Ask yourself:
Would I work for
this boss?
Tag: Politics
TOO BIG FOR WONDER WOMAN? OR SUPERMAN?
My thinking on this starts with the lone-ranger or small-time candidates for the White House, some of whom actually have some good ideas about governing or the direction to take on specific issues. But then it expands to the demands of managing the full scope of the job at hand.
You know, even on a single issue, there’s the gap between thought and action. Or more specifically, between having an idea and pushing it through a hostile Congress, on one side, and the layers of bureaucracy assigned the task, on the other. How do you really know what’s happening at street level? Or how it would work there?
We see many policies that look good on paper but when put to the daily test of everyday people just don’t work out. Think of income-tax credits that are still out of range of helping a minimum-wage two-worker household. Go ahead and add to the list.
In other words, something looks one way from the top and quite different at the bottom. It’s a malaise that affects every multilayered organization, too – if you want to survive in your job, you tell the boss what he wants to hear. Add to that the way we bend a report to fit our preconceptions – if you like it, you bend it fully to your side … and if you don’t like it, you reject the entire package. (That’s the theory of cognitive dissonance, if you want more.) If you’ve ever played the game of “telephone,” you see how it works going around a circle. The word or phrase whispered in one ear at the beginning comes out sounding quite different at the end.
Making a good decision requires solid information to begin with, and that means having alternative sources of data to cut through the skewering of upward filtration. But it also requires moving the information down, and that’s where the lone-ranger candidates are most vulnerable.
I’m always amused by those who show up in New Hampshire and plunk their registration fee down thinking they could run a country. Some have never held public office before – not even city council or a school board seat. Some have run a business of some sort, but nothing of a scale of a state government or major city, much less a Cabinet department. And they think they can get an entire cadre of people to move in step together? I want some evidence before we get to any on-the-job training in public administration. Especially when it involves the most demanding job in the world.
The reality is that the presidency is not primarily an ideas-focused position. It’s people oriented.
That’s where I start to look at the candidate’s ability to put a campaign team together. Yes, fundraising’s part of it. But so is recruiting smart, dedicated people. How disciplined are they? How reliable? How mature? What connections have you established?
All of this quickly winnows out the lone rangers.
More and more, though, it’s also making me nervous about those survivors who wind up, however briefly, on the white pedestal. I don’t think a mere human can fill the expectations. Maybe even the expanding requirements.
And unlike Plato, I sense a philosopher-king could never possess the essential knowledge of daily life in arriving at a decision or enacting it. Why do I get the feeling the lone-ranger candidates seem themselves in this role, anyway?
Sometimes daily life itself feels overwhelming – too big for anyone. Even retired folks like me. I wish the White House hopefuls well, all the same. I expect the Executive Mansion has excellent maintenance, run by someone.
WORKING MY UNDERGROUND PATHWAY AFRESH
As I’ve reviewed the counterculture history through the lenses of the out-of-the-way places I inhabited, there are those who ask if I was ever really a hippie.
Usually, I finesse an answer – nobody really fit the stereotype, not on all fronts. And I certainly felt more at home in that circle of identity than any other at the time. Yes, I did live pretty much as a monk for a stretch through there, but that was followed by a return to a college campus and all of its action. Maybe I was in that world but not of it. My music, after all, was mostly classical and opera, along with some folk and jazz. Only now am I coming to more fully appreciate the sounds that identify the era. As for sexuality and caring, well, there’s much more to evolve there. Maybe even some radical political and social activism.
My Hippie Trails novels reflect the times, even though I keep wondering how much of the story I could recast as ongoing today – especially when it comes to physical desire and fulfillment or the simple matter of earning a living.
What I am experiencing as I dig through the encounters, though, is a sense of release – these are events that have been entrusted to me, and now that they’re published, I can move on. No matter how mundane and minor they might appear, contrasted to Haight-Asbury, say, or the Black Panther and Weathermen struggles, they were what many of us experienced, pro and con – and much of what we left unfinished. It’s no longer in my hands but rather in the wind.
This release, I’ll admit, is accompanied by an anticipation of a new phase, one adding disciplined faith to the path of renewed personal growth and service. So much of the dream awaits fulfillment.
LISTENING FOR REAL WHEN IT COMES TO IDEOLOGUES
Back in high school, I remember hearing the Young Americans for Freedom and other Goldwater supporters claiming that African-Americans would flock to their side.
Talk about blind faith! Just who were they talking to? Where were they spending their time?
I could see ways that wasn’t grounded in any reality.
No wonder I started backing away.
It was a sensation I also felt as the Vietnam war began building up.
Or as a homemade sign on the Antioch College campus boldly warned: Help Goldwater and LBJ nuke Vietnam.
At the time, all eyes and ears were cast on the conservative’s sword-and-bomb rattling. The president, we were assured, was more reasonable and reasoned. And then, once elected by a landslide, LBJ, to our horror, ramped up the American involvement. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? As we learned later, it wasn’t grounded in any reality.
The promise, of course, was One More Year. Talk about blind faith! Just who were they talking to? Where were they spending their time?
Are we, as a people, ready for some uncomfortable true statements? We need to get grounded in reality rather than unsupported ideology. Just who are we talking to? And where are we spending our time? Let’s run some numbers, for starters.
STILL LOOKING FOR A BETTER PARTY FIT
The possibilities of a viable third party or even a fourth in the American political system have long intrigued me. The two-party model in its either/or delimitation has rarely seemed to offer a good fit for my leanings and convictions, especially when we’re trying to reconcile ourselves with a full slate of conflicting issues, and I’m sure I’m not alone here. (Where, for instance, is the fiscal conservative who’s willing to slash the military budget? Even before we ask about abortion rights or education support or environmental stands?)
Sometimes, the lines have been drawn along religious, economic, racial, or similar lines: Protestant/Catholic, white-collar/working class, WASP/people of color, and so on. Or east versus west of the river, those on the hill versus those in the valley, or even two corners of a state or its big city versus everywhere else. And it’s not always that clear, especially when lines – and identities – muddle.
In practice, many parts of the country find themselves having a single-party system by default. One side or the other dominates the elections, year after year. It has the money, influence, and power to override challenges or to simply bully everyone into line. Or else.
Add to that the ways local offices can go begging for candidates. School board? City counselor? Town selectman? How many people are willing to put in the long hours – often at no pay – and often at the end of much verbal abuse? Not that all in public service are entirely altruistic, mind you, but let’s give many of them their due respect and gratitude.
What it comes down to is the importance of alternatives at the local level. (Yes, we’re back to the dictum, All politics is local.) Does a second party in a community necessarily have to line up with a second one at the state or national level? Or can it instead connect with that third or fourth party and then wield some influence?
Let’s ask, for instance, what working models of Libertarian policy and administration at local levels can we look to? Without such community-level organization and practice, dreams of a viable third or fourth party influencing state and national affairs remain only notions. So it’s back to ground level, for real change.
ROLLING THE POLITICAL DICE
One of the Quaker objections to gambling or gaming is that it instills an expectation of getting “something for nothing.” We haven’t earned the money.
And it’s not charity.
In addition, the pot might come at the expense of those less fortunate than ourselves. (That, in practice, seems to be the case with the state lotteries now found across the United States, supposedly for the support of education.)
Listen closely to the campaign rhetoric for the “something for nothing” appeals. They come from both sides of the political divide. Then ask who’s really paying – the rich or the poor, especially. Who can most afford it? And who will most benefit? And where does justice fit in the mix?
RUPERT IN THE FRAY
One of the more curious twists in recent American history is the impact of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian press baron who became an American citizen to keep control of his then fledgling television network.
Politically conservative, he’s nevertheless lowered the social standards of mass media. So much for values. He introduced dirty words to television and thus made them more acceptable in otherwise polite public discussion. His tabloid newspaper journalism, meanwhile, focused on celebrities and scandal in ways that have eroded serious political debate and public policy. That’s even without getting into his influence in Hollywood.
Put simply, we’re a less polite society than we were before his appearance. Or should we just say, cruder? That’s even before we get into the Fox News role as the Republican Party mouthpiece. Or all of the Murdoch-related phone-hacking uproar in Britain.
Now we might wonder how he’s reacting in private to the Donald’s emergence as the GOP presidential race leader. Someone from another television network, free from the Fox connection, all the same rising and then riding on the confrontational entertainment celebrity approach to political argument Murdoch’s nurtured.
Still, Murdoch’s far from the faceless corporate existence we see elsewhere. He’s passionate about print journalism, for one thing, and has been willing to take risks. But when people complain about “the media,” he’s still part of the mix, the one that almost always carries negative connotations. And, for the record, let’s point out it’s really corporate media, focused on big profits, rather than liberal.
WHERE ARE THE GROWNUPS IN THIS PARTY?
“No” is no way to lead.
That’s the lesson from watching two-year-olds or, for that matter, all too many parents.
The only thing the so-called Freedom Caucus members of Congress seem to know how to do is vote “No.” In that way, they’re two-year-olds. And don’t tell me, No, they’re not.
Just see what happens when it comes to voting for their own party leadership. No Speaker.
It’s no way to lead. The grownups in the room need to assert their authority. Perhaps, too, some parenting lessons are in order. If there’s anyone who can teach them.
SPEAKING OF SPEAKERS
Sometimes a detail from a specialized strand of knowledge opens up an insight on a broader field. In this case, it springs from my awareness of Quaker history and the naming of children.
One of the pivotal figures in the schisms within the Society of Friends in the first half of the 1800s was a wealthy English banker and evangelist who traveled widely through the United States from 1837 to 1840. Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847) was so popular that “Joseph Johns” became a synonym for potluck dishes in parts of the American South, and many infant boys were named Gurney in his honor. He was even invited by Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, to use the Capitol’s Legislation Hall to address members of Congress. In the end, a large branch of American Quakers came to be known as Gurneyites.
All that came to my mind while scanning a list of Speakers of the House and wondering if any had become president. (As noted earlier, one had – James K. Polk, who defeated Clay in that election.)
But the name of another Speaker caught my eye: Joseph Gurney Cannon, a Republican from Illinois who led the House of Representatives from 1903 to 1911.
Could there be link to the English evangelist?
As it turns out, yes.
Although Cannon’s biography has him born a Quaker in 1836 in Guilford County, North Carolina, (home of my Hodgson ancestry for many generations), I find no Cannons in the genealogical minutes. His mother, on the other hand, came from an established Friends family, which would have provided Quaker contact but not membership. In fact, her marrying a non-Friend meant losing her own membership in 1828, though she could still attend worship. Joe moved with his family to Indiana in 1840, eventually married in a Methodist service, joined a Masonic lodge, and died a Methodist in 1926. It’s a common story, actually.
What’s more interesting is the argument that “Uncle Joe” was the most dominant Speaker in the history of the House, as well as being its second longest. Time magazine’s first issue (March 3, 1923) featured his portrait on the cover, for good reason. Cannon was the longest-serving Republican in the House, totaling 40 years in office.
So much for the image of meek Quakers, no matter how tenuous the connection. Not just outspoken and pugnacious, Cannon was apparently tyrannical, leading to a crisis not unlike the one facing Congress at the moment. He was stripped of much of his ironfisted control in something resembling a coup by progressive Republicans aligned with Democrats. Sound familiar?
Cannon’s history also plays into another line of mine. He was followed as Speaker by Champ Clark of Missouri, who was somehow closely affiliated in business dealings with one of my mother’s ancestors.
WHERE’S THE HONOR OR ADVANTAGE?
Once upon a time, being Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States was an esteemed and quite powerful position.
For one thing, I never previously realized my hometown carried the name of the third speaker. Nor did I realize that Massachusetts had been the source of more of the officeholders, eight, than any other state. (In contrast, Virginia and Ohio provided the most presidents.)
I do remember finding family postcards of the Missouri mansion of Champ Clark, who was Speaker 1911-1919, and being told, in reverential tones, that one of my great-great-grandfathers had somehow been in charge of his affairs in this native state. Not that I’ve ever followed up to confirm the story. Maybe it was a cousin?
Curiously, though, despite all of its prestige, only one president – 0ur 11th – ever served as Speaker. That was James K. Polk, who led the House, 1835-39, before landing in the White House, 1845-49. In that election, he defeated another Speaker, Henry Clay. (For the record, Gerald Ford had been only Minority Leader before becoming president through Richard Nixon’s resignation.)
Looking back, though, the last reference to the position with any general air of full respect from both sides seems to invoke Tip O’Neill, 1977-87.
That’s three-plus decades ago.
For someone with the ambitions of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, these factors have to come into play as he considers Republican Party calls for him to run for the Speaker’s gavel. Even without the current toxic situation, it would add up to a dead end. Or, at best, a final step.
Let’s see how long reason holds out in the end.
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