A Sense of Timing

Civil libertarians and Americans of all stripes are in a quandary over the revelation that the National Security Agency, with the permission of President Bush, has been tapping phones and listening in on international calls. The purpose of this endeavor has ostensibly been to thwart terrorist attacks. The problem as seen through the eyes of many is that there has been no court order for the individual wiretap. So, the argument goes, are we willing to trade liberty for security?

To complicate matters still further in my eyes, though, is the fact that this operation was leaked, and then published in the New York Times. Now, while the leak of classified information and the subsequent publishing of it in a newspaper should in and of itself cause vagal spasms, it appears we are desensitized to all that. The fact that the paper held the story for months, though, and then waited until the Patriot Act was under discussion to run the details is most abhorrent.

Anyone who isn't queasy at the prospects of the Government tapping phones and otherwise utilizing various and sundry surveillance methods on citizens within the Patriot Act or overseas is a trusting soul, indeed. Franklin is being quoted much lately regarding his qualms regarding trading security for liberty. It is instructive to endeavor to look through our Founders' lenses when we are confronted with modern day problems. I'm frankly not certain what Franklin would have us do with our Patriot Act. I do know this, though, with every fabric of my being. If Benjamin Franklin were alive today running the New York Times he would not have been so scurrilous as to sit on a story he thought semi-scandalous until an expeditious moment in time and run the story then. He believed in the power of the press, that's probably why he owned one, but he also believed in his country.

As we who love history know, our forebears literally invested everything in this nation that became known as America. Had America failed, Franklin would have lost everything, including his life, as he would have been a criminal against Britain. Our problem today is we have little invested in anything. We'd rather split hairs, rather say, "Gotcha," than survive. In fact, we don't even realize survival is what it's all about, and newspapers bewailing their declining circulations are leading us to the edge of the precipice. I guess it must be true that misery loves company.

Joker Nagin

Has anyone else had about all they can take of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin besides me? The Associated Press reported Monday that residents began heading back into New Orleans at the mayor's urging that day, despite warnings from Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen that the city wasn't safe. Allen has been running the show since the sacking of former FEMA chief Mike Brown, and by all accounts has been doing a very credible job at a monstrous task. For this, and his lack of enthusiasm for the hasty re-entry of citizens into the city, the Mayor accused Allen of annointing himself "the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans."

Well, for me, I can see how a person might think it's just a tad on the quick side. As of the moment there are no hospitals open. None. There are still refrigerators full of spoiling food yet to be picked up and desposed of on the city streets. A disoriented survivor and his dog were found just today. If one-third of the city's former 500,000 population returns to the three neighborhoods Nagin wishes, that's about 150,000 people. I can see how 150,000 people might just get under foot in such a situation. Not to mention there is another hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and what pitiful means of evacuation there were before are no longer extant.

It has taken the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana to make the Federal Government look good to me, and now Nagin is ready for an encore presentation. You couldn't get me back to New Orleans with that guy running the place. However, if the multitudes decide to go back in before Thad Allen gives it the thumbs up, here's what I think. Not another nickel. Should there be any subsequent damage from another storm down there, another this or another that, which happens on what is now clearly Nagin's watch, he can have it all to himself. This is the guy with all the taunts and cursing interviews, etc., and now here he comes again, insulting the man who has organized his rescue.

So to all the citizens of New Orleans taking your commands from Ray Nagin, beware. The generosity of the American people has its limits, I believe, particularly when it is demanded as it has been. Your mayor, yes, the same guy who let the 500 buses flood, he says it's OK. The guys with the $60,000,000,000 say it isn't. Listen to who you want to. But I say you're stuck with your answer.

Where Have You Gone....?

Back in the 1970's, I think it was, perhaps the '60's, Simon and Garfunkel asked the question, "Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you." What I'd like to know is where Everett Dirksen and Hubert Humphrey have gone. Obviously, the Republican Dirksen of Illinois and Humphrey, the long-time Democrat Senator from Minnesota are long since dead. What is troubling, and puzzling, is why there haven't been that many people like them since.

I know that we all have a tendency to long for the good old days, and that a careful reading of history will inform us that there hasn't ever really been any such thing. But the aftermath of the disaster that is Katrina serves to alert me again that we used to have some statesmen in America and now they are few and far between. I use the male reference advisedly; during that period of time women had yet to take their places in government to the extent they have now.

In the last few days, any time Nancy Pelosi has found a podium to stand behind, all verbage has been vitriolic aimed at the Federal government response to the natural disaster. Let's set aside for a moment who is to blame. Can any of us old enough to remember see Humphrey, Dirksen, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Nelson Rockfeller, Scoop Jackson, etc., speaking in such tones? And Pelosi has had company. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada has been stylistically similar.

Heaven help us all, we are on the brink of Supreme Court confirmation hearings to confirm Judge John Roberts and it will be more of the same, and it will be dueling microphones as some Democrats trash Roberts on a news show and Republicans trash the Democrats who trashed Roberts. It is becoming more than a mere nuisance. It is becoming a threat to our way of life.

I suppose there are all sorts of reasons as to why this might be. The proliferation of 24-hour news outlets has something to do with it, perhaps. There is a constant need for interviews, hence a constant need for a reply from a protagonist. Our society in general has become a bit more frantic in its pace, too. I think some of this may be a result of the fact that there are simply more of us. Small towns have become small cities. No traffic has become some traffic. "Everybody knows everybody" has devolved into a sense of not belonging which yields less connectedness. It's less "us," and more "them."

More than any of this, though, is that government is being lived out on the poles. Left vs. Right. I'm all for having some semblance of a coherent philosophy of government, but we are being governed by ideologues, more and more who have little room for tolerance of any view that doesn't perfectly fit a template. More and more I feel as if I'm living under a parliamentary form of government instead of a representative republic. It shouldn't logically follow that just because a party has the majority in a house of Congress that their agenda is going to carry the day, but that seems to be what happens. This isn't right, prima facie.

I am not a pessimist. I am almost a childish optimist, but I think I am watching our country being ripped to shreds by politicians and factions and special interest groups that only want whats best for them and the hell with anyone else. We are going to have to do better, soon. We must demand it of our representatives. For the sake of this Great Experiment and the freedoms we all enjoy because of its success to now. "Long may our land be bright, with freedom's holy light. Protect us by thy might, Great God our King." Those are the last lines of the last verse of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." From the looks of the things it will take the hand of the Divine to do us any good, because I'm not seeing much to impress me from the mortals. Maybe Simon and Garfunkel will write a new song.

The Government Will Protect Us

In an earlier article I spread the blame for what passes for the current state of New Orleans. To summarize in a sentence, local, state, Federal governments, as well as a certain sub-class of citizens out for themselves are all culpable, I think, for an inadequate response to this disaster. Only later did it occur to me that Hurricane Katrina was a relative bit-player in this whole sorry set of affairs.

Ours is a generation which has been taught to rely on the government to protect us from every sort of thing. If one thing is sure and certain from this fiasco, it is that not only did the government fail to protect, it at all levels made a bad situation infinitely worse.

We are instructed by many that we should rid ourselves of all of our guns because the police will protect us. That argument was fraying before New Orleans, but the gun control people must be in a real tizzy this Labor Day, because no one will ever believe that line again. A story came out of the former City formerly known as New Orleans a few days ago about a man who was sitting on his front porch listening to his generator run when several of the city's finest hoods announced they were taking his generator. He replied to the effect that they weren't, fired a couple of shots over their heads with his revolver, and to greener, if not damper pastures they ran. If there were any police to assist him the story didn't mention them, but the homeowner settled back down and listened to the Honda purr away.

So many without food and water for days, waiting for the government to bring them some has me thinking about keeping emergency supplies on hand, as I should. I understand so many of those ignored for so long were poor, but perusing various internet sites teaches one that basic survivability is inexpensive and more a matter of educating oneself than it is of large financial outlays. Obviously, that would also have been a function government could have easily provided having days notice that hurricane arrival was imminent and levee failure was likely.

Perhaps I am becoming more and more cynical in my advancing years, but it seems to me that governments at all levels are more than ever wanting citizenry to be dependent on them. I don't know that the characteristic self-reliance that made America great is anything politicians particularly want to foster. Politicians without an exaggerated sense of self-importance are even rarer than Class V hurricanes. The more they can do for us, the more valuable they can become, both to us and to fill their own needs for self-importance. There are benevolent leaders out there, and they are to be commended for what they do.

Well, what to do then? For starters, we need to think of taking care of ourselves and our own, at the family level and then domestically at large. The outpouring of support to and by the American Red Cross and America's churches, made possible by compassionate citizens, has been a partially redeeming virtue. We also need to insist that our leaders "promote the general welfare." That doesn't necessarily mean entitlement programs that keep people poor, but it can mean shoring up levees before they fail, as had been predicted for years by anyone who was versed in their construction. That will often mean putting the rights and well being of others ahead of our own, but if our mindset is of providing for our own needs we wouldn't be so focused on whether large sums were being expended on Louisiana levees, as an example.

Greed and political power, or its lack has gotten us in some terrible messes, and the Gulf Coast mess is the worst in our nation's history. How we respond will define our national character. It will demonstrate whether corporately we have the will to put the nation ahead of self.

Tom Brokaw described the WWII generation as the nation's greatest one. We are at such a pivotal moment in history that a succinct phrase will be used to describe ours. What will it be?

Refugees in America

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blistered the Feds last night on New Orleans radio for the poor help his constituency has received in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The problem as I see it is that there is plenty of blame to go around, and a lot of it can be laid at the feet of the mayor. He's no Rudolph Giuliani.
The comparison in and of itself isn't fair. New York, for all the horror of 9/11, wasn't under water, and there were roads in and out. But New York didn't have at least two days notice, either, and arguably years notice, that the levees would not hold.
Then we have Governor Blanco, she of the same two days notice. She had the ability to mobilize the National Guard, but by appearances it wasn't done in timely fashion. The city had totally deteriorated until it no longer approximated things American by the time the Guard arrived.
What about the citizenry? They bear some of the blame. Listening to interviews on television of survivors inside shelters or those on bridges and overpasses wanting to get there, one saw the sheer courage and determination that has made America great. At the same time, hoodlums made the unbearable suffering all the more so as the "me" generation thought of no-one else. Gimme, gimme, gimme. No where to plug the plasma TV into, but gimme. Just because I can.
And then, finally, where would a mess be without Federal Government ineptitude? The Director of FEMA had the audacity to hit the television airwaves on the morning of Friday, September 2 and claim that he wasn't aware of this and that, when everyone else in America was. All the rest of us with interest and compassion for our fellows were gathered around televisions watching the suffering wondering where in the world the help was.
The Federal Government has two basic charges: to print currency and to keep us safe. I suppose the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington is open this morning. There are people in New Orleans who are being raped, beaten and shot today as a result of a weather phenomenon that was followed for days and was predicted within miles of where it would strike. In such an instance, one out of two simply ain't good enough.

Shaken to the core

This past Thursday, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling which is arguably the most momentous in the history of the Republic. In a 5-4 vote, the court allowed the state to take private property against the wishes of the owner via eminent domain for purposes other than the "common good," such as constructing a shopping mall which would enhance the local tax base. The potential ramifications of this ruling are chilling, and give any thoughtful citizen pause as one contemplates one's role in a "free" society.
In America we are free, we have rights. But only the most naive would deny that certain of us have more influence than others, and those of us with money have more influence than those of us who do not. One would have to be even more naive to not envision the back room deals that are brooding as we speak to wipe out a neighborhood so someone's pet project might come to fruition. If one of the purposes of our Constitution was to protect us from tyranny by the majority, this ruling exposes us to tyranny by the well-heeled.
If there is one thing we can know with certainty it is this. The Founders would not be pleased. To the last one of them, they were exceedingly wary of the misuse of power, hence their complex means to divide it in such a way that it could not be misused. What is ironic is that a reading of early American history makes it clear that most of them, certainly Hamilton, the most prolific writer, thought the judiciary the least likely to be problematic from the standpoint of being a threat to individual liberty.
Well, what to do? Within the ruling is the notion that those closest to the fray, in this case the local government, are best able to make local determinations. A novel Conservative notion in an otherwise Liberal judgment. Activist, engaged citizens may elect local leadership likely to preserve what the United States Constitution had for 200+years. If there is any good in this, it may serve to remind us that we must be ever vigilant. It really makes no difference whether terrorists crash planes into our buildings or judges threaten our freedoms under the guise of twisted logic that any American history student could see through. Freedoms taken are freedoms gone.

Tyranny

Georgetown became another municipality in what used to be Burley country to criminalize tobacco smoking in most businesses. The vote was 5-4, with the mayor's vote breaking a 4-4 tie. What is going on, one wonders, when a legal product is literally shown the door in the area where it once was king?
There can be no question that smoking is bad for you. As Larry the Cable Guy will tell you, it says so right on the box. But there is a frenzy awork over the dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke and the health risks that it poses that is separate and distinct from whether or not one likes the smell of someone's cigarette. We are told that our health is placed at risk due to the actions of the inconsiderate smoker. It simply isn't so, and the science shows it as you can read for yourself. http://www.junkscience.com/feb01/perske.htm Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list but an inquisitive reader can research the matter for him or herself.
What is just as troubling is this whole notion of a small group, and who might constitute it can vary with the whims of the electorate in a single election, deciding what I may or may not do. In this particular instance, it isn't going to have any real impact on me. I don't smoke, don't go out to eat all that often, don't frequent bars at all. But what about next time? What if next time a county ordinance is enacted and I have to decide which of my two dogs goes for some arbitrary reason? Think of some nuisance level ordinance you would find particularly troubling.
The founders worried a great deal about just this sort of thing. Tyranny by the majority was a concern. Power was to be feared, not embraced. It was liberty that was to be treasured beyond anything else. Sure, we should all wear our seatbelts, but should it be a government inforced crime should we choose not to?
We as a society need to ask ourselves some hard questions. What is it that we really want? More than anything else. Perfect, safe lives, tucked inside some little cocoon, where our air isn't likely to be contaminated by something someone else inhaled? Or do we want to be free? I say, simply, that it is a choice of one or the other.