I’m still trying to figure out how obstructionism is the most effective strategy especially when its played out to the point of just shutting down any and everything. President Obama specifically calls out Republican “leadership” for obstructing the work of getting the nation’s business done. Here are some of the things left hanging on the “to do” list:
– Extension of unemployment benefits
– Relief provisions to states
– Home buyer credits
– Jobs programs
– Raising the liability cap on oil companies (as BP’s mess continues to spread)
– 136 appointments to administration positions
You start to wonder with a President expecting the Congress to function as part of a functioning democracy, have they determined that the job’s just too hot for them to handle in these rough times and during mid term elections? Are the stakes too high for mistakes that can make or break you? Is it just easier to force the hand of the executive office to call all the shots and then shoot down the decisions to turn the political tide?
So whose ass should be kicked to get the nation’s business done? Or is it up to the American people to do more than watch, but move the gridlockers to [as the old timers said] “S**t or get off the pot!”
Seeing black people on Masterpiece Theatre makes me think of the olden days of television when Black folks would call friends and family to let them know “coloreds on TV.” Tonight, Masterpiece Theatre debuts an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island on PBS (first premiered on BBC in 2009). It’s the story of Hortense, a young Jamaican woman [the daughter of an unmarried, country girl and a high level Jamaican official] placed in the home of her father’s cousins where she has a roof over her head, but tepid relations with her relatives who expect her to work for her keep. Hortense has great dreams to be a teacher in England, a place she’s never seen. Many men from Jamaica have already gone overseas to fight World War II; some return. It is after the war that Hortense sets on the path of her dreams. And we can all guess what happens when one has grand dreams of a place of which you’ve only heard the hype.
I bought Levy’s book and am crashing to read a chunk of it before the premiere tonight. It’s well written and is a winner of the Whitbread award for Book of the Year. Like books, Masterpiece Theatre serves as pure escapism for me especially with their presentations of works by Jane Austen and other British authors. I also believe the mini-series is the best format for adapting works of literature for television or film. But now we have Levy, born of Jamaican parents and a British citizen, stepping up to the plate where “Upstairs Downstairs” reigned.
Small Island will address race (black) and class. Class is often the foundation for conflict in British drama. However, if one looked into the source of income for Jane Eyre‘s Mr. Rochester (British Jamaica), or Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice, race would join hands with class, making their leading men more ominous than their first or even second impressions. Though for P&P it is really Mr. Bingley’s fortunes that are in question as they were “acquired by trade.” England ended the slave trade in 1807, around the time of Pride and Prejudice, but slavery had not ended in the British colonies. The other word that must enter into this drama is “colonialism.”
Masterpiece Theatre has come a long way in the last 15 years. One of their best mini-series set in modern times was Traffik the basis for the watered down American version. While in the process of writing his pilot for “Kingpin,” I recommended “Traffik,” the original version, to David Mills. There was no need to see the American version I said, though Dave did like and was inspired by the cinematography.
Maybe there is no escape but into the arms of a good story where perhaps one can find a little salvation.
CLASS-IC DRAMA
In American drama, class is something you overcome with hard work and persistence. You don’t fight to overturn it, remove it, or redefine it. But the “bootstrap” mentality is more mental than it is reality. Okay, Phil Graham me on that one. Scientists have proven that it is humanly impossible to pull oneself up by your bootstraps. Apparently as you pull them up, the gravitational force on the body pulls you down. Everyone needs a little help I suppose.
E.J. Dionne has basically pegged this “Tea Party” as “same monkey, different outfit.” The demographic from the New York Times/CBS poll repeated ad nauseam by the press describes the majority of those who identify themselves as a member of the “party” as affluent, educated, working white boomer males.
This resembles the demographic of the groom and groomsmen at the church altar with Elaine in “The Graduate” before Ben broke up the wedding and the two hopped on the Santa Barbara local to where-eversville. Let’s remember, not everyone was into love, peace, liberation, and recreational mind alteration in the 60s. There were those who believed in plastic and matching bar and bar stools. They were Right Wing Republicans then; they’re Right Wing Republicans now and their world has changed even though they haven’t.
But for some reason the mainstream press, in its never-ending-quest for controversy and drama have shined a spot light on the Tea Party to “figure them out,” flesh out the story; something they rarely if ever do with immigration, poverty, LGBT activists, or any of the many for the attention paid to the few. Yet, 18% does exceed what Malcolm Gladwell coined as a “tipping point.”
Here’s a conspiracy theory. How do I know that the majority demographic isn’t made up of Wall Street bankers and their interests fronting as a “grassroots” movement?
SPEAKING OF WALL STREET BANKERS
The President of the United States has a special assignment for you. More transparency. Close the loopholes. More accountability and responsibility. Corporations want to be treated like individuals? Here are your boostraps. Let’s hope it’s not just political theater. I owed taxes this year and I pay them throughout the year. The Tea Partiers who enjoy their social security and medicare should thank ME!
Transcript here.
I’m behind on my President’s Weekly due to so many other things on my plate and of course the news and other distractions of the past week. I’m so focused on work (thankfully) and the “what next” of health care reform that I didn’t have time to fully address the meaning and impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign contributions from corporations or unions. Unlike the President, I don’t have a staff to take care of my daily requirements.
What I have heard loud and clear is the moaning, agonizing and hand wringing posturing of Democrats, liberals and progressive politicos — not all, but the ones closet to the microphone. Mike Lux of Progressive Strategies is one of the true blue exceptions. Read his blog post here. Like Mike I fired off a series of “get off your butts” letters to several party leaders. Am I angry? You betcha.
But here’s my bumper sticker observation: “American Democracy is the art of the loophole.” While there are many who are angry and crushed by the week’s events with the Supreme Court ruling being the final blow, others are already in strategy mode on how to reap benefits from the current situation. They understand “the art of the loophole.” For example, unions are benefiting from the Supreme Court decision. Is anyone painting them as a potential hostile influence on the democratic process, or are 2010 candidates going to cultivate those relationships while the lawmakers and advocates work to put the principles of the bipartisan McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform into an amendment? Read Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) statement about the decision here. I couldn’t find anything related to the Supreme Court ruling on Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) website. Nothing on his 2010 campaign site either.
Television stations may also benefit by selling airtime. Hey, how are those station workers feeling about this decision and job security now?
Who benefits? Who loses? What are the short term gains and long-term disasters? These were questions attorney Charles Hamilton Houston posed to communities seeking to desegregate schools in the U.S. He didn’t live to see the outcome, but he mentored the lawyers to push it through. And even that Supreme Court decision came with a loophole thrown in to calm segregationist fears – “at all deliberate speed.”
The question is how do you use the “loophole” to your advantage? Trust me. Banks and business have figured this one out. Has the electorate?
One thing the founding fathers had in their favor that many lawmakers today lack is long-term vision. The Constitution is structured in a way that accommodates change. They knew the U.S.A. would not be the same country down the road that they created and inhabited in their lifetimes. They understood there had to be a process, or loopholes, to sustain a democracy as it grows and alters. We can have the debate on whether or not the Constitution is a living document. I just find the “free speech” argument interesting whereas art exhibits or demonstrations are shut down, and additional rights are granted to private companies to influence outcomes in policy and elections. And more often than not the company’s right to “free speech” also is to the benefit of the company’s own interests.
I also believe the White House needs to communicate a concise, clear message and own it. This may be the wisdom of failure moment. Fortunately it’s the first year and not the 2nd or 3rd. But there’s catching up to do. Sure, it’s a balancing act between convening the civic dialogue and dictating it. I find even people in-the-know don’t know everything, and yes you have to connect the dots loud and often. For example, healthcare reform and jobs are connected. Polls are moving the framing to one is more important than the other. I believe it was a good move for the Obama White House to bring David Plouffe back onto the field. There is no good defense when you’re not playing offense.
Obviously, the White House and the President want to move on from the Nobel moment and bring the focus back to the nation’s business. For this weekly address, that means health care reform. The House and Senate will begin merging their versions of the reform bill into one for the final debates and votes on the floors.
It is highly probable that Republicans in the House will not support the bill. Whether the Senate Republicans will follow that lead is TBD. Apparently bipartisanship begins outside elected office as former Senate leaders Bob Dole and Bill Frist, M.D. have voiced support for health care reform. I wonder what kind of health care plans they have since leaving office. Even Libby Dole is on her own now.
(Updated note: Bob and Libby Dole would qualify for Veterans health care benefits as Bob Dole is a veteran.)
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (an early supporter and an in-law of the late Senator Edward Kennedy – oh, and the state’s benefits are probably drying up) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Independent, former Republican) have publicly supported reform. The devil may be in the details on the final bill, but, the idea that there is nearly no current GOP member of Congress or the Senate who openly supports health care reform is a bad sign for the future of the party if this is the road they want to travel. To paraphrase James Baldwin, I guess some people would rather break than bend.
Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a “wise Latina” might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity” — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard.
Eugene Robinson Washington Post, July 14, 2009
Yesterday it was opening statements from the Senate Committee ending with Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s statement — part of the process and protocol for confirming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. I always find these hearings interesting. An opportunity to catch up on legal matters. It’s always a teaching moment.
Today it’s the questions. The Judge has wisely chosen to wear a red jacket – unafraid to be seen and heard. Clarity. Let’s look at this from an identity perspective. Could a man get away with wearing a red jacket at his confirmation hearing? What would it communicate? Yesterday was blue – listening color. The Judge is prepared. She recognizes the power and the high stakes involved in each and ever word she speaks before the committee. This cannot be treated as a slam dunk no matter what the pundits or how many votes she has in her favor.
Senator Sessions (R-AL) cuts to the chase with talking points from the Republican party’s playbook “impartiality,” “identity,” and “affirmative action,” “quotas.” The party has been really bad on identity issues focusing more on an the ideal monolithic poltiical party for some and a few invited guests under the tent of one collective thought. The “big tent” just doesn’t seem to be in the party’s vocabulary or practice right now. Now only is it a losing game plan, but it isn’t even a good game.
It’ll be interesting to see where these identity themes lead during the hearing especially when the witnesses testify including firefighter Frank Ricci one of the plaintiffs in the New Haven, CT “reverse discrimination” case. I add the quotes because I think reverse discrimination is an oxymoron – either it is discrimination or it isn’t. Call it “tit for tat”? And apparently the CT firefighters case isn’t Ricci’s first discrimination complaint. [A complete list of witnesses is available on Politico.] I would say, Ricci’s one of the star witnesses. What are the odds he will appear in uniform?
Something about the term “reverse discrimination” that pushes buttons. I’m sure there’s a political angle to the term that goes back to the issues of identity. It rallies a certain political base and demographic that is shrinking in the 21st century, or as Frank Rich described in his op-ed on the quitting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, “a constituency that feels disenfranchised — by the powerful and the well-educated who gamed the housing bubble, by a news media it keeps being told is hateful, by the immigrants who have taken some of their jobs, by the African-American who has ended a white monopoly on the White House.”
Senator Kohl (D- WI) comes in with the standard lead-in to Roe v. Wade – “privacy.” Yesterday, Norma McCorvey, otherwise known as Jane Roe, was removed from the hearing room along with several other anti-choice protestors. McCorvey, now 61, has gone to the other side of her experience and now speaks out against abortion. She switched in 1995 apparently after befriending an Operation Rescue workers who set up shop next door to where she worked.
Nevertheless, these confirmation sessions should be very interesting on these and other topics including the 2nd Amendment – also an identity issue. This is a cultural and identity moment for everyone in this room whether they recognize or not. Identity can be an opening and a teaching moment. I agree with the Judge, to not recognize is a sure way to make the kinds of decisions that seem to be of grave concern to Sessions and his colleagues. Live coverage is available here (WashingtonPost.com) or click on the photo.