Characters Welcome

Dear Children:

Soon we will begin a series of posts about the committee chairmen in the House of Representative as well as some of the more colorful characters who are ranking members.

For those of you waiting for snark, this will be the the place.

I'm Just Sayin',
Poppy
www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

The King's Speech

Dear Children:
I’m convinced that Mr. Bush would have been more or less universally lauded for his mugging of Iraq had he been able to control civil society once Saddam Hussein was on the run.

You may remember the welcome our troops received on the streets of Baghdad; the triumphant pulling down of the statues and the revelation of opulent palaces. Also remember that days after the welcome, government ministries and other corporate offices were looted rather thoroughly and irreparably. Shortly after that, some old religious scores began to be violently settled. It started with Christian liquor stores and quickly spread from the Shiite slums to leafy Sunni neighborhoods and hasn’t yet stopped.

Into the chaos leaped Iran (Shiite protection) and Saudi money (Sunni and Wahabi protection) and criminals (the protection rackets and others) as well as al Qaeda (all purpose nut jobs). It made for a heady brew.

In fairness, Mr. Bush’s hands were tied because he didn’t have the manpower. Among the lies he was told was that we could leave the people without an army, without police and without civil institutions because a shadow government was already in place. He also couldn’t disarm the populous because the populous was accustomed to doing without. Oh yes, don’t forget the mantra: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people”. He was also told that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war. He was told there were weapons of mass destruction on the premises. He was told all manner of malarkey and he told it to us.

Just so, Saddam Hussein made sure everyone had a gun and a triple dose of paranoia after his policy of lies and half truths failed.  Tehran licked it's chops from the beginning.  The Saudis was delighted to see Syria shut off from Iraqi oil.

Be that as it may, criminals, religious zealots, politicians with guns and kids with a zest for havoc met no opposition. A culture that raised Stone Age cities, conceived the first agriculture and actually saw the bosom of Abraham was stripped of her leaders and professional class, looted of her artistic patrimony and burdened with the burial of her dead.

To think that such destruction issued from a few words spoken in a few capitols around the globe (including Baghdad and Tehran) is no intellectual leap. In fact, to think that the damage issued from something other than words is whistling Dixie. Everything save hurricanes and bear attacks issues from words.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The quotation comes from The King James Bible John 1:1. Curiously, there are no competing translations. It means, I hope, that Moses’ big idea was that words are the source of all things. Consider Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch, kids. Poppy is unqualified to make a theological argument. I am arguing that the current debate about the consequences of words was settled a very long time ago. A "word" is that by which we communicate our will; by which we convey our thoughts; or by which we issue commands; the medium of communication with others.

Nor do I subscribe to the idea that anyone in particular ought to take the fall for recent events. And, while we must unreservedly protect from prosecution ugly public words on First Amendment grounds, we need not condone them. Similarly, excusing incendiary speech on the basis of frustration, anger or grief begs the question. Words matter.

I’m just sayin’,
Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Comments on Comments

Dear Children:

It’s natural to be upset about the recent events in Tucson, Arizona where a gunman killed six people and wounded a dozen more. While the police may know his motives, we know this gunman went to a public place with the intent to commit murder.

We also know from his writings in social media that he exhibits a deeply muddled sense of causality and discrimination. But, being confused does not make for murderous intentions. Don’t look over here for an explanation of murderous intentions.

Nevertheless, I was struck by a couple things found in CNN,s “This Just In”. You may know that This Just In puts out raw and unfiltered reports about breaking news stories for those people who like to be up-to-the-minute. It also provides a place for people with a computer to put their two cents worth in. I almost never look at This Just In for those very reasons. Still, I was motivated to both go there and to read the comments.

The local Sheriff rated a paragraph:

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik used a nationally televised press conference to condemn the tone of political discourse in his state. He charged that public debate is now "vitriolic rhetoric," which has rendered Arizona "the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Dupnik suggested that such rhetoric can have deadly consequences.

At first glance it seemed incredible that a Sheriff answerable to the voters would use such words to describe his community. Plus, after all we’ve been through with hypersensitive Muslims; somebody used a holy place to describe a magnet for prejudice. But nope, come the next day, he upped the ante:

“I think we're the tombstone of the United States of America," Dupnik said of The Granite State … “

He also had lots to say about ideology-based radio and television. We’ll save the question of idiot fringe media for another day. On the question of whether Pima County residents are particularly susceptible to vitriolic rhetoric he is clearly and naively wrong. We know that because of what’s in the comments -- hundreds of them. Loonies are found in every county, city and hamlet in this land.

There is no way to characterize the commentary on political grounds. Of course there were conservatives, liberals, libertarians, LaRoucheys, trivializers of all stripes, strict constructionists, very strict constructionist, super strict constructionists, progressives, populists and maybe even a whig or two. What can be said about a super majority of them is a meanness of spirit; that vitriolic rhetoric Sheriff Dupnik was talking about. Their purpose is blame. Their currency is blame. Their scriptures are blame. Someone or some system must carry the responsibility for anything that works contrary to their wishes.

Boy oh boy, do they have their stories. Sarah Palin is to blame because she “targeted” the 20th Congressional District of Texas. Progressives can’t stand the Bluedogs. Psychiatry coddles the dangerous. The cops have been disarmed by bleeding hearts. Conservatives are heartless haters. Schools have let us down. Churches are no longer relevant. The patriot movement preys on the weak. Government is too intrusive or not intrusive enough. There was a lot of blather about guns. Television, video games and popular music are tearing at the fabric of society. Glen Beck is a cretin. If only we’d listened to Glen Beck. You get the idea.

What was missing in these comments was a sense that something dreadful had happened; namely murder and maiming by glock and narcissism. Beyond ruining too many lives, no ideological, political, religious or social purpose was served. And, while there were strictures offered there was no horror at the gravity of the crime.

There was plenty of thoughtful reaction by our political leaders. Make no mistake, though, a way of speaking has taken hold that is ugly and pointless. The republic is the lesser for it.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Dear Children:
Our politicians don’t quote poetry any more. Senators Everett Dirksen, Robert Kennedy, Alan Simpson and Robert Byrd were about the last of those who could be counted on for appropriate verse.  We’re not sure whether this state of affairs is a result of current politico's assessment of our capacity to understand the art form or if they’ve taken an assessment of themselves. Either way, the loss to political discourse is profound.

Granted, poetry requires learning a short glossary. Let’s be confident, though, that anyone who can learn fo’ shizzle, gym hares and ROFL can learn metric foot, consonant cluster and synecdoche.

Nor is poetry inaccessible. It doesn’t have to be snooty. Consider Ogden Nash,

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

Or Louisa May Alcott

Little shadows, little shadows
Dancing on the chamber wall,
While I sit beside the hearthstone
Where the red flames rise and fall.
Caps and nightgowns, caps and nightgowns,
My three antic shadows wear;
And no sound they make in playing,
For the six small feet are bare.

Or that master of the clerihew form, the champ

Who floats like a butterfly
And stings like a bee?
It is me
Ali

Poetry celebrates paradox and recognizes ambiguity as natural. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear it so much. The holding of paradox in one’s mind might be the definition of maturity; to at once adore the beauty of God’s creation and recognize the importance of competing responsibilities. Robert Frost inspired a generation of political leaders on both sides of the aisle with words like these:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

As the mouth fills with stunning sound and the mind fills with the ache of  contradiction each of us knows so well, we have the stuff of poetry.

This is just a thought: Poetry requires carefully chosen words as well as an appreciation for carefully chosen words. Maybe we should settle for a little thought before we demand that any of it rhymes.

The opening ceremonies of the 112th Congress had a certain – let’s say – inanity the Sominex people would love to bottle. If the words were carefully chosen, they were arranged leached of all soul, promise and meaning. Wallpaper music, stripped of melody, drooled from the podium of the House to form a puddle of vapid insignificance. There was no poetry and nothing quotable.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Crowd Control

Dear Children:

Many times on these pages I have asked you to watch out for certain people. Mostly we have talked about the avatars, those with special knowledge, the simplifiers, the slick promoters, the bowdlerizers and those whose only plea is to trust them. This is an important topic and, if you’re tired of hearing about it – tough. The world is ripe.

History is rich with guidance in this matter. Too many times we have looked back at those we followed so blindly and asked: “Why did we do it?” One supposes that to be a legitimate-enough question. A question more likely to get at the truth is, “Why did we love him so much?” Do you get the distinction? Categorical obedience comes from love, unenthusiastic obedience issues from cynicism or gutlessness. Put that way, it’s easy to pick oneself out. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a churchman and great conscience of the mid-twentieth century, put it this way from his Nazi prison cell:

"If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of others. It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted or destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and ... give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves."

Even as his assassination drew near, Dr. Bonhoeffer put the case mildly. H. L. Mencken, a journalist and anti-cleric, never suffered from such modesty:

"The individual man, cheek by jowl with the multitude, drops down an intellectual peg or two, and so tends to show the mental and emotional reactions of his inferiors. The crowd, as a crowd, performs acts that many of its members, as individuals, would never be guilty of. Its average intelligence is very low; it is inflammatory, vicious, idiotic; almost simian. Crowds, properly worked up by skillful demagogues, are ready to believe anything, and to do anything.
The numskull runs amuck in a crowd, not because he has been inoculated with new rascality by the mysterious crowd influence, but because his habitual rascality now has its only chance to function safely.
What happens when a crowd cuts loose? ... The few superior men in it are not straightway reduced to the level of the underlying stoneheads. On the contrary, they usually keep their heads, and make efforts to combat the crowd action. But the stoneheads are too many for them. ... And why? Because they are suddenly conscious of the power lying in their numbers. The third rate man, though he may wear the false whiskers of a first rate man, may always be detected by his inability to keep his head in the face of an appeal to his emotions. A whoop strips off his disguise."

Just this morning the Mencken quote flew overhead quite by chance as this topic again cried for attention … funny how that happens. And, accounting for the age in which the two quotes were crafted, young ladies may not think it applies to them. It does.

All this talk of the mob and herd-mentality begs the question of the alternative. The truth is that shouting “Heil Hitler” is easy as is drinking Kool Aid offered by some huckster or following a smooth talker to a commune. There are lots of lesser examples not the least of which is empty-calorie partisanship. It is difficult, on the other hand, to be in relationship with another individual person. It is hard to be responsible for a family. Friendship is often dodgy. Sharing can be risky. Faithfulness is not for the faint.

You gotta wonder when you see someone who prefers his dog to human interaction. Wringing one’s hands over the faceless poor is not the same as feeding and clothing real people. Carrying a placard one time in a billion got someone out of jail. These also are pale substitutes for individual responsibility.

Just in case you’re interested, there is much research that confirms the idea that, despite the proximate cause, riots and tumult are generally for fun and profit and have little to do with improvement.

Here again, Dr. Bonhoeffer is instructive:

“Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free"

Here’s hoping you can hold these words dear. When we free ourselves up to think for ourselves, our thoughts do not turn to the hubbub but to each other with real and addressable needs.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

If You Haven't Got a Ha'penny, God Bless You

Dear Children:

Get ready. The silliness we’ve learned to endure from Congress is about to go into hyper drive. Here is a hint that might help: Whatever name given to any issue in the 112th Congress, the subtext will always be government debt. Of course, there’s the National Debt pushing $14 trillion. Nearly every state, county, municipality, mosquito abatement district and public transit system is swimming in debt. Not for profit social service agencies are borrowed up to their brow ridge because of deadbeat states, counties, municipalities, mosquito abatement districts and public transit systems. What a mess.
The national debt alone is about a year’s wages for the average adult. Paying the foreign portion alone would cost about $200 per month for 15 years or $35 per month for 35 years from every wage earner.
Whatever the reason (elective wars, ill-advised tax cuts, underfunded entitlements, out-of-control healthcare costs, quantitative easing and stimulus payments) we’re in a fix. No one has a perfect handle on the problem. No one has the power to impose a solution, however brilliant. Congress is the least capable forum for any solution. We are not even agreed on a comfortable level of debt let alone agreed on the major reductions that will be required soon.
There are those who will tell you that spending is the sole problem. That is true if we are prepared to gut the social safety net. The people who say that spending is the sole problem are prepared to do that very thing.
Some will tell you that military expenditures are the problem. That is also true if you are prepared to abrogate treaty obligations of longstanding, have an armed force trimmed to meet only imminent threats; a force incapable of backing up foreign policy goals and, at the same time, throw much of the politically unstable parts of the globe into chaos. There are people prepared to risk that too.
Some will say that we should tax and assess our way out of this jam. That too can be done if you are prepared to risk social strife and contempt for the government on an unprecedented scale. Don’t worry, some of our political leaders will risk as much and more.
There is a sizeable slice of political thought that advocates a hands-off approach. Sooner or later, they argue, we will either grow our economy or shrink our economy until all the forces listed above come into balance naturally. Some of those people would merely cancel the foreign portion of the debt to the tune of $9 trillion give or take. Such an action would queer the idea of ever borrowing another penny from foreigners. Heaven help us if we encounter some emergency that would require an infusion of hard currency.
As we understand it right now, whatever we do must be both effective and palatable to a huge fraction of taxpayers. In other words, once we agree on the debt target, the solution is somehow resident in all of the above solutions; a combination of taxes, entitlement efficiencies, military retrenchment and discretionary restraint. The pain will need to be spread as evenly as possible for as short a period as possible.
I don’t know the answer nor do I know anyone who does. That is why we called this meeting. Beware of those who claim to have the answer especially if it’s a simple or painless one. Beware of political leaders who ask you to trust them without revealing their plans. Beware of those who will sell any natural rights in the name of thrift. Beware of those who will sacrifice the poor and the infirm as a political expedient. Beware of those who would impoverish the wealthy and productive. History teaches that none of these ever work.
As these matters come before the 112th Congress, we will examine each in more detail.
I’m just sayin’
Poppy

The Ox and Ass Kept Time Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum

Dear Children:

You know the Little Drummer Boy; pa rum pum pum pum?

We all know how this stuff happens: Somebody decides that your delicate sensibilities can’t stand some word or some image and manages to keep it from you.  That somebody is called a bowdlerizer.  A bowdlerizer is not exactly a censor.  He decrees what you should hear or see.  He is someone who would disinfect things for you.  God forbid you should worry your pretty little heads.

What could be more pure-of-heart than to keep from our sweet youngsters what is vile and indelicate.  Make no mistake, what is vile and indelicate should be kept from your ears.

Just be aware that he is a human too with a complex set of motives and anxieties like the rest of us.  Sometimes the stuff that gets cleaned up says more about the cleaner than about the dainty ears of children.  Sometimes she would rather you didn’t giggle during the Christmas Pageant when you hear the word “ass”.  Okay, so “donkey” would be acceptable but doesn’t fit into the songs metric scheme.

So the word gets changed to ‘lamb’.  How very adorable.  Except now the line has been leached of its meaning.  From the very earliest crèches or manger scenes depicting the birth of The Christ Child, an ox and an ass have been present based on the words of the prophet Isaiah:

The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.

Much has been made of this over the last couple millennia. Ox is kosher; donkey meat is forbidden.  Many scholars have taken the verse to foretell the Jew/Gentile debate of the early church.  Others have contrasted the gentle ox with the obdurate ass.  The juxtaposition has also been used in quite judgmental terms toward Jewry.  In any case: You got your baby Jesus, you got your ox and you got your ass.

This is a rather mild example to be sure.  After all, what harm does it do?  No real harm has been done except you get to be ever-so-slightly cheated of a carol’s richness.  This is in the name of foregoing a few giggles at the Christmas Pageant.

Political talking points are cut from the same cloth.  A talking point serves up a sanitary, unambiguous and easily repeatable bit of humbug for the home folks to toss about at dinner.  Talking points usually involve a tautology (self-referential reasoning) in the hope that enough repetitions will crowd out whatever nuance might otherwise exist.  Some recent examples are:

            We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

            We’re giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.

Here again, a couple of mild examples that, in the scheme no things, don’t amount to much.  This is not a partisan post.  The partisan ones will curl you hair.

In the first instance, we are avoiding the word “debt” because at $14 trillion there is no power on earth capable of denting it in our lifetimes.  It is merely lip service to an ideology that long ago has been stripped of its political muscle.

In the second instance, we make reference to something that happened eight years ago.  The question at hand is whether we should raise taxes on one group or another.  And besides, taxes are levied on earnings not net worth.

As bad as talking points are, the outright vending of ignorance ranks just below the bald-faced lie.  Senators from South Carolina and Arizona used words like “sacrilegious” and “disrespectful” to describe their obligation to work during the week between Christmas and New Years.  That sort of thing is way beyond cant.  Maybe he just misspoke, but the plain text of the junior Senator from Arizona suggests that the very day (December 15) was Christmas.

So what?  Senators bloviate – that’s what we expect of them.  They’re giving you what you need to hear without much in the way of thought or care.  The Senator was bowdlerizing for your benefit.

All the polls show it: the electorate has a low opinion of Congress.  That low opinion cuts both ways.   Congress has low opinion of the electorate.

I’m just sayin’,

Poppy

www.poppylbs.blogspot.com