Regular readers of this blog should have a pretty good idea of my politics by now, and its actually rather startling to see how I've far I've changed over the years, from a hard right conservative to a moderate to pretty mainstream Democrat. I look back to where I was at during the 1980s (high school), 1990s (college and beyond), and the early part of this decade, and compare that with how I'm feeling now, and I can't say that I was necessarily wrong then or obviously that I'm right now.
Really, I think the reality of the world has fundamentally changed, and obviously my understanding of the world has deepened, having more experience now than I did then. But I would like to believe that if I could inject my current self back into the 1980's I would still have been a Reagan supporter and a Republican (though not nearly as enthusiastic of one as I was back then) because I still believe Ronald Reagan was a good president, a man for the moment. Or if I could have transported myself back to the 1990's, I still believe I would have been disgusted by Clinton's moral failings and his lack of a core conviction, although I think I would have been against the impeachment attempts at the time, and maybe would have been more inclined to vote for him (over Dole) in 1996, although I still believe Bush Sr. was a good president and deserved another term.
But back to Reagan because he really defines the modern Republican party. He was the president that popularized this idea of denigrating the government institution and formalized into an election strategy this idea of low tax rates, small government, and free commerce.
Despite some of Reagan's most egregious problems - certainly you could make the case that Iran/Contra was the black eye that invalidated every other success he had as a president, or his ignoring the AIDS problem for as long as he did, or his alarming nuclear buildups. Despite all of that, he was the perfect anecdote for what ailed America at the time. The 1970's, America was in a funk. Vietnam sunk our confidence in our own ability that we can be a force for good in this world, the 1960's plunged us into a massive cultural civil war that has split our country in half politically. The 1970's was the decade of the Nixon impeachment, and a largely ineffectual Ford presidency, and a Carter presidency that made us ashamed to be an American.
Reagan brought in a gust of optimism and pro-American certitude. He successfully stared down the Russians and then he artfully transitioned toward embracing them which basically ushered in the end of the Cold War. He cut taxes on the richest of us true, but it needed to be done. Taxes were way too high and needed to be cut. He democratized stock ownership, the 401K as it is known today began during the Reagan administration. He opened trade and increased competition which most notably helped bring Japanese automobiles into America and by as a result, helped to improve drastically on automotive quality. He laid the groundwork for a society of individual accountability. He popularized the notion that the government largely needed to stay out of people's way, and that living in a free and open society, anybody could succeed based on their merits.
This sense of optimism was a perfect anecdote for the 1970's doldrums and was necessary as government bureaurocracy grew heavy as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society (and the like) were layered on top of Roosevelt's New Deal. I've heard that the richest Americans, for example, endured above a 80% income tax penalty which only encouraged those richest of Americans to spend money to dodge this tax.
The problem with the Republican party is that it has not evolved, at least not successfully. Republicans still evoke Reagan today, but the conditions of today are nothing like the conditions that existed 30 years ago. McCain tried very half-heartedly to leap back hundred years ago to progressive Republican mentality of Teddy Roosevelt. Bush Jr. tried to come up with a modern incarnation he termed "compassionate conservatism", but nobody really knew what any of this meant, and there was no intellectual meat behind these movements.
But Obama understands in his gut how much the world has changed, and how much we need a new approach. The best part of his inauguration speech:
"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."
And that is at the heart of where we're at in America today. The old battle lines of big government of Democrats versus small government Republicans has largely played out. The dirty fact is that even under Reagan, government grew. Its really difficult to get elected into office and then cut off your own arms and legs. Small government conservatism was never realistic in practice. The emphasis should have always been and will be now in instituting effective government.
Now, one argument I get tired of is how critics will always cite cases of government waste and corruption as a reason to cut government programs. But they always forget to about all of the waste, inefficiencies, corruption, and injustices in the private sector. Business is only effective when government is effective, and neither is effective unless we as individuals are effective. We are all important and need to work together and balance each other's excesses, and strengthen each other.
On that note, many people I've heard who have criticized the bailouts or the proposed stimulus plans also want to blame our economic problems on too much government. They blame Freddie and Fannie for giving out too many loans to the unqualified and the poor. They blame Greenspan for keeping interest rates too low and pine for the Federal Reserve to keep its hands off of our monetary system. They argue that largely our economy needs to be left alone, so that it can recover on its own terms.
I believe that this is a misguided, narrow, and partisan understanding of what is happening in our economy. I'm not saying that the government is not to blame. And that the Bush administration has hardly been a model overseer of our financial institutions. But when you elect a political party built on the idea that government is part of the problem and not the solution, its hard not to imagine that they will be less than fully engaged in those solutions.
When our government fails or misbehaves its not necessarily an excuse to throw the whole institution down the toilet, its time to replace the bad with something better.
And that, in my hope, is exactly what we've done. Obama is running on pragmatism and on believe that government can be effective and necessary in ensuring our economy runs smooth, to ensure that we have enough of a safety net to allow individuals the breathing room to take risks, to borrow, to invest, to improve their lives.
And so, my politics, now is based on a belief that the world has changed. We need government now more than ever, but we need a government that understand that its job fundamentally is to create an environment where institutions and individuals can thrive and find prosperity. And for that to happen, we need a strong, engaged, and well funded government.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Obama the Great
This Tuesday is the inaugration of Barack Obama. Finally we will see the end of on of the most disastrous, destructive, and lately, inneffective presidents in memory. Finally, we'll see the beginning of the president who comes in with incredible expectations and incredible challenges.
Read this article about him from a guy who turned my heart toward Obama over a year ago.
Some quotes:
"The goal, it now seems clear, is what some deduced many months ago: Obama wants to become the leader of an American version of the national governments that Britain relied on in the depths of the last Great Depression. "
"We cannot know whether he will succeed, whether partisanship and America’s culture war will slowly eat him up, or whether in government, as he makes decisions with winners and losers, his aura will evaporate. But what we can say is that, so far, he shows every sign of meaning what he said about leaving that divisive, destructive froth behind. Just reading the papers every morning, we see every sign that the gravity of the crisis his predecessor bequeaths him makes this necessary. "
"What he gets, what he seems to intuit, is how to make others feel as if they are being heard. This is simple enough in theory but hard to pull off consistently in practice. His model is to figure out what another person needs and, if it helps Obama to get what he wants, to provide it. "
And he writes eloquently about the challenges and the real and expected approaches to those challenges, from our current economic troubles, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to Afghanistan and Iraq.
And concludes it this way:
"If you close your eyes and imagine what this combination of fiscal and foreign policy realism portends, you will come to a pretty obvious conclusion. This Democratic liberal is actually, when it comes down to it, a man almost entirely within the mainstream spectrum of the European centre right. Imagine a Cameron-style Tory becoming president of the United States and try to come up with something he would do differently.
This blend of pragmatism and realism reminds me in the American context of Eisenhower more than any other recent president. Obama has the unerring instincts of a conciliator and a moderate Tory. But he has the rhetorical skills of a Kennedy or a Churchill. That’s a potent combination.
It may be, of course, that the relief at the end of the Bush era is colouring our hopes. It may also be that events conspire to derail the man, or that the habits of the past two decades in Washington will return with a vengeance and do to Obama what was done to Clinton, another centrist Democrat who came to office on a tide of goodwill. But I don’t think that, given the immense crises we all face, it is unreasonable to hope for more.
There is something about Obama’s willingness to give others credit, to approach so many issues with such dispassionate pragmatism, and to shift by symbols and speeches the mood and tenor of an entire country that gives one a modest form of optimism. Even now, as the outlook seems so dark, and as the inheritance seems so insuperable, three words linger in the mind.
Yes, he can.
And two words echo back at me.
Can we?"
Read this article about him from a guy who turned my heart toward Obama over a year ago.
Some quotes:
"The goal, it now seems clear, is what some deduced many months ago: Obama wants to become the leader of an American version of the national governments that Britain relied on in the depths of the last Great Depression. "
"We cannot know whether he will succeed, whether partisanship and America’s culture war will slowly eat him up, or whether in government, as he makes decisions with winners and losers, his aura will evaporate. But what we can say is that, so far, he shows every sign of meaning what he said about leaving that divisive, destructive froth behind. Just reading the papers every morning, we see every sign that the gravity of the crisis his predecessor bequeaths him makes this necessary. "
"What he gets, what he seems to intuit, is how to make others feel as if they are being heard. This is simple enough in theory but hard to pull off consistently in practice. His model is to figure out what another person needs and, if it helps Obama to get what he wants, to provide it. "
And he writes eloquently about the challenges and the real and expected approaches to those challenges, from our current economic troubles, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to Afghanistan and Iraq.
And concludes it this way:
"If you close your eyes and imagine what this combination of fiscal and foreign policy realism portends, you will come to a pretty obvious conclusion. This Democratic liberal is actually, when it comes down to it, a man almost entirely within the mainstream spectrum of the European centre right. Imagine a Cameron-style Tory becoming president of the United States and try to come up with something he would do differently.
This blend of pragmatism and realism reminds me in the American context of Eisenhower more than any other recent president. Obama has the unerring instincts of a conciliator and a moderate Tory. But he has the rhetorical skills of a Kennedy or a Churchill. That’s a potent combination.
It may be, of course, that the relief at the end of the Bush era is colouring our hopes. It may also be that events conspire to derail the man, or that the habits of the past two decades in Washington will return with a vengeance and do to Obama what was done to Clinton, another centrist Democrat who came to office on a tide of goodwill. But I don’t think that, given the immense crises we all face, it is unreasonable to hope for more.
There is something about Obama’s willingness to give others credit, to approach so many issues with such dispassionate pragmatism, and to shift by symbols and speeches the mood and tenor of an entire country that gives one a modest form of optimism. Even now, as the outlook seems so dark, and as the inheritance seems so insuperable, three words linger in the mind.
Yes, he can.
And two words echo back at me.
Can we?"
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Our new Bishop got up today to discuss the goals for our congregration (the Mormon church is very goal oriented), and he said that he wanted to establish Zion in our ward, quoting a most recent general authority talk in last October's conference for inspiration. This is a "most excellent" idea. The word Zion has many different connotations depending on your perspective, but for us it means three things:
1) The people who reside in Zion are of one heart and one mind.
2) Each person individually is holy, pure in heart.
3) And in Zion because of 1) and 2), poverty is completely eliminated, no poor live in their midst (and not because they kicked all the poor people out, either).
So, effectively, our Bishop has set a goal to establish a little utopian community within our segment of Tempe, Arizona. This is an exciting goal for me because it will be really exciting to be part of trying to do this.
And it got me thinking about a podcast I've heard recently on Dianne Rehm interviewing the author of a recent book called Music Quickens Time. The author Daniel Barenboim is a famous pianist and composer who has assembled the West-Eastern Divine Orchestra with members spanning the middle east, Israel and Arabs who come together to make music.
What follows are some scattered quotes from the interview, finished up by a performance of a piece whose title I borrowed for this blog post.
This quote by Barenboim, in particular, kept ringing in my ears long after I heard it almost perfectly describes Zion:
"The way that people should play in an orchestra, when you sit in the orchestra, you have to give everything of yourself, everything you know, everything you feel, whatever comes to you, you have to give the maximum, otherwise you're not contributing to the collective effort, but at the same time, simultaneously, you have to listen to what others are playing, and what you say is in permanent relation to what they are saying. What you play in relation to what they are playing. If you are too loud, they won't be heard, if you are too soft, you won't support them. What better lesson for life do you want? Can you imagine if our politicians have to really contribute everything that they think and feel and at the same time listen to others."
He also had some very, blow me over, exceptional concept of the unique nature of sound and music:
"The beginning of a concert is more privileged then the beginning of a book. One can say that sound itself is more priviledged than words. A book is filled with words I use every day, day after day to explain, describe, demand, argue, beg, enthuse, tell the truth, and to lie. Our thoughts take shape in words. Therefore, the words on a page must compete with the thoughts in our mind. Music has a much larger world of association at its disposal precisely because of its ambivalent nature. It is both inside and outside the world."
"Music is not separated from the world. It can make us forget and understand the world at the same time."
"There is nothing I can think and feel that I can't think and feel with sound."
"Sound is extraordinary because it doesn't live in this world. Whoever makes a sound, he is literally bringing this sound into the world. And yet when it comes to this world, it suddenly acquires a human dimension, it acquires a dimension that makes humans move. I know know of no other phenomenon that is a purely physical phenomenon that takes another dimension.
"Sound does not remain, sound has a tendency to drop into silence. Therefore, sound has with silence is the equivalent of life and death. I think the fact that sound is drawn to silence, therefore sound has a tendency to die, that means that every note that you play or sing has a tendency to die puts you in direct contact with the feeling of death more than anything I can think of because its not in your imagination only because its physically in front of you whether you are playing or listening."
"Music is universal. Every baby that is born is born with a certain amount of talent or receptiveness to music, and therefore, I'm very saddened by the lack of music education in so many societies, and the poor quality of music education in societies where there is some. You cannot grow up in a home where no music is played, where you don't hear music as a baby, go to kindergarten where there's no music, go to primary school and to high school where there is no music, then go to university become a lawyer or doctor, go back to your city, get married and have children, get famous become a very important lawyer or doctor, and the age of 32 or 33 go for the first time in your life to a concert, and expect to get something out of it. You will only get the feeling of going to a place where lots of people go to, you will not get anything out of the music."
By the way, he has a pretty skewed sense of how long it can take someone to get "famous", he gave his first formal concert at age 7.
"Music education is our civic duty, government, civic society, to give children from a very early age, an understanding and education in music. It has proved that children that come into contact with music, and play something, even a simple song, have a much better balance psychic life, because music forces you, it comes quite naturally. You have to use all your faculties in that moment, your feelings and your thinking. You cannot separate this."
When I met my wife, she was working furiously toward her Master's degree music recital at ASU. It was through her, that I was introduced, really and truly, to classical music. It was through her that I was exposed to the piece composed by Rzewski entitled "The People United Will Never be Defeated." The piece starts out in a most straight forward and very inspiring way. And then there are literally 36 variations to it, that are all fantastic, some harder to listen to than others.
What follows is a youtube performance of it, enjoy.
1) The people who reside in Zion are of one heart and one mind.
2) Each person individually is holy, pure in heart.
3) And in Zion because of 1) and 2), poverty is completely eliminated, no poor live in their midst (and not because they kicked all the poor people out, either).
So, effectively, our Bishop has set a goal to establish a little utopian community within our segment of Tempe, Arizona. This is an exciting goal for me because it will be really exciting to be part of trying to do this.
And it got me thinking about a podcast I've heard recently on Dianne Rehm interviewing the author of a recent book called Music Quickens Time. The author Daniel Barenboim is a famous pianist and composer who has assembled the West-Eastern Divine Orchestra with members spanning the middle east, Israel and Arabs who come together to make music.
What follows are some scattered quotes from the interview, finished up by a performance of a piece whose title I borrowed for this blog post.
Zion and music
This quote by Barenboim, in particular, kept ringing in my ears long after I heard it almost perfectly describes Zion:
"The way that people should play in an orchestra, when you sit in the orchestra, you have to give everything of yourself, everything you know, everything you feel, whatever comes to you, you have to give the maximum, otherwise you're not contributing to the collective effort, but at the same time, simultaneously, you have to listen to what others are playing, and what you say is in permanent relation to what they are saying. What you play in relation to what they are playing. If you are too loud, they won't be heard, if you are too soft, you won't support them. What better lesson for life do you want? Can you imagine if our politicians have to really contribute everything that they think and feel and at the same time listen to others."
The nature of sound
He also had some very, blow me over, exceptional concept of the unique nature of sound and music:
"The beginning of a concert is more privileged then the beginning of a book. One can say that sound itself is more priviledged than words. A book is filled with words I use every day, day after day to explain, describe, demand, argue, beg, enthuse, tell the truth, and to lie. Our thoughts take shape in words. Therefore, the words on a page must compete with the thoughts in our mind. Music has a much larger world of association at its disposal precisely because of its ambivalent nature. It is both inside and outside the world."
"Music is not separated from the world. It can make us forget and understand the world at the same time."
"There is nothing I can think and feel that I can't think and feel with sound."
"Sound is extraordinary because it doesn't live in this world. Whoever makes a sound, he is literally bringing this sound into the world. And yet when it comes to this world, it suddenly acquires a human dimension, it acquires a dimension that makes humans move. I know know of no other phenomenon that is a purely physical phenomenon that takes another dimension.
"Sound does not remain, sound has a tendency to drop into silence. Therefore, sound has with silence is the equivalent of life and death. I think the fact that sound is drawn to silence, therefore sound has a tendency to die, that means that every note that you play or sing has a tendency to die puts you in direct contact with the feeling of death more than anything I can think of because its not in your imagination only because its physically in front of you whether you are playing or listening."
On education
"Music is universal. Every baby that is born is born with a certain amount of talent or receptiveness to music, and therefore, I'm very saddened by the lack of music education in so many societies, and the poor quality of music education in societies where there is some. You cannot grow up in a home where no music is played, where you don't hear music as a baby, go to kindergarten where there's no music, go to primary school and to high school where there is no music, then go to university become a lawyer or doctor, go back to your city, get married and have children, get famous become a very important lawyer or doctor, and the age of 32 or 33 go for the first time in your life to a concert, and expect to get something out of it. You will only get the feeling of going to a place where lots of people go to, you will not get anything out of the music."
By the way, he has a pretty skewed sense of how long it can take someone to get "famous", he gave his first formal concert at age 7.
"Music education is our civic duty, government, civic society, to give children from a very early age, an understanding and education in music. It has proved that children that come into contact with music, and play something, even a simple song, have a much better balance psychic life, because music forces you, it comes quite naturally. You have to use all your faculties in that moment, your feelings and your thinking. You cannot separate this."
Finally, an explanation of the title of this post
When I met my wife, she was working furiously toward her Master's degree music recital at ASU. It was through her, that I was introduced, really and truly, to classical music. It was through her that I was exposed to the piece composed by Rzewski entitled "The People United Will Never be Defeated." The piece starts out in a most straight forward and very inspiring way. And then there are literally 36 variations to it, that are all fantastic, some harder to listen to than others.
What follows is a youtube performance of it, enjoy.
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