Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

I mean, the guy is a piece of work. He draws up social networks on his chalkboard and then, with enormous drama, moves from point to point in the diagram and assails that week’s targeted progressive groups as a conspiracy. He calls us names like “communist” and “socialist” and “anti-American.” He makes some stuff up and then poses the question, “Why?” as though it had to be true. He chooses individuals like Wade Rathke or Van Jones and, for all intents and purposes, assassinates their characters on national television without ever speaking with them directly, or offering them a chance to respond. He claims the mantle of “journalist” while engaging in practices that no decent journalist would countenance. And, he stirs up fear wherever he can, and then proclaims himself innocent of encouraging violent acts. All in all, he’s a pretty strange dude, and one with whom I could not disagree more on so long a list of topics, I can’t list them all here.

But Beck has just done the right thing, and he deserves praise, even from his rhetorical enemies. He has said very clearly, and forcefully, that Faisal Shahzad, the purported Times Square bomb plotter, indeed deserved to have his Miranda Rights read to him and to be treated as the law prescribes for any citizen of the US thus accused. This will not make Beck popular in conservative circles that seem to be coalescing around the idea that reading Shahzad his Miranda rights was wrong and another indication of how liberals are weak on terrorism.

Unless people misinterpret, I did not undergo a brain transplant that has me believing Mr. Beck now makes sense on much of anything. He continues to confound with things like his recent attacks on Sojourners and Jim Wallis with statements like, “social justice is a perversion of the gospel” after Wallis raised moral questions about the recent Arizona law on immigration that so many are challenging. For many, Wallis among them, the Bible is a font of teachings on social justice and moral courage. Beck deserves all the criticism he may inspire for such foolish, and factually challenged, remarks.

A NY Times editorial week before last recounted the harsh attacks from Liz Cheney’s “Keep America Safe,” a joint effort with the ever-intolerant William Kristol. These two self-proclaimed protectors of our national character have remarkably concluded that lawyers who volunteered their time to provide basic legal representation to Guantanamo detainees were somehow condoning or supporting terrorism. Seven of these brave souls have moved on to appointments in the new Administration’s Department of Justice, and that has given rise to fear-mongering among the likes of Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kristol who apparently condemn the American tradition of providing counsel to even the most egregious of characters. This vital part of our system ensures all of our rights, for who is to know what crazy twist of fate might lay in the future of any one of us where we may need representation after being accused, perhaps wrongfully, of something terrible. What makes it work is its universality. If we start parsing rights, we all lose.

This tactic, primarily practiced by rightwing conservatives, but also by leftwing fringe as well, is endangering us all. Character assassination is very hard to dismiss as just part of the “rough and tumble” of political and public life. Many of us involved in charitable work designed to increase the rates of participation of disenfranchised Americans in civic life have to life with daily assaults in the blogosphere and elsewhere, some of such vituperative and false content that it stretches one’s sense of reasonableness.

But isn’t this pattern of attacking the character of opponents just a step or two removed from attacking whole groups? And isn’t attacking whole groups exactly the kind of behavior that we all abhor when we observe it in places like Bosnia or Rawanda? Both are pursued for political gain derived from the fear instilled in the public mind.

Why is it that only rarely do we see people stand up to defend the rights of minorities or unpopular people or groups? The ACLU, after all, is regularly attacked by the forces of intolerance, even though it as often as not defends the rights of conservatives or reactionaries to be heard? It is something that one would think we could all agree upon.

I did come across a remarkable exception to this recently when Bill Moyers interviewed the two lawyers – David Bois and Theodore Olsen, archetypical left and right leaning barristers – who are seeking to throw out Proposition 8 in California as unconstitutional by unfairly and unreasonably discriminating against same-sex couples by precluding marriage as an option for them as it is for heterosexual couples.  For those more interested in the trial itself, final arguments for which have been postponed pending an appeal, the live-blogging done by Courage Campaign was (and is) brilliant.

The interview was a remarkable antithesis to the Cheney-Kristol initiative, for it squarely found common ground between the best of the right and the left to assert the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8 in California that seeks to make illegal same sex marriage. It was truly a remarkable convergence of two brilliant minds who often attack problems from opposite points of view. Instead, on this issue, they found common ground.

One thing stood out to me as a parent: the effect on kids of the continued, legally-sanctioned, discrimination against the thousands of gay and lesbian couples who conceive with donors or surrogates, or adopt. How anyone could sanction this burden of bias on small children is simply beyond me. I wonder how Liz Cheney views this issue; after all, her lesbian sister is expecting her second child. More to the point, I wonder how Ms. Cheney views the vituperative attacks on both David Bois and Theodore Olsen from the legions of the intolerant who would apparently be fine with seeing her sister live forever as a second class citizen and burden her nephew with the unguided bias he so clearly doesn’t deserve. These are the same folks that want to see the “Gitmo lawyers” run out of the Justice Department.

On your list of things to pay attention to: the final arguments in the Prop 8 case. They should be coming up soon.

My uncle, Roy Pike, Jr., died in his late eighties. My brother and I sorted through his many effects after his passing in the course of which we discovered correspondence between Roy and his “special friend.” It served to confirm what everyone knew, but no one spoke about. Roy was gay. As with many in his generation, he remained steadfastly in the closet all his life, living much of it with my grandmother. He sold jewelry for Shreve & Co downtown, was an avid hiker and superb photographer, going on many Sierra Club trips. But he never openly spoke about his orientation, and he lived quietly ensconced in his generation’s not uncommon role of unattached male dinner partner in San Francisco’s social circles.

I don’t know that Roy was ever unhappy about his choices or his confined existence, but  When Harvey Milk was killed, I would think Roy felt the loss more profoundly than most, even though Milk was clearly at the other end of the spectrum as an “out” and at times flamboyant public figure. In retrospect, I am sad I never had a chance to talk with him about his experience of being gay in a hostile world. As the controversy erupted 17 years ago over “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military, I wonder what he would have said about his own experience in World War II when he met his friend in London. This is not to say he was a tragic figure, for he was not. He was an engaged, productive, and talented man who got a great deal of enjoyment out of life, limited as it was by social convention. But one wonders how it might have been different if he hadn’t been forced to live in the shadows.

Tides sponsors and supports the National Equality March scheduled for this weekend in Washington (http://equalityacrossamerica.org). This event will give voice to the very simple notion that we should all be equal under the law – the 14^th Amendment would appear to provide just that, but despite all the gains we have made, the LGBT community is still legally left out in the cold.

My kids have grown up in a very different world from that of their great uncle. To them, this whole argument is silly on its face. The idea that people should have the freedom to be with who they want is, to them, basic. That gay and lesbian people should be treated differently under our legal system just makes no sense. Clearly, the clock is ticking on those who are stuck in the mental model of my parents’ generation. But it’s going to be a long road with many hazards and obstacles before we arrive at a more generous and enlightened perspective about this very basic human right. Supporting the March seems like the least we straight people can do. Marching with the thousands of others expected, would be even better.

A LETTER TO VAN…

Dear Van,

Thanks for taking one for the team. It is so unbelievably absurd to experience the power of the rightwing attack machine, especially when what you are doing is so basically decent, and smart, and intended to help everyone, even the morons who went after you.

We know one thing about dealing with these people. Facts don’t matter. Fear matters. Whatever they can do to twist things to make you into a scary force intent on destroying our way of life, they will do. And they will do it in what Charles Blow so aptly describes as “talking in bumper stickers.” These are the same people who deride the President as being racist, who belittle anyone who tries to address global warming or poverty (not to mention healthcare), and who have literally nothing to offer other than wild conspiracy theories of a vast leftwing plot, though a plot to do what is always vague.

Now that you have stepped down, I wonder whose turn it will be next for the sick game of character assassination directed at pretty much anyone advancing ideas of social justice or sustainability. I agree with many of the voices responding to your resignation – it’s time we stand up against the McCarthyism and hateful speech that’s being thrown our way – and especially yours. It is un-American and anti-democratic.

Anyway, here’s to you and all you stand for in this world. I know you will land somewhere very soon doing critically important work. In the meantime, sleep, rest, and play with the kids. While we all know you didn’t leave to “spend time with the family”, it’s not such a bad idea.

All the best, my friend
Drummond

As happens on many Monday mornings, I peruse my accumulated email – an unending slog through a backlog that seems to grow no matter what I do. This morning, I found this picture along with an email from one Victoria Watts of Survival International, who was announcing they were opening a new office in Berkeley.

I’ve heard of the group and that they do good work, so, with my cup of green tea in hand, I opened the photo.What struck me in this simple picture of the vitality of life in another part of the world was the contrast to my morning’s dose of sad news from the Middle East: a general declaring that we have too few troops in Afghanistan, a diplomat suggesting that if Israel bombed the Iranian nuclear labs it would save us many complications, and the ‘confession’ by an Iraqi held in connection with recent bombings that killed over 100 innocent souls.

As I cross into my sixth decade, and my fourth in this work, I am as befuddled as ever by the choices and priorities we make as a species to engage in unending violence toward one another instead of taking care of one another as this gentleman so clearly is doing with his child. What is it that makes so many of us – mostly male - so certain that our way is the right way, and anyone with a different notion is dirt.

Not so long ago, Robert McNamara died. He was one of the “best and the brightest” – those remarkable Ivy League educated folks who joined the Kennedy’s in the last great political paroxysm of progressive change 50 years ago. After the assassination, he stayed on as Johnson’s Secretary of Defense and, under his leadership, helped drive the US into its now iconic nightmare of Vietnam. Many things were used as rationales for that sad debacle – the Cold War, the Domino Theory, Contain China, the need for the US to be seen as the Superpower, the cause of democracy, the defense of the free enterprise system, and many more.

Virtually none of these stood the test of time. They were corrupt intellectually, and they corrupted all who subscribed to them who knew.

The question of our time is, do we accept that coexistence with fundamentalist governments is impossible – so impossible that we are willing to sacrifice young soldiers to impose our will over them? If one witnesses the longest of these regimes – Iran – it is hard to avoid that their challenge is far more internal than external. McNamara died a broken man, falling into tears in a recent interview as he recalled the mistakes he made the failure of his leadership at the time.

Will those who are leading us now, who are calling for more troops for Afghanistan, or bombs for Iran, will they learn from our past mistakes?  I’d hate to see Mr. Gates or Mr. Obama sitting in tears some decades from now as they reflect on their decisions.

In the rain, running through DC
VP sirens-blaring events of past years
Only rarely echo along Mass Ave,

Then, right around the Finnish, then the Belgian, Embassy,
across the Connecticut Ave sky bridge,
veering into the Embassy conclave covering
the escarpment above the Rock Creek,

So, Joe has replaced Cheney,
And….
what does it mean?

fewer sirens,
less torture.

My Country, ’tis of thee….

A week ago, I attended the Global Progressive Forum, organized by Poul Ryup Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark and held in the Parliamentary hall of the European Union – an amazing space for such an event. It is called the Hemicycle and is a large oval space surrounded by 3 floors of “sky booths” containing the translators who were borrowed from the EU for the purposes of this two-day session. For an American, at least of my generation, it is with some embarrassment that I watched many of the representatives from various African, South American, Asian, and European countries in a facile way move between languages depending on who their audience happened to be. Me, I was consigned to grabbing the earphones whenever the speakers departed from English. (I’m happy to say that both of my children have avoided the mono-linguistic shortcomings of their father…)

A second, equally simple, observation at the GPF was the comfort that virtually the entire rest of the planet has with the idea of socialism and, perhaps more to the point, social democratic systems where the state plays a far more important role ensuring the social welfare of all its citizens and workers. America’s often outright hostility and deep skepticism of the role of government – not to mention the idea that government can be as well run an enterprise as any private organization of similar scale – has confused me for years. After all, my parents generation benefitted from the astonishingly successful governmental intervention in both the domestic economy and in international relations with more success than any other period in modern history. Government was the answer to the Depression and to the rise of fascism across the globe. No private enterprise could have achieved either outcome, much less had the foresight that was the Marshall Plan and the reconstruction of Japan and Korea. Yes, and the same generation was on duty when Vietnam happened and the Cold War flourished, but as a whole, there were an awful lot of good things about that era, and one has to think we may well be headed into a similar time. Lord knows, there are as many compelling challenges on the table.

May we live in interesting times.

Like vast numbers of Americans, I watched with awe and tears this morning as President Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It is a remarkable event I never expected to see in my lifetime. I was an adolescent when the Civil Rights movement came of age. I watched television news of non-violent protesters being attacked with Police dogs and fire hoses. I was horrified when the FBI was sent to Mississippi to find, and then confirm the deaths of, 3 young civil rights workers – none older than my brother who had signed up for a “freedom ride.” And, I watched the triumph of one of the greatest legislators the US presidency has ever known – Lyndon Johnson – in passing the Civil Rights Act and, later, the Voting Rights Act. But I have also watched the grinding poverty of inner city communities and the intentional ignorance that nearly 30 years of conservative rule has fostered, only making things largely worse for young African Americans. Rhetorical flourishes such as “No Child Left Behind” give the lie to the slow, inexorable dismantling of government programs intended to address structural inequities resulting from the centuries of slavery and discrimination that is our history. And yet, here we sit with a new President whose parents literally could not have lived in many states at the time of his birth because of their different races. It is truly amazing. But, as Martin Luther King III said just yesterday, his father’s dream has not now been realized. It is still a dream. But it is a dream that now has legs. It is more than an abstraction to say that opportunity to attain the highest office in the land is a real thing. Barack did achieve it, so others can follow in his example. But the obstacles are still huge and will remain so for the next person to attempt what he has achieved. There is so much more to be done, and I can’t think of anyone who is not inspired to redouble our efforts, recommit to our goals, and rekindle our dreams of a world that we would be proud to call our own – just, righteous, compassionate, and peaceful. It is closer today than it was yesterday, and tomorrow, we need to get back to work to help realize that dream.

Also, of interest:

“In Honor of Madelyn Dunham: To Dream from MLK to Obama Inauguration”:

 “Barack Obama on the Inauguration”:

Today, I write about the interrelated topics of justice and compassion. First, justice. Normally, I find myself railing about the plight of the disenfranchised and the powerless, but this piece is about the powerful and how remarkably unjustly they are being treated – the leaders of the great financial and now auto companies whose collective imminent demise is being prevented by the intervention of the federal government that is infusing, or considering the infusion of, public tax dollars to prop up their enterprises. Without argument, almost all of the managers still in charge of these failing institutions remain in charge, and tax dollars in the now famous TARP program are all that may prevent a disastrous devolution of the economy into depression and massive unemployment that will drag down the global economy as well. What is unjust about all of this is that they are NOT being held to account; they are not being dismissed for having failed the interests of their shareholders or employees; and they are not being permitted to learn the lessons of their terrible decisions. 

Like a child caught cheating on his or her homework, failure to apply sanctions may consign them to a future of many more bad decisions. It’s a terrible thing to miss the important lessons of life, and the heads of Goldman Sachs and General Motors should be permitted to miss the experience. After lifetimes of espousing the wisdom of free markets, they rode that wisdom to the brink of social disaster. Wouldn’t it also be a fine thing to have them realize that free markets need to be checked by appropriate governmental regulation? It is not a minor matter that taxpayers will end up getting the short end of things as well if these people remain in power. Shouldn’t bailout funding of these failed enterprises be driven not only appropriate public ownership, but also by enterprise based commitments to social goals: the financing of renewable energy or the development of highly efficient vehicles that must be developed for our climate’s future if humans are to survive? But I digress. In part, my plea for more just treatment of mega-failed managements of these mega-businesses – such as firing them lock, stock, and barrel – is, oddly enough, born of compassion. Without such treatment, they risk a future where their moral compasses and analytical tools will not connect the dots between their failed judgments and their failed institutions.

If they were in high school, it would never be possible to escape that connection between behavior and outcomes. In the words of a classical parent, they will be better for the experience. Speaking of compassion, I must refer you to a most remarkable 3 minute video on the internet inspired by one of the TED prize winners from this past year, Karen Armstrong. It could, and hopefully will, change your life: http://charterforcompassion.com/.

Yesterday morning’s NY Times editorial on the embarrassing revelations that the National Security Council deliberated on the specific “harsh interrogation methods” (that were to be applied in specific cases) reminded me of Michael Kieschnick’s blog a week ago. Provocatively entitled, “Which Torture Method did Cheney Prefer?” it got me thinking.

My response? Simple: dogs. Big, barking, threatening dogs straining at their leashes wanting to sink their teeth into kneeling, naked, blind-folded prisoners. Yes, I’m quite sure of it. Cheney is a hunter guy. He even shoots guns, as his friend Harry Whittington can attest (they say all the birdshot was successfully removed). So, it’s my guess that Cheney made sure they used dogs to “harshly” interrogate those poor souls.

Just how is it that this guy, multiply deferred from the Vietnam draft as a student and then as an expecting parent, ends up as America’s chief of revenge? For isn’t that really what this torture stuff is all about? Getting “them” back for the 9/11 attack?

If we as a people have come down so far on the ladder of civilization that revenge motivates policy, we have fallen far indeed. The corruption of our principals is exceeded only by the corruption of our politics. It is truly time for change.