Archive for September, 2008
Required Village Square election year reading, from The Onion and courtesy of Vita:
BOSTON—According to an eye-opening report released Tuesday, 60 million people whom you would never talk to, would never be in a position to talk to, and wouldn’t even be able to talk to if you tried will be voting for the other candidate in this year’s presidential election, and there is nothing you can do about it.
The 110-page document reveals that these strangers share a fundamental vision of our nation’s future, a vision that shockingly runs completely counter to your own and is furthermore embodied by the candidate whom you could not in a million years fathom being the leader of the free world. Even more frightening, the report says, is that their votes count just as much as yours.
Just by looking at them, it’s clear to you that your guy is the only sane choice.
“While you are 100 percent certain that your preferred candidate’s stance on issues such as foreign policy and the economy would appeal to any human being with half a brain, there is, in this very same country, an equally large voting bloc which believes that you and your candidate of choice are absolutely insane,” the report’s co-author Dr. Mark Grier said during a press conference. “Every single thing you love about your candidate’s personality, vice presidential pick, and family, 60 million other registered voters absolutely deplore.”
“What you consider to be this country’s ruin,” Grier added, “these other people actually consider to be this country’s savior.”
The report also confirmed that even if you were able to communicate with these other citizens, your passion and conviction would never be enough to convince them not to vote for their candidate, just as they would never be able to convince you not to vote for your candidate, and just as nobody can convince anybody else that what they believe to be right is wrong, regardless of how clear the evidence to the contrary may be.
The report maintained that, during your purely hypothetical discussion, both of you would come off as smug, narrow-minded, or downright ignorant if you tried to criticize the other candidate’s positions on key issues such as abortion and gay rights. The ensuing argument would only further cement both of your feelings of disgust toward the other candidate.
And yet incredibly, sources said, neither one of you would technically be wrong.
Because—and this is reportedly the most maddening part—even though these people’s unwavering support for their candidate completely dumbfounds you, you cannot even get angry at them, since they are not voting for him because they are idiots or because they want to spite you, but rather because they actually believe that he is the better choice to run our nation.
The study, which comes as a result of 20 years of research conducted in America’s cities, suburbs, and rural towns, indicates that residents living in places you “wouldn’t be caught dead in” have never even once considered voting for your candidate at any point during the campaign, and never will, and this is just the way it is always going to be.
The report confirms that this frustrates you.
“The mere fact that you and these 60 million strangers actually live in the same country and salute the same flag seems to defy all reality, yet it’s completely true,” University of Pennsylvania sociology professor Dr. Marie Stratton said. “And what’s even more incredible, there is no indication that you will ever talk to these people about your differences, because you prefer conversing with those who validate your opinions and give you a sense of self-satisfaction.”
According to the report, based on the social and cultural trends in the nation, over the next 20 years the number of people with whom you would never speak is only expected to increase. By the 2032 election, there will be an astonishing 150 million people you will never meet who will hate you and your candidate with the same fervent passion with which you will hate them and their candidate.
“I’m voting for [the other guy] all the way,” Ohio resident Ethan Washburn said in a statement Monday. “I think that when it comes to foreign and domestic issues, he is best suited for the job. And anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.”
“I’m voting for [the candidate opposite of Washburn] all the way,” Florida resident Tom Redman said in a statement Monday. “I think that when it comes to foreign and domestic issues, he is best suited for the job. And anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.”
Remarkably, the one thing you do have in common with these 60 million other people is that you both know several assholes who are actually planning to vote for a third-party candidate, if you can believe that shit.
September 30th, 2008
Interesting snips from a bipartisan conversation on our financial crisis on This Week with George Stephanopoulus:
“You’re coming dangerously close to the truth, which is the sainted American people are the problem here. That is, they have 105 billion credit cards – that’s nine per cardholder – and they have about $12,000 in credit card debt per household, household debt is 139% of household income… I mean they can’t go on like this. The refusal to defer gratification is a fundamental attribute of childishness…”
— George Will
“… We refuse to invest in infrastructure, to use the childishness point, we’re overspending on immediate gratification and underspending on investment.”
– Newt Gingrich
“I think we’re about to have a new consensus at least at this table and that is that there’s a difference between spending and investment.”
– Robert Reich
“We’ve had plenty of private investment, but we’ve had insufficient public investment… roads, bridges, schools, higher education, early childhood education, research… those are things that might actually have a payoff.”
– Steven Perlstein, The Washington Post
“For as long as I can remember, the slogan in this town has been that the federal government ought to behave more like families because families balance their budgets. It turns out the families looked around and said ‘let’s behave more like the government.’ ”
– George Will
September 28th, 2008
As our presidential politics play the standard election year blame game for the Wall Street fiasco (and everything else for that matter), as our retirement funds head steadily south, humility requires that we take a moment to reflect on ourselves.
Worthy of contemplation: On his book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Andrew Bacevich, who says he’s a conservative, thinks our behavior has put America’s leadership in the world on the fast track to extinction:
Ultimately we the American people refuse to look in that mirror and to see the extent to which the problems that we face really lie within. We refuse to live within our means. We continue to think that the problems that beset the country are out there beyond our borders and to the extent that if we deploy sufficient American power we can fix those problems and therefore things back here will continue the way they are for decades.
September 27th, 2008
Join us this season, in association with our season “Faith, Politics & Neighbors” for an exercise in “loving they neighbor”: This Tallahassee Believes. Find guidance in writing an essay here.
This, you could say, is the “neighbors” part of “Faith, Politics & Neighbors.”
Please read Lea’s essay (of “Lea & Liz” fame), who I’m delighted to have as my “neighbor.”
this i believe… by lea marshall
my son is has a slight hearing impairment and so i learned sign language.
one of my favorite signs is the sign for the word “believe”.
it actually is made like this...
it combines two signs. the sign “think” and the sign “to marry”.
and the sign is very philosophically accurate… “to believe” is “to marry our thoughts”.
it is one thing just to hang out with our thoughts, to date our thoughts, to be friends with our thoughts. but it is something entirely different to marry our thoughts. to make a living commitment to those thoughts 24/7.
the thoughts that we marry become “i believe”…
i also like to think of it as our thoughts going into our hands.
because what we believe becomes what we do everyday. or the corollary… what we do everyday shows what we believe.
so when liz asked me to do a little “what i believe” speech for this first village square night, i thought of all the nice things i wanted to say about what i believe which for me included everything in both the old and new testaments of the Bible. it became quite a lengthy speech, it was beautiful, inspired, it was also epic in length and scope. but at it’s heart, it was wrong…
for when i thought about the sign language word for “believe” i had to start over. because what i do everyday is the only real proof as to the thoughts i had brought home and married.
and that was hard to face because some of the things that i do echo a belief system that doesn’t always fit with what my mouth says “i believe”.
so i am starting over on my essay of “this i believe” for liz, for the village square blog, but mostly for myself. i am writing first what i do everyday and then seeing how that embodies each particular belief that i have faithfully married.
and our hope is that you will find some time to write a “this i believe” essay some time in this village square season of faith, politics, and our neighbors… it is important to your faith, to the political system, and to us, your neighbors.
we want to know… what beliefs find their way into the work of your hands?
what beliefs have you brought home and married?
write your essay and send it to the village square and you may have a chance to stand up here and read it for us.
it will be kind of like a wedding, a marriage of your thoughts and your actions. only no rice will be thrown and nobody gets to register at target…
but we do all get to celebrate the richness and fullness and the more perfect union that is to be formed when “we the people” believe…
September 23rd, 2008
From the Center for the Study of the Presidency comes an intelligent and inspirational work, Declaration on Civility and Inclusive Leadership, setting an appropriately high bar for our nation’s leadership. It’s high time we stop being primarily Republicans and Democrats and become (deep breath now, this is radical) Americans. As David Abshire (this week’s Village Square speaker) and Max Kampelman write:
Civility does not require citizens to give up cherished beliefs or “dilute”
their convictions. Rather, it requires respect, listening, and trust when
interacting with those who hold differing viewpoints. Indeed, civility
and inclusive leadership have often been exercised in the American
experience as a means of moving to higher, common ground and
developing more creative approaches to realize shared aspirations.
September 21st, 2008
9 PM on CNN tonight, Christiane Amanpour interviews former Secretaries of State as to their advice for our next president in “The Next President: A World of Challenges.”
We think it’s the perfect topic in a week where we will be co-hosting “A Call to Greatness: Challenging Our Next President.”
September 20th, 2008
I caught an interview by David Gregory on “Race to the White House” on MSNBC. Guests were Michael Gerson author of “Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans need to embrace America’s Ideals and why they deserve to fail if they don’t” and Rabbi David Wolpe author of “Why Faith Matters.” Some interesting random quotes:
Rabbi Wolpe: “Separation of church and state isn’t the same as the separation of a soul and state. Every politician, every person is going to be informed by their beliefs and you can’t sever that link. The difference is that whatever you believe you have to defend it in a way that the whole polity can share.”
Gregory: “What is the distinction between talking about our faith publicly… versus trying to impose their faith on Americans?”
Gerson: “If you’re talking about your beliefs about salvation, the way the church is organized or the end of times, it doesn’t have a public consequence. But in all of western history, your belief about human beings, their rights and their history has always had a public consequence… you can’t separate that belief, that belief in divinely given human rights and dignity from the progress of human rights and dignity and I don’t think we should try.”
September 18th, 2008
As we’ve come to the last hour of this September 11th, on a day when I’m feeling quite discouraged about the level of discourse in this most important presidential election campaign, I feel compelled to retell this story. Maybe if I keep at it, we’ll live up to its challenge one day.
There are always moments amid the wreckage of what is worst in the human race, when we see clearly what is best in it. Even on 9/11.
There were those who walked toward trouble to allow the rest of us to walk away from it – the fire fighters, police officers, and in the case of 9/11, EMTs and Port Authority Police. They, like us on that day, had other concerns. . . kids to raise, bills to pay, oil to change. They put it all down and walked toward the horror to help strangers.
But of all the stories of human kindness following the terror of 9/11, one story in particular stuck with me.
About cows.
The Masai tribe of Kenya had raised money to send their native son Kimeli Naiyomah to medical school in the United States. He happened to be in downtown Manhattan on 9/11. He later returned to tell his tribe of what he witnessed.
“What happened in New York City does not really make sense to people who live in traditional huts, and have never conceived of a building that touches the sky,” explained Ibrahim Obajo, a freelance reporter working in Nairobi. “You cannot easily describe to them buildings that are so high that people die when they jump off them.”
What then did the Masai do for the most powerful nation on earth? They gave us cows. “They gave what is truly sacred to them,” Obajo said.
Across oceans, across language, across culture, their gift could not have communicated more clearly to total strangers.
As we try again today to make sense of this senseless act, I can’t help but think that the task ahead of us, beginning at the moment the first plane impacted the first tower, has a lot to do with summoning in ourselves the generosity of spirit shown us by the Masai, as we walk away from the darkness of human nature exemplified by the terrorists of that day. Even as we are at war, even as we disagree vehemently with each other on how to proceed, we can call on the higher angels of our human nature to reach across miles and language and culture to strangers. It will require everything in us to not become the hatred and intolerance we’re fighting.
I think we’re up to the task.
And maybe while we’re at it, we can save a bit of that generosity of spirit for each other.
September 11th, 2008
Thomas Friedman was out today promoting his new book: “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How it can Renew America.” Friedman on his book:
“America does have a problem: I think we’ve lost our way since 9/11. And the world has a problem: It’s getting hot, flat and crowded. And I think we solve our problem by taking the lead in how we solve the world’s problem. In a world that is HOT, global warming; FLAT, the rise of middle classes from India to China and Brazil; and getting CROWDED in terms of population – what I call ET or Energy Technology is going to be the next IT, the next great industrial revolution. And I’m a big believer in whichever country dominates that economic revolution is going to have the most security, the most respect, the most competitive and the most healthy population.”
Friedman quotes John Gardener “This is a series of incredible opportunities disguised as insolvable problems.”
September 7th, 2008
We stumbled upon an interesting organization that has the same basic idea as The Village Square:
The Common Good (TCG), is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that encourages civil discussion and effective participation by bringing together leading political, business, media and entertainment figures on pressing issues of the day.
Pretty smart, eh?
Check them out.
September 5th, 2008
