Writings on economy, commons, language and other things
Frank Luntz, the Republican focus group wizard, says a magic phrase for Republicans is “for the children.” Talk about kids, and voters are with you.
So what do people who care about our habitat talk about? The “environment.” “Sustainability.” They talk about abstractions that have zero affective content for those who have not bought in already. The environment is the world we inhabit. Sustainability is about the world our kids will inhabit. Why can’t we talk about them that way?
I was hitchhiking around England in the Spring of 1983. It happened to be the middle of an election campaign: Margaret Thatcher was running for re-election against a professor named Michael Foot, who represented what was called, with wonderful British aplomb, Labour’s “Radical Tendency.”
Somewhere north of London I got a ride from a lorry driver. The man looked as though he had stepped out of a Labour Party poster from the 1930s: gaunt frame, missing teeth, and wool snap-brim cap pulled down to the eyes. I expected a Labour speech, but got something different.
It was late in the afternoon, the big hearing was the next morning, and the chief counsel of the US Senate subcommittee realized that no one had written an opening statement for the chairman.
So I, law student and intern, got the job. The hearings were on the Penn Central Railroad, which was the Enron of the late ’60s, and I really cut loose. Why not? Weren’t there wise staffers on the floors above me in the Dirksen Building who would turn my excesses into polished Senate prose?
Of all the sources of unintended consequences, war probably is the greatest. The forces set in motion rarely stop where the participants expect. The Civil War helped spawn the large industrial corporation and Jim Crow. World War I gave rise to Hitler, and World War II to the Soviet Bloc. On the positive side, the latter also helped produce the civil rights movement, as black GIs who risked their lives for their country did not take kindly to the second-class status that awaited them on their return.
An invasion of Iraq isn’t likely to be exempt from this recurring pattern. As James Baker III, secretary of state under the first President Bush, acknowledged recently, “War can create dynamics that are difficult to predict and control [and] this is particularly true in the Middle East.”
Ever since the recent election there has been hand-wringing and recrimination on the Democratic side. They need to move to the center. They need bold new themes. They don’t have a clear agenda. Their agenda is too cautious. It is too far left.
The Democrats were indeed a sorry sight, with their calcified issues – Social Security, prescription drugs – and tired scripts produced by battle-weary political consultants.
I was surprised that Todd Gitlin chose to scold congressional Democrats for trying to tackle TV violence (“Imagebusters: The Hollow Crusade Against TV Violence,” Winter 1994). His insights regarding the media are astute, as usual. But his arguments against congressional action are mostly beside the point, and his superior and disparaging tone is not helpful. Gitlin dismisses concern about TV violence as a middle-class neurosis, a revival of the “iconophobia” that arose early in the century with the arrival of motion pictures. He ridicules senators addressing this issue as inferior intellects who aren’t up to facing real issues like gun control.
Well, so what if the people who raised the issue early in the century happened to be middle class? The question is whether they were onto something, which they were. Similarly, what difference does it make that some advocates of action on TV violence are not strong on gun control? Regrettably, Gitlin gets so stuck in the disparagement mode that he never gets to the real issue: Are there ways to deal with violence in the media that do not compromise free speech, do not give more power to government censors or expert panels, but rather give more power to parents and citizens generally?
Political candidates are a lot like purveyors of processed meat. Both deal in unsavory ingredients they would prefer to keep to themselves–but are obliged to some extent to disclose. Thanks to Congress, the public has a better chance of knowing about meat “byproducts” than it does about big political donations.
Meatpackers must list hot dog ingredients plainly on the label, where shoppers can see them. True, the euphemism “byproducts” can hide a lot of unappetizing stuff, but at least it hints at what the meatpackers don’t want us to know. Politicians get off easier. They only have to file lists of contributors with the Federal Election Commission. It’s public information, but imagine if you had to call the Food and Drug Administration to find out the chemicals in your shampoo–possible, but unlikely. Politicians must also put tag lines at the end of TV ads, but these are generally meaningless: “Paid for by Citizens for Snodgrass,” for example. A similar hot dog label would say, “This product contains ingredients.”
Congress has now limped out of Washington. Democrats are seething and scared; Republicans are gleeful at the hash they’ve made and are licking their chops for more. “Glorious Gridlock,” The Wall Street Journal proclaimed. But for most people, a bickering, partisan capital is wearing pretty thin.
Which brings us to the subject of term limits, which are supposedly going to whack Congress back into shape. But think about it: Term limits won’t make Congress work one with better. They’d simply grease the door going in and out.