whyroots

I'll keep this relatively short and sweet so we can all put our attention to properly celebrating the end of the Bush reign, and prepare ourselves for the inauguration festivities tomorrow. All in all, I've been very impressed by the seriousness and qualifications of the vast majority of the nominees for prominent positions in the Obama administration. But if we have to name names, here we go:

My favorite member of Obama's incoming team is Eric Shinseki, the presumptive Secretary of Veterans Affairs. After recently visiting Manzanar Historical Site (a recommended visit for any American, exposing a dark but important part of our history), the Owens Valley location of one of the largest internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II, I find it even more stunning an achievement for Shinseki, born in 1942, to have risen to such heights in the United States Army.

Like Obama, his own narrative tells of the power of America at its best, and also like the President, he's been right about many of the major issues during the Bush administration, including the handling of the Iraq war. As the Chief of Staff of the Army, Shinseki repeatedly clashed with Rumsfeld and others on the Bush team over the strategy behind our involvement in Iraq, famously and rightly predicting that it would take several hundred thousand American troops to stabilize the country after the war. I think Shinseki is a great choice to lead our overstretched veterans infrastructure as we adapt to thousands of soldiers returning from American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan needing physical, psychological and social rehabilitation.

My least favorite, from a personal standpoint (I can think of others, like Ray LaHood, who are less qualified/more dubious), would have to be Tom Vilsack. Nothing too personal about the guy, but for a president known for his devotion to fitness and arugula, the idea of nominating the former governor of Iowa, the archetypal "corn state," to manage American agriculture, beseiged by a flood of cheap corn and derived products, is absurd.

With obesity and diabetes on the rise, industrial farming and monocultures threatening food safety and biodiversity, and local cultures being flattened by thousand-mile food supply chains, an Obama administration had the opportunity to fight for a new system, to treat organic and local farming as a key source of the "green jobs" the President-elect so prominently preaches.

Vilsack's strong ties to the biotech and genetically-modified food industries (and even ethanol), and his preference for large single-crop industrial agricultural holdings over smaller diversified family farms, reflect an antiquated notion that the main job of the Department of Agriculture is to produce more food calories for less money, (dating back to Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz) not to manage our national food supply in a sustainable, healthy, and diverse fashion. There may still be significant change in this arena over the Obama term, but if the past is any guide, leadership won't come from Vilsack. The good news is that this, like all of my criticism of Obama appointees, feels like nitpicking after eight years of disagreeing with the majority of the administration's important decisions.

Good riddance, George W. Bush!

-Will B. Payne

While the task of narrowing the Bush Administration's offenses against the American people to one boggles the mind, I'm going to attempt it nonetheless. Outside the major refrains against the regime that all of us on the left are practically numb to after eight years, I think that Medicare Part D, the Bush-backed effort to extend Medicare benefits to cover prescription drug purchases, was one of the biggest mistakes made in an era characterized by presidential mistakes.

I chose this particular issue partly because of the magnitude of the initiative's impact, especially in economic terms (as a part of the $10 trillion hangover chronicled by Linda Bilmes in a recent issue of Harper's) and partly because, unlike many of the other controversial issues that Bush and his team left their dirty fingerprints on, this one isn't easy to excuse through ideology.

Unlike litmus test issues like loosening environmental regulations and narrowing civil liberties, where there a variety of defensible positions taken by different political parties, the Part D debacle is a sheer case of political cronyism (two of the bill's main Republican champions in Congress left soon after its passing for sweetheart jobs lobbying for the pharmaceuticals industry), cynical machine politics, and fiscal irresponsibility, all wrapped into one package. By using an issue guaranteed to resonate with voters (a high percentage of whom, after all, are in or close to the age range eligible for Medicare benefits), then tailoring the proposed plan to maximize private profits while minimizing public utility, the bill's backers, including our 43rd president, were able to significantly increase our budget deficit and national debt (by at least $400 billion in the first ten years of the plan's passing, according to recent estimates) while enriching large companies and compromising service for the ostensible targets of the legislation.

While expanding seniors' access to life-prolonging drugs is a noble goal in theory, without taking cost into effect, in its execution, Part D was horribly and deliberately flawed, most glaringly by the stipulation that the federal government not be allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies in bulk for drug discounts, like the far more successful and cost-effective Veterans Affairs medical coverage.

The scandal surrounding the botched implementation of Medicare Part D, has ties to the Administration's record of corrupt political appointees, and the lobbyist orgy that was K Street. I'm no health care expert, and the full story has been told better than I could by several others, notably Paul Krugman at the New York Times. His article "The K Street Prescription" lays out the lobbyist ties of the main architects of the bill, and his earlier "Health Policy Malpractice" fills in the story of the Veterans Affairs model of health care and its superior ability to provide effective health care at a lower cost.

When you read this and other explorations of the Part D fiasco, don't forget the headline-grabbing tips of the iceberg. Don't forget Iraq and Afghanistan. Don't forget Katrina. Don't forget stem cell research, or the FCC, or our image in the world. Don't forget a thousand other abuses of the office, large and small. But remember Part D, because it's often the underwater part of the iceberg that sinks us.

-- Will Payne

The question of our generation's character has been much on my mind in the past few weeks, as bad news turns to worse in the markets, and serious questions about our nation's ability to maintain such an extravagantly high standard of living remain. The historical precedent of the Great Depression has been dragged out in editorial after editorial as evidence of Americans' get-'er-done melting pot ingenuity in the face of crisis. While certainly a hopeful thought to hang above the fireplace with care this holiday season, the similarities aren't all they're cracked up to be.

For starters, while we face some of the same problems (unemployment, lack of credit, etc.), we do so against a drastically changed historical backdrop. Unlike their Depression-scarred grandparents, Millennials didn't overcome widespread familial poverty through thrift and hard work; we were brought up with Super Nintendos and summer camps (well, I didn't have a Super Nintendo, but all my friends did...). Consumption has been part of our DNA for so long that cutbacks on luxury items like consumer electronics and designer clothing feel like unspeakable privation. If this recession gets worse, it's the children in grade school now who will truly internalize it into their worldview; it's far too late for us.

We also lack the shared experience of the World War that followed and ended the first Depression, a war that brought millions of Americans into the middle class through manufacturing jobs and G.I. Bill education. If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had any profound social effect, it's been in increasing the underclass of wounded and psychologically scarred soldiers with insufficient benefits, and shattering families in predominantly lower-income neighborhoods every time another body comes home.

Nevertheless, the parallels remain between us and those intrepid stormers of Normandy and organization men (and women, in the first truly widespread instance of American women working outside the home). We seem to be, like our grandparents before us, a pragmatic generation, more focused on getting things done than on the deep ideological struggles of the Boomer cohort. Both conservative and liberal Millennials tend to oppose President Bush's policies, (unlike in the 60s, when Young Republicans like Karl Rove counted on widespread support among mainstream youth) and the 2008 presidential election results among our demographic (66% Obama to 32% McCain) should be downright embarrassing to the Republicans.

But those who see Obama's electoral mandate and the Democrats' control of both houses of Congress as an excuse to push through a broadly progressive agenda (which I tend to support) should take note of another precedent set by the Greatest Generation. The buried resentments of the post-war "consensus years," during which coastal elites dictated a technocratic policy slate supposedly "beyond ideology," surfaced in the modern conservative movement, first in Barry Goldwater's failed presidential bid, later in Richard Nixon's political comeback, as decisions about race, government aid, and foreign policy that once seemed self-evident frayed and ultimately exploded in the protests and counter-protests of the 60s.

I, for one, intend to keep a close eye on the young followers of libertarian hero Ron Paul, defined by their fervent support for limited government, reinstating the gold standard, and isolationist foreign policy. Like Goldwater's conservatives, they have been alienated by both major parties. While their numbers have yet to impact national politics, the collapse of the global financial system could prove an unexpected boon to their cause.

We have been blessed, or cursed, to live in interesting times; the way we react to what may be the defining economic shift of our lifetime will prove whether we deserve to be the Greatest, Second Greatest, Worst, or "_____" Generation.
 
-- Will Payne

The issue of whether evangelicals, or other strong believers, can be accommodated in the progressive "big tent" is contingent on the left's willingness to appreciate and even respect the role religion plays in their life, despite their own divergent philosophies.

Whether or not a political realignment of believers is at hand we have yet to see, but there have been liberal Christians devoted to social justice since Jesus himself associated himself with the weak and poor of his society (if he actually did any of this, or existed at all, is a question I won't even begin to tackle here). More recently, Christian groups like Jim Wallis' Sojourners magazine have taken up the mantle of combining God and progressive thought.

But there remains a serious gap of understanding between the bulk of reason-loving leftists and their faithful neighbors. Many of my friends, especially those who I met in and since college, characterize themselves as atheists, or at least indifferent agnostics. A significant minority of them find religious feeling so strange and negative an influence as to defy explanation. Drawing on the writings of acclaimed atheists like Richard Dawkins, they see religious theory and practice as little more than a "God delusion" obfuscating the rational truth about the world.

While I respect and often agree with the ideas and the rationales of these thinkers and their supporters, my lived experience of religion has kept me from discounting its potential for good. I grew up regularly attending Presbyterian and Congregational churches with my family, even serving as a deacon (board of around 15 congregants who help guide the running of the church) at the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Concord, Mass.

Before I go on, I should say that I wouldn't characterize myself as a "believer" by any measure. Many of the sermons at my church didn't even talk about faith all that much. The focus was on introspection, reexamination of life and relationships, and fellowship. I found in my youth group an open community, devoted to valuing each other as humans inherently worthy of such consideration, not as the disparate sets of talents and flaws we each carried through our high school hallways.

This was not a particularly "religious" group. The point was not, as in many similar evangelical groups (Young Life, in particular, which had a strong presence in our town), to deepen our personal relationship with Jesus. But we did meet every week to play games, talk about important things in our lives, go camping and hiking, and generally build a friend network outside the Balkanized world of the cafeteria. These were not my closest friends (many of them I seldom saw outside the group), but without them my adolescence would have been a far more difficult period.

If there was one coherent spiritual strain that resonated especially strongly with me then, it was a hearty skepticism regarding man's perfectability (one that many skeptics of religion would be well served to carry into their often rhapsodic musings on science and progress). One regular prayer at my church, one that has always stuck with me in the years past my frequent churchgoing, contains the line: "[g]ive me the courage to venture normal love with average people." I found, and still found, something refreshing and bold in the idea of it taking courage to acknowledge the battles you can't win, and the challenge of forging a good life out of imperfect material. The starkness of the task reminded me of Kierkegaard, but with sober judgment taking the role of his fear and trembling faith.

Progressives, and all of us, really, could use a dose of this kind of humility. Grant people their own inconsistencies and irrationalities, their failings and hypocrisies, from evangelicals to economists, and hope that they will accept you for yours. Once you accept this, politics can go back to the delicate dance of compromise and coalition-building, and past the confused resentment of irreconcilable worldviews.

-- Will Payne

"We must patiently explain why taxing or regulating noble things (like work, saving, and entrepreneurial risk-taking) means you’ll get less of what makes America great and why subsidizing other things (like idleness and single parenthood) means you’ll get more of the destructive behaviors that ultimately will drag us down."

— An excerpt from a piece in the National Review by the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.

First of all, let me say that I'm heartened by the conservatives' urges to "patiently explain" their policies to the opposition. Now that the American public has shown their rejection of the past eight years of cronyism and stifled debate under a conservative Republican administration, and elected a charismatic Democrat known for his ability to listen, the Review and their peers realize that they need to make a broader case for their policies than Georgetown cocktail parties if conservative thought is going to retain any relevance.

This is a good thing. There are many strains to American civic thought, and all deserve an honest hearing. Many fiscal conservatives (not the wing in power of the Republican Party recently, alas) were and are right to point out the dangers of deficit spending, negative saving rates, and increased household debt that are making today's economic scene look so dismal.

The claim that our society "subsidizes" and thus encourages single parenthood and idleness clearly rings as false to anyone laid off (over 500,000 in the past month, with more likely soon), or raising a child on their own. A governmental safety net that helps people, and their dependent children, stay alive and healthy until they can contribute meaningfully to the economy prevents much higher social costs down the road, and enables the next generation to better their situation. Try telling the child whose school lunch program was cut that they deserve to suffer for their parents' lack of economic success (even if it was clearly their "fault").

The broader argument underlying this conservative rhetoric has to do with their inherent opposition to taxing income at all. This is a powerful argument, one that has resonated with voters from coast to coast in the "tax revolts" of the 1980s and 1990s (even in states like California, whose economy was and remains grounded by government largesse in water policy and contracting jobs; see Joan Didion's excellent memoir Where I Was From.)

Nevertheless, in a post-agricultural, post-industrial society, taxing land and property, or even consumption and trade, misses the bulk of individual economic activity. Taxing the "noble thing" of work is the best way our government has found so far to fulfill two goals: to fund government, and to correct rises in economic inequality brought about by differing income potential.

While economic libertarians may take offense to this dual purpose, claiming that (Rand, anyone?), their intellectual champions have by and large accepted some form of redistributive society.  In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, conservative icon Milton Friedman proposed a "negative income tax" instead of the graduated income tax, under which all Americans (say 25%) .

Today's Republicans may seem shocked by the redistributive efforts of our taxation policy, but could John McCain really have spent so much time in Congress without realizing that many of the most popular government programs (from Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid) are devoted almost entirely to "spreading the wealth around"?

During his own presidency, none other than Richard Nixon proposed a Family Assistance Plan, a welfare plan with a guaranteed family income, not tied to employment. The plan was defeated in Congress, and the backlash from those more conservative than the President helped fuel later "welfare reform" efforts that have defanged so many anti-poverty campaigns.

Government does need to manage the incentives offered to people to work and create new jobs with the demands of government. But neither an Obama repeal (or simple lack of renewal) of Bush's tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, or his health care program, to pick two prominent examples of the new administration's drive for redistributive reform, seem likely to lead to distorted incentives for the many "Joe the Plumbers" of the world. The National Review is going to have to be more patient, and bring new facts to light, to convince Will the Blogger that Obama's welfare plans will lead to destructive behaviors that drag us down, rather than level the playing field enough to give more Americans a chance at living a comfortable middle-class life.

-- Will Payne

While $5 billion dollars could be spent well on any number of policy priorities in Obama's first term, I think that an investment in science and technology, specifically focusing on energy efficiency and innovation around alternative energy, would provide the most concentrated set of benefits, as well as spill-over effects in a variety of other areas. I agree with Barack Obama that we need a new Space Race, in which the enormous economic and educational power spent by previous generations of American leaders on competing with the Soviets is channeled into solving the twin problems of fossil fuel depletion and global warming. I would like to emphasize, though, the importance of competition and innovation (free market ideas put towards progress in addition to profit) in making sure this money is well spent.

More specifically, an increase in scholarship money for the sciences is needed, especially for lower-income children. An investment in technological entrepreneurship is a way to ensure future job growth; by tying awards to both performance and need, in much that same way that wealthy private universities pay full tuition for qualified lower-income applicants, the brunt of this job creation will be in the neediest sectors. This would leave existing federal financial aid in place, but supplement it to  provide opportunity for economically-disadvantaged students to enroll in elite science and technology schools. In 21st-century America, there should never be a "ghetto Einstein," unable to get the support and training he or she needs due to inadequate education funding.

A similarly entrepreneurial approach, on a grander scale, would be creating a series of government-funded "prizes" for various modeled after the Ansari X-Prize for private spacecraft development. This has already been started; House legislation creating the hydrogen fuel cell "H Prizes" has been signed into law, though it has yet to be awarded. Here, instead of subsidizing underperforming technology (a common criticism of many green jobs schemes), the government can step in and raise aspirations beyond what's conceivable today. Such a scheme could not only reward excellence and create jobs, it could lead to whole new industries opening up.

Luckily, while making no specific mention of the prize idea in their agendas on change.gov in energy and technology policy, the Obama administration already seems to be taking these sorts of initiatives seriously, and many other common sense policy proposals in this field (weatherizing houses, subsidizing energy-efficient appliances, etc.). Besides the prize idea, these are all ideas widely held as beneficial in his circle of advisors. Let's just hope that in working to create "Green Jobs," the administration focuses on rewarding excellence and innovation, and less on political sops like corn ethanol and "clean coal," or broad subsidies that use taxpayer money to increase market inefficiencies.

-- Will Payne

With rising unemployment, a spiraling credit crisis, and two foreign wars keeping Americans in danger far away, it's easy to despair for uplifting conversation topics this Thursday. While the prices of food for the Thanksgiving dinner, and the gas to travel to far-flung family have stayed within reason so far, any more increases could send millions of Americans into poverty.

I don't want to diminish the suffering that many are feeling right now, or fear of the midterm future. Dozens of my close friends have lost their jobs in the past two weeks, and no doubt there will be more turmoil before this is all resolved.

But when we look at the larger picture, there are indicators that the cliché about failure being an opportunity for learning may well apply to nations as well as individuals. The historic election of Barack Obama might never have been possible had a negative economy not buoyed his candidacy as a reform-minded Democrat. Nevertheless, the incoming administration has the mandate and the opportunity to shift course in a way that accomplishes

Once in office, his task will be difficult, but the disastrous state of financial and political affairs left by President Bush provides the opportunity for national consensus on broad initiatives to stem the bleeding, and build a better future by reassessing our priorities, as a country and a people.

This New York Times article outlines Obama's plan to use his proposed huge ($750 million plus) stimulus package to accomplish two goals simultaneously: To revive the country's economy, and to shift large amounts of resources towards the infrastructure enhancement and "green jobs" he and his supporters maintain are key to making America competitive and self-sufficient in the future.

In California, the recent passing of Proposition 1A provides a clear example of the potential for large government spending to fulfill these dual mandates. Surely the building of a high-speed rail line through hundreds of miles of the state, and the attendant station building and upgrades, will help alleviate the pressure on construction workers made by the precipitous decline in housing prices and thus residential development.

Sometimes it takes blows to force overdue innovation and adaptation. The automakers in Detroit are learning this now, and as they should have in the 1980s (read David Halberstam's The Reckoning for a fuller account of this process). Let's give thanks to America in advance for learning from our mistakes.

Maybe the disappointment of the Prop 8 failure can serve as a reminder of the amount of work left to be done to reach mainstream acceptance of homosexuality. Living in coastal enclaves where gay people are often thought of purely as aesthetically-gifted brunchers who like to party a lot and live in trendy, expensive neighborhoods, makes it easy to forget the huge amount of misunderstanding and hatred that still exists toward homosexuals across this country.

Earlier today at an In-N-Out Burger in Pleasanton, Calif., I saw a young University of Oregon hockey player enjoying a Double-Double with a group of his teammates, sporting a bootleg "Army: No Homo" T-shirt. The Mission District hipster in me (and yes, there is quite a bit, though not quite at the tattoo/barista/thrash drummer level) wanted to take this as an ironic protest against the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, but given his general demeanor, I'm willing to wager that wasn't the case. Unfortunately for this post, I didn't have the balls to ask him about the shirt, nor did I want to ruin my own Double-Double experience by sharing the venue with a confirmed homophobe.

While the spread of the Internet has dramatically opened up the diversity of information accessible about the world outside one's own life, it can often serve to only accentuate discriminatory behavior through the mask of anonymity. The world of online video gaming is full of anti-gay banter and deliberately hateful attacks on the "gaymer" community. Elsewhere on the web, I've seen message board posts recently lamenting the trend that "every TV show these days has to have a gay or lesbian character" and other such "pervasions" of modern American life by the "gay agenda."

I'm not a completely guiltless observer of these trends either. In years past, I've been guilty of not challenging the use of "gay" as a pejorative adjective referring to stereotypically effeminate activities and attitudes, though not as an out-and-out insult like many young Americans do. Example: Liking pop opera quartet Il Divo is "gay," but a teacher who gives you a bad grade on a test isn't. Unless they are. Not that there's anything wrong with that—to quote the Seinfeld episode that most accurately reflects the lingering unease of homosexuality and PC leanings common in my peer group.

Being a committed Boy Scout brought me some of the most meaningful experiences of my life, from cultivating my love of the outdoors early on to anchoring some of the more subtle traits of personal discipline and integrity in relationships that I rely on every day. Nevertheless, the very Mormons who broke the bank funding Yes on Prop 8 ads provide the bulk of the funding to the Boy Scouts of America, resulting in the infamous policy banning gay Scouts and adult leaders from participation. My own council in high school (Boston Minuteman) took a firm stance against this discriminatory practice, allowing members of all persuasions, but the shame of the national ruling remains with me.

The situation may still be bleak, but there's good reason to believe that it is steadily improving, though not at the pace that those of us sympathetic to the plight of gay rights activists may like. The fact that Prop 8 succeeded by a much thinner margin than the earlier vote banning gay marriage is encouraging. Ultimately though, perhaps the biggest driver of broader mainstream tolerance of homosexuality has been the courageous "coming out" of many of the past several generations of gay people, leading millions of Americans to realize that gay people aren't the one-dimensional threats of their imagination, but cousins, siblings, and children of people much like themselves.

My uncle and his partner, who live and work in St. Paul, Minn., have been together in a stable and loving relationship for most of my life, though until I was at least 13 I just thought they were business partners and good friends, and it wasn't until late in my childhood that the started attending family gatherings as a proud and open couple. My second cousin grew up in upstate New York with a pair of extremely loving grandparents who happened to be devout and culturally conservative Christians; their continued love of him even after learning that he was gay no doubt led to some serious soul-searching and reexamination of old beliefs.

Across the country, gay people in "red states" and smaller cities have gradually been moving into the light, quietly changing opinions and staking a claim that their life need be no different than any other American's, regardless of who they choose as their objects of love and lust. Though it won't be easy, and could fail if our society turned away from openness and acceptance as a value, it is here that I think the battles for gay rights will be won, not in "gay ghettos" like West Hollywood, the West Village, and the Castro.

I think the essence of progressivism is contained in the simple ideal of human progress, that of moving from a society characterized by scarcity and fear toward one of sustenance and acceptance. From trust-busting, to the New Deal, to civil rights, women's rights, and now gay rights. This last issue is sadly still on the vanguard of American society, as evidenced by the pass of the gay marriage ban in California last week, no matter how dastardly the tactics of its supporters.

Note that this progress is an ideal, one that never comes automatically. Living in San Francisco, it's easy to fall prey to a sort of techno-utopianism in which the march of science and knowledge (from Graham Bell to Google) inevitably lead to more freedom and prosperity for society. This is a common enough trope (dating back at least to the Enlightenment, in the West) that remains surprisingly resilient in the face of all the 20th century's industrially-fueled terror. While this may be true for the educationally mobile and stock-holding upper middle class (all bets are off if this credit crisis really picks up steam), income inequality in America today is higher than at any time since the time of the very trusts Teddy Roosevelt notoriously busted.

One thing that the Progressive Party and their spiritual heirs have always taken to heart is the contrary warning that without a fight, power tends to beget more power, and that the increased wealth of our modern society doesn't necessarily result in material changes for the mass of Americans. Whether this makes all the competing groups vying for the title of "progressive" worthy of the charge is debatable, but the idea remains a useful, even necessary one in November of 2008.

Instead of the Anglo-French convention of the "résumé," Germans seeking to tell their personal and professional stories do so with the refreshingly literal term Lebenslauf ("Life's-Path"). Life as trip is hardly a groundbreaking metaphor, but I find it a useful one. In this framework, the relationship between past and present is less the  accumulation of various honors and rewards in a uniform trajectory toward perfection, and more a journey through a variety of discrete environments, each bringing something new to the "sojourner"—to use a popular Obama sobriquet—even as they close of other experiences of the world.

I see my participation in Whyroots as a sort of intellectual Lebenslauf, a way for me to record the path of my own life and thoughts as we enter a new era in American politics and civil society—and my first experience of living in the United States under a Democratic president! Also, unlike a personal blog or private journal, which often only encourage a writers' narcissistic tendencies, my hope is that the structure of this project will cultivate the kind of respectful debate and dialogue that leads to true learning.

We are not seasoned policy experts by any means, nor are we the movers and shakers of society in 2008. We are reasonably intelligent and critical observers of the times we live in, and are embarking on this journey in order to participate a little more fully in the complex time and place we inhabit.