Archive for August, 2009

RISING UP

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I await, like a child waiting for Christmas morning, September 12th, to bear witness to the planned march in Washington, D.C. by thousands of Americans who are opposed to not just the proposed health-care reform, but the reform of America that is unfolding before our eyes.  There are peaceful protests being planned in New Hampshire, as well, and you can find out more about them at www.meetup.com/NH912/Calendar I’m interested to see what the turnout is like, but honestly, it’s the media response I’m really looking forward to.

Over the last several weeks we have seen, and I have written here about, the attempted diminishment of regular folks who are making their voices heard at various venues all across the country.  Surely, some of them have been over-acting…I’ve seen a few clips that are operatic in their drama, but by and large I think the sentiments expressed have been pretty genuine.  And they reflect a widening chasm in our population, transcending political lines, really, and more an expression of severely different views regarding what America is all about, or should be all about.

While the Democrats are crying “foul”, it is no different than Code Pink members, or ACORN recruits, who routinely showed up at Republican campaign events to make their opinions known, usually with similar passion to what we are seeing these days.  It may be the only thing we can agree on, that this is one of the best things about America, that people can stand on the sidewalk and wave their sign and yell, and nobody is going to drag you off to a work camp.  And I expect there is going to be a lot of collective yelling and sign waving across this country on September 12th.

Indeed, the health-care issue may be soon taking a back seat, as the Obama administration can barely let a day go by without some groundbreaking announcement or development.  I announced early on that although I did not vote for him, I would give him a chance.  He is my…our…President.  I want him to succeed, for the country to flourish.  But folks like me, thinking he would seek “change” and “unity” as promised repeatedly during his campaign, are stunned to see an administration swing so radically left.  Just this past week, the announcement of investigations of the C.I.A.  and the letting public of information that genuinely endangers members of that agency and their families.

Then Obama mentions that we should have a civilian military force, equal to or greater than our own military in strength?  Huh?  From the party of peace, love and understanding?  Keep ‘em coming.  The G.A.O. announces that in ten years our debt will be over 9 trillion dollars.  Remember, a trillion is a million million.  Got that?  Not that any of this news seems to slow things down.

Senator McCain has even taken back to the road to try and awake the masses as to what is happening here.  He was interviewed and said that he has not been consulted even once on this health care reform package and there has been zero effort at any bi-partisan input.  Then again, it was Senator McCain who reminded us back in 2000 that “elections have consequences”.  Anyone doubting that now?  Just the financial consequences alone of this election will be felt by our children and grandchildren.  And it’s not just Obama, the previous administration spent like Jersey housewives, too, but this White House is bringing it to a whole new level.

We just bailed out Bank of America, and now hear that they have awarded over 3 billion dollars to executives and Wall Street hyenas who helped to orchestrate the deal.  Is it any wonder people are marching in Washington?  Sadly, it should be folks of all political stripes going to Washington on September 12th.  There is too much happening, too quickly, trying to out run the 2010 elections.  This isn’t a poker game, it’s a nation, and it’s a nation waking up with a lump on it’s head, and it’s not happy.

Much blood and treasure has been spent over the last 200 years building this country that so many of us call “home”.  It should come as no surprise that when a large enough group of people feel it is being threatened, that those people will rise up, because like so many other battles in life, sometimes the wolf has to be right on the doorstep before the threat is taken seriously. Well…knock, knock.

Tags: ,
Posted in Musings | 706 Comments »

STEPPING UP

Monday, August 24th, 2009

I carp incessantly about the lack of compassion in our modern culture.  On my radio show, at barbecues and toll booths, I prattle on and on about the new world order where people will literally step over you on the sidewalk, rather than stop and help you up, much less call 911 if you’ve had a heart attack.  Just moths ago, in Boston, there was a highly publicized case where an elderly woman, whose scarf had become entangled in an escalator, suffocated to death while folks walked by.  Only one man stopped and frantically tried to summon help to no avail.

This unwillingness to “get involved” is usually attributed to the legal ramifications expected in the wake of a failed attempt to help a stranger, but still, if my child was in distress in a public place, I would hope someone would try to help.  Any parent would.  Indeed, most parents would want everyone in the immediate area to help.  The sad reality is, it is entirely possible, even likely, that no one would help in that circumstance.

Given the rather dismal benchmark, it is therefore not only noteworthy, but cause for celebration, really, when the opposite occurs.  It reaffirms our collective faith in humanity.  Yes…there are still good people out there who, instinctively and without calculation of self-risk, rush to aid when the need arises.

Recently in New Hampshire, a school teacher, at a lakeside beach, heard screams from nearby and rushed over.  A toddler was not breathing, he was blue, and his mother was frantic.  She performed CPR and revived the child.  When emergency crews arrived, they credited her with “undoubtedly having saved this child’s life”.  The teacher commented how she had, just weeks earlier, been through yet another course in emergency first-aid, as mandated by her school.  Sometimes, things just work out right.  The right person, in the right place, at the right time.

More recently, in Milwaukee, Mayor Tom Barrett stepped up during a volatile situation.  How easy would it be for a notable politician to turn the other way, to not get involved?  He was at the Wisconsin State Fair with his ten and twelve year old daughters, his sister, and a niece.  As they were leaving, in the parking lot, a grandmother was screaming for help, for someone to dial 911.  She was with her one year old granddaughter, and a man was screaming at them, trying to take the girl.  Mayor Barrett interceded and the man announced that he had a gun and “wasn’t afraid to use it”.  The man then punched the Mayor in the stomach and he doubled over.  The 20 year old man, it would later turn out, was the estranged father of the child.

It didn’t stop there.  The man then told Tom to lay on his stomach, and Tom yelled to his children, sister and niece to run away.  Knowing that lying, face down on the ground, was not likely to lead to a happy ending, Mayor Barrett summoned the strength to fight.  He got up and swung, but the man had what was later described by police as either a “piece of pipe or an extendable baton”, and he beat Mayor Barrett mercilessly.  Barrett’s hand was crushed, he lost two front teeth and had numerous cuts and bruises.  His hand was so badly battered, either from throwing punches or from the pipe attack, that bones were sticking out through his flesh.  He had significant plastic surgery on his face, to repair a deep gash, and the surgery on his hand took three hours.

The incident occurred on Saturday, August 15th, and on the following Monday the Mayor, while still in the hospital, received a call from President Obama, commending him for his bravery.  It is a nice touch, the call from the President, and Mayor Barrett has received accolades from his own community, as he should.  We’ll never know what may have happened otherwise in that situation, or if the little girl may well be missing right now had a citizen with enough pluck to say “no”, hadn’t been walking by at the right time.

It is also worth mentioning that the fact that this act of courage, of dignity, really, provoked a call from the President is, in a strange way, a sad statement.  There was a time in this country when the course taken by Tom Barrett would have been the norm, not the anomaly.  What does it say about our culture that a stranger stepping in to protect a 1-year old child is of particular interest?  We like to think it’s expected, that everyone would do it, but it is no longer so.

As we watch our culture turn more inward, more geared towards “self”, and at the same time become so numb to violence of every sort, it should be expected that if you find yourself in bind, don’t look to the nearest stranger for help.  The morals and social boundaries were part of a civilized culture for a reason.  As we abandon them with reckless wonder, we witness more and more that the default position of human interaction is not peace, love and happiness…it’s more like dog-eat-dog.

Tags:
Posted in Musings | 823 Comments »

THE NEW TOWN HALL

Monday, August 17th, 2009

I was thrilled to have been asked to “cover” the Portsmouth Town Hall meeting with President Obama on Tuesday last for The Dennis Miller Show.  By “cover”, I mean, simply show up and get a handful of interviews that may  hint at the temperament of the event.  Much has been made recently of the outbursts by unruly Americans attending different informational meetings being held across the country by various politicians supporting the health care reform bill.   I wanted to see for myself what the fuss was all about.

Truth is, I would have gone anyway, errand for Miller or not, because I kind of fell in love with these little gatherings way back in 1999.  I had just finished reading “Faith Of My Fathers”, the biography of sorts, of Senator John McCain.  You may remember, he was a candidate for President of The United States, and he was scheduled to hold a “Town Hall Meeting” at our local VFW Post.  Wow!  I remember being quite taken with the notion that I may get to shake the hand of the man that I had just read about, and who was a genuine “larger-than-life” type of character.

There were perhaps seventy people at this little pow-wow and I asked him a question, not surprising for those who know me, about child-protection laws.  He was sharp, on-point and gracious.  I also got to shake his hand.  Little did I know that, years later, he would run again and I would be riding the Straight Talk Express with him as a semi-upper level volunteer for his New Hampshire campaign force.

It was this first “Town Hall” though, that struck me.  I remember thinking about the occasion for days afterward.  What more down-to-earth way to reach out to voters than to go out and meet them.  Answer their questions, hear their concerns. McCain is a good listener.  I attended a few more of his stops the next time he came through New Hampshire, witnessing the beginning of his now-fond relationship with our State.  I was smitten with the forum.  A seasoned, well-known United States Senator, standing in a room full of people, and taking questions from every corner of the field.  McCain has a high IQ, as most of us know, and he handles questions of every sort with ease.  He answers, not with a dance routine, but with lucid, succinct answers.  On the rare occasion that he doesn’t have the knowledge to give an informed answer, he admits it easily with a little self-deprecating humor.

During his more recent campaign, I was at many of these Town Hall gatherings, including his last in New Hampshire, held at, per his request, the beautiful Peterborough Town Hall.  It was an emotional night.  Two days later he lost the race, and now our new President is doing the Town Hall.  Or, let’s call it, the “Town Hall Lite”.

As I mentioned, I enjoy these things.  The Tuesday event was no different.  Spirited participants with differing views, exercising what is arguably one of the most beautiful, precious and ethereal rights that we have, or should have, as humans…the right to express our opinion.  It reminds me how many places in the world, still, where this kind of exhibition could cost you your life.  Or, more likely, would be unthinkable in the first place.  Russia, even in the year 2009, doesn’t blink an eye at the fact that over 300 journalists, reporters, writers, thinkers, are murdered or simply disappear each year after speaking out against the ruling power.  Incredible.  We saw it in Iran recently following a flagrantly corrupt election, where angry dissenters were shot in the street.

So the fact that we can do this here, and I admit to romanticizing here, still moves me.  I think of my father and his generation, the World War II guys and gals, who did so much to protect that freedom, not just for us but for other countries.  And so it is without argument from either side that we are fortunate for the geography on which we stand.

Still, on Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think that the Obama “Town Hall” is kind of the cheap, knock-off of the real deal.  Few would argue that McCain invented the “Town Hall Meeting” during the campaign for the 2000 election.  It has since become part of the American lexicon, but like other things in our lexicon, the latest version is so watered down it is barely recognizable.

These are not gatherings to answer questions from random participants.  These are staged infomercials.  The Obama affair in Portsmouth had more softballs than a Nerf factory.  Indeed it so blatantly choreographed that it is almost awkward to watch.  The entire room is chanting “Yes We Can”, the old line from the campaign trail for which only now are we discovering the rest of the phrase.  “Yes we can jam it down your throat”, might be the slogan in full, and this is exactly how many Americans are feeling about, not just health care, but the entire package of spending, bail-outs, bonuses and bonds.  It’s happening too fast, there is an air of caprice within this administration.  A 19-pound bill, over 1,000 pages long, expected to pass in two or three days, just before a month-long vacation, and not a single representative who planned to read it first.

Yes…things have “changed”.  It might not be change you can believe in, but it’s change you better believe in.  And if you want to have more than change to retire with, then you, too, should attend the next event you hear of that will allow you to go out, wave a sign, yell a little bit, and express an opinion.  Otherwise, the next thing to be replaced with a “cheap knock-off”…might be you.

Tags:
Posted in Musings | 673 Comments »

GONE FISHIN’

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I don’t know about you, but I’m going fishin’.  Not with a pole and a tackle box, and certainly not to catch those slimy little underwater creatures.  This fishing was recommended by the White House, on their website, where they ask citizens to report “fishy” emails or conversations where “disinformation” regarding the health care reform bill is apparently being transmitted.  It’s not a joke.  And it comes in the midst of yet another media-driven assault on the “haters” and “GOP plants”, otherwise known as normal Americans, who have been speaking up, rather loudly, at some recent Town Hall meetings with elected representatives.  These career politicians, loyal to their higher power, are busy beating the pavement in support of the proposed “overhaul” of our health care system and finding, to their dismay, people with questions.

The plea for citizens to report “fishy” emails, or anything “fishy” for that matter, to the White House is stunning in and of itself.  Couple it with the frenzy over some outspoken citizens and the country begins to take on a rather creepy air.  Never mind the over-the-top incredulity of the White House, the veritable Queen’s Nest of disinformation for decades, being suddenly concerned with the accuracy of information (this same awakening would have come in handy during the campaign), it strains my imagination to understand their tactics.  Mock and insult “regular” Americans who are finally having the temerity to speak up and say “enough”?  Decent people who have spent their lives being demure, only to be trampled by government waste and ineptitude, left penniless in the wake of a Wall Street scandal that this same government is supposed to protect them from, now having the unbridled arrogance to actually speak out.

It is both fascinating and heartbreaking to watch, people we all recognize, they could be our neighbors, so aggravated with the chaos that is our federal government that they are willing to address a Senator or member of Congress with such raw honesty.  And it’s not just about their diminishing paycheck, for those who are still receiving a paycheck, these are people who are watching their country slip away, presumably forever.  They are putting the pieces together and see that the people in control have a much different vision for this country.  I share their concern that the country I grew up in may never be back.

Still, what amazes me most is the rush by both the media and the administration, to lampoon these people.  To quote Jimmy Stewart from the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. as he lambastes Old Man Potter, “these people do most of the working and the paying, and the living and the dying in this community..”, and so they do.  Ridicule them at your own peril.

Frankly, I share the same concerns of many of them.  Why should I trust government to run health care?  Everything they touch turns into expensive goo.  If I hired a plumber, and he went 100 times over his budget and finished two years too late, and when I turn on a light, water comes out of the ceiling fan…I wouldn’t hire the same guy to do my roof the following year.  This is what government is asking us to do, and simultaneously aghast at the collective “are you kidding me?” that they are hearing in return.  These people are not crazy, they’re absolutely right.  They’ve spent their entire lives working, paying their bills, living within their means, and they’re damn well tired of paying more and more for those who don’t or didn’t.

Consider the “Cash for Clunkers” program, ridiculous on its face because it helps buy some people new cars with other people’s tax money, and they’re buying cars, in some cases, from the auto companies we just bailed out, with taxpayers money.  It’s not just the lunacy of requiring that the engines be destroyed, or the billions of dollars being spent.  They forget to mention the three new government agencies that have been created to manage the program.  I’d love to be a fly on the office wall.  You see, it grows and grows and grows.  The bureaucracy.  Not to mention that it is the automotive equivalent of ethnic cleansing.  Rounding up the old and infirm cars and trucks, then lining them up for a lethal injection.  What’s next, “Cash for Caucasians”?  Got a friend or neighbor who has been acting fishy?  Bring him in and get your cash.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Musings | 692 Comments »

SCALE THE SUMMIT

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

No…I’m not talking about Everest or Mt. Hood.  I’m speaking of the “Beer Summit” held at the backyard picnic table at The White House, concocted and hosted by President Obama.  The quaint meeting came in the wake of a huge gaff, when Obama commented, during a press conference on health care, on the now-famous arrest in Cambridge, Mass, of Professor Henry “Skip” Gates.

First admitting he was unsure of the facts, but then continuing on to say the Cambridge Police “acted stupidly”, it was a swift act of damage control.  Our President personally invited, for a beer, the professor himself and the arresting officer, Sgt. Crowley.  I’ll give Obama credit, I think it was a truly wonderful thing to do, and an excellent example of how others might deal with the lingering issue of racism in America.

I wrote in last week’s column my feelings surrounding the arrest itself, and the President’s comments thereafter, so I won’t revisit that ground, but I was impressed with Obama’s reaction to it, and the effort to hold a “summit” of sorts with those involved.

Let’s say, I’m “cautiously impressed”, because after the event, portions of which were allowed to be filmed, but with no audio, and pictures were allowed, I felt a little dirty for some reason.  Maybe it is my innate cynicism as a firm believer in the old adage, “there are no coincidences in politics”.  Somehow, the entire event seemed staged.  We can be sure the original broaching of the subject by a journalist was not a surprise, these press conferences are tightly previewed as far as which questions will be asked is concerned.  Somehow, it all seemed too quaint, with Vice President Joe Biden drinking non-alcoholic beer.  Read what you want into that one.  Considering the “summit” was only requisite due to Obama placing his foot firmly in his mouth, it seemed odd to invite the man best known for having his own foot usually ankle-deep in his own pie hole.  Kind of like inviting a Tourette’s patient to a lunch at The Vatican.  Heavy roll of the dice, there.

Still, being a romantic at heart, I lean towards taking it all at face value.  I don’t believe Obama is a man incapable of sincerity, primarily because he has two daughters.  But he is also very, very cunning.  He has demonstrated it repeatedly throughout his campaign and his presidency.  He is sly like a fox, and as most of us learned as children, there is a kind of “boy who cried wolf” syndrome that accompanies that track record.  It makes it difficult to ascertain sincerity.

I think back to the original comment, how the police “acted stupidly”, and how it wreaked of Reverend Wright and Al Sharpton.  That will be hard to dismiss, for me, because I believe there is a certain amount of unbridled opinion that slipped out there, and it betrays a deeper belief about, not only police officers, but about the country.

For the purpose of this column, though, my intent is to simply scale the summit.  That being said, on a scale of 1 – 10, I’ll give it a 7.  I believe his heart is in the right place, in bringing these gentlemen together, but I still believe his head…and core beliefs…are in the “Wright” place.

Tags: ,
Posted in Musings | 679 Comments »