On Russ Feingold

You remember Jesus, of course. No, not that One. I have in mind Jesus ben Sirach, credited with one book of apocryphal writings. That Jesus. He wrote Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach. Only deep into the book do we find its most famous line “Let us now praise famous men…” and then with permission granted to myself to edit quasi-sacred writ, here are some examples of why the famous men are to be praised—for “giving counsel by their understanding, and by their knowledge of learning, wise and eloquent, honored in their generations, and the glory of their times who have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.”

Heady stuff. Few qualify in the modern world. Russ Feingold is among them however, recently turned away by the voters of Wisconsin, though still young enough at fifty-seven to return to the fray. Known as a great dissenter, Feingold voted against his own party 887. Looking remarkably like Daily Show host Jon Stewart, Feingold attributes his independent spirit to growing up in the small town of Janesville, Wisconsin where most of his friends were Protestant, many from conservative homes. Rather than conform, he excelled.

Not surprisingly a biblical analogy is used by a colleague to describe him. “He has been the David against some pretty big Goliaths,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “He never shied away from a fight, even if he had to fight alone.” He opposed the Patriot Act, the Bush bank bailouts, and the Obama troop surge in Afghanistan. Most recently Feingold joined 18 other senators from both parties in voting against President Obama’s compromise extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. The measure also extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, a key demand of Democrats. To me this is his most important vote in opposition. To give multi-billionaires tax breaks for two years in return for thirteen months of unemployment compensation to the neediest, the people who multi-billionaires put out of work to begin with, is a shanda, and I’m sorry our delegation voted for it, pleased as punch, to quote another mid-westerner that Feingold refused to do so. Feingold’s argument was more economic than my moral stance, but it holds: “Rather than include a combination of responsible spending cuts and revenue increases to offset its projected cost [the tax breaks] of nearly $900 billion … instead just adds its cost to our already massive national debt.”

Those were dissenting votes; he had positive ones as well, most notably the epic coalition-building that resulted in the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 (after a seven years legislative struggle) that severely limited national political party committees from raising or spending any funds not subject to federal limits, and “issue ads” that name federal candidates within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election, and prohibiting any such ad paid for by a corporation or by corporate or union general treasury funds. So-called soft money was the target; big business complained and in 2009 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the guts of the bill were ripped out. Big corporations objected that free speech was imperiled, that money was speech and could not be regulated by federal legislation. The Supremes in Washington agreed (well, five of them, anyway) and McCain-Feingold went the way of the passenger pigeon. If the Court is right, if money = speech, America is in trouble; deep trouble. There are those few with many dollars and those many with few dollars. The rich can shout from the highest minarets, the poor get to write the occasional letter to the editor. Parity, which Feingold and John McCain (in his maverick mode) sought, is destroyed. The dollar rules, the voice of the people is muted. The bill took seven years to pass, and then seven years later it was declared unconstitutional. Pharaoh’s dream came to reality, again.

In bidding adieu to his colleague, McCain said “In his time in the Senate, Russ Feingold, every day and in every way, had the courage of his convictions. And though I am quite a few years older than Russ and have served in this body longer than he has, I confess I have always felt he was my superior in that cardinal virtue.”

In the 112th Congress there will be thirteen Jewish senators (counting Michael Bennet [D-Colo.], who does not identify a religion, but notes that his mother is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor.) Missing will be Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

The 2010 Elections

The people have spoken, though I wish they’d spoken differently.

Two years ago Obama and the Democrats were America’s darlings. On November 2 we saw the power of big money behind the scenes and big voices on TV and radio. We Americans ride a pendulum. In 1964 the conservative movement was dead and in 1980 we got Reagan. In 1972 Nixon was overwhelmingly re-elected and then in ’74 was forced to resign in disgrace. Bill Clinton also lost congress two years into his first term and then handily defeated Bob Dole. The big Republican wins on Tuesday will be followed by big Democratic ones at a polling place near you sometime in the future—but not in two years, I wouldn’t think. Such is life.

A man whose intelligence I respect thinks that the stunning Republican victories were the result of, “the power of the American People, who do not want a ‘European Social Democracy’ type of society.” My immediate response was “You've made my point. The Democrats weren't proposing anything close to European style socialism, but the big money and the big mouths convinced the voters big-time that they were.”

It’s mid-term exam time. Question: Which European leader was the first to introduce and have his parliament pass legislation creating social security benefits, sickness insurance (2/3 of the premiums paid by employers, 1/3 by employees), and accident insurance (100% paid by employers), health insurance, civil marriage obligatory (and church marriages optional). Hint: He was Otto von Bismarck, not some far left socialist (in fact, he had a series of anti-Socialist laws passed). Why? One reason was to woo workers from the Socialist party to his Conservative one; the other was that the master of Realpolitik knew that Germany’s economy depended on a stable happy work force.

President Obama has two choices. He could say (and has already said) I’ve learned my lesson and want to compromise with the new Republican majority in the House, the empowered Republican minority in the Senate. This is the Bill Clinton approach, and it’s worked. Then, but it won’t now. Already, within the week of the elections GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) has rejected talk of bipartisanship and made crystal clear his party’s goal is to defeat Obama in 2012. The party of NO will not become the party of “Let’s roll up our sleeves and work together”. Right wing Republicans call Obama “Leviathan” perhaps an homage to Thomas Hobbes as they work to “Reverse the damage done by the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime since 2008.” (Mark Tapscott, Editorial page editor of the blog “Washington Examiner”)

Memo to Mark Tapscott: Obama didn’t assume office in 2008.

Or Obama could go the other way (but I don’t think he will as he’s shown no inclination to do so when he had large majorities in congress) and roll up his sleeves and say, “I have an agenda, the American people knew what it was when they overwhelmingly elected me and I’m going to push it.” This was the attitude of Cheney and Bush when they rolled into Washington in 2001. They knew the people had wanted Gore and Liebermann, but they’d won and they pushed and pushed and got what they wanted from cowed Democrats and jubilant Republicans. But as I say, I don’t think Obama has it in him. He’s weak; eloquent, but lacking in the reality of how Washington works—not with a whimper but with a whip. Ask Dick Cheney.

The Republican leader in the House is likely to be the only Republican Jew in Congress, Eric Cantor of Virginia. (What does that tell us, that of all the Jews in the House and Senate only one is a Republican? It tells us that Jews are still overwhelmingly concerned with social justice, not bottom lines, with the economics of job creation, not trickle down tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while the gap between poor and rich increases exponentially.) Jews won and lost this season. Rhode Island sent its first Jewish Congressman to the House and America lost Russ Feingold, a man who with John McCain fought and fought and fought and fought for election reform, only to have it trashed by the Supreme Court. It’s ironic that he was among the first victims of the big money splurge that resulted.

For a complete accounting of how Jews did this season, see: http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2010/11/02/2741564/tracking-the-races

The Party

On Tuesday we woke early hoping to beat the crowd at the Francis J. Varieur Elementary School where we vote. By the time I arrived it was necessary to stand beyond the outer door—on a beautiful autumn morning, chatting companionably with neighbors and strangers. Promptly at 7:00 we were allowed into the gym; I stood on the R-Z line, took my ballot, walked to an open booth and completed broken arrows with a felt-tipped pen. I voted for the Irish guy—O’Bama, (I was number 37 that morning to cast my vote) and left the building at 7:15. Feeling patriotically uplifted I drove to school where the pro-McCain people were dourly looking at the latest polls, wondering if they could hold the states W. took in ’04 while the pro-Barack throng nervously asked of each other, “How will they steal it from us this time?”

The rest of the day dragged on and on and on and on. Finally it was time to go home to the hopefully celebratory party we’d arranged for some friends, fifteen of us, armed with polling statistics and as each state was reported we checked to see if it was expected for this candidate or that. We ate and swigged and ate some more, occasionally engorging something recognizable as part of a legitimate food group other than chazerie. Swing states were coming in remarkably slowly. Finally Pennsylvania was awarded to Barack, greeted by whoops and a hollers and shouts of “That’s it, that’s it,” to which others said, nervously, “No, not yet, let’s not put a kenyna hura on this.” But then Ohio was reported solidly in Barack’s camp! By the time the networks proclaimed the winner, shortly after 11:00, we had just heard that Virginia, where my son Sam had been working on the campaign since the summer, had come in for Obama.

We cheered, popped the corks off bottles of champagne, and spontaneously burst into song—first “God Bless America/Land that I love/Stand beside her, and guide her/Thru the night with a light from above./From the mountains, to the prairies/To the oceans, white with foam…../God bless America/My home sweet home” and then a modified version of a song that had been going through my head all day—“We have overcome/We have overcome/We have overcome, today/Oh, deep in my heart/I did believe/We would overcome, someday.” We drank to our healths, and to Obama’s, and to the health of the United States. We felt as though America had done something good and noble that day. Tears flowed as freely as the bubbly. I called Sam and shouted into his voicemail, “You did it, you did it, you did it!” My wife and three others in the room took credit for New Hampshire, the swing state they drove up to last weekend to knock on doors and speak to undecideds. It was a wonderful night. Those of us who proudly call ourselves liberals know that we’ll face our comeupance in some future election, but tonight was ours and we savored the feeling of triumph.

McCain made a graciouis and conciliatory concession speech, but I was bothered by two things—while the Democrats had planned their victory party out in the park and open to all, the Republicans met in an exclusive hotel (I’ve seen it; it’s gorgeous) by invitation only. (Someone at my house commented that this was a microcosm of the difference between the parties.) The other grouse was in his reflection that “This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.” But as I heard these words I immediately thought, “and white people too.” Without an overwhelming number of people of European descent voting for Obama, this political miracle could not have taken place. It was a multi-racial victory, a victory for America, not a victory for black people only. We did this thing also. My pro-McCain students are proud to have been alive when America broke the color barrier—they just wish the black man had different policies. I’m glad he doesn’t.

And so, we enter a new era. Both McCain and Obama made the same point. It’s time to put the bitterness behind and to work together instead to solve the myriad problems that confront the nation. In a way, winning the election was the easy part; now comes the tough work of reconstructing a viable economy and finding Osama bin Laden, hidden in his cave, so long ignored.

Election is not a choice between good and evil

In a few days we will have a choice between young and old; Keynesian trickle up, and supply side/trickle down; between a Harvard Law Magna Cum Laude and a Naval Academy legacy who graduated 894th out of a class of 899. One wants to discontinue the war in Iraq, the other wants to fight on (and on and on) until victory. Both men are honorable at their cores; this is not a Zoroastrian contest between good and evil; each has erred and is willing to admit it.

We have the opportunity, 45 years after Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech to put a black man in the White House. Just think of that. In August 1963 Dr. King referred to Negroes as victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality, their bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, not being able to gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. Their basic mobility could be only from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. Their children were stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. “We will not be satisfied,” he thundered magisterially, “until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

That time is almost here. America now treats its African American citizens with the dignity they deserve. Hillary Clinton’s supporters were convinced that it was a woman’s turn to be president, and they were almost right. The representative of the other oppressed group won the day this time. There will be a woman president elected; it is a consummation devoutly to be wished—but apparently it’s the black man’s turn first. I can’t explain it; I don’t justify it, but it is. We cannot turn away from the opportunity to elevate America, to make King’s dream and ours, a reality.

Anticipating losing, McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin or their surrogates have begun to hurl charges at Obama. “He’s a Socialist!” In fact, he’s not, nor is it illegal. I’ve just checked the Constitution. “He’s a Muslim!” In fact, he’s not, and it’s not illegal. I’ve just checked the Constitution, again. “He attended Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20+ years!” Yes, that’s true, but it’s neither illegal nor relevant. McCain deserted his wife for his paramour 20 years ago. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the approach to the economy; what matters is inspiring hope in a forlorn nation. John McCain, for all his service to the nation, is of the past; he would have made a terrific candidate in 2000 but of the four candidates running, surely it will be he to whom America first tearfully bids heartfelt thanks for his life and career. And then we’d get Sarah Palin. She wasn’t McCane’s first choice; Lieberman was, but the party bosses reined in their maverick and so he picked Palin, a woman with whom he’d had a total of three hours of conversation. When he was forced to give in and accept the inevitable “he was furious,” according to one of his advisors as quoted in the October 27th New Yorker. “He was pissed. It wasn’t what he wanted.” It’s not what any reasonable person wants—just ask conservative columnists David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, all of whom have rejected her as presidential. And yet if the old man wins and dies, she’s who we get.

McCain suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. In 1973 hostages taken in an aborted bank robbery, held captive for six days, actually tried to help the robbers when the police finally broke in and afterwards refused to testify against them. Back in 2000 McCain was running for the Republican Party’s nomination against Governor George Bush. After losing badly in Iowa he beat him in New Hampshire and Carl Rove’s gloves came off. The people of South Carolina were bombarded with innuendo and out-right lies that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby. Illogically enough he was simultaneously branded a “fag” in flyers sent to churches. In South Carolina, remember! He went down to defeat then, and what is he doing now? Adopting the techniques of his captors. Lies and innuendos, the same sort of thing that cost him 2000. A McCain rally in North Carolina began with this introduction—not by the candidate himself—“Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.” People in Ohio were told that Obama didn’t go to Hawaii to be with his ailing grandmother but to destroy evidence that he’s not really an American citizen. It’s a pity; McCain’s not a bad man; he’s just a man behaving badly. Desperation will do that to some people.

Obama's flip-flops are growing worrisome

I’m worried about Obama. It’s not the usual right-wing bombast (he’s an anti-Israeli-crypto-Muslim). In fact, my problems are the opposite of theirs. Now that the nomination is surely his, he’s taken some “centrist” positions in a vain hope to win over moderate Republican support.

First it was agreeing with the Supreme Court’s gun decision. That strict constructionalists failed to notice the words referring to the maintaince of a well regulated militia as the raison d’être of the Second Amendment’s very limited acquiescence to individuals bearing arms amazes. In 1973 the Court said, “Let the slaughter intensify, legally” and it did. Now the Justices are saying it again, and it will. And Obama supports them. Narrowly the case was about whether people in Washington, DC had the right to a loaded gun in their house for self defense and a rifle for hunting, but the chuckleheads who constitute the NRA are going to take this as the opening shot to bring home an alleged right for anyone not yet convicted of a crime to pack a rod.

Then it was his advocacy of federal funds going to faith-based groups. That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave, or maybe it’s the wall of separation between church and state cracking. Or both. Have we learned nothing from the Jim Jones fiasco? You remember Jim. He established Jonesville in the jungles of Guyana after first conning such luminaries as Vice President Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and then when his frauds were becoming public he had an investigating congressman and his entourage murdered and then ordered the mass suicide of his 900 Kool-Aid-drinking-faith-based-community. And now in his swing to the right Obama wants to give money to people who on the one hand say “We will use it wisely” and on the other object to government scrutiny of how they spend money—based on their constitutional right of separation of church from state.

Not that Obama isn’t getting pilloried from those with whom he is trying to make friends on the right. He is. When he spoke of giving federal funds to religious groups he hedged. “First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can’t discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion.” Bill Donohue (I wrote about him in the December 8, 2006 edition of the Voice & Herald, you may recall) shouted “Fraud!” Donohue, who fronts the “Catholic League,” fulminated: “What Obama wants is to secularize the religious workplace.” He argues that Obama’s position is “a body blow to religious groups that apply for federal funds.”

And in this Donohue may be right (I hate to write that). Obama, who billed himself in this specious speech as “someone who used to teach constitutional law” ought to know better. Part of the reason for the separation of church and state is actually to protect religion from the state. If government can impose a requirement that religious institutions can not insist that people hired share their religious convictions and sensibilities than government would, in effect, be delivering the body blow of which Donohue protests. Oh what a tangled web Obama weaves when first he practices to, to what? To deceive? Maybe.

And has he changed his position on bringing the troops back from Iraq within 16 months of his taking the oath of office? I don’t know. He says “yes” and explains “no.” He challenges those such as me who hold him to our standards. I’ve been saying these things all along, he says; we weren’t listening. Ah, the fault dear reader is not in the man but in ourselves, for we were so desperate for change that we failed to pay attention. Is that what Obama is saying?

Not that John McCain has won my support. He is a Republican. George W. Bush is a Republican. Under Bush, though warned, we were attacked, we’ve fought the wrong enemy, spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives while the price of fuel has skyrocketed, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, the stock market is in free fall and the Taliban is on the rise. McCain is trying to put as much distance between himself and Bush as he can, but he’s still a Republican and while someday that emblem may not be a stigma, it is today. Just ask former Senator Lincoln Chaffee.