Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

NOTICE: Due to a planned Presidio Park power outage, the blog will be down from Fri 2/19 8pm until Sat 2/20 8am (PT).

The one thing certain about elected public servants in Washington is that they really, really want to stay there. Regardless of party, the incentives to continue to inhabit the corridors of political power are deep and abiding. The problem for most of them, though, is that they spend too much time walking those corridors and not enough listening to the folks that sent them there. The perks, the deference, the hushed conversations with lobbyists for huge financial interests — they all converge to create a moss-like insulation from the sentiments of the voters. And, surprise, surprise, the voters don’t like that.

Of course, there are those holding safe seats like Sen. Shelby from Alabama who can place a “hold” on every Administration appointment in order to force the Pentagon to alter its bidding specs for a huge new contract for those planes that fuel other planes in mid-air. Turns out his state (Alabama) hosts a partner of European giant Airbus that would assemble some parts of the plane and throw off a few local jobs. This, despite the fact that US manufacturer Boeing would, without Shelby’s tweaks, likely get the entire manufacturing job and employ thousands of American workers. His narrow interest may prevail, courtesy of outdated Senate traditions, as such “holds” are a function of the filibuster rule. Just makes you want to wonder if he is aware that we are in the middle of an economic crisis where sometimes narrow self-interest might yield to broader collective outcomes.

But what’s really frustrating is that issues that really matter to millions, and about which there is broad public opinion support, can’t seem to gain visibility. Take Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Polling suggests that 80% of the electorate supports an initiative that would require our millions of undocumented immigrants to register, pay taxes, and get on the path to citizenship. Even more support the Dream Act which would allow undocumented kids, most of whom have grown up in the US, to also get on the path to citizenship upon graduating from high school by either entering the military or college.

These initiatives are simply waiting to be brought forward for a vote. But even feel-good legislation that has meaning, like the Dream Act, has fallen into the trenches of partisan warfare where the minority party has decided that the best thing they can do is say no to everything. As dismaying as that tactic may be, it is effective in the context of the country’s current mood. But, for all those incumbents on both sides of the aisle who are just hankering to return to DC after this fall’s elections, be fair warned that doing nothing may do you in.

Increasingly, the remarkable possibility is being discussed where Republicans may again assert themselves as majority in one or both houses of Congress. One can be sure that getting things done in Washington will be as hard as it was after the same thing happened in 1994 with Gingrich’s ascension as House Speaker. One remembers his “Contract for America” not for what it accomplished legislatively, but for the toxic atmosphere it created in Washington that continues to this day.

There are rumblings that a huge march for Immigration Reform is being discussed for the spring. Will it remind the DC do-nothing-until-we-have-to folks, that “no” is not an option?

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You

I was thinking a lot this past Sunday about my lapsed involvement in matters of faith. From a childhood and teenage engagement with the Episcopal Church, I came away with something that has guided my life since I can remember. It’s called the Golden Rule. Karen Armstrong – the marvelous soul who used her TED Prize to promote the Charter for Compassion – argues that all significant faiths on the planet have compassion at their core: my version went something like this, "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.”

For some odd, quirky reason I don’t quite understand, thinking about this basic tenet of moral behavior brought me to the most recent escapade of the Acorn Sting-meister, James O’Keefe, now awaiting arraignment on felony charges of conspiring to do something to Senator Mary Landrieu’s phones in a federal office building. Somehow, I think his parents, with whom the Judge has required him to live during the legal proceedings, failed Mr. O’Keefe in this most basic of moral instructions. How possibly could a faithful, moral conservative, as Mr. O’Keefe purports to be, engage in illegal and highly damaging acts intent on bringing down his perceived political opponents? I mean, have they no trust in the basic idea of democracy? Who would choose to have others do to them what Mr. O’Keefe is alleged to have done? Who would want, for any purpose, to be secretly taped without their knowledge? Not many, I’d wager.

I’ve supported Acorn for many years and in many ways. It is a good organization that has tried very hard to bring justice to poor communities. They haven’t done everything right, but I don’t think their foibles justify their fate at the hands of malevolent pranksters whose antics are now the subject of multiple inquires by prosecutors. Even so, it seems uncertain that the organization will ever again thrive as a voice for poor people in America.

It is clear to many that Mr. O’Keefe’s highly edited and illegally obtained videos have been the undoing of Acorn. It makes me sad beyond words to see how easily a dishonest kid of debatable morals with a video camera has been able to bring the rough-hewn organization, built out of the efforts of thousands of our most disenfranchised citizens, to its knees. And, Lord knows what his plans were for Senator Landrieu, a Democrat in a difficult state up for re-election this fall. One is thankful that, unlike in the Acorn case, the judicial system is already at work unraveling the conspiracy and holding the individuals accountable long before Fox News had an opportunity to promote even more fiction. I mean news. Uh, do they know the difference?

What I can say with assurance is that in the fascinating legal case that is about to begin, Mr. O’Keefe will be given what none of the objects of his efforts have been afforded – a fair chance to be heard without a presumption of guilt.