Vaclav Havel's Legacy

If there was someone who you could name most deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize and did not--it was former Czech premier Vaclav Havel. The tributes have been pouring in. Here was a man who stood up to the Soviet invaders and articulated why in clear terms why those who lived under totalitarian rule must find ways to resist. From his famous essay The Power of the Powerless,he pinpointed why everyone needs to resist what "above all, any existential revolution should provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the "human order," which no political order can replace. A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of higher responsibility, a new found inner relationship to other people and to the human community-these factors clearly indicate the direction in which we must go." These are words that can be applied to our times as well. The people who have driven our economy into the proverbial ditch and the government that stood by and allowed it to happen have contributed to the same kind of implosion of values that the totalitarian regimes were responsible for. Havel's remedy is the right one, " In other words, the issue is the rehabilitation of values like trust, openness, responsibility, solidarity, love...For the real question is whether the brighter future is really always so distant. What if, on the contrary, it has been here for a long time already, and only our own blindness and weakness has prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it?"

New Realities Demand New Politics

As the planet hits the 7 billion mark and we, at least in the declining west, try to dig ourselves out of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s  it is time to map a different view of the 21st century. We know that the economic shocks we have just experienced are just a foretaste of more rough weather to come. You don’t have to be a dyed in the wool pessimist to recognize that one more shift in the interest rates which are already at historic lows will mean ballooning deficits and years more of austerity.  

There are no panglossian scenarios out there that serious economists believe will help dig us out of the hole we have created. As we look for great political leaders to inspire the national will to help lead us out of the morass it seems that not even the rhetorical skills of President Obama are equal to the job in a nation that seems more profoundly divided than ever before in its history.

What is the answer? We need a new politics--one that can rise to the challenge of the times. The good news is that this new politics is slowly emerging through the Occupy Movement. It has begun well--as a non violent protest about the unfairness of 1% of the population grabbing all the spoils at the expense of the 99% but where does it go is the question? We all have a duty to help figure this out and begin a national dialogue. They have started to suggest we need new ideas--there is now an open invitation to help develop the new ideas we need. We should be encouraged that ideas can come from anywhere and they can go viral in a matter of minutes. Oxfam for example, is leading a "massive movement of
of nonprofit organizations, green groups, trade unions, celebrities, religious leaders and politicians, all campaigning to push the financial sector to pay up and generate much-needed public funds. In Europe, this movement has gained political momentum, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both calling for this tax. But thus far, the Obama administration has blocked any progress. President Obama’s administration says it’s not ready to support a financial transaction tax in the US. But that doesn’t mean that it has to stand in the way of progress across Europe."
The Robin Hood Tax will come up for discussion next week in Cannes, France when leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies gather at the G20 Summit.

• Ask President Obama to support European countries working to bring about this tiny tax. A small change for the banks could make a huge difference for the world.
• Join with Oxfam, National Nurses United, the AFL-CIO, and other unions and organizations in an international day of action happening on November 3 in Washington, DC."

These are the kinds of activities that are now shaping the new politics. Our current system is

designed for short term compromise (national elections every two and four years) we are going to be floundering for a good deal longer, but it is time to ask ourselves whether the issues we face are more due to institutional failure than the usual culprit the media, money or hyperpartisanship, or a combination of all three. The simple matter is that institutions that served a purpose in the 20th century have to be rethought and in many cases redesigned for a new era. We are making some painful progress on some--the media most notably but not on others--most obviously our 19th century  educational system and not very functional participatory democracy.

So the news is that we are all alike! It is easy to mock the young--so earnest, so keen to make a difference, so terribly naive but I like photographer Adrian Fisk recent project to understand in more depth the lives of young Indian and Chinese people. Adrian "traveled 2,700 kilometers across China and India to discover that most young people are, in essence, exactly the same. Adrian  who is 41 and lives in London, "wanted to find out what these young people thought," "If I found out what was in these people's minds, I figured I would get an idea of where our world is headed at this pivotal time."
Fisk wanted his project to be a voice for these young people that the rest of the world knew little about.

Click here to see the photos >

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/united-nations-supports-ispeak-china-india-adrian-fisk-2011-10##ixzz1bG35knrA

Visiting Occupy DC

It was a kind of dreary overcast morning when quite by accident I found the Occupy DC camp--just a stone's throw (or molotov cocktail) from the Ronald Reagan building and about a half mile from the Capitol. It seemed like a sleepy place. A few people were moving around getting things to eat and drink and trying to look like this was all very normal-- but the vast majority were asleep it seemed inside their bright cocoons--waiting butterfly like to arise into a new dawn. Dare I say that the tents seemed to be very internally occupied--one tent was moving visibly over to another one which prompted a tourist to wisecrack so this is how they multiply themselves-- her companion rejoined, "a puppy tent." It seemed like this was a serious group of folk, with peace as their mantra. Everything seemed well thought out--a media tent, a food and drink tent and it would seem a strong personal improvement and education arm to the proceedings as well --if a set of assignments still posted alongside one of the tents seems anything to judge by:

You have to like the White House Phone number posted at the bottom right corner of the message board--like in case of an emergency-- phone home. There were at most only about 50 tents but everything clean and orderly with no sense that they will be leaving anytime soon. Stay posted.

Occupy Wall Street Speaks With One Voice.

I recently came across the petition seems to be the first articulation of the mass anger that is driving the Occupy Wall Street Movement and is  likely to be ignored by the media. It is worth reading in full as  powerful statement that seeks to identify the corporate greed as the main enemy now "run" our government.   "They" is used multiple times indicating that the forces maybe faceless but they act in concert as some kind of anti-human force. It is a disturbing wake up call for our politicians to heed and should promote the dialogue that will probably be again missing from the mainstream media.  The latest reports as suggest the movement is spreading and becoming more self confident. It is self consciously a global movement as stated in the preamble;




"As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

In today's New York Times Joe Nocera notes that this economy is likely to stay the same for a while or get worse. It will not improve anytime soon as the well respected writers of the report Nocera refers to suggests. Sooner or later we will need the real debate we have been delaying for the last five years or longer about what kind of future we want--one full of empty promises, war and false bubbles or one about how we got to this place and the lessons learned to move us into the future.

Hopefully the Occupy Wall Street groups will play a major role in helping the media as well as our politicians to frame the right issues and involve less of the talking head pundits and more of the voices that are now out on the streets.

Great Confessions Series: US Leaders Woefully Ignorant of the World

The latest comment by General McChrystal should come as no surprise to most of us that as the Guardian reports the US had a

 'frighteningly simplistic' view of Afghanistan,

General who led Obama's 'surge' strategy says even now the military does not have the local knowledge to end the conflict--

"The US and Nato are only "50% of the way" towards achieving their goals in Afghanistan, he told the Council on Foreign Relations..."We didn't know enough and we still don't know enough. Most of us, me included, had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years." McChrystal led the Obama administration's "surge" strategy that started in 2009 and sent US troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 100,000. Widely acknowledged as a gifted military commander, he was forced to resign last year amid controversy over remarks he made to Rolling Stone magazine." No comment--thousands of lost lives later he tells us and guess who is not listening..the US media but out in the streets as the Washington Post reports--the growing protest movement that started in Wall Street is gathering momentum One wonders whether this is all made up by the Onion newspaper or is it for real? How can we have been so casual and so ignorant? How can our leaders continue to be so? The protest against ignorance gathers apace.  

Do we Really Need a Third Party To Turn this Ship Around? RFK's Example

I have been reading The Last Campaign: Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America by Thurston Clarke and it has proved a good antidote to the despair in US politics that has revisited us since the tea party got going and Obama seemed to lose his voice and his willingness to fight. With the Arab Spring in danger of winding down and losing its nerve, and the double dip recession long feared poised to overtake Europe and the US, these are trying times for progressives. This is particularly the case for those who feel that part of the despair comes from losing faith with the current occupant in the White House.

Clarke's book reminds you that what we lost in 1968 when RFK was assassinated, was not just the death of a charismatic politician but the end of the a good deal of faith that the system is fixable. Here was a politician prepared to take political risks. RFK presented in his last campaign a stark contrast to our present era of poll driven politicians. That is why Obama's credentials were so appealing to many of us who wanted to actually believe in the slogan hope and change--here was a politician at last who was not beholden to the corporate interests who had the capability to lead rather than follow public opinion. Accordingly, you have to be sympathetic to those calling for a third party--Matt Miller, Tom Friedman and an assorted number of left leaning moderate and highly intelligent pundits have joined the cause. The democrats seem no longer able to express the views of either the middle class or the working class. Instead they seem like their Republican colleagues way too anxious to appease the monied interests. Matt Miller for instance calls out Obama for his latest feeble gestures in the light of a deeper recession than anyone predicted:

"Our president calls himself “a warrior for the middle class” because he’s campaigning for a plan that might add 2 million new jobs next year at a time when 25 million Americans who want full-time work can’t find it."

He is right. What Miller does not acknowledge is that just that pathetic effort will face a very uphill battle in Congress by Republicans intent on giving Obama zero legislative victories before the 2012 elections. Why Miller asks do we now have a politics where mutually assured destruction seems to be the aim with the casualities are us? Career politicians eager to spring board from a career in politics to somewhere else in the culture where non corporate viewpoints don't belong? Possibly. Miller offers "three reasons"

"First, both parties’ chief aim is to win elections, not solve problems. Second, both parties are prisoner to interest groups and ideological litmus tests that prevent them from blending the best of liberal and conservative thinking. Finally, neither party trusts us enough to lay out the facts and explain the steps we need to take to truly fix things."

All these are correct but the third one to me is the most salient. No one wants to tell the truth. Truth is such an over valued concept I can hear one of the pollsters saying those who are routinely trusted nowadays with "the messaging." Truth is dangerous--besides the politicians will argue--no one believes us anyway or trusts us to tell them-- so why even bother. Instead both parties spend millions of donated dollars on PR campaigns of the poll tested kind, to massage or in some cases hide the truth. If the message is too difficult, (usually difficulty means could not be translated into an easy to read bumper sticker) it gets dropped. This is hardly news to political observers with any degree of common sense but we have reached a stage in this country where the problems can no longer be so cleverly massaged by the media spin doctors or swept under the cliched carpet. They are serious and real and they have got that way precisely because the inability to even have a discussion about them. They are not that difficult--one percent of the population has become super rich at the expense of around 90 percent of Americans. The role politicians interested in truth telling have to play is to let people know that this is the economy that third world countries have--an elite untouchable upper class with an insignificant middle and the rest of us who beg for bread crumbs from the rich. Such societies are fundamentally unstable, prone to violence and even revolution and seriously tragic places. A third party--is unlikely to change this because the underestimate the staying power of interests that are interested in creating a banana republic have played the game too long to give up to defectors from the white liberal elites who think they are especially gifted communicators. This is not about honing a message--it is about who has raw power and who can use it. It is also about having a leaders who can lead. One of the great disappointments with regard to Obama is that he had the power from those of us who gave him money so we would precisely avoid the spot he seems to have placed himself in the sense that he "owes something" to special(monied) interests.  Instead of being busy forming third parties which takes a ridiculous amount of effort and time and has made more mischief for democratic progressives (think Nader) than it has helped. You need another hint--if Nader had not been on the ballot Gore would have been rightfully elected without a question and we would have avoided Iraq and the fiscal meltdown.  Our focus should be on asking Obama to live up to his promises of not playing politics as usual, not playing a different role in government than when he was outside its walls. For the model he should turn to RFK 's last campaign. Constantly people questioned RFK's  sincerity but Clarke's book shows that the passion for change was genuine and the evidence that he meant what he said was real. If you watch any of the footage from the campaign --including the above-- you can see there is a deep recognition that the world of 1968 needed to change from feeding a military industrial complex to one that served the poor and the marginalized. Reading Clarke's book you have a pretty good sense of the man's real desire for the country to change course and his willingness to take huge personal risks to make that happen. It was RFK's willingness to take risks that made the difference in 1968--his willingness to say things others seemed incapable of saying and his ability to empathize and analyze.

If RFK's memory means anything it should shame the mainstream media to stop playing into the sound bite culture that allows politicians to wiggle off the hook as they spout a phrase or two and do not receive follow up questions. More than anything RFK should re-inspire the play it safe democrats to stand up and lead rather than follow and that includes the pundits calling for a third party.