold both agencies accountable to transparent civilian authority.
3.      Repeatedly veto military appropriations containing congressionally-mandated weapon purchases that the joint chiefs do not want until Congress gives up in order to fund DOD.  Direct Joint Chiefs to focus on delivery of military force quickly, responsively, forcefully and productively.  After all these years, get an audit of DOD expenditures.
4.        .  Pursue base closures overseas as well as domestic ones.  Re-invest savings in the diplomatic corps and Peace Corps, and link DOD budget increases to increases in diplomacy budgets.
5.            Don't just respond to terror inflicted on cultures we identify with; show we care equally about Madrid, Beirut, Ankara, Jakarta, Nairobi, Mumbai, Karachi, Jeddah, Kano, Kunming, Jerusalem, Moscow, Sharm el Sheikh,  Buenos Aires, Bamako  and many more....
6.            Define specifically what our "national interest" means in each troubled region (Eastern Europe, Mid-East, North Africa and Arabia, Southeast Asia, South America, the Arctic, etc.) and make the definitions clear to those nations involved.
7.            Adopt and publicize our respect for self-determination; drop our  insistence on establishing universal democracy.  If citizens select some other form of government, so long as it has been self-determined in a fair way, accept it, tolerate it even if we do not support it.
8.            Continue our "pivot" toward Asia but forego any more mutual defense treaties.  Restrain NATO support and shift NATO burden increasingly onto European shoulders.
9.            Stop calling countries "friends"; they are nations, each with its own self-interest supreme, just as is ours.  It is particularly galling to call Saudis and Pakistanis our "friends" while they disseminate hate and nurture terrorists.
10. .         Cancel the lease and give Guantanamo back to Cuba in return for taking in some of the detainees.  (Is a 19thC naval base still that relevant to a 21stC navy?)  Have the Justice Dept. enforce that detainees subject to US justice must be held in US jails and be subject to habeas corpus.  This means transfer of remaining Guantanamo inmates to Federal Maximum Security prisons.  Dare Congress to sue and/or impeach; in the meantime, the courts will have no place to which to send inmates back.
11. .         Support creation of Kurdistan by Iraqi, Turkish, and Syrian Kurds.  Provide air and other support for self-defense at a price of not aggressing against neighbors.
12. .         Support creation of an independent Sunnistan in contiguous parts of Syria and Iraq.  Get word to former Baathists that in return for squelching their ISIS crazies, we will support a new Sunni state, borders to be defined by Iraqi, Syrian and Turk negotiators, and will support its self-defense against Shia neighbors.
13. .         If those left in a rump Syria choose to retain Assad, pledge to accept and ignore the bastard.  In a rump Shia-Iraq, accept whichever crazy their representatives select.
14. .         Support Israel, but undertake a steady, five-year scaling back of military assistance to both Israel and Egypt.  Drop commitment to a two-state "solution" (which is no solution at all) and encourage Israel to move toward Palestinian citizenship.  (A "religious democracy" is an oxy-moron if its population is heterogeneous.  Either it's a theocratic autocracy or a secular republic.)
15. .         Become increasingly energy independent and self-reliant on critical resources.
16. .         Underscore our secular system of governance by removing "under God" from the pledge and "In God We Trust" from our money (yes, I said these are simplistic.)
17. .         Re-join the International  Court of Justice; sign the land mine convention; ratify the Convention on the  Law of the Sea (the best backing for our passive/aggressive resistance to Chinese claims in the South China Sea); and work to agree on -- and sign -- a global warming treaty in Paris.

I know, I know: idealistic, impolitic, illegal, infeasible, fanciful and naive ...  But on these policy principles can be built a concerted foreign policy of leadership -- respect for self-determination, well articulated national-interest in each troubled region, a balance between Europe and  Asia, support of world treaties, diplomacy balanced with military might -- these are foreign policies from which goals and winning strategies can be formed. 

Anyway -- in the meantime -- don't do stupid shit.

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[1] Nov/Dec 2015 Foreign Affairs, Delusions of Grand Strategy, David Edelstein and Ronald Krebs

An "Unloyal" Opposition?

"His Majesty's Opposition" was coined in 1826 by John Hobhouse, Radical, later a Whig, to proclaim his ability to oppose the sitting government while at the same time being loyal to nation and regent.  The phrase has come down to us as "The  Loyal Opposition," a distinction too often ignored in Mid-East and Asian autocracies these days.  Erdogan, Putin, Sisi and lots of others treat opposition as disloyalty if not outright treason.

In a representative democracy, like ours, to what should an opposition be loyal?  Not king nor President but certainly to the foundation of law and governance.  But in these contentious days, it seems that our oppositions are increasingly disdainful, if not outright dismissive of the processes of representative governance -- reaching compromise, searching for pragmatic solutions to move forward.

Yes, I'm thinking of the Tea Party but also of the Occupy movement.  And of the Freedom Caucus.  And of the Ted Cruzes and Jim Bishops and Donald Trumps of American civic life.  Are they loyal to the processes of representative governance?  And the anarchists -- well, anarchists are disloyal.  But I'm not ready to name the rest disloyal, but are they not an "unloyal opposition?"   Do they not eschew compromise and collaboration; do they not simply seek confrontation, denial and disruption?    

David Brooks wrote recently that the center is not holding -- extremes are becoming ever more strident and disinterested in the art of governing.  There is no strategy of positive opposition, only tactics to destabilize and destroy.  Destroy those governing whether of one's own party or the other.  Destroy the "enemy" opponent.  Seed suspicion, disbelief, and disdain.  

Look at Trey Gowdy, of the  4th of South Carolina, confronting Hilary Clinton: prove your innocence.  After the 11 hours of disbelief and attack, he said that she had "answered as she always has" clearly implying that she's "still lying under oath."  (Gowdy has starred in a couple of reality TV episodes -- would you buy a used car from this dandy?)

And what of Jim Jordan (4th, Ohio) who demonstrated less the former federal prosecutor and more the former high school wrestling coach: this isn't an inquiry; grab a hold, don't let opponent catch a breath, go for the pin?  Or Mike Pompeo (4th Kansas -- what is it about these 4th Congressional Districts anyway?) persisting in false claims that Mike Blumenthal was Hilary's only source of advice on Libya to the point that Andrea Mitchell was moved to sacrifice her reportorial impartiality and counter him in public?  Or Martha Roby (2nd Alabama -- trying to work up to a 4th level inquisitor?) prim, judgmental, thin-lipped and humorless, channeling Cotton Mather while fixated on meaningless e-mails between low-level State Dept. staffers Hilary never heard of?

This attitude of suspicion, of sniffing out conspiracies, of distrust of representative governance is not isolated to Congress.  At a local candidates forum here in our little town, the challengers to city council members were tight lipped, negative, suggesting conspiracy, and calling for "citizens' advisory votes" on complex issues of governance that have been studied and debated in depth.  They oppose and lack faith in representative government. 

Even at the Supreme Court -- supposedly the steadying governor on the engine of our democratic republic, we see dissenters using  disdainful ad hominem attacks to discredit majority opinions.  Scalia and Thomas in dissent seed scorn and disrespect for our democratic representative process.

Can another kind of opposition thrive?  Of course.  Remember the happy warrior, Reagan?  And what of Justin Trudeau in Canada, coming from behind to majority by opposing with respect, with positive proposals and optimistic belief in the system.  Trudeau has strengthened Canada's center. 

Let's squeeze out an unloyal opposition.  Don't fund them.  Encourage those who seek compromise, who practice respectful, affirmative listening, and who work to create pragmatic collaborations.  Find more Joe Bidens and John Kasichs.  Deny unloyal opposition a place to stand; vote them out of our democratic representative system to which all of us should be loyal.  Demand of them: what are you for, not just what are you against?

Art's In Our Lives

Welcome to Arts and Humanities Month.  President Obama's proclamation (click) is not likely to make headlines, competing as it must with Putin's Syrian escalation, the Roseburg tragedy, resurgent Taliban,  slumping Trump, Malaprop Kevin McCarthy, Europe's migrant mess,  Francis' admonitions and all the rest of the turmoil that dominates our attention.  But Arts and Humanities Month should ... for it is the arts and humanities that make us, at root, civilized in spite of the inhumanities we deliver on each other.

By coincidence, Ann and I started off the month with a burst: Thursday at ACT to see the premiere of Steven Dietz' new play, Bloomsday, inspired by and an ingenious twist on Joyce's Ulysses; Friday at SAM to view the Mellon collection, Intimate Impressionism, from the National; Saturday morning at the opener of the Met HD season, La Traviata, and Saturday evening at SRJO's performance of Count Basie's 1960s collaborations with Sinatra -- It might As Well Be Swing and Sinatra at the Sands.  And in between, our house is filled with music.

The arts matter to us.  For a UW course on the history of the '60s Ann is reading Making of the President, 1960 and, next up, On The Road.   I will be at a Pratt Fine Arts Center marketing committee meeting Tuesday, at an Exec Committee session on Thursday, and later in the month, at a dinner for our Pratt instructors and artists at the Chihuly Garden and Glass.  This month, Ann will have her annual Seattle Chamber Society board retreat (she serves as Treasurer.)  And coming in the next four weeks: Seattle Rep theatre, Seattle Opera, and more Met HD.  Meanwhile, Vladimir, my in-process limestone challenge, patiently awaits my hammer and chisels at the Pratt stone studio.  We came home from Africa with only a found-driftwood sculpture, more decorative perhaps than fine art, by Botswanian Boniface Chickwenhere (we don't have room for any more major art in the house unless we have a remove-and-replace haggle, which neither of us has the guts to undertake.)   So, yes; arts matter to us -- and we believe, to our civilization.

The arts get short shrift in these times, what with funding needed for education, transportation infrastructure, homelessness and mental health -- not to mention the $51 billion authorized this year for overseas  military contingency operations -- read ISIS, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Think what that money could do -- a Marshall plan for Syria suggests Alexey, my new Russian-American friend; schools and hospitals in Iraq; support for an independent Kurdistan and one percent of it for the arts.  That would be  $510 million by the way, over three times the current budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.  But that's a mere hypothetical -- more Federal arts funding ain't gonna happen in this Congress nor with a Democratic one.

So that leaves contributions -- from state and local governments, foundations, and individuals.  Contributions keep art accessible and music orgs alive.  Program revenues, i.e., ticket sales, contracted performances and ancillary sales,  generates only 44% of what it takes to keep the symphony lights on; 42% at the opera; 32% at Seattle Chamber; 52% at Pratt; 44% at SRJO's jazz orchestra, 58% at ACT; 47% at the Seattle Rep. [1]  Neither Ann nor I like to ask folks for money; we don't like giving money very much, either.  But we do it -- for arts orgs matter to us and, we believe, to our society, to our sense of being civilized.

Yes, we know you care about social needs, education needs, poverty and mental health needs.  But if you haven't tacked an arts org onto your donation list, consider adding one -- theatre, children's theater, dance, pop music, literature orgs, whatever.  Small donations add up.  Arts matter -- to us and to you.      

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[1] These are from the latest IRS 990s.  To check an org about which you might be curious, go to GuideStar  (http://www.guidestar.org/

Are You Alright?

"Are you alright? ... are you OK?" chorused the hikers at the old gent sprawled at their feet.  "I'm OK, alright" I responded -- scrambling embarrassedly to my feet, checking my camera which had hit the rocks with a thump, ignoring the blood running down my hand, checking my hiking pant knee for a tear -- "I'm fine, I'm OK" I lied -- since I was not alright.  I was mad, mad at me; at my hiking partner who was admonishing me for going "too fast"; at my stupid, telescoping, spring-loaded Haute Route hiking pole which had gotten me down to Hidden Lake the day before, up Tiger Mountain last week, and up 2,700 feet to top of Cape Town's Table Mountain two weeks back. "I'm fine" I lied.

Table Mountain over Cape Town -- 3500'

Glacier Trail to Hidden Lake

We were on the trail to Iceberg Lake, five miles out from Many Glacier in Glacier National Park, a extraordinarily lovely hike.  And I was not going too fast, just setting a nice, rhythmic pace.  Usually she sets the pace but I was in my stride, at her pace, so she did not pass as she often does to leave me lagging behind.  Too fast for an old gent, was her infuriating implication.  "I was not trying to go fast" I protested, as we mopped up the blood and bandaged the knuckles which had hit hard when I looked up to thank hikers that had given way, caught the pole in a crack, wrapped my foot around it and went down hard on the rock strewn trail.  "I was not showing off.  I was not rushing -- I just tripped, damnit!"  (In truth, I was enjoying setting a good pace for the two of us.  Pride goeth before a fall, indeed.)

Cape Town from atop Table Mountain

Glacier  Trail to Iceberg Lake, in the Cirque Beyond

What I was really not OK about was the nagging worry that I might be getting tippy now well into my ninth decade.  I have trouble these days standing on one foot to put on the other sock; I seem to wobble a bit from time to time; I find myself reaching for banisters which I used to eschew.  And I was conscious of age, since the Glacier trip was a birthday present to myself.

But we stood atop Table Mountain.  We rowed for an hour and a half in Steamship Slough and around Otter Island Saturday, in the delta of the Snohomish, but one doesn't get tippy crewing an eight with feet in stretchers and butt on a slide.  And the hand didn't overly bother me.  And I had walked down nineteen stories of Horizon House on Friday to stretch the calves and loosen the knees.  I'm alright... right?

"I'm alright; I'm OK" I'll keep parroting with a smile -- but inside there's that nagging doubt: am I really as alright as I'd like to be?  As I used to be?  Psychologically and happiness-wise, I've never been more alright ... but damn that treasonous hiking pole.

Reflections on Migration

In the Serengeti last month we watched the migration of wildebeests and zebras, hudreds of thousands of them streaming by.  At the Mara crossings the crocs and vultures waited. 

                                          

Once out of the bush, in Arusha and then in Cape Town, we could plug into the world once again -- and we watched our species in migration, perhaps a million seekers, with human vultures preying on them. No, I am not equating these victimized people with beasts.  The one is an ingrained part of the process of natural selection; the other, the result of unnatural savagery that man inflicts on man.

I don't know what zebra and wildebeest dads feel when they watch the carnage in the water, but you and I ache for these migrants -- the anguish, the horror, the desperate helplessness of the children caught up in their parents' search for peaceful sanctuary.  

Europe is  beset --under siege from migrants and asylum seekers, torn between morality and social cost, anguished by doubt about what Europe stands for. The short term view of this is catastrophe: unaffordable food, housing and healthcare burdens and social disruption.  Hungary wants no part of it -- just shunt them on to western Europe.  Oh, they might take a few -- but only Christians, please.  Poland and Serbia stand aside.  Citizens respond with charity; Pope Francis calls upon his flock to adopt families; but governments waffle, seeing only short term crisis.

But in crisis there is opportunity.  Perhaps Angela Merkel has the long view.  Western Europe needs this infusion of strong, courageous people determined to make a better life for themselves -- and in doing so, for the communities in which they settle.  Throughout Europe, birth rates have fallen to below replacement level, meaning stagnation, an aging population to be cared for by a steadily dwindling worker base.  Merkel understands the opportunity to juice up her economy.  Germany, with a population of 82mm, pledges to take 800,000 refugees this year, 1% of their population, and again next year.  (60mm Britain agrees to 20,000, over five years.  Come on....)  This isn't the first migration. Perhaps Merkel has taken a lesson from our history. 

In the first decade of the 20thC, a United States of 76mm took in 8.7 millions! 40% of New York city were immigrant families.  They were costly and disruptive.  Jane Addams' Settlement House movement forced into America's consciousness the living conditions, health service and education needs of these other-worldies who aspired to become us.  Teddy Roosevelt as NYC DA and NY Governor rooted out the political patronage and corruption that ensnared them.  Sinclair Lewis and Lincoln Steffens and the McClure team exposed the dreadful exploitation of their labor.  America reformed  -- and these new Americans provided the brains and muscle, and with old Americans' capital, together they created an industrial powerhouse.

My grandfather, Hallie Waller, pioneered the Americanization of these new comers, first in the Cambridge, Mass YMCA and later in Akron, Ohio.  Ohio was then to the US what Germany is to Europe -- its manufacturing export engine.  When WWI shut the door to Europe, the second Great Migration began, of southern blacks fleeing Jim Crow and seeking northern jobs and opportunity.  Sure, there was a backlash; Ohio had the largest Klu Klux Klan membership in the country in 1921.  My Dad remembered being a ten year old watching a cross burned on the front yard; the Klan forced Granddad out of his YMCA General Secretary post  and his Presidency of the Akron School Board.  But the migrants struggled, thrived and made the community better.  By 1925, the Klan was fading from northern Ohio. 

A few years later, a third great migration: 2.5 millions out of the Dust Bowl -- Grapes of Wrath, hardship and conflict -- to create a new California.  And in the '60s, a fourth: 1.2 million Cubans were welcomed to these shores.

Inviting the Stranger to contribute is fairly easy; assimilating with the stranger to create a new society is very hard.  But the payoff is huge, in creativity, energy, vitality.  It's time we 320mm US took a strong stand to accept a large share of this latest migration (not to mention the thousands of Iraqis who served us in that disaster and deserve sanctuary here.)  Trumpism be damned.

The world must learn to deal with migrations for this won't be the last and certainly not the largest.  Zebras and wildebeests migrate in response to water.  If the global warming forecasts are only half realized, water issues will be driving huge human migrations, both within and across borders.  Water shortages in China will drive internal migration of tens of millions.  A surfeit of water in the ocean will drive millions migrating within the US as coastal areas from Houston around the Gulf, around Florida, and up the east coast up to Long Island become unlivable. 

Elsewhere, tens of millions of Bangladeshis and Indonesians will be migrating to higher ground.  Conflicts in developed economies as well as in the third world will flare up over water, arable land, disrupted food supplies, and disaster relief after storms or forest fires.  None will be exempt; all six continents will be enmeshed in migration (and in Antarctica, even the penguins are migrating these days.)  These human migrations may not be as concentrated in time as the current crisis in Europe, but even spread out over longer periods, they will be disruptive -- and will present opportunities.   

We are entering an era of continuous migration.  We -- all of us -- had better resolve and prepare to handle these migrations with empathy and kindness, with a willingness to accept the short term costs, and with a long view of renewal, of energizing, and of opportunity.  Mankind need not be bestial; the stranger must be invited in.

A Glass Half Full Is As Good As It Gets; So Let's Get A Bigger Glass

Like many progressives, I've looked at the Obama administration for the last four years and seen a glass half empty. Two recent Obama events have made me reconsider my disappointment.  I was naive.  The glass has been half full -- and always will be.  That's as good as it gets.

Obama's interview with Mark Maron on WTF was the first "event."  One smart-ass commentator criticized Maron for not pushing the President and forcing sound-bite gaffs -- the gotcha school of journalism we've too damn much of.  The WTF encounter is  a model interview: thoughtful, disarming conversation drawing out inner thoughts and reflections.  Listen to the whole -- and not just for the use of "nigger", which was purposeful and pointed and appropriate -- and see if you don't begin to ask, as have I, what is a reasonable expectation of a POTUS?  Progress in faltering steps.  Glasses half full: the typical condition of our democratic republic.  (Click here.)

A President's task, then, is to manage the size of the glass.  A conservative might set out to downsize it; a progressive, to enlarge it.

Obama's eulogy for Rev. Pinckney is the second "event" that leads me to reassess and dial down my impatience.  His words and earnest delivery were as eloquent a call to action and attitude adjustment as any I have heard.  Worth listening to again: click here.

American ninnies will continue to disparage, decry, deny what is being done by this pragmatic progressive.  And every reasonable person will find something not to their liking; mine is his willingness to re-enter Iraq.  But, overall, Obama is proving right for these times of ambiguity and complexity.  Nothing is simple; there are no good choices.  The glass will remain half full, and that's perhaps as it should be; the glass just needs to get bigger.

Not Until You Tell Me Why? Why!?

Mr. President:

More troops?  I'm sorry, more "advisers" into Iraq? -- advisers who they would not dare shoot at, of course.   More bases set up in Iraq? -- guaranteed to win us everlasting gratitude, I'm sure.  Arms to Sunni militia -- yet another private, sectarian army not under central command and control of Iraq's government -- which will happily cooperate with Shiite militia, each of whom will politely refrain from cutting each others' throats? -- of course.  More Special Ops incursions into Syria -- which will overawe and subdue apocalyptic terrorists despite their culture of revenge -- I'm sure. 

What the hell are we thinking?  Why?!    

What does victory over ISIS look like?  How will we know it when (and if) we achieve it?  And the Sunni tribes that have opted for horrific ISIS over hateful Shiites, who will they opt for next? 

The only rationales offered for us re-entering Iraq are that ISIS is truly Satanic, deserving to be killed, and that they will stir up even more trouble in the region if they succeed in carving out a Sunni kleptocracy.  Really?  More trouble than has been brewing off and on since 1920?  Since 1750?  Since 1000? More Satanic than the Saudis who have beheaded 88 people so far this year?   Is defeat of ISIS going to mollify the Ayatollahs, the Kings, the Generals, the Sheiks, the Emirs -- and get them all to behave as we wish them to? 

What is it we want to achieve?  To buoy up a Shiite regime in Iraq that hates Saudis and the Emirates, that Iran controls, that supports Assad, and that spits on their own Sunni and Kurdish citizens?

Somebody tell me exactly what we buy by putting more American lives at risk, by putting American arms into the hands of Baathist Sunni militia.  What do we gain by adding fuel to the fires of civil wars in Iraq and Syria, wars that if fueled by outsiders will likely merge into a great sectarian war engulfing the entire Gulf?

Advisers: the military likes to take ground and count kills.  When advisers moved into the field with their Iraqi units in Anbar, ground was taken, kills went up.  Ergo, get more into the field.  Pretty soon, advisers are coaching, then leading, then getting shot and calling for more "advisers."  I recall, it was 1963 or '64, when I wept looking at pictures in Life of the first adviser deaths in Viet Nam, two GIs airlifted out of their advisee ARVN unit who died in the copter enroute to a MASH.  Go back and read  Frances Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake about Kennedy's well intentioned "advisers" and what that led to. 

Today, we've been de-sensitized by 12 years of seeing GI's dying in deserts; we have no more tears to shed -- unless it's our own kin sacrificed there, and of course, with no national service, few of us have that skin in the game.  But we all do have a stake in calling a halt.

For God's sake, for our sake, just say NO!  No more dollars and blood.  No more blundering in to take sides in ancient feuds which we do not, cannot understand.  No!  Leave the bloody Near East to blood-thirsty, self-destructive near easterners.  Step back and let them play out their history until, exhausted, the survivors decide on their own to co-exist.  That's what Christians had to do between 1600 and 1648, yes, at frightful cost.  And that's what the Muslims will have to do -- on their own, and yes, no doubt at frightful cost.  Our role is to stand aside, not to take sides; to avoid stirring up more hatreds and resentments; and when possible, to provide succor and support to refugees and survivors.  But now, just say NO.  No mas; no mas.

If you agree at all with this plea, please pass it on.  Let a deluge of No!'s begin. 

Let's Get Started

If you've followed my ruminations, you know of my growing concern about the health of our American political economy.  Now two books, perhaps the two most influential published thus far in this young century, have moved me from decrying our republic's illnesses to seeing pathways to healing.  The first is Thomas Piketty's ­Capital in the Twenty-First Century; the second, Robert Putnam's Our Kids. The American Dream in Crisis.

It's taken me months to thoroughly read Capital -- all 655 pages of it, some chapters three times (the 76 pages of turgid notes were skimmed through; I did not attempt his on-line technical appendix.)  I daresay few who have so praised or so attacked Piketty read Capital any more thoroughly than I, though many of them likely understand it better.  Nonetheless, his findings ring clear to me: inequality is an inherent feature of capitalism, whether pure market capitalism or as we practice it.  

What matters is not income inequality, the focus of so much attention and empty political chatter; what matters is wealth inequality, i.e., the accumulation of capital and its inevitable concentration.  So long as returns on capital exceed the growth rate of an economy, which in a developed economy is always the case, capital will concentrate in few hands and inequality will grow, along with those hands' access to political machinery, to doors of superior educational institutions, to levers of advantage and opportunity.  What we must do is interrupt the concentration of wealth.  Piketty admits that the ideal, a wealth tax, is virtually impossible for any one country or jurisdiction to pull off given the fluidity of capital movement across borders and the temptation of countries to compete to be the more welcoming to capital (read Luxembourg, Switzerland, Antigua and any tens of others.)  But we can make a start....

It's Robert Putnam who connects the dots.  What matters to our future, to restore the American Dream, is equality of opportunity regardless of wealth and advantage of access.  As we know, America has become more socio-economically rigid than any other developed, industrialized nation.  Our storied upward mobility, the land of opportunity, the Horatio Alger dream, has become just that -- a dream.  The key to our vaunted exceptional-ism was that social mobility; without that promise, America is no longer at all exceptional.

So where do we start? 

·         Constrain capital accumulation.  Repeal carried interest treatment of capital gains.  Tax capital gains of under three years at ordinary income rates, with a decreasing tax rate each year thereafter reaching zero after ten years .  Decrease estate tax exemption to a $ million or so and sharply increase progressivity of estate tax rates.  Pressure recapture of trust funds moved into tax havens, as we successfully have done with Swiss banks.  Repeal tax deductibility of investment advice and expenses.

·         Increase education support and access.  Fund universal pre-school attendance and transportation.  Increase earned income credits and provide incentives for their use for paying pre-school and education expenses.  Offer federal reimbursement for community college certification.  Increase block grants to states for school investment -- facilities, teacher and faculty support, tuition reduction -- whatever the state legislature chooses as their priority.  Campaign for property tax equalization to reduce discrepancies between wealthy and less so districts.   Provide vouchers for education and nurture diverse school experiments -- magnet schools, charter schools, whatever seems to promise productivity in learning.  Nurture affordable housing, experiment with housing vouchers, and disperse moderate and low income households among middle class neighborhoods which value and support education.  Support and promote mentoring and coaching programs for promising low-income students.  Rainier Scholars is such a program here in Seattle, one which we support and in which Ann is seeking a role.  Restore to the elementary curriculum arts, music and other programs that encourage self-expression and self-discovery; these kids need more than just STIM.

Don't we have other problems?  Sure: unconstrained corporate, union, not-for-profit, and individual money in politics; lobbying and the Washington revolving door; the military-industrial-congressional complex; infrastructure investment; incarceration; job training and re-training; fair foreign trade; wage stagnation; ideological polarization; an unfair, jury-rigged taxation system; and lots more.  But until we successfully open access to opportunity and constrain concentration of wealth, our ability to address these problems will be stymied.  Our society will continue becoming more and more unequal, more and more rigid, more and more not the America of promise that has so attracted the downtrodden of the world to come with their guts, ambition, courage and determination to become Americans.  

Call it class warfare if you must engage in hyperbole.  I see it, rather, as addressing what Piketty calls the fundamental contradiction in "...a market economy based on private property ...": "powerful forces of convergence ... but also powerful forces of divergence, which are potentially threatening to democratic societies and to the values of social justice on which they are based."  Constraints on capital and equal access for all are the essential protections of a market economy based on private property.

One of the first books that drew me into this net of concerns about our Republic was Hedrick Smith's Who Stole the American Dream?  Rick has launched a web site to encourage and energize us to get involved in addressing our challenges and opportunities.  Check out www.reclaimtheamericandream.org and begin pressing our representatives to step onto what I think are the most promising paths: constraining wealth accumulation and opening opportunity to all our kids.

These aren't short term solutions. There are no short term solutions.  But we can, together, bring the long term to us.  As Fareed Zacharia says, " Let's get started."

I Live With the Seven Dwarfs

Sunday morning.  This morning she was grumpy.  She's adorable when she's grumpy.  That sounds patronizing, I know, but she is adorable when she's grumpy and I told her so, which only made her more so.  Then I realized that I live with and love all seven dwarfs.

Usually, she is either Doc or Happy.  Doc hectors me to floss, "have you called the dermatologist?", "watch out for that car", "don't follow so closely", "that shirt doesn't go with those pants"....  Happy simply lights up the room.

She can be Dopey on occasion, as when the other day she absentmindedly asked "what's the capital of Copenhagen?"  Then she was chagrined, but rarely is she Bashful; more often a pale form one might nickname EssCee (for self-conscious.)

Often in the am, Sleepy appears, especially after a sound nine hours.

Sneezy rarely appears, but such a ladylike Sneezy.  I'm the one that blows the roof off.

We should have Disney's bluebirds flitting about, but I couldn't be any happier than to be living with one of my seven dwarfs, especially on a peaceful Sunday morning in spring.

On Lookin' Good For Strangers

From Sun Valley

Today, near the end of an 11k skate-ski, I approached an elderly (younger than I) couple slowly working up a slight incline on classics.  Since gravity was running in my direction, I was able to straighten up, assume a decent skating rhythm and sail past, rewarded with her admiring look.  So self-satisfied ....   I pledged to myself "today, no falls." No sooner said than my skis went cattywampuss and SPLAT! -- tail over teacups.  Proverbs, 16:18: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."  So much for lookin' good for strangers.

Blanche Du Bois said "... whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." The Kindness of Strangers; Tennessee Williams' crystalline phrase rings on in novels and biographies, PhD theses on adoption, rock albums, TV episodes, and the latest -- in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.  Well, I'm no Blanche; my spin, I must ruefully admit, is to seek the admiration of strangers.  Weird....

How silly is that -- to suck in my stomach and straighten my shoulders when I enter a room full of strangers.  Even worse, when passing on the street an overweight woman or guy with a gut, neither of whom I will ever see again.  What kind of sorry ego-centrism ...? Do I imagine them thinking "that is a pretty good looking guy for his age"?  Or "Jesus, I have to lose some weight."  Or "isn't he fit"?  Truthfully, yes, I do.  I peer into the narcissistic mirror of my imagination with all the angst of Sleeping Beauty's mother -- "Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...."  How silly is that?  And most likely, they are really thinking -- if at all -- "catch the pompous old geezer."

On the other hand, should I just let my gut go slack, my shoulders slump, slouch along half-shaved , with a stupid, self-satisfied grin, waiting for commitment to the county home for the bewildered?  

No, perhaps narcissism has some social benefit.  Perhaps caring about what others think is a governor on one's manners, grace, politeness.   

But do I strain so to suck it in for friends or family?  Well, not so much as with strangers.  What is that about...?  I care for family; I care what friends think.  On the other hand, I pretty well know what they think.  I can't fool myself into imagining they think something other than what they know me to be.  Resolution: I must discipline myself with family or friends to stand a little straighter and -- more important -- to show my care for them. 

Yes, yes ... but, really, it is so much more satisfying to look good for strangers. 

The Boy is Back in the Boat!

Yesterday, after eleven weeks, this boy got back into the boat.  What a joy! What a relief that I can still crew with mates, still pull my weight.  The water was wreathed in wisps of fog, the morning warm (for February), the boat moving well.  We finished with a 700 mtr sprint race with a wounded quad -- not much to crow about, but we caught and passed them at the finish buoy.

It all started one morning in late November, I couldn't swing my legs out of bed, couldn't stand erect. The pain was excruciating and for several days, mornings started out with a yelp of pain, with a crouching, scrabbling parody of walking.  X-rays showed a frightful scoliosis -- one I never knew I had.  I should have had a clue a couple of years ago: stroking a pair one day, my partner kept telling me to sit up straight; that I was leaning to the right.  No, I protested, what the hell are you talking about -- I am sitting up straight!

Well, we were both right, for my spine sure looks unnaturally twisted. Gradually, day by day, while the mornings were horrid, I would get more upright and mobile as the day wore on.  As I subsequently learned, the discs were pressing out fluid and adjusting.



A subsequent MRI showed three stenoses -- severe pinches of the spinal chord. Here on the right is the spinal chord, in white; you can see the three pinches.  Scary.


Off to see two of the best orthopedic spine surgeons in town, one a minimally invasive technician, the other a traditional 'open 'er up and let's take a look' guy.  One said "if we operated on pictures, you'd be a candidate.  But we don't.  We operate on pain, mobility and strength.  And you are not a candidate for surgery."  The other said, looking at the films, "you must be a stoic. But no, avoid surgery as long as possible.  You're not there yet."  Two surgeons; no surgery; not bad.  Both prescribed physical therapy and cautioned against forceful chiropractic.

The physical therapy has brought much relief and steady recovery.  I still wince and groan in the morning, I still have to sleep on my side, sit in stiff-back chairs, use lumbar pillows and do my stretches. And I wore a back brace yesterday.  But, I am improving every day ...

...and I am back in the boat!  

All This Talk About the Veto...

... has piqued my curiosity.  Obama is threatening his third; the Senate is daring him to (on the XL Pipeline.) Where did the idea of veto come from?  Why?  What was the original intent?  Is it working as it was supposed to?

"Veto" is Latin for "I forbid" and it originated in the Roman Republic where either of the two consuls holding office in a given year could block a decision by the other.  And any tribune, heads of government departments, could veto an act passed by the Roman Senate.  A republic in name but pretty centralized at the top.

Our veto, of course, is in the Constitution,  Article I, Section 7:

                "Every Bill ... before it becomes a Law (shall) be presented to the President of the United States: if he approve (sic) he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall ... proceed to reconsider it.  If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of  that House, it shall become a Law.... If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return,  in which Case it shall not be a Law.

So there it is -- the veto and the pocket veto, but note that the founders did not use the word.  Hamilton called it the Executive Negative.

How did it come about?  From the very start of the Constitutional Convention, in May of 1787, the idea of an executive negative was proposed.  Yet in Colonial times, one of the prime complaints of the colonists was the right of Royal Governors to veto bills passed by the colonial legislatures or parliaments.  And if the Governors did not veto, the King could withhold his assent and a bill would not become law.  That withholding of assent was the first of the string of complaints against George the III cataloged in our Declaration of Independence.   So why now, just ten years later, the 180° turnabout?  Well, during the few years under the Articles of Confederation, those "Founding Fathers" had witnessed State legislatures steady nibbling away at the prerogatives of the executive, steadily encroaching on his (no sexism -- they were only hes) his authority and responsibilities.   

Delegate James Madison proposed that the President and four Supreme Court Justices either assent to or negate a bill.  Delegate Alexander Hamilton, concerned with separation of powers and wanting a strong executive, proposed an absolute Presidential aye or nay -- no recourse for Congress.  It was Randolph who framed the compromise, giving Congress the way to override a Presidential rejection through a 2/3rds majority of both houses.

In the battles for state ratification of this proposed, radical Constitution, among more influential voices were Madison's, Hamilton's and John Jay's, who together published a series of 83 op-eds in New York newspapers, which collectively we know as The Federalist Papers.  # 73, written by Hamilton, dealt mainly with what he termed "the qualified negative."  He presented two arguments for the veto:

        1.  That it protected the Executive from incursions of the legislative branch.  It was the "power of self-defense" said Hamilton. And this last week, just as Hamilton warned, we've seen an example as the House of Representatives challenged Obama's executive orders on immigration and restraints on deportations.

        2.  That it provides "security against the enaction of improper laws." By requiring a return with Objections in writing and a reconsideration first by one house and then, if overridden in the first, by the other, the veto process provides a cooling off period for reflection.  Prescient Hamilton commented that a "spirit of faction" can sometimes pervert thoughtful, rational deliberation.  By "faction" read party.  There were no parties in 1788, and the founders generally distrusted them.  But a few short years later, those very founders were creating political parties, the very ones we have today and, as Hamilton predicted, they often warp and pervert thoughtful problem solving.

In #73, Hamilton forecast that the veto would be little used and even more rarely overturned.  Was he right?  Well, yes and no.  Let's go to the numbers.

Seven of our 44 Presidents did not veto any bills.  But the thirty-seven who did averaged a whopping 69 vetos!  The median?  Eighteen used it between once and twenty-eight times; eighteen, more than 30 times.  Such a large difference between the mean of 69 and median of 29 indicates that a few Presidents really racked up the vetoes.  I guess: 635 times; 584 times, 250 times!

The first veto was exercised by our first President at the beginning of his second term.  At issue was a bill about using census data to apportion congressional seats.  Washington thought the bill gave an unfair advantage to the northern states despite his Sect. of State and fellow Virginian Jefferson's endorsement and in agreement with his Sect. of Treasury New Yorker Hamilton's opposition. Confusing?  But the point is sectionalism had raised its ugly head again.   The Federalist majority in Congress did not override.

It was another 17 years before the next veto.  Madison, who had strongly argued for the veto, used it seven times.  Congress first overrode a presidential veto, one of Tyler's ten, in 1845, more than fifty years and 43 vetoes after Washington's first.

So who used it more than the median?  Fast forward to post civil war days:

·         Andrew Johnson -- 29 in less than two Congresses with 15 -- more than half -- overridden as he battled for reconstruction moderation as Lincoln had intended versus the Radical Republicans who wanted to hammer the South.  Little wonder that Congress wound up impeaching Johnson.

·         US Grant -- despite enjoying a solid Republican Congress, Grant still vetoed 93 times.  I guess he was accustomed to having his own way.  Overridden only four times.

·         Now we come to opening the flood gates.  Grover Cleveland -- 584 in eight years, four Congresses!  Cleveland was an interesting character, the first Democrat elected to the Presidency since Buchanan, the first to win popular but lose electoral votes, the only one to win non-consecutive terms, in 1884 and again in 1892. Cleveland was pro-business, anti-labor, for sound (read gold) money, against government spending and farm and mining subsidies.   He was what we would come in another 40 years to call a Southern Democrat -- but Cleveland was from Buffalo, NY.  Most of his vetoes were of bills granting lifetime pensions to widows of Civil War vets of questionable merit -- the vets, I mean, not the widows.   He used the pocket veto a lot, but of his 346 "active", i.e., in session vetoes, only seven were overridden.

·         When Teddy Roosevelt ascended to the Oval Office, conservative Republicans, who thought they had safely kicked the pesky progressive reformer upstairs into the harmless vice presidency, found themselves in a battle.  Teddy vetoed 82 bills and had only one overridden.

·         FDR has the record: 635 vetoes, of which 40% were via pocket.  But that was over 12 years and into his seventh Congress.  Overridden nine times.

·         Truman, of course, faced that "do-nothing" 80th Congress.  He dealt with four Congresses to whom he issued 180 veto messages, plus another 70 via his pocket.  Despite the Republican majority with their southern Democratic allies, he was overturned only 12 times.

·         Lest one think that an un-elected President and the only one since the 19th C to have served as Speaker of the House would be more respectful of Congress's will, Gerald Ford wielded the veto pen 66 times in less than two and a half years.

·         Reagan, with a Democratic House and sometimes Senate, needed 78 vetoes to work his will; all but nine successfully.

From there, it tails off:  Clinton, 37; Dubya, twelve; Obama, just two.  I think the reason is the filibuster threat in the Senate and Dennis Hastert's majority-of-the-majority standard in the House.  These have gummed up the legislative process, and threats of veto embolden opposition to the majorities.  Congress also plays games with "adjournment" to forestall pocket vetoes.  We'll see fewer vetoes until legislators come to their senses and start legislating with simple and just majorities once again. 

So, was Hamilton right: rarely used and even more rarely overridden?  Not so on usage ...  2,564 vetoes overall.   But on overrides, yes.  Presidents are upheld: 110 overrides, 4% of total vetoes and -- a better measure -- just 7% of "active" vetoes.  The President prevails 96% of the time.                

Two hundred, twenty-eight years ago, Madison, Hamilton, Randolph and the other founders, watching state legislators grasp for more power and foreseeing how factionalism could pervert thoughtful, deliberative government, conceived a federal system with separate and balanced powers and gave each tools to protect their independence.  For the Executive, that tool is the veto.  And yes, it's working as those remarkably farsighted founders intended.  Now if we can just get those clowns in Washington to get to work ....