Wednesday, August 14, 2002

New Directions       The political debate in this country has become a badly worn fabric. For the past seventy years our national domestic political discussion has swung between just two poles. On the one side we have had the social safety net federalism of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, while on the other, growing out of furious right wing opposition to the New Deal (in all its manifestations), what might be summed up in terms of its persistent, pervasive (and self serving) sub-text: the government is the great Satan.   By the 1960’s the New Deal had run its course. John Kennedy realized this and was known to privately tweak old line New Deal politicians for being old hat. I seem to recall that no less than Arthur Schlesinger Jr. would then defend Kennedy to Liberals as having made a criticism of style rather than substance. But this was a moment in time when a criticism of style was a criticism of substance. We needed to move on to something new. We sensed it, and in Kennedy, with his youth, grace, energy and wit, we found someone looking to lead us in new directions (the New Frontier), even if neither of us knew just what those directions might be. For a short time he helped kindle within us a belief that we would discover a stance appropriate to, and fruitful in, the second half of the twentieth century. When he was killed, it all went away. Johnson, seemingly, led us back to the 1930’s and, ultimately, we arrived at Reagan and a temporary mooring around the second of our two poles. So, for the last seventy years we have been governed by two mind sets, formed in the 1930’s, and, since the 1960’s, persistently skew to our reality.   The problem for both parties has become how to disenthrall themselves from their fixations.   Let me suggest a conceptualism for modern societies. There is first what the individual brings to the table: heart, mind, will, skill, ability, dedication. Then there is the mutual aid we pledge to one another as we move through life. It begins with family, but eventually spreads out to local police and fire departments, schools, charities and, ultimately to such things as national defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Finally, there is the genuine opportunity the individual finds - given heart, will, ability, and the help we mutually pledge to one another - to make a place in the world.   Republicans trumpet the individual and opportunity, with a strong bias in favor those who have already made it, and the Democrats champion the pledge of mutual aid for those who have yet to make it. The responsible middle ground for Republicans would seem to be to focus less on protecting and promoting the haves, and more on creating new opportunity for all, while for the Democrats it would appear to lie in varying the relative emphasis on the social safety net versus a high level of genuinely graspable opportunity, depending on the state of the economy. In generally good times promoting a broad base of opportunity should take precedence, while in straighted economic circumstances, the social safety net should receive more emphasis.   What is common for both Parties here is the importance of genuine opportunity as opposed to the (“great Satan” endangered) interests of a self-absorbed Plutocracy, or the strength of a social safety net.   On the Republican side, Compassionate Conservatism seems to show  signs of at least beginning to understand the problem, even if all they come to do is finesse it as a matter of image. (It is admitting something to yourself when you acknowledge the image you need to project.) For the Democrats, Clinton began to find a way, which Gore’s explicit old hat populism seemed to undercut. Projecting themselves as the party of expanding opportunity – alert to the explosion of possibilities in this rapidly mutating world - offers Democrats a way forward, as opposed to rehearsing the dogmas of an old fixation. Those dogmas have their honored and important place – in difficult times – but they need to be balanced – in good times – with cultivation of a broad base of genuinely graspable opportunity for all.   So what things might the Democrats think about. Some of course, lie relatively close to the social safety net – affordable medical care and child care, whatever needs they directly address, also make it easier to seize opportunity.  Others, like support for education, explicitly address the ability to seize opportunity. Why should Democrats not take the lead in setting as a national goal universal continuing education? Why not set a time, in the not too distant future, when we will guarantee education through the level of a Baccalaureate degree for all who seek it, and can do the work? In so doing we would lead the world, and I cannot think of a better or more constructive direction in which to lead it. Active government support for research develops the new understandings and technologies which are the very soil out of which new enterprise and opportunity spring. All of these involve some significant level of government coordination, action, and even participation, but there are other things as well, more directly related to enterprise itself.   Democrats might take the lead in encouraging novel financial arrangements supporting new businesses. They could propose some permanent arrangement in our tax structure to favor business startups – possibly a scheme which would provide maximum incentive at the beginning, and then phase out over time, with growth in the business. Ultimately, Democrats might seek to position themselves as a champion of small business – the most dynamic and creative sector of our economy, and its largest source for new jobs. Another notion might be an initiative to subsidize large businesses, contemplating layoffs, in a program of internal entrepreneurship, wherein employees whose jobs are to be eliminated would be encouraged to look about, and move about in the organization, experimenting to find a place where, with ingenuity and application, they can justify a new permanent position. In this way valuable people, with knowledge and experience in the enterprise, would be empowered to become a source of innovation and new growth.    I am suggesting, therefore, that the Democratic party come to think relatively less about how an improved social safety net can help the disadvantaged, and more about how broadly based genuine opportunity can help us all. Republicans try to define Democrats as a party intent on cradle to grave care for all, and, although it has never been true, fixation on the social safety net approach lends the charge a measure of credence. If Democrats can shift the terms of the debate towards levels of genuinely graspable opportunity for as many as can seize it, they will go a long way towards defining a constructive role for the Party’s future.   It would bring to light the faint glimmering in our unconscious which was John Kennedy’s promise: a prospect from which “we can do better”.       7:49:37 PM    comment []

Israel and Palestine: Perspective and a Proposal       Since 1948 Israel has been fighting a WAR against the Arabs. It proceeds from the incontrovertible fact that the establishment of the state of Israel was an act of aggression against the Arab/Muslim world, and the persistence of the State of Israel is a continuing act of aggression against that world. In 1948, the right for a state of Israel to exist was granted by western imperial fiat.  Arabs living in that part of Britain’s Palestinian mandate which was designated as Israel were faced with three choices, leave, fight, or accept life in a Jewish state. Some chose to leave (still more were likely coerced), and some choose to stay, but a significant number chose to fight. They were joined in that fight by many of their Arab brethren, and supported in various ways by the whole of the Arab world – hardly surprising!. By both history and precedent, the Arab response was reasonable. In the ensuing conflict,  the West provided material support, and the Israelis, with their own blood and courage, turned the gift of de jure recognition into a de facto accomplishment. The ability of a state to define its existence by reason of military conquest is - heaven knows - time honored, but this does not obviate the simple reality, that, by standards in the main we would have the world accept, Israel’s achievement constituted an act of aggression - an act sanctioned, in effect, by the West. From this it should be apparent that the only enduring victory for Israel is to be accepted as a good and constructive neighbor in its region. However difficult the challenge, it is Israel’s only real option. Israel must wage both WAR and PEACE.   Until now it has followed the plausible path of winning the war first and the peace afterward. With both Egypt and Jordan this has seemed to be a workable strategy, although continuance of the Palestinian question severely compromises winning the peace. With Palestine, Israel’s most intractable and intimate enemy, waging war without simultaneously, and equally vigorously, waging peace may prove to be fatal. The Israeli’s certainly don’t appear to have been very successful so far. They simply cannot bludgeon their way to a fruitful outcome.   With Oslo, The Israelis arguably came close what they needed. Recall that for Israel the process begun with Oslo projected as much of a victory as it needed, while for the Palestinians it represented, effectively,  negotiating the terms of their surrender. Jordan and Egypt had accepted Israel, and now the Palestinians agreed to recognize the right of an Israeli state to exist in exchange for a guarantee of one of their own. By then, it is likely that a real majority of the Palestinian community genuinely desired peace. Their Arab neighbors had shown themselves desirous of no more than support for them in an endless, bloody and exhausting war. (The Arab performance in this has been disastrous, and especially from the Palestinian point of view). That there would be some in the Palestinian community, nonetheless, that would oppose the peace root and branch should not only have been anticipated, but expected. The trick for Israel would have been to ignore them, to play to the likely majority in the Palestinian community that saw peace with Israel as the only real hope for a future for themselves and their children. (Recall Itzhak Rabin is said to have insisted: “We will negotiate as if there is no terror, and we will fight terror as if there are no negotiations”.) Rather than waiting anxiously to see if a Palestinian partner for peace emerged (and, thereby, opening a door for the intransigents), Israel should have actively and assiduously cultivated that partner. Instead, it managed to pursue such policies as bid fair to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.   Rather than seizing the moment, and achieving a strong momentum towards the successful outcome of Oslo, the Israelis engaged the process as if they were negotiating a cease-fire in a never-ending war. Their actions can all too easily be rationalized as maneuvering so that the Oslo process concluded with a cease-fire in which Israel’s position was stronger strategically, relative to an inevitable resumption of hostilities, than it was when the Oslo process began. The Palestinians were only too likely to place that construction upon Israel’s actions, even if it wasn’t a consciously chosen policy – even if the policy was simply driven by reflexive fear and distrust.   To be charitable, it could be argued the Israelis missed the opportunity because they could not bring themselves to believe it really existed. I believe it was worth the gamble. The United States, which has supported Israel mightily, had a right (and now a need) to expect more from them. If a full, creative commitment to the ideal of two states living in peace side by side had backfired (and it might have), I believe the United States would have been ready to back Israel to whatever extent necessary to maintain Israel’s position in the world. However, much a gamble it might have been, it was worth the candle. It was movement in the only direction which offered hope for true, enduing peace. I do not believe it is too late (I will return to this in a moment), but it’s getting there.   The particulars of waging peace in the area are primarily, and ultimately, the responsibility of the parties to the conflict, but rest of the world can help. It is certainly in all our interests in a world that fights with nuclear tipped missiles and vials of contagion. But there is one aspect, one persistent sticking point we have to address. In placing a requirement for absolute secession of all hostilities (all terror) in order for any substantive attempts at progress to be made, we are asking for something which never was and never can be. (Remember, this planet has engendered not only Ossama Bin Laden, but Timothy McVeigh.) It places the lunatics in charge of the asylum. Understandable, and desirable, as a terrorless reality might be, it remains impracticable. We must distance ourselves from it, and be prepared for such pain as we cannot avoid, but will have to be endured for the sake of a true and lasting peace.   As to why it may not be too late. The world no longer prospers by sweat of our brow and the strength of our backs, but by the educated creativity of its people. It matters less what land you control or what resources you command, but far more on how strong a flow of educated creativity you obtain from your people. Consider the case of Ireland. Neither rich in land (except for its great charm), or resource, it has seized the economic opportunities opened to its well educated population by the European Common Market to gain a vibrant prosperity. The day in day out experience of how to do this is an experiance Israel can bring to the Middle East, and first of all to the Palestinians.   Perhaps the key, as implied above, would be for both Israel and the West to admit the simple truth. That the establishment of the state of Israel WAS a transgression and, in expiation, we will make a full and generous offer of REPARATIONS. Let me further suggest the keystone for this would be to guarantee a quality education for all Palestinian children, education as far as their abilities and energies can carry them. Let it be clear, however, that this would be what the world in general recognizes as an education, and not a specifically religious one. That properly would remain a separate responsibility for the Palestinians. The fundamental objective for the program of reparations would be the establishment of a stable and prospering Palestine. One initiative might take the form of providing a reserve of low interest capital for development of enterprise within Palestine. Whatever the particulars, it would be central to make it a requirement that the Palestinian people maintain democratic control over their society. Israel, at peace with its neighbors, relieves the world of a reality too much like striking matches in a dynamite factory. In peace, Israel can offer to the Arab world the reality, the intimate day in and day out experience, of a society prospering by the educated creativity of its people – the true heart of modernity – and the West as a whole can offer (if belatedly) a great and generous support for a process constructive in the region, and for the whole world.           7:47:09 PM    comment []