Meet the New Boss ~ Same as the Old Boss

Occupy Wall Street has drawn our attention, but trying to understand them feels too much like trying to find Waldo:  Lots of details and no center of focus.  We’re unclear where we should be looking.   

When asked by news media what their cause is, protestors at each location have answered with a remarkable range of hopes, dreams, frustrations, and non-sequiters.  One said, “We’ve got to get the money out of politics.”  Another said, “These corporate dollars should be going to schools.”  A third said we should be growing corn for ethanol!   

Even those who seem to be targeting the unpunished bankers of Wall Street haven’t articulated what they want.  In the unlikely event that a Fat Cat in a high rise had even the mildest inclination to inquire, who would step forward and speak for the protestors?  What would she say? 

No doubt there is unrest in the United States.  Something’s wrong and Americans don’t like it.  At the very least we know that Washington’s infuriating partisan charade has settled into our living rooms.  While politicians play-act, they seem to mirror the malaise drifting across the countryside, through our towns and businesses, tugging at us, weighing us down, contributing to our economic doldrums.

But the thing is, most of us don’t understand the conglomerated behemoth of a financial system that has swollen and continues to swell.  What does it want?  More?  Shouldn’t it be on our side?  After all, if it saves us, we save it.  Right? 

We do know that we resent “them” and blame them for the joblessness sleeping on our couches and standing in the kitchen in front of the fridge at midnight.  We feel them reaching into our pants pockets when we know they have money of their own.  We don’t like the arrogant, indifferent attitude that shrugs its shoulders and looks away when asked what has gone wrong. 

Even the analysts don’t seem to understand our economy; otherwise it wouldn’t be so easy to find “experts” with views diametrically opposed.  They’re giving it their best guess, God bless them everyone, but “black is white” and “up is down” just aren’t helpful.  Have the banks flexed and the government flinched?  Who’s in charge?  What are the rules?  Who’s the enforcer? 

When pelted with fact after conflicting fact, that is, opposite statements which all may be true, we cannot surrender just because we’re unable to spell out our own internal certainty that we’re being messed with on a national scale.   

That’s where the Occupy protestors come in.  But they didn’t think it through.  They haven’t done their research or planned their arguments.  They don’t have a spokesperson or a point to stay on.  So they camp out and shout out the Tommy Smothers retort, “Oh Yeah?” 

They know they’re right about the gut of the American people:  We know in our hearts and minds that those whom we’ve trusted are screwing us over, either through their greed, their cynicism, their self-interest, or their incompetence. 

We know our protestors mean well.  We also know the road to hell.  One of several fates looms for Occupy Wall Street.  First, they and their affiliates could slip into that pale corner of the conversation inhabited by those who failed to plan and thereby planned to fail.  They could become the shooting star, the flash in the pan, the limp noodle of grass roots movements. 

They could, God forbid, lose control, vent those frustrations borne from their own lack of focus, lack of leadership, lack of response, and ineffectiveness.  They could be put down the hard way.  Ill portent for all involved. 

And a third, most intriguing option presents itself:  Occupy Wall Street has amassed a mountain of food and supplies, filling a cavernous space near Wall Street with those donated goods to sustain their movement.  

Even more interesting, they have collected $300K and opened a bank account.  That’s right.  Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States, is the repository of Occupy Wall Street funds. 

Who signs those checks?  Who will be paid to do what with that money?  Will the cities “hosting” these occupations be repaid for the added sanitation services, for example?  Will Occupy Wall Street redistribute these funds among the other Occupy groups across the country?  With no stated goals and no pact with anyone, the imminence of irony arrives.   

Will “Occupy” go corporate?

Congressional Priorities like Lost Rainbow Toads?

The Rainbow Toad of Borneo gives me hope.

Last seen in 1924, the spindly-legged creature was dismissed as extinct by the less-than-faithful among amphibian specialists in the scientific community.  Yet, it lives.  It survived in obscurity. 

The precise location of the adult male, adult female, and juvenile toads found in three separate trees in the Penrissen Mountains of Borneo is protected by the scientists of Washington-based Conservation International.  Poachers seeking brightly hued amphibians cannot be trusted.

Think of it – not seen in 87 years, but alive, well, and perhaps most remarkable, not forgotten!  If the Rainbow Toad can resurface, why, so could good manners in public places.  Even generosity.  We might find and revive courtesy on the roadways.  Dare I say it?  We could see cooperative policy making in Washington, D.C.

Maybe it’s not too far-fetched to harken back to the days when our elected representatives recognized the common goals of our country.  They worked on our country’s issues with a problem-solving approach, once, ‘way back when.  They understood the well-being of our country ranked above their party loyalty and their re-election didn’t they?

If scientists can find a 2-inch toad in Borneo after it spent 87 years alone in the rain forest, maybe politicians can find courage in Congress today.

If that little toad survived all this time, minding his own business, clinging to trees, being beautiful, contributing to the ecosystem, doing his part when we weren’t looking, maybe Democrats and Republicans can take a lesson.

Of course, there is another, less encouraging angle on the “long lost” phenomenon.  It’s reflected in the love letter rescued from the dead letter purgatory of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, post office, and now on its way to its intended recipient after 53 years.

Since the letter, signed, “Love forever,” was written to Clark C. Moore, he has married twice, fathered 21 children, retired from teaching, converted to Islam, and become a Muslim cleric.

The 74-year-old Moore, now known as Siddeeq, currently lives in Indianapolis and says he waits with mixed emotions for the letter to arrive in his mailbox.

"I'm curious,” he told reporters, “but I'm not sure I'd put it under the category of 'looking forward to it.’”

He and the letter’s author married later in the year it was written, 1958, and had four children before divorcing.  They no longer speak.

Siddeeq told reporters that the romantic piece of mail is "just a testament of the sincerity, interest and innocence of that time."

Well I wouldn’t entrust the fate of the Rainbow Toad of Borneo to him!  How cold!  How cynical!
 
OK, maybe we can never recover our innocence.  But sincerity and interest forever gone?  Say it ain’t so!

I hope our elected officials can reach into their hearts and minds and find the sincerity and interest that inspired them to seek office in the first place.

I hope they will muster the mettle to step up in the face of the jaded around them.  It’s pretty important. 

We don’t just need a new debt ceiling; we need thoughtful restructuring of our borrowing, spending, and raising of funds.  We need stable funding, I repeat, stable funding for our schools.
 
We need accountability and justice for the engineers of the bank failures.  We need jobs!
 
We need to stop spending $10 billion per DAY on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We could feed hungry people at home and around the world. 

No more blaming.  No more posturing.  No more lost interest in the work or false sincerity of effort.  The American economy is not a lost love letter.  The sentiments of the American people cannot be dismissed as a quaint reminder of times gone by.

Washington scientists placed the Rainbow Toad on the “Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs” list (really).  They persisted in their search and found him.  Let’s hope his location doesn’t become his undoing.

Some of us are like the lost Rainbow Toad of Borneo, making it just fine on our own, thank you.  We often wish Washington would quit focusing on our stuff and leave us alone. 

But too many of us are not doing fine.  Too many may be unable to survive and thrive without a team of representatives who will go to the ends of the earth on their behalf.

Maybe Washington could establish a “Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Priorities” list and start working on that.

Crocodile Tears in the House of Representatives: Or, There's No Crying in Politics

So John Boehner has a soft heart…

The “Weeper of the House,” it turns out, is known for being “touched by a moment, a speech, or a comment, whether it’s from a constituent or a fellow member of Congress.”

And there’s sure plenty for him to cry about these days what with the Tea Party splitting the Republican vote in a couple of key races, and the Senate still in the hands of the Democrats.

I saw Boehner struggling to contain his emotions when he took the podium election night after he learned he would be the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. His memories of his personal history overwhelmed him in the moment of stepping from humble beginnings into such a high-profile and powerful position. So he cried.

Thank God. I’m not the only one who cries all the time. I can definitely share a moment with our new Speaker. I’ve been choking up over everything from the commonplace to the obscure for decades. It’s not the most desirable public image, but if like Mr. Boehner and me, you’ve got the Curse of the Cry, there’s not much to do about it.

Wait. I saw some advice on the Today Show recently giving a new strategy to help a person avoid crying when s/he doesn’t want to. It was in a segment including how to relieve the hiccups, to put it into perspective.

Anyway the new strategy is, when you think you might break down into tears and you don’t want to, since you’re at the podium in a televised national news conference, you should clear your throat and then swallow.

The thinking is that this gives your muscles and reflexes a chance to reset. And it gives you and Moses something besides “Oh no! Here comes the flood!” to think about.

I tried it the other day while watching the first episode of National Geographic’s “Great Migrations.” There are some heart-wrenching scenes in that spectacular footage. The one that got me was when the wildebeests crossed that same darn river at the same darn place where they cross every year. Why do they keep going back there? The crocodiles go there every year too. Duh! You’d think the gnus would at least go upstream a ways, ‘cause those crocs are ENORMOUS. They can practically swallow a little gnu in one nightmarish gulp.

That’s exactly what was happening, actually. This horrifically huge crocodile caught a young wildebeest by the lower half. The baby called out to its mother watching helplessly onshore, and I started to…but wait, let me just clear my throat. Ahem. And now I’ll swallow. Very gentile, I found. And…It worked! I was momentarily removed from the emotion. It is a video, after all.

But since I sat safe at home in my recliner, next to my husband who I must note was not unmoved by the drama, rather than in the glare of a Washington press conference, I still let a tear fall for that animal and its mother. They are so stupid it’s infuriating. And – you’ve heard it before – for some of us, when we’re mad, we cry. Infuriating in itself.

And what’s so bad about crying anyway? So what if we show that we’re touched, or moved, or saddened? Those of us with the Crying Curse are certainly free of ulcers. The rest of you strong hold-it-in types think you’re so smart. What? There’s no crying in politics?

In the coming months John Boehner will likely find himself in multiple situations where he’ll want to cry, particularly if he pursues the same “Party of No” strategy the Republicans have taken up since 2008. That pesky Democratically-controlled Senate will no doubt frustrate him. The President’s veto pen may have him reliving his childhood struggles once more. That’s when the tears are likely to flow.

So it’s important to note, Mr. Boehner, that crying will not prove an effective strategy for getting Senators to change their votes. Nor will pouting or shouting. My advice? A respectful approach coupled with good faith negotiation can be disarming even among the most ravenous crocodiles with whom you’re swimming.

Set name calling and tattling aside. Bring straight talk and genuine collaboration to the forefront. There’s your formula for a tear-free two years.

Then of course, you get the group hug.

Stop Shouting!

The Scene: Tommy and Dickey Smothers - strumming away on guitar and bass violin in the 1960’s, swapping political barbs for our edification and entertainment. Back and forth they would go, tit for tat, see-sawing their way through both sides of a current event, until finally Tommy could no longer hold his own. His arguments inevitably faltered. Backed into a corner, he would swell up, contort his face, and unleash his best game-ending attack, “Oh yeah?!”

From there, knowing he’d won, Dickey would simply pluck his bass, letting his brother’s feeble, emotional display speak for itself, and the music would go on.

A similar scene played out at some sort of political gathering in New Jersey recently, except with a twist, and not nearly so funny: With the Governor at the podium, a heckler from the crowd raised his arm and angled an accusatory finger at the speaker. Veins distended in his neck, arm pulsing to the beat of his words, he shouted until neither the Governor nor the other audience members could ignore him.

This is our unfortunate truth: More and more people, out of arguments and moved by anger, shout out in public settings, hurling unanswerable blurts, derailing the moment. It is the method of the frustrated and powerless. Take a cheap shot and see if anyone else around you will pile on. “I don’t have a well-formed argument. I don’t have a platform, or forum. I’m hurt. I’m afraid. I feel defeated. And you stand for what I’m mad about. Let me attack you in public where I am free to act this way, but you, in your position, must obey the rules of decorum.”

But this time, the speaker didn’t smile and wave his hand, hoping to dissuade the heckler. He didn’t shake his head and wait. He didn’t surrender. Governor Chris Christie turned to his heckler, pointed back at him and in a forceful but calm voice said, “It’s people like you who scream and yell that divide our country. I’m about bringing our country together.”

With the breath knocked out of the red-faced man and order restored, the Governor returned to his business. No one could deny the truth of his response. Folks from that room will not likely break out into unbridled rudeness again anytime soon. If they’re going to flail in helplessness and fury, they will most likely chose their targets more carefully, or retreat to the safety of the internet. There they can join forces with others dug-in and disenfranchised, persuading no one, but righteous in their vehemence.

Now, will I vote for Chris Christie if he runs for president? Don’t know. Don’t know much else about him. I’m just glad he stood up to the crackpot.

I don’t know that any similar event took place in California around Proposition 19, the legalization of marijuana. Yet it seems, incredibly, that we’re going to vote on this extremely controversial issue without opposing forces standing toe-to-toe, wailing, wringing hands, or gnashing teeth. Nobody got all blood-pressure-y! (Of course, it’s not too late --- we have a few days left before the election.) Still, in the mean time, business people, educators, law enforcement, newspaper editors, and ordinary citizens expressed their views in a remarkably civilized manner. The fate of the Proposition remains to be seen. But it appears the outcome will be derived from voters’ consideration of the issue sans drama.

Maybe we could use such a model for a discussion of immigration. Maybe folks could just start talking about it; other folks could listen and respond with alternative viewpoints, and so on and so on and so on.

I’ll bet there are some really good ideas out there that could begin to unravel this knotty issue. Maybe we could take turns, offer suggestions, and ask questions without ridicule. Maybe even immigrants could join in.

Of course, Arizona will be in a time out for the first round. They must sit quietly while the rest of us begin a thoughtful conversation, thinking about laws, and human beings, considering what was, what is, and what should be.

Oh, if I could only play the bass fiddle. I would strum away while we talk, offering a measured rhythm to the tune of the times.

Gangsters in Public Office

You can learn a lot working at a school.

I always know when I've pissed off a teenager.  (Excuse my language---language gets rough when you work at school!)  No matter what I say or do after that, I'm wrong.  Persona non grata.  No eye contact (except for a glare).  No acknowledgement (except for sarcasm).  Certainly no applause!  If I piss off one of the 1400+ students at my school, she will probably get a bunch of her friends to ignore me too.  Even if I'm handing out extra credit or free passes to an early lunch, she will find fault.

That's how I know that the Republicans are mad at President Obama, and the Democrats are mad at the Republicans.  When the President speaks, the Republicans won't even look at him.  In an enormous bill, like Heath Care Insurance reform, there's not ONE SINGLE THING that deserves their acknowledgement.  And the Democrats will NEVER applaud a Republican idea.  NEVER.

That's the way it goes with teenagers---but oops!  These are not teenagers.  These are elected officials engaged in "tick tock the game's locked and nobody else can play!"

It's disappointing and discouraging to regular mopes like me who actually have to  listen to their colleagues.  We have to work WITH people.  We've learned that means actually trying to hear and understand someone else's point of view.

That's right.  Try to understand the other guy.  Give him credit for a good idea and work it into your plan, bragging about where you got it.  Let him shine in your world.

I'll bet the country's bloated and expanding Health Care Insurance bottom line that adults on both sides of the aisle in the Capitol Building secretly recognize some excellent components of the other guys' proposals.  But like wanna be gangsters, they will never give an inch of territory because his shirt is red and mine is blue.

And the penalty for being red is death of your ideas.  Or if you're blue, I will never acknowledge your contributions. 

Let's line up with our homies and watch their backs!  Loyalty to the point of idiocy.  To hell with the country.  To hell with the charge of serving the people.  By god, I will play it safe!