Silence is Golden

Under the heading of "More of What This Country Needs" I would add the idea that we need more silence.  The hum of "civilization" is no longer a hum.   Instead it's become a long and painfully loud crescendo with no end in sight. It's gotten to the point where we can't hear ourselves think. In a sense we have lost ourselves in the din.

 The hum of civilization isn't just that which we can measure in decibels, it's also those other things that compete for our attention from the time we open our eyes in the morning until we shut them at night.  We are under a constant barrage of competing things wanting our attention. We rush from place to place and from thing to thing.  It's like being pecked to death by chickens.  Alarm clocks, family, jobs, friends, Facebook updates, email, Television, smart phones, music, ...those are some of the obvious things screaming for our attention. Politics is another source of unpleasant noise, especially this year.

It's easy to lose yourself among all those things competing for your attention. We are seldom left alone to just think, daydream, and figure out who we are and how we fit into this whole creation.  It requires some silence to think about big things like "What is the meaning of life?", "What is the meaning of my life?" or "What gives my life meaning?" 

The silence we need is more than simply the lack of noise. It is also the silence of not letting a thousand thoughts compete in your mind.  I've experienced "silence" while being surrounded by noise.   Driving a tractor, plowing corn in the middle of an 80 acre field for example.  On the tractor, in the field but miles from there too. You might call it zoning out...but not in the sense that I started plowing out rows of corn...more like my mind was just open and thoughts flowing without much exterior distraction.  In a way the noise actually sort of helped with that process.

Sitting on the porch swing with my grandmother on a warm summer afternoon was another kind of silence. She was talking, I was listening, sometimes asking questions, but it was a quiet sitting, quiet talking, non interrupted talking and listening.  I remember sometimes hearing the sound of a car moving down the road in front of the house...gravel crunching under the tires.  You could see the dust rising behind the car before you heard it. But it didn't compete with what was going on.  How different from today.   I like to sleep with open windows whenever I can but we live next to a busy street.  Opening a window today just lets in a more or less constant roar of passing traffic.  Where are all those people going at this time of night?  Eventually you just get numb to the sound and don't really hear it any more...still the same amount of traffic moving down the street, but I've managed to push it far into the background, especially late at night while I'm sitting here at my computer working.

What this country needs is less noise in a lot of places...television needs less noise.  When did we decide news reporting was better when you had two or three panelists talking about the news...all at the same time.  Financial news networks are especially terrible about that sort of thing. Three or four guys sitting around a table debating what's going to happen in the markets or arguing because they don't agree, that's the kind of too much noise I can do without.

We need less noise and more substance from our politicians.  Political debates are not debates...they are junior high school shouting matches, it's pathetic. I've seen enough of those to last me until I die.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to take up fishing...being out on a boat, away from people, traffic, TV, phones, and all the other trappings of "civilization" sounds pretty good. Just me and the dog.

Two sides of the same coin.

Here's something to think about.  Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump....they would seem to be opposites and in many respects they are, but they are opposites like heads and tails of the same coin.  I call it the Anti-establishment coin.  They both represent the same thing...the same promise....simply, that they are not a part of the larger "political establishment". They are outsiders. Not part of the old guard.  They hold out the promise of being different than the rest of the Washington establishment.  They are both willing to say things and take positions others fear to take. Trump seems to revel in being the anti politically correct candidate and he doesn't seem to care what Washington insiders think of him (must less media pundits).    I believe he has the Washington establishment worried, although they continue to believe (or hope) he will eventually flame out.  There is a lot of irony in Donald Trump claiming to be the anti-establishment GOP candidate, considering he has admitted giving truck loads of cash to politicians of all stripes for the sole purpose of extracting "favors" from them. I guess it's like he is saying "I'm not one of them, but I've been smart enough, and rich enough to USE them" and I guess that probably annoys them as much as anything....that someone actually admits they give big political donations with the expectation of getting something in return.  That our government really is "for sale" The establishment, Right and Left,  would rather not talk about that.

For many Americans the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting recession brought into sharp focus the failings of the "free market", and and the financial deregulation that fueled the crisis.  A sagging middle class, income inequality, within a system that seems designed for the 1% by the 1% have created a deep suspicion of so called "Corporate Democrats". Sanders, like Trump is not afraid to say what he thinks and champions himself as the only true friend of the middle class.  Like Trump worries the establishment Republicans, Bernie Sanders has the "establishment"  wing of his party worried. Sanders and Trump, Two sides of the same coin based on a deep distrust of the usual politicians, playing the usual games, and making the same hollow promises.  There are a lot of pissed off voters if the numbers supporting Trump or Sanders are any indication...and I believe they are. Maybe some folks are even beginning to understand that "trickle down" economics doesn't work, never has worked, and never will work.

I find it amazing that the "establishment" cartel in Washington seems so clueless about how unhappy the vast majority of voters are.  Hell, all you have to do is set up a Facebook page, accumulate a couple hundred "friends" and just watch the news feed.  It isn't rocket science, just open their eyes and look around.  Personally if I were them I'd be getting damn nervous.  

  Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone wrote this today, and I can't agree more.
 
 "Trump's followers are a gang of pissed-off nativists who are tired of being laughed at, belittled, dismissed, and told who to vote for. So it seems incredible that the Republican establishment thinks it's going to get rid of Trump by laughing at, belittling and dismissing him, and telling his voters who they should be picking."   

The current crew running the train seems to think the passengers will just keep riding quietly along doing what is asked, believing what is said, no questions asked. As one of those passengers, I hate to tell the crew...your days might be numbered. I'm enjoying watching the Republican establishment try to tear Trump down, it might back fire on them, but this much we know for sure.  The next few months will be very entertaining if nothing else.     

 

Dirty Rotten Liberals!

I lament the loss of perfectly good words, but the truth is that language evolves. The word liberal has ancient Latin and Greek roots and has changed meanings more than once. In the 12th century it referred to noble, gracious, munificent, and generous but by the 15th century there was also a connotation of free, unrestrained, unimpeded, libertine or licentious. Through the 16th and 17th centuries it was used to describe someone free from restraint in speech or action and was a word of reproach. By around 1776 the word was revived in a positive sense during the Enlightenment taking on the meaning of one free of prejudice and tolerant.

Today the word can be a noun or an adjective and has retained the more positive aspects it came to represent during the Enlightenment. Tolerant, broad-minded, generous, favoring reform and progress, not bound by tradition. It can also mean big or large as in a liberal helping of dessert, or someone who was liberal (generous) in their donation to charity. If you're from southwestern Kansas Liberal could be the name of the town where you live. If you are a Tea Party Congressman it's a handy expletive for everything that's gone wrong with the country.

A while back Galanty Miller posted a humor column at the Huffington Post describing a long list of differences between conservatives and liberals. Some of them were pretty funny. Funny enough that I'll risk using a few of them without his express written permission.

Liberals are concerned about economic inequality. Conservatives are confident that one day they will be rich.
Conservatives don't want to hear liberal Hollywood celebrities talk about politics. Liberals also don't want to hear liberal Hollywood celebrities talk about politics.

Liberals support good teachers. Conservatives support eliminating bad teachers.

Conservatives support free speech. Liberals support free speech unless it's politically incorrect.

Liberals love having sex. Conservatives hate when other people have sex.

Conservatives support issues that help their families. Liberals support issues that help families.

Liberals are full of crap because they don't really believe what they say. Conservatives are full of crap because they truly believe what they say.

I suppose this is a good time to bring up the purpose of this edition. I have finally been able to admit it, it took a while, but I'm coming out, Yes, I'm a liberal. I'm not sure how long I've been a liberal, maybe longer than I know. I started out voting for Republicans. I guess it was sort of expected of me.  For more than 30 years I was pretty faithful to the GOP. I was raised in a middle class family, my parents were Republicans, my grandparents were Republicans. I was a police officer, a profession where most of my colleagues were Republicans...even those few who always supported the local Democrats were conservative. I first thought of myself as "moderate". I really didn't want to be called a liberal. Geez, after all a liberal is practically a communist.

But a funny thing happened...the Republican Party moved to the right. I shuffled along with them for a while but by the time George W. Bush came along I felt pretty out of place and by the end of his first term I knew. I was a liberal. Holy Crap! A dirty, rotten liberal. Me? What would my family think? It took me a while to become comfortable wearing that label. So why am I now happy to say I'm a Liberal?
I think I have both specific policy reasons and general philosophic reasons for my political views and I think it's a good idea to be able to state what those are...if you can't then you shouldn't be voting.

1. I believe in science.
2. I believe corporations are businesses, not people.
3. I believe our sexual orientation is something we are born with, not something we choose.
4. I believe in global warming and that humans have had a hand in it (see number one above)
5. I believe women deserve equal rights and equal pay.
6. I don't believe 47% of Americans are looking for a government handout.
7. I don't believe God uses weather to punish sin. (see number one again)
8. I don't believe we are "entitled" to social security and Medicare, we paid for these programs.
9. I believe demand creates jobs, not tax cuts.
10. I believe our constitution doesn't only protect the rights I agree with...sometimes it also protects the rights       I don't agree with.
11. I believe we should protect the weakest among us, not the richest.
12. I believe we should put people before profits.
13. I'm a liberal because I believe in a Constitution that is meant to evolve, grow, and progress.
14. I believe in a free market, with rules.

Speaking of Social security here are what a lot of Republicans in Congress were saying while FDR was trying to get it passed.

“Never in the history of the world has any measure been so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers, and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work for the people.”
“…Invites the entrance into the political field of a power so vast, so powerful as…to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the head of our descendants.”
“…Sooner or later will bring the abandonment of private capitalism.”

Of course none of those things happened but it's always the same story from those who most loudly belittle liberal ideas and fight any and all progressive change...."it will ruin the country", "the sky is falling", "death panels", "squawk, squawk, squawk!"

Even with all the name calling between the right and the left in America today,  it remains clear that all of us really want the same things for our family, for ourselves, and for our country.  What we can't agree on is the best way to get there, nor can we agree even on how we got here.   While my own political beliefs would seem to have sprung from some very conservative ground I can point to at least one ancestor who would, by all known standards, have been thought of as radically liberal in his day.  So radical that he and his brother might have gone to jail had the full nature of their activities been known.

Stuck In The Middle With You

“Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,Trying to make some sense of it all,But I can see that it makes no sense at all,Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.Clowns to the left of me,Jokers to the right, here I am,Stuck in the middle with you,Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,Stuck in the middle with you.”
Stealers Wheel, 1972

This might be my political anthem. After years of political drift , the ground I occupy that used to be seen as the middle is seen as left of center by many. One thing hasn’t changed though, we are still surrounded by jokers and clowns on both sides. These days the Jokers and Clowns are not only the politicians….but as often they are those we used to trust to “report the news”. That’s a laugh. These days even an organization that has the word “news” in it’s name doesn't really report news. It’s mostly manufactured entertainment, opinionated bloviators termed analysts by the networks, yelling back and forth at one another.
But this isn’t about politics or the state of modern journalism, as tempting as that might be. This summer Camilla and I traveled through the “heart of the heart of the country.” Quite literally the very middle of the lower 48 states. In the middle of pretty rolling Kansas countryside just outside the unremarkable little town of Lebanon is a neatly mowed little park and a field stone monument announcing we had found the geographic center of the contiguous 48 United States, and the location had been certified in 1918 by no less than the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Now comes the Jokers and Clowns part. It seems this center point was arrived at through something less than scientific methodology. Someone carefully cut out a map of the lower 48 on some thick cardboard and then balanced the piece on a sharp point….it was determined that the map would balance if the point were on this spot representing a spot about 3 miles northwest of Lebanon Kansas. Town fathers no doubt had visions of tourists flooding into the town. A small motel was even built near the site. Of course the floods of tourists did not come, the motel had to close, but a small dedicated group of local backers still maintains the park. I can attest to the natural beauty of that tiny plot nestled in the rolling farmland one beautiful, blue sky, summer day in 2008.

Why I Was a Republican

This whole election cycle has had me thinking a lot about my own politics, trying to figure out why I ever thought I was or should be a Republican. I had to dig really deep to come to some understanding of this on a personal level.
I guess some of what I figured out applies to a lot of people. You hear so many people say they would rather die than support a (fill in the blank). They throw out the terms "liberal" or “conservative” as a negative adjective. Two perfectly good words we have reduced to gutter language. 

Supporting a party that for the most part works against your own self interest. That's the kind of thing that just doesn't (or didn't) make a lot of sense to me. I can understand someone supporting a party when the policies that it espouses would be a direct benefit ....it is the others who seem to go into the voting booth suffering from what amounts to political schizophrenia that I wonder about.

So why did I spend so many years thinking of myself as a Republican? I think if you go deep into my genealogy the answer would be Abe Lincoln. LOL, Yes, seriously, the 16th President and founding father of the present GOP is the reason. The buck stops there. Him, and the genetic predisposition of the Robinson's to hold "Tradition" in very high regard. The early GOP being the party of the victorious Union forces....and darling of the GAR, and the wavers of "the bloody shirt". Isn't it funny.....even after more than 100 years the GOP is still the waver of the "Bloody shirt" (using 911 as the excuse for a power grab, for every policy you want to create or change or dispense with).

First there was great-great-great grandpa Robinson....an Abolitionist who before the Civil war was active in the Freedom Party.   Being of some local political importance, we can assume he was or certainly would have been a Republican had he lived beyond 1866 although many of his beliefs would have been considered quite liberal at the time.  His son, great-great grandpa, was a Veteran of that bloody conflict which ended slavery, a member of the GAR and no doubt a Republican. The Robinsons of that era were big on tradition...family reunions, GAR Conventions (I think they were called encampments) and that good old fashioned religion. Great grandpa wasn't a Veteran of the Civil War but he grew up on the knees of those who were, so I'm sure he was well indoctrinated in that tradition.

Then came the Klan....defender of truth, justice, and the American (WASP) way....and (at least in Indiana) the owner of the GOP for several years, or did the GOP own the Klan? This was grandpa's era and in a lot of ways he is more the enigma than his forbears. The bloody shirt of the Civil War was greatly faded by the time he came along so more than anything I believe it was Tradition that kept him in the party. (and probably his mother, lol)

Even during the depression when the family farm was in peril and after he was able to save that land through the aid of one of FDR's alphabet programs he remained loyal to the GOP. During WWII while his son was serving in the South Pacific under commander in chief FDR he remained a GOP insider, serving multiple terms at two county positions, and as a state GOP convention delegate.

Being a Republican was "expected" in my family and I was certainly not the person to question that. I was loyal...not to Republican ideals and theories of governance...but to the family tradition. In truth I can’t say I really ever heard either my grandfather or father say why they supported the Republicans. In many ways it was the only party where I grew up. With only occasional exceptions I was to become a voter the GOP could count on for many years. It was always easier to follow tradition than to work at understanding the issues and learning how those issues affected me and my family. 

 These days the pace of life is hectic, and there is no shortage of both important and complicated issues that require a lot of time to investigate all sides and to gain any sort of understanding of the whole picture. Being an informed voter is hard and I understand why so few are. Politicians of all kinds (both the R's and the D's) count on us remaining uninformed and for that reason there are few independent sources of balanced information available.

That was, I think, how I became a Republican. I don’t think my belief system has steered to left as much as the Republicans have steered to the right over the past generation. The gap between where I stand and where the GOP stands has become too large to ignore. I would have to credit George W. Bush with creating the environment which has given me serious doubts about my prior blind allegiance to the GOP. That is fuel for another blog, another day.

I wonder how many others are like me; how many inherited their political beliefs and whether those inherited beliefs ever changed over time? It would be cool to hear from some other folks on that question.