Bob Schwartz

Category: Government

August 20, 2013

Analogies to Egypt

Rosetta Stone

Who doesn’t love analytical analogies—situations past that bear a resemblance to current circumstances and might offer at least a little usable insight.

The current state of Egypt, like many situations in the new global age, is a bit sui generis—a unique thing of its own that we neither know how to classify or handle. For some, it is like going to watch a sports competition where you don’t exactly understand the game, don’t know nearly enough about the teams, and yet are being expected to choose sides—to root for somebody.

Here are a few of what we might call impressionistic analogies: examples from recent history that won’t withstand close scrutiny as directly related scenarios, but do have a certain similarity that at least gives us food for thought.

Iran – The impending release of Mubarek by the military government—ostensibly because the fraud case leading to his arrest would not hold up—brings to mind Iran and the last Shah. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 deposed the Shah and ended the West-friendly dynasty that the U.S. had long supported. One of the small but historically high-profile early incidents was President Jimmy Carter allowing the very ill Shah to seek medical help here in 1980—a factor in the subsequent hostage-taking, that in turn was (just one) of the reasons that Carter was not re-elected.

The U.S. is not alone in having to bet on somebody in turbulent times. Leaders are both real and symbolic in these contests. In Iran, our betting on the Shah—who was like us, who we understood, and who wss not like “them”—has proven disastrous. In the case of Mubarek in Egypt, what we wanted with him all those years was stability and moderation, but when it became apparent during the Arab Spring that we were looking decidedly anti-democratic, we opted to cut him loose and hope for democracy to follow. When that democracy started looking theocratic, possibly militantly so (Muslim Brotherhood), we were very confused and concerned—and so were the remnants of Mubarekism still in or near power. Military and stability or democracy and “adventure”. The Egyptian military made their decision, but we seem unable to decide. Will the military try to re-install Mubarek, or just leave him as a symbol of better days. Do we wish that we had handled Iran better, maybe helping to ease out the Shah and autocratic rule? It probably would not have prevented theocracy, but we didn’t try.

Iraq – Iraq, like Egypt, is another example of wanting to act strategically, while looking like the “good guy” and trying to figure out what a good guy looks like or acts like in these times. We supported Saddam Hussein, we refused to topple him, we toppled him, we executed him. All hell broke loose, and that fire may burn for generations. Whatever our skill at playing a real-world version of Risk globally, our track record in the Middle East is atrocious. At this point, we may want to consider where we stand relative to the historic record of the British and the French. (Note: We seem to have a bizarre predilection for following in their footsteps with little more, or even less, success than they had. See, e.g, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.)

Latin America – Our experiences in Latin America may serve as the most interesting of these tenuous analogies. The policy and history is easy to understand. We feared (still do) the incursion of Communism into the continent. We would support just about anybody who promised to keep the threat of socialism/Communism down. This put us in bed with a very bad lot, alliances that have had two lasting impacts. American fingerprints are all over the legacy of some despicable regimes. And now that many of those regimes are in the dustbin of history, residual anti-Americanism lingers on.

None of these alone, or even taken together, may offer much guidance in figuring out what to do in Egypt. Maybe a general lesson is that being powerful is not the same as being smart or being right. Maybe it’s that America is not as powerful as it thinks—back then, or even more so now—in a world it does not fully understand (again, ask the British and the French).

Egypt today is not that different from Egypt two years ago, or Syria now, or Iran or Iraq or Latin America. America has to expressly define and transparently decide how to stack our values and principles. Do we want American-style democracy or are we willing to settle for one of its other versions? Do we want democracy no matter what the results, or are we willing to trade democracy for authoritarian rule? Is authoritarian rule better than democratic or quasi-democratic Islamism, socialism or Communism? What is regional or global stability worth? What is peace worth? What is a Syrian or Egyptian or American life worth? Could billions in Egyptian aid, aside from whether or not we continue or suspend it, be better used to help Americans in an age of sequestration and austerity?

Grown up questions for grownups at the table.

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August 15, 2013

The Republican Health Care Plan Is Obamacare

National Health System for America - Heritage Foundation (1989)

Say something once, why say it again?
Talking Heads, Psycho Killer

Sometimes making a point means repeating yourself and not saying you’re sorry.

The current situation is that Newt Gingrich yesterday criticized attempts by some Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying that the party had to offer alternative plans and unfortunately had not one idea.

He is of course wrong. As pointed out in an earlier post Heritagecare, the Republicans at one time did have a big idea about health care reform. It was developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation in 1989, as a market-based alternative to any sort of single-payer national health plan. The centerpiece of this reform was a national mandate requiring everybody to have insurance. With some refinement, this Heritage plan is at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is a version of Heritagecare.

Following the development of the Heritage plan, this is what happened.

Bill Clinton was elected President. First Lady Hillary Clinton promoted the adoption of national single-payer universal health care. This proved to be a political disaster and embarrassment. Health care was taken off the table for years.

Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He used the Heritage plan—a Republican idea— as the basis for a state health care program. By all accounts, it was a success.

Barack Obama was elected President. He made health care reform a priority, but with single-payer dead in the water—maybe forever—he promoted a program based on the Heritage plan. As proof of concept for the Affordable Care Act, he could point to Massachusetts, where such an idea had worked.

Republicans intent on eviscerating Obama and his presidency used what they called “Obamacare” as a prime example of totalitarian socialism in action. They ignored the conservative origins of the plan. These Republicans were aghast when the Supreme Court narrowly allowed the plan to proceed as constitutional, but continue to do whatever they can to thwart it, including the dozens of attempts to repeal it—the same useless attempts that Gingrich criticized.

Mitt Romney ran for President. He could no longer embrace Heritagecare/Romneycare/Obamacare. He explained that while the plan might be good for Massachusetts, it is no good for America. He was never directly confronted with a version of the question: Are you serious?

Newt Gingrich is a very complicated man and politician, but he should be given his due. He is joining a chorus of mostly old-school Republicans trying to tell the Young Turks to get real. In this case, getting real could actually work to the Republican advantage, though they seem to be too ideology-blinded (and Obama-hate blinded) to see it.

People really do have some serious and legitimate qualms about the Affordable Care Act, and its implementation is bound to be a rocky road. If the Republicans looked back to their own Heritage plan, and if they took seriously the lip service of “compassionate conservatism”, they might actually be able to offer some constructive, earnest and enlightened adjustments—all for the sake of the general welfare of the country. As it is, that won’t be happening now or anytime soon.

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July 31, 2013

The Failure of the American Autopilot

Otto the Autopilot

Congress is going on vacation, again. Will we miss them?

Maybe the greatest thing about America is its ability to run on autopilot, the brilliant way that it manages to handle whatever may come, internally or externally, to right itself, and move forward. Politics, corruption, war, economics, inequities—they have been painful, damaging and upsetting, but America was somehow able to get to tomorrow, and rise a little bit higher when it was all over.

Only once in the past century, before this moment, has the autopilot failed. The Great Depression required action and intervention, and we got it. Since then, and with the victorious end of World War II, it has been onward and upward. We’ve overcome so many mistakes that an entire generation now takes the American autopilot for granted.

This has lulled some into a sense that doing the wrong thing or doing nothing can’t hurt in the long run because, based on history, nothing can hurt in the long run. The problem is that we have hit one of those very rare moments when the autopilot is not doing its job. So that when we have a conspiracy by some in Congress not to do their job—confident that doing nothing is just the sort of medicine that an overactive American government needs—we are in a seeming tail spin. But they simply don’t believe that’s possible, because they have never lived in a time when the autopilot failed and, despite their embrace of vintage America, they may be poor students of history.

The least effective Congress in generations, maybe ever, is about to take another break. The country will still be here when they get back to non-work, and they will continue to engage in embarrassing their opposition, petty insults, ideological blowhardery, and mostly just trying to get elected again.

The American people are much smarter than them. For the most part, we know the autopilot that we’ve depended on is not working, and we know that Congress doesn’t seem to know that, or at least won’t admit it. We also know that Congress isn’t working, and if not them, who exactly is supposed to keep this country running straight, on and up?

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Bob Dylan

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July 19, 2013

Detroit: Motown and Corvettes and Tigers, Oh My!

Stingray 1963

Sometimes the best way to tell a story is not to tell it. The news about Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy, the biggest ever in America, is like that. Others will tell it at length. Sometimes the best way is to offer a few items that are interesting and related, and let readers and listeners make the connections, draw the lines, complete the picture.

Just in case your dot-connecting doesn’t make it clear, the story of Detroit’s bankruptcy is the biggest American story of the day, and possibly one of the biggest in many years. It is bigger than the story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, bigger than last fall’s story of the rich son of a former Michigan governor disastrously running for President (and loving those Michigan trees, though not Detroit), bigger than the continuing economic malaise, but related to all of them.

Fifty years ago, in July 1963, Motown Records, Hitsville U.S.A., released the single Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas. It reached #4 on the Billboard Top 100, but did top the R&B chart. Like so many Motown records, who cares about the numbers? Motown is some of the best pop music ever produced in America. Want proof? Just play Heat Wave, or other irresistible tracks by the Vandellas, the Temps, the Tops, or put on another Motown single from fifty years ago that did go to #1, the astonishing Fingertips (Part 2) by 11-year-old phenomenon Little Stevie Wonder. Motown founder Berry Gordy was not just a model of black entrepreneurship in a white country, at a time when black voting rights had still not been established, but was the model for some of the hugest entertainment moguls in the world, including Jay-Z. But that was fifty years ago in Detroit.

Fifty years ago, the Corvette Stingray was introduced. Edmunds not only rates it the best Corvette of all time; it says “A full half-century after its debut, the 1963 Corvette coupe remains one of the most alluring automotive designs ever conceived.” The ad above shows an airline pilot in Los Angeles (back when being a pilot was super-special manly, and LA was the city of the future) ogling the new Stingray. He was envying the Motor City vision. But that was fifty years ago.

This very day, as the second half of baseball season begins, the Detroit Tigers are one of the best teams in baseball, with maybe the best pitcher (Max Scherzer) and certainly the best hitter (Miguel Cabrera), who may be on his way to becoming the first player to win consecutive Triple Crowns. Detroit fans appreciate this, and have been showing up for home games at a solid pace, about 37,000 a game—equal to the attendance for the Los Angeles Angels and way more than the 17,000 fans per game that show up in “ultra cool” Miami.

Saying that Detroit will be back from beyond the brink isn’t just wishful thinking. The idea that Detroit can fail but that everybody else in America will be alright is all wrong. The 17th century poet John Donne said it:

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

And if you don’t go for old poetry that you hated in high school, and would rather forget the troubles of Detroit and the world, Motown has lots to offer, especially on a sweltering July day.

Whenever I’m with him
Something inside starts to burning
And I’m filled with desire
Could it be a devil in me
Or is this the way love’s supposed to be?

It’s like a heat wave, burning in my heart
I can’t keep from crying, it’s tearing me apart

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July 9, 2013

Should We Test Our Elected Officials?

IQ Curve
There is currently a right to have an abortion in America during the first trimester of pregnancy. This is one of the most divisive moral and legal controversies of our time. Some who support that right make clear that it is not necessarily a right they would exercise personally. Many who oppose the right would like to see it disappear entirely, whether through reconsideration by the Supreme Court or by constitutional amendment.

In the absence of constitutional reinterpretation or change, a number of states have passed laws to circumscribe that right, or at the very least to reduce its exercise. One of the most common laws, signed a few days ago in Wisconsin, requires pregnant women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound. This is aimed at emphasizing to these women that they are carrying a fetus—as if they had forgotten—in hopes of deterring them from going through with an abortion. The states just want to be sure these women are well and fully informed.

Great examples of conditioning a right are the sorts of literacy tests that were used in the Jim Crow South to keep black people from voting. Questions were often so difficult that even government officials would have trouble passing. From the Alabama literacy test of 1965 (68 questions):

19. Who passes laws dealing with piracy?
30. Of the original 13 states, the one with the largest representation in the first Congress was _____________.
39. If it were proposed to join Alabama and Mississippi to form one state, what groups would have to vote approval in order for this to be done?
41. The Constitution limits the size of the District of Columbia to _____________.
66. After the presidential electors have voted, to whom do they send the count of their votes?

The use of these sorts of literacy tests for voter suppression was challenged and ultimately outlawed.

Still, there may be the germ of a good idea here. A correlate of the right to vote is the right to hold public office. Sometimes, just sometimes, it seems that this right is being taken for granted by our elected officials. Perhaps there are some of the executives and legislators, at the state and national level, who might benefit from having their ability to hold office tested. Maybe they need to be tested on the arcane intricacies of how government works. Maybe they need to be better informed.

So the proposal is for all public officials to be tested before they are allowed to take office. No ultrasounds. Just the sort of knowledge assessment that prospective black voters had to undergo in 1965. Just the sort of test to see if these officials really understand what rights are and how, in America, we allow change to happen, and what to do lawfully if we don’t like the direction (we don’t terrorize people to make rights painful or impossible to exercise). We will see just how many of them can pass that test.

Answers to above questions:

19. Congress
30. Virginia
39. Congress and the legislatures of both states
41. 10 miles square
66. Vice President (President of the Senate)

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June 26, 2013

In Advance of the Marriage Equality Decisions

MLK

It appears it may be only a few minutes before the Supreme Court releases its opinions in the marriage equality cases, California Proposition 8 and DOMA. As always, when it does happen, please read the opinions yourselves, and don’t just take anybody’s word for what they say or mean.

Meanwhile, some are bound to be disappointed because the decisions don’t go far enough, if they seem to go anywhere at all. So here is a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. so familiar that we may have stopped actually hearing it. Listen and believe.

I have not lost faith. I’m not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven’t lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

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June 21, 2013

The Wait We Carry

The Wait We Carry
IAVA has been at the forefront of modern veterans advocacy—something desperately needed in the face of modern veterans benefit challenges (that is, much talk, little action).

The latest of these advocacy tools is dazzlingly innovative and personalizing. Here is the IAVA introduction:

This is the true face of the backlog. Introducing: The Wait We Carry.

By now, you’ve seen the big numbers behind the VA disability benefits backlog — over 565,000 vets waiting too long to get their claims resolved. But it’s not enough to talk about the numbers. We wondered: what are those vets going through? How is their wait for benefits affecting them and their families?

We asked vets to tell us about their experiences while waiting for their benefits. Their stories blew me away. I knew immediately that I wanted to do something that would give a voice to their struggle. Harnessing the power of technology, we have created a state-of-the-art data visualization tool to bring those stories to the world. It’s called The Wait We Carry.

The Wait We Carry is an interactive way for anybody to engage with the folks waiting for their benefits through their stories. There are several different search options so you can find a specific story, or you can simply take your time browsing through all of the stories. It drives our point home that there isn’t just one backlog experience. The weight of the wait is different for everybody.

The power of this tool is that it holds everybody accountable for the unacceptably long wait times. That’s why it’s crucial that this thing goes viral.

I’ve been working on this for months, and I am certain that The Wait We Carry is powerful enough to end the VA backlog for good. Make sure you check it out today — thewaitwecarry.org

Thanks,

Jacob Worrell
OIF Veteran, US Army 2004-2007
Product Strategy Associate
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)

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June 21, 2013

Immigration: The Right People and the Wrong People

Pilgrims - Superman - Jews
Today brings another high-profile politician talking about immigration policy that lets “the right people” in (those who will create the next Google) and keeps “the wrong people” out (vaguely defined, but you’ll know them when you see them).

A reminder that except for continental natives, all Americans are immigrants. Even the Mayflower people. Even Superman, an undocumented immigrant who for years was hidden by a seemingly kind and gentle Midwestern couple—of outlaws; why weren’t Ma and Pa Kent ever put in jail?

In the lead up to World War II, America could not find a place for thousands of Jews fleeing Hitler. These were apparently the wrong people, or the right people at the wrong time, or something. Any country is apt to make mistakes; America is no exception. Still, it is ironic that some of the people who were turned away might have started hundreds of Googles, or the 1930s equivalents. As it is, we can only imagine.

We can’t let everybody in, or so we say, but we don’t really talk about why not and what that means. Instead, we have immigrants who are “the wrong people”, but we also have “the right people” to serve particular national or individual interests (see also involuntary immigrants who were cheaper and more versatile than machines).

Not everybody is Superman. Not everybody is a bunch of unwanted people who will become the cliché of founding stock (Pilgrims) or unwanted people who never make it to shore (Jews). Not everybody is an entrepreneur. Not everybody is willing to take the worst jobs that few others want. Immigrants are people, not “right” or “wrong”. We can and should have a conversation without forgetting that.

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June 6, 2013

The Next Civil War: Religion

Lincoln Penny
A few years ago, I proposed that the American divide over abortion might one day reach the dangerous depths of a much earlier conflict over slavery. Not since slavery—not even with still-festering questions about racial and other inequalities—has an issue had such a basic and visceral impact.

The poll numbers on abortion have shifted, the judicial context may be stable (for the moment), but the legislative activity is still a battlefield: among the initiatives, just today Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed a law prohibiting insurers that offer abortion coverage from participating in the state’s exchange under the Affordable Care Act.

Yet even with that, abortion will not be the biggest issue that cleaves America in the next few years. It will be, much more than it is now, religion.

Not one religion against another, or one religion-based position against another. We are approaching the point where half of America has an explicit or implicit affinity with some organized religious denomination or belief, and half does not. The not includes a wide range from atheists, agnostics, areligionists or anti-religionists to those who are “spiritual but not religious.”

America is not a theocracy or, officially, a theocratic democracy. But “theocratic democracy” (see Israel) is the way a number of Americans see it approvingly. Our conventions, traditions and even our money support this, and when they didn’t support it sufficiently, it was enhanced—as when during the Cold War against godless Communism, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

The dynamic between religious and secular has long played out in America in just about every official sphere. But in the past, those who fought for the secular and even succeeded (prayer in schools) were considered an aberrant and weird fringe. The fringe is now a minority, but still in some eyes, aberrant and weird. What happens when that fringe turned minority becomes an equal partner in American civics, citizens who are guided by bright moral lights, just not those that emanate from lamps they don’t believe in and refuse to support—or allow to rule their lives? What then?

Abraham Lincoln said we could not survive half-slave and half-free. The nineteenth century would not have hinted at it. but the American twenty-first may be half-God, half-not. What might Lincoln say then?

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June 3, 2013

Moral Mondays

Moral Mondays

Today, Monday, June 3, is another Moral Monday in North Carolina. A Mega Moral Monday. Small and local right now, Moral Mondays have the potential to be the kind of broad movement that in recent years progressives have wanted but so far been unable to achieve.

In May, the North Carolina NAACP began peaceful protests each Monday at the General Assembly. The civil disobedience is meant to bring attention to legislative curbs on Medicaid expansion, workers’ rights and voting rights, and to the lack of legislative progress on gun control and public education funding. There have been an increasing number of arrests of activists, 153 so far. This week, the protests are expanding across the state.

All movements are more likely to fall flat than catch fire. The Occupy movement reflected real dissatisfaction and outrage, but never sufficiently articulated the underlying principles that would galvanize people to commit and to connect with each other in big numbers.

Moral Monday is built on a foundation that is at the heart of what bothers so many Americans. As is apparent from many of our political controversies, some of those who claim the moral high ground sometimes seem to ignore possible moral shortcomings in their policies, e.g., a Christian imperative to lift the poor and heal the damaged may be at odds with extreme cuts in government support and programs. (In this regard, see questions about Ayn Rand that arose in the most recent election.)

Moral Monday simplifies what is admittedly a set of very complex issues to a very basic baseline: If you claim, by the light of faith or by a sense of enlightened humanity, to believe in moral action, then your idea of morality must be your primary guide. You are free to choose that morality; no constitution, no set of laws, nothing can or should move it. But once you have chosen, and especially after you say it loudly every Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, or on whatever days you proclaim your core beliefs, your duty is to act on it. If you don’t act morally, or if you try to rationalize around that morality for some supposed greater cause, you are only human, but should investigate and consider your action, and even your possible hypocrisy.

Moral Mondays may not make it beyond North Carolina. But it is possible that in a little while, all around the country, more and more people will start the week by taking a stand and, if necessary, getting arrested for it. There is a global and historic tradition for this sort of action, and great change has been made.

Thank you North Carolina NAACP. Mondays will never be the same.

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