I am only one...

Look out!

In the spring of 1872 William Blackmore saw buffalo all along the Arkansas River. The following autumn the whole country was whitened, he wrote, by "bleached and bleaching bones." No buffalo were to be seen until deep within Indian Territory. The market hunter had arrived. This hunter was helped in his business by the coming of the railroads. They provided an easy means for getting buffalo hides and tongues to eager eastern markets. Most hunters were "hard cases" from the East and knew little about the plains or about caring for buffalo hides. Five buffalo died for every hide that reached market.

In 1873 merchants engaged in the business and organized the hide trade. A professional hunter, picked for his shooting ability and his knowledge of bison, now led the standard hide party. His accomplices were usually two skinners and a cook, and their goal was to find a herd and make a stand. A stand was achieved by getting within thirty or forty yards of a herd and shooting a buffalo in the heart. It fell in its tracks and died without disturbing the others. In this way the animals could be shot as they fed. One report tells of 112 buffalo killed within a two hundred-yard area in forty-five minutes by a single hunter. Another successful method was to pick off the bison at a river as they came in for water. Between 1872 and 1874 about 4.5 million buffalo were killed. Before the end of the 1870s the great herds vanished.

Their disappearance also marked the end for the gray wolf. The largest canine in North America, the wolf had depended on the herds for food. With the buffalo gone, the wolf turned to livestock, and massive predator-control programs hastened its disappearance from the plains. By the time of the 1889 Land Run into the Unassigned Lands of Oklahoma Territory, only fifty-seven years after Washington Irving pursued bear, turkey, buffalo, and wild horses near present Norman, all these animals were gone. They had given way to farms, ranches, railroads, industry, and the promise of tomorrow.

- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture Oklahoma Historical Society

Imagine the buffalo, secure in their vast numbers, eating sweet prairie grass. There’s an unexpected noise, and a buffalo quietly sags to the ground. “Huh,” another says, “look at that. Tom died.” The other buffalo glance over, shrug their great buffalo shoulders, and go on eating. Another noise. Another quietly drops to the ground. “Wow,” says the observant one. “Now George died.” A few look; most just keep cropping the grass.*

And so it goes. As long as nobody gets excited, the herd can be wiped out. They could trample the hunter into the dirt if they rushed him. Their size and strength and speed are of no use to them, because they never fully realize they have a problem.

I’m suggesting that average Americans today are in something like the buffalo’s position. We have been losing to sharpshooters picking us off --- a bankruptcy here, a foreclosure there --- a little of this, a little of that. The taxes we pay which could provide good schools and hospitals, bridge or highway repairs, support medical research and development of clean alternative energy sources, and more --- instead go to bail out corporations which have gambled recklessly to increase their profits. Tax dollars go to war profiteers who have cut corners and exaggerated costs to enrich themselves while our young men and women face the terrible risks of battle.

The same corporations which are picking us off here are also making huge profits overseas. When they bribe foreign government officials to allow the corporations to walk off with that nation's resources instead of protecting them, the resentment toward Americans grows.

To protect the corporations’ investments against that resentment, our government has built huge military bases around the world (more profits for other corporations that built the bases). The people of those countries see their poverty increase, and their rulers, who have cooperated with the corporate piracy, propped up and armed against the people with American weapons. Little wonder that enmity to America has risen around the world. When enmity toward the US increasing, as individuals we are more and more at risk in the world, and we’re told we must give up freedoms for our own safety.

We are being picked off. We need to stop saying, “Huh, Fred died” --- “Huh, our neighbor’s house is being foreclosed” --- “Huh, another corporation has to be bailed out” --- “Huh, there just isn’t enough money for good health care” --- and start looking for the hunters.

First, the classic rule: Follow the money.

Second: Remember, war is hugely profitable for some.

That’s a good beginning. After that we have to pay attention, and stop assuming that we’re too busy and somebody else will take care of things.

One more thing: Honest vote-counts --- like the sweet prairie grass, something we thought we could always count on --- are not likely to happen without brave and determined activists getting on the matter NOW.

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*the buffalo's speech "Huh, George died" is not original with me. I remember hearing it some 30 years ago, but can't remember whose it was and couldn't find it online.

Choosing themes

"History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past." - A.J.P.Taylor (Historian)

There are two story themes available now about major Democratic figures of the past two decades. Each has some supporting evidence.

The first story goes something like this (I tell it at some length because I believe it is valid):

Bill Clinton fit the Democratic ideals of opportunity for all: born into a poor and difficult family situation, he benefited from public education and rejected the bigotry common in the South.

As a young man, he opposed the VietNam War and supported the Civil Rights movement. He married Hillary Rodham, a bright and independent woman with middle class Chicago roots. They admired each other's intelligence and strength. Their interest in how government could serve the common good, and commitment to public service, were major elements in their mutual attraction.

For leadership roles in government, they had one serious lack. Even as campaigns became more and more expensive to run, they had no personal wealth and few connections to wealth. It gave them a perspective badly needed in the halls of power, but that didn't help in getting them there.

At the time women were still rarely seen in executive positions in government or business, so pragmatism dictated that Bill be the first of the pair to run for office, in his home state of Arkansas. Hillary worked in a law firm, helped campaign and tackled the funding process, looked for investment possibilities. She also worked on social causes close to her heart.

He won the governorship. One of the reasons Bill made friends in the Black community was that he didn't pretend racial issues didn't exist. He frankly acknowledged them (as the Black community always had to do) and worked for racial justice. He made enemies among the segregationists still very active in the state. He lost at the next election, then won again later.

Next he became a presidential contender. It was a hard campaign, and Bill was counted out more than once, but kept bouncing back and ultimately was elected. It was clear that Bill (and Hillary too) could be powerhouse candidates and campaigners for the Democrats for a long time to come. Justifiably alarmed, Republicans continued their fierce campaign against them right over into his term of office.

Right-wing funding was available to promote any kind of negative charge. Old enemies, and old charges from the Arkansas campaigns, were sold to the media. Journalists who promoted the stories were rewarded; those who didn't found career possibilities shrinking. Charges came thick and fast, and little attention was paid to the fact that charges had no substance, because new ones were raised as old ones were refuted.

Individuals working for the Clinton administration were also subject to attacks, both personal and legal, so the pain of unfounded charges was often compounded with the need to expend large sums for legal representation. Vincent Foster, unprepared for this level of assault, was driven to suicide --- and the scandalmongers responded with a new host of rumors blaming his death on the Clintons and himself. Whitewater was raised, refuted, and raised and refuted again and again, at great public cost; after years of exhaustive investigation and millions spent, the Clintons were exonerated.

Despite all this distraction, Bill had an effective presidency. A large part of his effectiveness was in his flexibility on language and tactics and his tenacity in shaking off defeats and pursuing causes, when progress on one issue was blocked, shifting to another, but repeatedly pressing on one or another priority. The national debt, which had been soaring like a rocket since Reagan took office in 1980, reduced its trajectory and soon began to decrease, reducing its effectiveness as a Republican argument against social spending. Despite all the Republican partisan opposition --- which extended even to shutting down government operations rather than compromise with Clinton, and mounting an impeachment on trivial personal grounds --- there were gains domestically and internationally and positive regard for the US increased in most places around the world.

After leaving the presidency, Bill continued efforts to improve world conditions, establishing a foundation to support education, poverty-reduction, and health around the world. Hillary successfully campaigned in New York and became a widely-respected senator. Both were generous in lending support to other Democratic candidates.

When Hillary ran in the presidential primaries in 2008, the Democrats had many highly credible candidates, all of them raising issues which had been badly served by the Bush II administration. It came down to a very close one-on-one contest between two strikingly attractive candidates with very widespread support. In addition to all their other qualities, each would represent a first in US history --- Hillary the first woman, Obama the first with African ancestry, to be a major party's presidential nominee. After a long and close contest, Obama had a decisive lead, and Hillary pledged her vigorous support to his campaign.

Both Bill and Hillary are eloquent and charismatic, able to speak to the aspirations and stir the energies of audiences across the cultural and demographic range of the country.

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That's the first story; here's the second:

Bill and Hillary Clinton emerged from the dirty setting of Arkansas as ruthless power-seekers, and he captured the US presidency by doubtful means. His presidency was full of scandals. Both Bill and Hillary were shameless liars willing to exploit any friend or supporter, loyal to no cause but their own advancement. He was impeached but managed to wriggle out of it.

In the 2008 primary, Hillary --- a mere wife without qualifications, running really to give her husband an illegal third term --- joine with Bill to fight a dirty battle against Obama, refusing to concede when it became clear that Obama would probably win. It was a nasty campaign which dirtied his image and provided much ammunition for the Republicans to use against him in the general campaign.

Bill and Hillary are damaged, destructive figures certainly not able to help Obama in his campaign. A good opinion of them is a sign of collusion, ignorance, naivety, or just plain bad judgement.

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Now, it's obvious why the Republicans would choose to trumpet the second story. But can anyone explain what fratricidal yearning for failure drives so many Democrats to prefer some version of that bitterly false narrative?

Another try - Think again? with paragraphs

It's remarkable to me how hard it's been for me to write this. I think my writer's block for the past month or more has much to do with ambivalence about putting these ideas out to you. I think you'll understand, maybe understand easily, but the felt social pressure not to say this surprises me --- and is part of my point.

First I'll say that I have no problem at all with Barack Obama as president. Assuming he winds up being the Dem nominee, I will certainly support and vote for him. I read his books before he was a candidate, was very impressed, urged friends to read them. He has powerful worthwhile ideas to express; he's eloquent in expressing them; he's wonderfully intelligent and charismatic. As representative for the country he'd have tremendous power for good, both in what he'd say and do, and in who he is. I have no problem or quarrel with those who decided he's their top choice. Easy to understand that.

What I do have a problem with is the number of progressives who see HRC not just as their lesser choice, but as a villain. I think that's a picture that's been painted over a long span of time, by a lavishly funded media campaign, sometimes blatant and sometimes subtle.

One of the reasons that bothers me so much is that --- if/when Hillary & Bill are out of the running --- the same thing will almost certainly be aimed at Obama. It's a tool that has been pretty effective [though note: HRC has still been winning lots of elections] and given the mess the Republican right has made, their best chance is to distract attention from themselves by creating controversy about their opponent. I'm afraid a great many of those who've bought the garbage about the Clintons will, over time, buy it about Obama.

And one of the reasons I think HRC's staying in the race for as long as possible has been a good thing: the right wing has had to scatter its shot, and if Obama becomes the Dem presidential candidate in June, there will be only a few months for the negatives to be broadly and intensely focussed, insinuated, and drilled in before the general election.

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The essence of the right's campaign against the Clintons has been volume: multiple charges in rapid succession or simultaneously. The fact that the charges turned out to be flimsy concoctions, in essence nothing (Whitewater, troopergate, filegate, travelgate, and on and on) was obscured by the fact that there was always more in the air. In a community of even tolerably fair-minded people, if you keep hearing bad things about someone over and over, it's safe to assume there's really something wrong with that person. "Where there's smoke there's fire" is the folk wisdom expression of that.

The right wing has used that general wisdom together with their wealth and their control of multiple media outlets to make sure there was always plenty of smoke around the Clintons from the time they first appeared on the national political scene. It was just one part of a long-term well-orchestrated effort by the far right to gain permanent political control in this country, an effort that goes back at least to the 1970s. It didn't matter if there was not even a kernel of truth in the charges they portrayed because the point wasn't proving real offenses; the point was to have continuous smoke.

Conservatives saw it (or at least sold it) as a defensive effort, in response to the progressive trend of the previous century and especially the previous few decades. The folksy charm of Ronald Reagan was very useful in moving public opinion; his presidency started with claims of social concern ("Hands Across America" to help the homeless) and went on to help the wealthy with trickle-down economics plugged near the top. Others re-wrote history of the real social concerns of the '60s and '70s with the universal label "The Me Generation."

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It was a program that worked. By the end of the '80s we were living in a far more conservative and more harshly capitalistic culture. Reagan's faux social concern was echoed by subsequent Republican administrations: Bush I started with "A Thousand Points of Light" and Bush II with "compassionate conservatism" but the wellbeing of the disadvantaged wasn't a priority beyond rhetoric. When the Clintons appeared in the early'90s, they posed a real threat to the conservative tide which by then had risen considerably, especially in its synergy with the religious right. The Clintons were able to connect with many of the people who'd switched from Democrat to Republican --- in the south and the Rust Belt especially. Hillary's background was middle class, Bill's genuinely working class, and they were able to empathise and speak to working and middle-class people in ways neither the phony populism of wealthy Republicans nor the intellectualism of many establishment Democrats could match.

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The Clintons embodied important progressive values --- education as a route to success; gender equality; embrace of diversity. They were both policy wonks, able to keep track of facts and program implications. It was probably apparent to Republican nightmares that if Bill were elected and had a successful presidency, there was a strong possibility that Hillary (just as well educated, just as politically adept) could step up for another 8 years of Democratic administration. When Bill spoke of "two for the price of one" it must have caused shudders.

So the Republicans launched the most intensive attack on a presidency that had been seen in many generations. Much of the effort was intellectually based in the neoconservative think tanks, but there were plenty of practical political fighters and mercenaries to carry it forward. Richard Mellon Scaife was one major source of the lavish funding, though not the only one. Bitter segregationists who had grudges about Bill Clinton's actions as governor of Arkansas were paid and provided platforms for attack. If they couldn't bring him down, at least they could keep him so preoccupied defending against one charge after another that his effectiveness would be undermined.

Read David Brock's "Blinded by the Right," for an account by someone who worked for the right and later thought better of it. Read Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" for the tangled interconnections of the various attacks.

The Democrats in Congress did not initially provide much support to "their" president. There were the perennial power issues between branches of government; there was resentment that the Clintons were outsiders, not Washington regulars; there were representatives bound to the views of their constituencies and doubtful that Clinton could protect their re-election. I hold an unproven theory that there were and are "moles" whose loyalties were not to the party they ostensibly belong to.

Bill Clinton tried for major moves; when blocked, he maneuvered to find ways to make incremental progress and made some, but was attacked by many in his own party who saw gradualism as a beytrayal of principle, and were appalled when he used conservative language to sell progressive ideas. (I tell it as I saw and remember it)

In the end, of course, he was nearly brought down by a stupid and tawdry recreational sexual liason. But even then, with every twisting of legal and political powers to bring him down, he survived. And despite all the character assassination that has been directed at Hillary since 1992, she too has survived and continues to present her policy ideas (very similar to Obama's) to voters and to win elections. The Republicans were right to fear them.

During this Democratic primary, every candidate has at times been bashed over irrelevancies (Edwards' $400 haircut, Obama's pastor), misinterpreted statements (Michelle Obama's comment that there have been times when she wasn't proud of America), statements taken out of context, and so forth. For Obama, this was balanced with positive coverage --- rarely much substance about policy positions, but at least some record of good moments and effective speeches. For HRC, though, there's been a very heavy weighting toward the negative. Headlines were even more likely to be negative than the stories beneath the headline; a close reading of the story sometimes eventually yielded the details which disproved the simplistic headline, but later reporting usually took the headline as the complete history.

If there was an exchange of criticism between Obama and HRC, headlines usually reported "Hillary attacks Obama" or "Obama defends against Clinton attack" regardless of whose statement came first. [I could say a lot more about this, because it struck me enough that I spent time following up on stories to get the full account when it wasn't easily apparent in press accounts. Just one example: it's taken as sad truth by now that Bill Clinton "played the race card" by mentioning Jesse Jackson in South Carolina, but reading the whole exchange just doesn't support that charge.]

All in all, I think there are very similar strengths and very similar policies between Obama and HRC. Each is eloquent (I suspect those who say she isn't, just haven't watched any significant portion of one of her speeches). Both are highly ambitious and competitive (you just don't get that close to the presidency without those qualities) but clearly both have other motivations, not just power-hunger. All of those qualities --- ambition, competitiveness, power-seeking --- are generally seen much more negatively in a woman than in a man, and that's made the tightrope HRC has had to walk: too soft and she's just not presidential material; too firm and she's power-mad and cold; with no space between too soft and too firm.

Most of the explanations I've heard from those who say they wouldn't vote for HRC seem to boil down to a visceral discomfort or dislike. I believe that's due to the way she has been reported (or mis-reported) over and over for years. I have carefully considered the other possibility, that I'm misled; I've looked at her writings and watched her speeches and read what people who know her say about her strengths and weaknesses. I keep coming back to the conclusion that the aversion is mostly based on cultural discomfort with a woman who actively seeks a powerful job, amplified and encouraged by politically-inspired negative reporting.

About Hillary's refusal to "step down for the good of the party" --- besides the point above about diffusing the Republicans' attacks --- I'd make two other points.

First, this really has not been a vicious campaign, though the media have played up every negative statement or implication; for the most part the candidates have been trying to talk about policies and ideals --- so the charge that the extended primary battle is doing great harm to the eventual winner really doesn't hold water.

Second, although Obama has clearly held the lead for awhile now, this is no runaway contest. HRC has continued to win elections, some of them by wide margins. I can't remember another primary contest when a candidate withdrew while still holding a very significant share of victories.

So here's what I'd still like to see: Clinton for president, Obama for veep for 8 years; then Obama as president for another 8. (Why not the other way around? could be done, but in 8 years she'll be 68, and he'll only be 55. In American president terms, he's still a young man then; his age would not be an issue. Hers probably would be, especially because Americans still think women more depleted by age than men (despite women's longer life expectancy).

Do I expect Clinton/Obama to happen? seems quite unlikely now. But I wanted to say it for the sake of the possibility --- and the possibility of HRC as vice-president --- and of the next strong woman candidate for the presidency --- and to avoid feeling like a complete coward. And also in hope of raising some awareness about the destructive effects of blitzkrieg negative reporting, because I don't think it's going away until we get smart enough to make sure it stops working.

Many issues to choose from

In tackling the problems facing our world right now, there's plenty of work to go around, and the efforts are not harmed by some specialization.  If I am talking about gender issues and you are focussed on racial bias --- or if I am talking about education and you are talking about environment --- we are not enemies.  There are enough of us to work on many fronts at once; there are enough fronts to keep all of us busy.  We can cooperate; we can each work on the issue that most stirs our energy at the moment; we can still understand that we are allies in making things better.

If we begin to fight each other over which is the single most important problem, we are wasting energy that could be used to address various problems.  We are also helping those who don't want to acknowledge the problems and don't want to see them solved.

Two very common arguments that serve the purpose of not solving problems are these:

(1)  If the person trying to address the issue is a member of the community (or nation) where the problem exists, the line is "How can you be so disloyal as to attack and criticize your own people."  If the person trying to help is not from the same community/nation, the line is "You are an outsider, you don't belong here, what business is it of yours, why don't you go work on what's wrong in your own home."

(2)  Regardless of whether the problem-solvers are local or not, the line is "How can you even talk about [this problem] when you haven't said anything about [some other problem]." 

Variations of these two arguments show up repeatedly.  They are virtually always distractions from the attempt to solve the problem, though often those who use them aren't consciously aware of that intention.   A good answer may be to describe the solution we're trying to achieve and ask, "Can you agree that it would be better if we achieved this change?  if it would be better, why fight over who helps to make it better?  why say that some other unrelated problem has to be solved before we can work on this one?"

We are neither first nor last

As I've grown up and grown older, I've gradually realized that I had greatly underestimated the generations that went before me, and had believed too much in the speeches in my youth that said our generation was the one that experienced the world in an unprecedented way and could make unprecedented changes. 

I think now that those speakers were trying to inspire us, to give us energy to step out and take action, and in that they succeeded --- for a time.  Many of us set out to change our country, change the world, make things better for all time.  (And many of us stuck to that commitment and are still making the effort in many different ways.)

But too many, I think, believed the exhortations as promises --- promises that we would bring about justice for all, would eradicate poverty and hunger, would end war, would transform our government into a fully effective, fully responsive instrument to maintain all those changes and see to the upkeep on a peaceful world (so then we could go play).  Our efforts made great gains, in civil rights, in ending the Vietnam war, in improving health and social conditions.  Then new problems arose, government continued to work imperfectly, and improved communications brought home to us all that had not been positively transformed.

And many of us felt betrayed and let down.  Too many of us became cynical and hopeless, gave up not just on the idea that our generation would fix it all for all time --- but on the idea that it could ever get better at all.

Over the years, as I've read more history, biographies, first person accounts of past events, I've increasingly realized that my generation really wasn't especially unusual.   We were young; we were hopeful; we meant well, and we had energy that could be dedicated to great causes.   We also had a wry skepticism about old truths, a willingness to cast away convention and be forthright about sex, relationships, all the old rules that took far too much energy from activism and joy and the full experience of life.

Well, what a surprise when I read what the creative youth of the 1920s had to say at their time --- or of the 1910s, or the 1890s, or the 1850s.  The language was a little different, but the ideas and emotions and sense of uniqueness were very familiar.

Now I think that it's important to acknowledge the efforts and the similarities of those who went before --- to learn from them, to honor them, and importantly, to know that progress has come in waves, in tides, with setbacks between.  We need to take the long view.   Achieving human justice is an evolutionary process, and not achieved in one step.  Look back a century, two centuries, eight --- and we can see that for most people, things are better.  The temporarily receding wave, the step back, is not a final loss; the opportunity  for progress arises again and again. 

I think of what I was taught in First Aid class about the Heimlich maneuver:  make each thrust with the expectation that this will be the one that succeeds.  And then, if it didn't, take a moment to position yourself, and make the next with the expectation that it will be the one that succeeds.  (Unlike First Aid, in social activism it's also ok to take a break before we're exhausted, so we're able to return to the task fresh!) 

What does your job cost you?

Last post, I proposed that democracy isn't a place, where we can say we have arrived and now reside comfortably.  Rather it is a tool which we must use regularly and thoughtfully if it is to do us any good.   It follows that being an effective citizen in a democracy is time-consuming.

It's hard --- in recent decades  increasingly hard --- to avoid letting our amusements, our jobs, and the vital concerns of parenting, friends, and family, take up all of our attention and efforts, leaving nothing for the demands of being active participants in the running of the system.  If we let this happen, we run the risk that the fabric in which we (and our children, families, friends, and jobs) exist will be shaped by others to their benefit, not ours.

And this has happened.  Over the past 50 years, America has lost its fairly flat distribution of wealth and very large and reasonably secure middle class.  [On this subject I highly recommend Kevin Phillips' book Wealth and Democracy.]  Increasingly, the middle class has lost power and security, while the wealthy control a larger and larger percentage of all income, with the extremely rich prospering even more.  Most of the middle class households that have more or less held their own, have done so by becoming two-income households. 

America's vaunted "increased productivity" has come in large part at the cost of leisure time and parenting time among the middle and working classes.   Many parents refused to cut back on parenting; as women moved into the workplace, men took a more active part in parenting, and in some ways both have benefitted in depth of experience.  But a prospering middle-class family with two working parents is relatively little better off than an equivalent family was in the past with one working parents; more gadgets, but probably less security.  The intensity and pace of work life have increased greatly.  The sucking sound we hear may be the energy level of working people going into their jobs.  The economic benefits have gone to the top echelons of wealth.

That transfer of wealth has been noticed, at least to some degree.   Few seem to be noticing what goes along with it:  less time and energy for ordinary people to pay close attention to what's going on in governing, or to do much about what they do notice.  More power as well as more wealth for those at the top.

Improving conditions for workers is not only an issue of fairness.  Balancing the highly unequal distribution of income is not only a matter of economic justice.  Both would make it more possible for ordinary people to use the tool Democracy more effectively. 

I am only one

I've titled this blog "I am only one..."   You probably remember some version of the full quotation:   

    I am only one, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and      
    because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

It's a beautiful but often perilous world and it seems to be an especially perilous time.  This blog is [a part of] the something I can do.

I can write; I can formulate ideas that are not merely partisan or "equal and opposite" reactions to what somebody else said; I read widely and think about what I read.  I am not infallible and there is much that I do not know, but I will acknowledge that and write what seems to be worth saying.  You the readers can decide if it seems to be worth reading.
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Incidentally, a quick web search found two versions and two attributions for the "I am only one"  quotation.  I've used the one attributed to Helen Keller (1880 - 1964), which I like a little better than the one attributed to Edward Everett Hale (1822 - 1909).   If he said it, it does seem quite likely he said it first.   His version has a "should" in it, probably appropriate to his time, but I shy away from the word as generally unappetizing to the generations I've known well.

If I were rewriting the quotation today, my own version would go like this:

    I am only one, and yet I am one.  I cannot do everything, and yet I can do something.  I will   
    not let the fact that I can't do everything stop me from doing the something I can do.