Rantle

By Eric Anschutz, Januray 9, 2008

I have just read an anthology, compiled by Studs Terkel, in which some one hundred people were each asked to state, in about 500 words, “what I believe.” As I pondered the question, I realized that it isn’t a simple matter to come up with a meaningful answer. I do of course believe, along with most others, in the usual virtues: truth, kindness, respect, generosity, love and family. But, when I look outside myself, and outside my immediate situation, I decided that I believe first and foremost in the wonder and genius of both our democracy, and our people, not as they now are, but as they have been, and as they can again be. Let me explain.

The “wonder and genius” of our democracy is given to us in the constitution, in which the executive and the legislative and the judicial branches were meant to interact in ways designed to provide intelligent and thoughtful governance, and where the power of any one branch was meant to be limited by an inherent system of checks and balances. Instead, Congress has surrendered its right to have a strong voice in matters of policy and governance. A militant executive branch has taken us into counterproductive war, spent us into massive debt, alienated world opinion, ignored the well-being of the people, and squandered our moral leadership. And our judiciary has become both politicized and mired in ideology.

America has for much of its modern history been admired and respected as the “can do” nation. When in 1917 we entered into WW I, and, when in 1941 we entered into WW II, all parties soon realized that the US economy would provide the weapons needed for victory, and that our armed forces would soon vanquish forces arrayed against us. We believed in ourselves, and the world shared that belief.

Beginning in the late 1800’s, America’s energy and innovative genius catapulted our country into century-long world industrial leadership. American-made automobiles, refrigerators, radios, aircraft and textiles were for some 100 years the world standard of excellence, low cost and reliability. The freedom and openness and the dynamism of our country spawned and nourished Robert Fulton, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Jonas Salk.

Then came the war in Vietnam. America committed some 400,000 soldiers and the world’s mightiest military arsenal to that conflict, but we found ourselves unable to win over poorly armed enemy soldiers, dressed in black pajamas and shod in flip-flop shoes made from discarded tires. Next came the war in Iraq, where, after more than four years of unbridled carnage, our forces remain unable to stabilize an otherwise thoroughly defeated country. Add to that the degradations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and water-boarding. We are no longer the “can do” nation.

Which takes us to today’s domestic America. Our automobile industry cannot seem to build cars that the American public will buy, preferring instead Toyotas and Hondas and Volkswagens, and even now Korean-made Kias and Hyundais. Our steel industry has more or less ceased to exist, as have American-made textiles and television sets. Our infrastructure continues to deteriorate, as does our school system, our health care system, and our ecology; and we have, inexcusably, failed to rebuild New Orleans. This has become a country whose only residual claim to leadership is that we have the biggest deficit and largest trade imbalance in the world.

But, I do continue to believe in our democracy, and in our people. I am convinced that America will soon recover its energies and its enthusiasms. Though our technological leadership is under challenge world-wide, we still have Craig Venter, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the many thousands of young geniuses that have within the last decade or two created Google and Cisco and Sun and Oracle and Amazon, brought us the internet, satellite communications, global positioning systems, and the marvels of computer search engines. “Green” technologies are destined to become our technological future.

It seems to me that we need only one thing to restore America to greatness: a federal government that will lead us away from conflict and back to peace, science, economic prosperity, infrastructure, fiscal responsibility, education, health care and moral clarity. I think most of the Democratic candidates will do that; the Republican candidates offer only Bushism on steroids.

By Eric Anschutz, January 2, 2008

Democratic primary voters are in a dilemma: choosing among candidates is difficult because they like them all. Their policies are in most cases essentially similar, or even indistinguishable from one another. Each of the three “first tier” Democratic candidates offers to the nation a platform that includes immediate withdrawal of American troops from combat in Iraq, greatly expanded health care, bringing multilateralism back to our foreign policy with renewed emphasis on negotiations and diplomacy. They promise also greater support for science and technology, fiscal responsibility, aggressive policies for reduction of global warming development and development and deployment of renewable energy sources, infrastructure repair, and improvement of education. Though the “second tier” candidacies have not to date become viable, Biden, Dodd, Richardson and Kucinich offer platforms that differ only in degree with those of the first tier group. Each of them, too, brings a legitimate claim to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Polls tell us that Hillary, Barack and Edwards are clustered in a statistical dead heat for leadership in both the January 3rd Iowa Caucus and the January 8th New Hampshire Primary. Just for reference, here are some of the other January primary dates: Michigan on the 15th, Nevada on the 19th, South Carolina on the 26th, and Florida on the 29th. The big one, “Super Tuesday,” will be held on February 5th, to include California and 22 other states. By then, perhaps earlier, we should know who the Democratic candidate will be.
Hillary: Senator Clinton is for me the “safe” candidate, by which I mean that her experience as First Lady, her record of undisputed accomplishment in the Senate (where she was esteemed for her hard work and bipartisanship) and her undoubted intelligence would seem to guarantee a thoughtful and middle of the road approach to national policy. Her promise to adopt a multilateral approach to world issues, and to use Bill Clinton as her sometime “Ambassador to the World” is, to my thinking, a big plus. There is, however, no gainsaying the fact that Hillary, while popular and admired by most Democrats, is burdened with high negatives, for what seems to me no logical reason.
Barack: Senator Obama is for many seen as the “exciting” candidate, not only because he is young and energetic, but also for the intelligence displayed in his two books, and his announced willingness to reach out to the rest of the world, and to negotiate without preconditions. His polyglot genealogy marks him as an unusual American, and that could be a plus factor worldwide. Consider this: a father from Kenya; a step-father from Indonesia, where as a boy, Barack, though now a Christian, lived in a Moslem community (his middle name is Hussein); lived as a teen in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents; went on to Columbia University to study Political Science, and to Harvard Law School, where he rose to eminence as Editor of the esteemed Harvard law Review.
John Edwards: Senator Edwards is the “populist” candidate. He is also the angry candidate, accusing the wealthy and the corporations of having brought about policies that have brought unto themselves an undue share of America’s wealth. Since his loss of the vice-presidential race four years ago, Edwards has made a serious study of poverty in America, and narrowing the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest among us is a centerpiece of his campaign. Edwards career as an extraordinarily successful lawyer battling corporate interests give credibility to his populist claim that as President he would “reclaim America for working people.” Though Edwards ranks third in polls for the early primaries, some nationwide polls show that in a general election he might well be the most electable Democratic candidate.
I am glad I don’t live in Iowa. I like each of these candidates, and even after a year of listening to them and reading about them, I conclude only that each of them has what it takes to restore America to greatness. The primaries are now upon us, but I’m still not sure which of the top three is the very best, and (most importantly) the most electable. Let’s hope that the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire figure it out! For those of us in California, our turn to register primary votes doesn’t come until February 5th.

by Eric Anschutz, December 19, 2007

Ron Suskind has written a book called The One Percent Doctrine, one of the best of the many analyses of the ill-begotten war in Iraq. Suskind wrote that, in November, 2001, Vice-President Cheney announced that if there is “a one percent chance” that a threat is real, “we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney’s hair-trigger preemption idea has shaped our foreign policy and provided the administrations rationale for military action against Iraq, based on the possibility, however slender, of an emerging threat.

Now, with the administration’s belligerent response to the newly released intelligence finding about the termination, in 2003, of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, we have new evidence that the one-percent doctrine is alive and well. Though we now know that that Iran stopped its active nuclear weapons program four years ago, the President refuses to concede there is anything new – anything that might be a reason to change our policies toward Iran in an effort to move from confrontation to stability and peace.
Here’s what the President said in response to the new intelligence finding: “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous … What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program?” To me, these are unthinking words of bravado and bellicosity, not the words of a statesman in search of peaceful resolution of an ongoing crisis, not words we have a right to expect from the leader of the free world, a world that has had enough of war.
The President is right: Iran might indeed restart its nuclear weapons program. They might, but, then again, they might not. The issue here is which assumption should guide our future actions, and which would be most likely to lead to a peaceful outcome?
• By assuming that Iran will restart its nuke program, the one-percent doctrine, would cause us to continue sanctions and threats of military action. But, sanctions, and angry words, and refusal to negotiate or even to meet, and the constant warnings that “the military option remains on the table,” provide pressure on Iran to maintain nuke readiness.
• If, on the other hand, we proceed on the assumption that the new NIE has provided a window to peace, and that Iran may now be open to negotiations leading to a verifiable renunciation of nuclear weapons, we should follow a negotiating strategy somewhat along the following lines: in exchange for Iran’s verifiable renunciation of nuclear weapons, we could offer diplomatic recognition, favorable trade arrangements, cultural exchanges, and inclusion of Iran in wider negotiations leading to settlement of other Middle Eastern disputes. It would be best if the Israeli/Palestine issue could somehow be woven into these discussions.
To me, the second of these alternate strategies, the negotiating track, offers the promise, at least the possibility, of success. The first strategy, continuation of sanctions and military threats, offers only continuation of the present uneasy standoff, and the possibility of more war. The notion that an intelligence reversal of this earth-shaking magnitude should be shrugged off by the President as meaningless is an insult to logic. Since the earlier intelligence conclusion that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program was used to justify threats of “World War III,” it is reasonable to expect that the new intelligence assessment, which says that there is no such program, would merit a rigorous review of the old policy, and some new thinking about ways to deal with Iran. The Bush administration can do the nation and the next administration a favor by opening direct talks with Tehran, loosening sanctions, and stopping its war-rhetoric altogether.

by Eric Anschutz, December 12, 2007

Wisdom: Virtually every day we are witness to another calamity. Accidental explosions that create havoc, tornadoes that rip through entire communities, mass murders, collapsed bridges, or a school bus careening down a ravine. Television news floods the screen with real-time images of these events, and we watch them transfixed, sometimes bewildered and horrified, and always with great interest. I write now not to discuss the events themselves, but rather to pay respect to the people involved, and to take note of the pride that they always instill in me and, I am certain, in you. Let me explain.

News presentations of calamitous events generally feature instant expertise that seems always to be readily available, and always willing and able to comment and to describe and to educate viewers. And this is where the title, “Wisdom of the American People” comes in. I speak of the calm wisdom and modestly presented expertise, and the often profound insights of sheriffs, policemen, engineers, mayors, scientists and physicians, quickly brought before the cameras to explain the crisis of the day. Equally impressive are the participants in, and the victims of, the events portrayed: parents huddled with children as they stand next to their storm-wrecked house, widows of fallen soldiers, farmers pointing to diseased herds, and students outside schools just ravaged by mass murder. Almost always, these people are modest, articulate and intelligent. On every occasion when these every-day citizens are called upon to describe their feelings, or to give their observations or to lend their expertise, I feel good about our country. America does indeed have a backbone, and ordinary Americans constitute it.

Failure: But, having praised the essential wisdom of everyday Americans, we need to face an unattractive reality: smart about their immediate world and the events that directly affect them, yes; competent professionally, emphatically yes; but informed about the politics and policies of our country, tragically no. Surveys tell us that many Americans still believe that Saddam directed the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center, most of us have no idea where Afghanistan is, many of us (amazingly) can’t locate the Pacific Ocean on a map, and many of us do not understand the division of powers between the executive and legislative and judicial branches of our government. Americans read less, save less, and eat more than people of other advanced nations, and fewer of us are fully literate and numerate. In inner-city neighborhoods, the drop-out rate from high school is an appalling 75%; the use of drugs and the use of violence to settle arguments is the tragic and too-frequent condition of our underclass.

Because we lack knowledge of elementary civics and of global geography, and because so many of us so many of us vote without real knowledge of the issues, too many of us cast our ballots for superficial rather than fundamental reasons. We allow ourselves to be influenced by appearance and hype, too often failing to demand (or even perceive) wisdom and competence. Perhaps the greatest failing of our citizenry is that far to few of us vote at all. In election after election, only about 54% of eligible voters cast a ballot (far lower than any other democratic country), with the young and the less well educated declaring themselves “too busy” to make the effort. Surveys show that somewhat less than 40% of working class Americans vote.

A Horse Named Rossmoor: I never cease to be amazed at the diversity of backgrounds among us Rossmoorians. I learned just recently that one of us, Don Edison, owns a number of race-horses, and has for years been active in the equestrian world. Don has given the name “Rossmoor” to his most recent equine acquisition, because, like most of us around here, the horse has gray hair. Even though the horse, only three years old, now has mostly dark brown hair, he has many gray hairs in his coat, and according to the American Jockey Club, which is the official registrar of thoroughbreds, if there are gray hairs in a horses coat, it must be registered as gray because as time goes on it’s coat will become increasingly gray. Edison has to date entered Rossmoor into two races (at Golden Gate Fields, a dirt track), winning one, and coming in third in the other race. In future, Don plans to run him on grass because Rossmoor has “grass-breeding” in his lineage.

By Eric Anschutz, December 5, 2007

Opposites: In our search for meaning, we need to understand the need for opposites. We would not recognize warmth if it were not for the contrast of cold. Nor would tall have meaning in a world in which we had no short; cold is relevant only when compared to hot. Nor would life have meaning if we had no concept of death, and for beginnings to have meaning, we require endings. Perhaps the widest chasm between opposites is that between war and peace. War brings death, destruction, alienation, fear, and unforgivable waste of national treasure. Peace (can you remember what it was like?) brings safety, rebuilding, hope, and a sense of national and international harmony and togetherness.

The Economic Pyramid: The gross disparity of income levels in America needs to be addressed. The richest one percent of us receive some 20 percent of the nation’s income, while the poorest 20 percent get a measly 3.4 percent. Those millions of us who flip burgers and clean hotel rooms work so hard, and get paid so little. For several reasons, we urgently need massive increases in the minimum wage: first it would give those at the lower rungs a living wage; second, the overall economy would thereby be stimulated as their increased wages are immediately spent; and, third, as incomes of the poorest among us rise, there would be a higher likelihood that their children would stay in school. I would argue too that the importance of the human contribution of those who sweep floors and collect trash and empty bedpans warrants wages commensurate with their importance. To test my assertion, just think about a world in which people who tend the elderly and clean public toilets are somehow taken out of the work force. We cannot do without them; they should be paid accordingly. While we are on the subject, we need to pay our teachers far more than we now do. All will agree that education is the single most important business

The Unfunny “Funnies:” The older I get, the less funny I find the “funnies” that appear in our newspapers. The only exception, for me, is the continuing reruns of Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts,” which, as the years go by, seems to get not only funnier, but gentler and wiser, too. Schulz, who died a few years ago, became the subject of a recent biography, from which we learn that this gentle and talented man, successful, wealthy and greatly respected by millions of readers, who gave us all so much to smile about, and to think about, suffered throughout his lifetime from severe depression and a sense of alienation from his friends and family. The biography suggests that Charlie Brown, never fully successful in his interactions with Lucy and Sally and Marcie, never able to catch a football or hit a baseball, was meant by Schulz to represent his own unsuccessful attempts at coming to grips with life.

As a kid, I was an avid follower of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, his pipe-smoking mother, Mammie Yokum, the beautiful Daisy Mae, Joe Btfsplk, Moonbeam McSwine, and the many other residents of Dogpatch, whose antics brought smiles and chuckles to us all. I remember too the annual Sadie Hawkins Day, during which the girls of Dogpatch could pursue the men. We don’t see Li’l Abner any more, possibly because it would today be deemed politically incorrect to make fun of the hillbillies of Dogpatch. Or, it may be, that our world has changed, and the simple portrayal of daily life in a country-bumpkin community like Dogpatch would not interest 21st century Americans?

How Much is a Trillion Dollars?

Two new estimates for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have appeared in recent weeks, ranging from $2 to $3.3 trillion. We all know that’s a lot of money – but I thought it could be useful to make these vast figures somewhat more tangible by putting them into contexts that we might relate to. Here are a few equivalents: a billion minutes ago, Jesus walked in Palestine. One billion hours ago, our ancestors lived in the Stone Age. But, remember a mere billion is only one-thousandth of a trillion; it takes 1,000 billions to make one trillion. One trillion seconds equals 33,000 years. So, when we learn that this terrible counterproductive war is costing some trillions of dollars, we need to ask ourselves again, what in the world are we doing?