Thomas Merton is Wrong

Ran across this quote today:

"Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself."

Apparently it comes from Thomas Merton in "Letter to a Young Activist."

Sigh... Fail.


I understand that things have not been easy for those of us on the
left lately. And this quote offers a tempting salve for those feelings
of frustration. But...

Not focusing on results is a bit of a pet peeve of mine in the
progressive world. It is, in my humble opinion, how we can have
multiple, well-funded non-profits for every single issue we care
about, and yet not make much progress on them. It is how we can
control two branches of national government, and yet be unable to pass
healthcare legislation, close Guantanamo, and reign in the abuses of
large corporate-persons.

Focusing on results is exactly what activists, young and old, should
constantly be doing. The real trick is understanding how to "fail
forward" (to borrow Clay Shirky's term).

Yes, you will fail. A lot. Over and over. But if you build your power
/ movement / organization during each campaign, then you will begin
again in a better position to win than you were in the last time. And
begin again you must. This is politics, and it can be used for good
or evil. We need more progressives focused on using it to achieve good
results. Otherwise, the "work itself" has no "rightness" or "truth." It's
self-delusion.

The Constitution doesn't say we get healthcare

"Citizens of the U.S. do not have a constitutionally guaranteed right to healthcare," I've heard many a conservative bleat. It is as though the Constitution is meant to be a document that outlines the few rights we are to be grudgingly guaranteed forever. That way we won't think we're entitled to all sorts of rights from the government. "These but no others!" they imagine it saying.

I do not believe this is intent of our founding document. The fact that it was made to be amended when necessary and that the first 10 amendments to the document are guarantees of rights pokes a big hole in that interpretation. It is also a very old precedent in our country that the Constitution does not create rights. It only enshrines those we are already endowed with into the rule of law. They are "inalienable rights." That then begs the question, where do these rights come from and what is the government's role in protecting them?

Government's role is to ensure that certain things exist in a society that are deemed too important and universally needed, and the pros of having options to choose from are far outweighed by the cons of not guaranteeing the existence of the thing in question. Certain rights fall into this category, obviously. So do, arguably, education, defense, and certain types of infrastructure. Religion has also made the list in many cultures, and you can understand why from one (archaic, crazy) perspective. But in ours, it did not because it did not pass the final test in the framers' minds (among other tests in some of their minds).

All but the most anarchic libertarians would argue that defense, roads, street signs, street lights, police, firemen, etc. are good to have provided by a government. Imagine if we each had to buy into a separate military, police force, or road company and they all competed with each other. It would be a mess.

So where does healthcare fall into this equation in 21st century America? It's certainly very important, perhaps 3rd in a list right after food and shelter. It's absolutely universally needed. In fact, we already pay for universal healthcare for illegal immigrants, poor people, and everyone else. We just pay extra for them to land in the emergency room because that's the first type of healthcare available to them.

The last point is where you could make a case against some types of universal healthcare. The British system, for example, being fully socialized (i.e. the public owns all the buildings and pays the doctors and nurses), does limit UK citizens choices a bit. I would still take it any day over the American excuse for a system. It's like forcing people to eat at a free buffet that's always there rather than "letting them choose" from several different restaurants they could never afford to eat at. Not a difficult choice when you're left high and dry by the latter option.

However, the two systems being debated as reform options here in the US (and the system in Germany and many other countries) do not do this. Single-payer and the "public option" still leave private healthcare providers intact. The latter option even leaves the existing insurance system intact, it just allows the government to compete with it (I think this is a far inferior option to single-payer, though). Choice is increased, but more people are brought into a more cost-effective and more socially just healthcare system. Win-win-win.

I think you could make a very strong case that the framers of the Constitution, were they writing the document in 2009, may very well have included a right to healthcare. And if we the people actually ran our representative government like we're supposed to (rather than letting corporate special interests do the dirty work against our own best interests), then such an amendment to the Constitution would quite likely be on the table or already long-ratified.

Refreshingly deep analysis of Israeli / Palestinian conflict

This article, in the American Conservative of all places, is a refreshingly deep and sober analysis of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. I'm not saying you should take everything it says on face value, but it does go into much more detail than any other coverage I've seen recently, and is written by a fairly reputable source (political science professor at the University of Chicago).

The other interesting thing is the conservative angle here, which is something along the lines of, "Conservatives like Israel. Israel's current strategy is not only bad for Palestinians, but also for its own long-term survival. So Israel should change course." This ends up being a fairly nuanced analysis as a result. It also avoids the conservative tendency to ignore the humanitarian tragedy component.

I tend to give well-written, non-conspiracy-nut pieces like this the benefit of the doubt until the mainstream and/or conventional wisdom crowd can answer with an equally deep, nuanced rebuttal that treats all parties involved as real, contemporary people with real, contemporary problems (as opposed to the "Muslins have always and will always be terrists!" line of thinking).

Cause and effect

Cause.

Effect.

There you have it. So if Palin visits your town, just put your mail on your mailbox. You just may live to get the reply.

Here's a handy graph to further illuminate the danger we all now face:

It's Debatable?

The Chicago Tribune has an article today about last night's Biden v. Palin smackdown. It's title is "The winner? It's debatable." But look how the article starts out:

They were in the same room Thursday night, but Joe Biden and Sarah Palin often seemed to be participating in separate debates. One debate dealt with issues. The other served as a platform for Palin's unique brand of Alaskan-bred populism and twangy asides.

Uh... Is it just me or is it a sad day in America when "issues" vs. "twangy asides" constitutes a toss-up in the Vice Presidential Debate? FAIL.

Knocking On People's Doors, Which I Don't Know If I Agree With

A conversation I'm overhearing (and liveblogging) in a coffee shop in Brooklyn between the barista and some customers:

"What did you do this weekend?"
"I went to Philly, did a little campaigning."
"Oh, for the B-Rock?"
"Yeah. I've never done it before."
"What does that entail?"
"Knocking on people's doors, which I don't know if I agree with, personally. It's a bit intrusive."
"Yeah..."
"Because politics is SO sensitive, especially in this race."

We need to change this attitude. I'm willing to bet (nay, guarantee) that it's the dominant one in this country today. Don't get me wrong, it's great that Obama is turning people out to canvass who have never done it before in states they don't even live in. That r0x0rs. Go B-Rock.

BUT! If we're going to take social change to the masses, then regular people need to start feeling comfortable with interacting with other people face-to-face about politics. I think there are two components to this:

1. The annoying salesman problem: Knocking on strangers' doors because you agreed to when asked by someone else to do it (whether for money or altruism or anything in between) immediately evokes the vacuum salesman frame. We should try to shift this to a "meet new people" or "explore and discover new places" frame. White people eat that shit up. "I was back-packing neighborhoods in Philly." Response from all white people in the room: "Wow!" Not that I think minorities wouldn't / couldn't / shouldn't participate. I'm just speaking for my fellow honkies.
2. The religion and politics problem: You know, the only two things you don't bring up in polite company. This one is actually fascinating to me, because one of the things I studied heavily in college was how the evangelical Christianity movement in the U.S. had made Christianity into a totally individualistic religion. It's about whether or not you are saved, how your relationship with Jesus is, etc. It wasn't always like that. So it's ironic that the two "private" topics in this country are religion and politics. Not that that leads to a way out of this frame, I just think it's interesting.

Hombres Necios

This almost makes me wish I had caucused for Clinton instead of Obama.

We've all heard those polls that say Obama beats McCain in the general but McCain and Clinton are tied, right? According to this article, the lion's share of that difference is men. They'll vote for Obama for President, but as soon as you swap him out for Hillary Clinton, they vote for McCain. WTF? Not shocking, but annoying as hell.

You'll also notice in the article that there is no corresponding shift among women voters between Clinton and Obama in the general election. A voting bloc that makes up 51% of the population who has never had a member of their group in the White House supports both candidates about equally. God forbid we cede our 200+ year political winning streak to these subversives.

I'd like to take this opportunity to, once again, apologize for the stupidity of my gender.

Caucusing instead

Tonight I caucased for Obama and said goodbye to a girl I'm a big fan of. I spent more time with Obama. He better not fuck me on this. Right now I'm drinking at Precinct 533's favorite bar, Gabor's. So here's to bad timing and may it leave me be.

Political Journalism an oxymoron?

Here is a very interesting article on political journalism and why it sucks so badly. "Yawn," you may be thinking, "I've read that one before. Several times." You're potentially right, but give this one a go.

The point, once it gets there, is that political journalism shouldn't focus on who is going to win, but on who should win. An excerpt from the end of the article:

"[T]he job of the campaign press is not to preempt the voters' decision by asking endlessly, and predicting constantly, who's going to win. The job is to make certain that what needs to be discussed will be discussed in time to make a difference - and then report on that."

Damn skippy. The article starts out by claiming that the media is a mindless beast that does horse race political coverage because that's what everyone else does. It then starts to make the case that "expertise" in this field (namely, predicting political outcomes determined by voters) is dubious at best. This dovetails interestingly with a book I read recently called Super Crunchers that pretty much debunks all form of human "expertise" where it concerns analyzing data and making predictions based on that (and instead claims that machines can make much more accurate predictions, so we should let them do the predicting while we spend our brain cells on more creative, humany things like imagining what else we could have machines predict for us).

Combining these two perspectives, one could make the case that not only is horse race political journalism bad for democracy (in the sense that it pretends to predict outcomes but actually ends up unduly influencing them), but it's also a job much better left to number crunchers than so-called political "experts" who are terrible at it anyway. How many points was Obama supposed to win NH by, again? That would then free up real journalists to cover real issues and where candidates stand on them. Imagine that.

Backpedaling

OK, correction time: We haven't yet actually decided to move. I may have jumped the gun a little there.

We have a house meeting on Thursday to discuss our options.

But let's have an informal netroots poll first! Please indicate in the comments your preference among the following options (in the interest of transparency, please fully disclose your affiliation with the Marion House):

1. Move, move, move! The landlord's goin' nazi, the rent's goin' up. Get outta there!
2. Look around, see what else is out there. If you find a better deal, go for it. If not, stay there.
3. It's cool if you move as long as you find Marion House 2.0 w/ equal or greater party-having possibilities.
4. Are you fucking crazy? You can't shut down the Marion House! This is a lot bigger than you, Dan, Will, and Luke now. You don't have the right!
5. Other (please elaborate)

The speech I want the Democratic nominee to give

It's frustrating to be a Democratic (or a Democratic sympathizer) these days. They tend to be spineless, wishy-washy, poll-slaves that don't end up accomplishing much. All too often, the best thing they have going for them is that they aren't Republicans.

Part of that is a messaging problem. Most Democrats don't know what it means to be a Democrat, or they can't articulate it well. And the party itself doesn't offer much help. You can't act on principles you don't have and can't talk about.

That's why it was very refreshing, even inspiring, to read this speech written by John F. Kennedy's former speech writer Theodore C. Sorensen. If the Democratic nominee for President says something like this in Denver a little over a year from now, it will be a good day. Not to be a Democrat, but to be an American. And it's been a long time since that felt good.