Liberty and License

With this Administration demolishing the regulatory state, we need to talk about the underlying claim of liberty. Conservatives once distinguished between liberty and license. Liberty was morally and socially responsible; license was not. That distinction seems to have disappeared from the conservative vocabulary. And with it the moral order in the country.

“Liberty” is now invoked whenever business confronts regulation. Citing “liberty,” business fought the exposure of Thalidomide even as it monstrously disfigured and eventually killed the child of one of my students. Citing “liberty,” some claim the right to waste energy and sell energy wasting products no matter the impact on the climate. Citing “liberty,” some claim the right to pollute with mercury, arsenic and an alphabet of poisons, to put anything into products, into or onto our bodies, earth, air and water unless and until someone else can prove it’s harmful. We don=t treat medicine that way but the claim is that it violates the “liberty” of supplement producers for us to ask for tests of whatever they don=t want to have to get FDA approval for. Some might think it also violates buyers= liberty to lead healthy lives B but perish the thought; that’s not economic “liberty.”

Because people Atook the risk@ B they called it Aliberty@ B financial institutions claimed the “liberty” to construct mortgage terms that made it virtually impossible for buyers to come out above water, destroying their savings, credit, health, homes, livelihood, families and future. In the Great Recession of 2008, those terms took the whole economy down as major companies, banks and markets failed in a cesspool of bizarre financial arrangements, subprime mortgages, mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, and similar misbegotten deals. And it was OK to bail out those who were too big to fail because they just exercised their “liberty.”

To the free marketeers, the President and CEOs, regulation is generalized and undifferentiated. All restrictions are regulation and they are all bad unless and until regulators spend decades jumping through hoops. Meanwhile producers bear no responsibility to check whether their products are harmful. They accept no liability when harms become obvious to science, but only when it becomes obvious to the very people who pour their poisons into our bodies and our world.

Put it another way. There is no single definition of liberty. There are different definitions of “liberty” for you and me, different definitions for farmers, cattle ranchers, factory workers, lumber workers, guys, gals, easterners, southerners, people who want to graze their animals on public lands without paying B everyone has their own definition of “liberty” and their definitions pay no attention to the impact on the rest of us or on anyone else. Which means that “liberty” no longer means anything.

Liberty for the founders was universal. “Liberty” now seems to be a sacred word applied to whatever is good for us personally but with no binding meaning. Otherwise why can=t I do what I want to do on public land whether or not it conflicts with public purposes or Cliven Bundy’s insistence that he has the right to graze his animals there. Why isn=t that the same “liberty” he insists on? “Liberty” is whatever a president chooses to do whether or not it is good for the country. “Liberty” is what conservatives think we all should respect when it pertains to their clients. Their “liberty” is meaningless, a signal that we=re talking about selfishness, not rights. They’re talking about what used to be called license to do whatever they want regardless of whom it hurts.

Real liberty regards us equally. We all have the same rights. It makes no sense if you can do to me what I can=t do to you. True liberty is freedom to act short of injuring others. We all count. And that, equality, is as American as apple pie.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, December 11, 2018.

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The Bush Middle East

George H.W. Bush, our 41^st president, put together a coalition to turn Saddam’s Iraq back from its invasion of Kuwait. He wanted the cover of a Muslim, Middle Eastern force joining in that invasion. He promised many of the countries involved that he would go no further than the Kuwaiti border that Saddam had crossed. In retrospect, that decision postponed the bloodbath that Iraq eventually became. But skilled as he was, President Bush couldn’t avoid the curse of unintended consequences. American use of a Saudi airfield was enough to anger bin Laden and al Qaeda. Hence the first attack on the World Trade Center took place under Clinton, between the presidencies of the two Bushes.

Bush excluded Iran from the “coalition of the willing” with which he invaded Iraq. In a book on Iranian foreign policy, subtitled Alone in the World, Thomas Juneau, Sam Razavi, and several colleagues explain that Iran lives amongst considerable dangers and hostilities. Four regional nuclear powers, India, Israel, Pakistan and Russia surround Iran. Religion, ideology, and other fears and jealousies divided Iran from its neighbors. And it has been excluded from regional security arrangements like the Gulf Cooperation Council, all of whose members are on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf. Thus, Iran has been in a precarious position which it has tried to meliorate with diplomacy, a strong military and support for the Palestinians.

In those circumstances Iran and Israel have reason to unite against the Arab states that have repeatedly gone to war against Israel and lose no love for Iran. But the wars against Iraq under the two Bush presidents had enormous impact on the Middle East. They left Iran the major local power, which spurred regional realignments. Specifically, Israel and Saudi Arabia no longer needed Iran’s support against Iraq. Instead, their fears transferred to Iran. As Trita Parsi describes in Losing an Enemy, a country’s natural enemy in balance of power politics is the biggest power in the region that could pose an existential threat. Once Iraq was disposed of, both countries wanted American support against Iran. Even though Iran had supported the Palestinians, it’s support had not been a major factor and, before the defeat of Iraq, Israel was telling the American state department to ignore the public fulminations of Ahmadinejad; despite him, Israel told the state department that Iran was fundamentally friendly! That may be a big surprise on this side of the Atlantic, but countries learn to distinguish the fundamentals from what they each have to do for diplomatic reasons.

I commented last week that Iran has been one of the most westernized countries in the Middle East. Despite the Guardian Council, public support for democratic institutions has a long history in Iran. Theirs is a mixed system, both clerical and popular. And the harsh language of some of the clerics has been a reaction to the fact that the Iranian people have been very much influenced by American culture. Despite the conflict between popular and clerical preferences, the people have no taste for another revolution. The result is that Iran has been one of the most stable countries in the Middle East.

That may not be the Middle East that the two Bushes envisioned. But Obama understood that agreements with Iran were possible in the current state of affairs. If we could cool down the fears and enmities involving Iran, Obama expected that he could turn his attention to Asia, which he viewed as the much larger problem. Unlike the small Middle Eastern countries, China is an existential threat to the U.S. on the world stage, and that’s where Obama wanted to put his, and America’s, energies.

Pity that Trump neither knew nor cared. That opportunity may be gone.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, December 4, 2018.

 

America Can Do Better Than Continuing Isolation of Iran

In “America Can Do Better Than Continuing Isolation of Iran,” The Hill, December 4, 2018:  https://thehill.com/opinion/international/419665-america-can-do-better-than-continuing-isolation-of-iran, I show that enmity between the U.S. and Iran was never inevitable and the unfortunate consequences of this country’s lengthy effort to isolate Iran.

The Importance of Learning from Others

Americans have been reluctant to accept the importance of studying other countries. We tend to divide them into good and evil and assume that’s all we need to know.

As a teenager I was interested in science and in classical music. For both, I thought it wise to learn some German. But few schools taught it in the wake of World War II. Germans were the enemy.  But two World Wars provided reason enough to study German. President Roosevelt understood how vile and dangerous Hitler was long before Pearl Harbor and took steps to prepare the American military because he could and did read Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the original German.

Americans, however, seem more concerned about being subverted by knowledge of foreign places than by the costs of ignorance. It’s as if many of us have an inferiority complex about our own culture. White racists bask in western European skin color even while screaming America first. America has enormous worldwide influence, but many Americans continue to fear comparison to worldwide knowledge.

From the Napoleonic wars through the Franco-Prussian and two world wars, old World European nations repeatedly attempted world dominance and took a hundred million people to their graves. This country created or supported numerous international institutions to keep Europe at peace, the Soviet Union at bay and level out the boom and bust cycle of international economics, but too many Americans fear those same international institutions as if they were the work of foreign hands designed to subvert us.

The costs of ignorance are serious. Too many American Administrations have treated Saudi Arabia as an ally though it is run as a savage and medieval country, and too many, except for Obama, couldn’t accept talking or negotiating with Iran despite repeated overtures to the U.S. and the fact that they are one of the most westernized, even Americanized, countries in the Middle East. We’ve made similar mistakes trying to control who governs in Central and South America, Vietnam, and other countries. America seemed incapable of appreciating the strategic sense and the long game behind Obama’s attempt to strengthen America’s position in the Far East. It may be too late to recover the ground lost to China.

It’s time to get over our terror of learning about and respecting other peoples. It’s an odd terror for a country made up of so many different peoples. It’s an odd terror for a country in which we can walk out of a bus or train station in cities like New York and enjoy the kindness of strangers who themselves come from all over the world. It’s an odd terror in a country where we talk with taxi drivers about their immigration to and joy at being here. It’s a terror that undermines the benefits of our universally admired university system.

Does one really have to be from somewhere else to appreciate the strengths of our own country? Must appreciating our own country rest on ignorance of others? Or can we trust ourselves to learn about others, to appreciate their strengths as well as faults, to build on and incorporate their accomplishments into our own as we have done in art, literature, music, theatre, dance and so many other arts and sciences, to learn from others as well as from each other as we build our own strengths? Or are we really afraid that recognizing the strengths of others will sap our own?

The internet attributes to many people, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Sam Levenson, a family friend of ours, that we must learn from the mistakes of others because we don’t have time to make them all ourselves. First, however, we need to encourage each other to explore and learn.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, November 27, 2018.

 

 

 

 

Pelosi

Republicans have been wagging their tongues and shaking their heads about Nancy Pelosi. Why? The obvious reason is that she has been so successful. She got significant legislation through, including the Affordable Care Act, which we’re all calling Obamacare – Republicans called it Obamacare when they thought it would fail and Democrats are happy to call it Obamacare now that it’s clear that it’s been very effective.

Now there are a group of Democrats shaking their heads and wagging their tongues about Pelosi. Why? Because the Republicans have managed to make so many disparaging remarks so often that it seemed like Pelosi must be bad – so bad the Democrats had to start inventing reasons to get rid of her. Boy are those Democrats smart – they can’t tell their friends from their enemies. Look guys, the Republicans are not your friends. The more they complain about Pelosi the clearer it is that she is a Democratic jewel.

This isn’t about age. It isn’t about familiarity. It’s about an excellent political mind and the will and willpower to make things work. Some Democrats were upset because she insisted that people zero in on the most effective campaign issues, particularly Obamacare, Medicare and jobs. And the House Democrats won and won big. In fact, their victory is still growing. But then there are the Democrats who complain that she wasn’t radical enough. So, I don’t get it: wasn’t she too radical or too conservative? She took the Republicans bug-a-boo and shoved it up their whatevers while rolling over the used to be Grand Old Party – they sure aren’t grand any more, thanks in part to Nancy Pelosi. Apparently, some Democrats don’t like to win, especially to win big. Embarrassing. We should be more modest and maybe just hold the House by a seat or two so the Republicans can demand nonpartisanship, like they kept demanding Obama be above partisanship while refusing to work with him no matter what. Oh God, we’ve enemies enough; save us from our friends.

Oh, did I mention that Pelosi is a woman? A powerful woman? That is a pretty obvious Republican problem – they’ve made it pretty clear by their language and their actions that their women are supposed to smile meekly and do what the guys want. It would ruin a guy’s ego to be told by a mere woman what to do. But that’s not what the Democrats are about – unless they’re hypocrites! We should be shouting with pride about Pelosi. No need to talk about her gender – everybody knows anyway. But she’s smart. She gets results. That is a credit to her; not a problem.

Oh, she’s not a young woman and the pretty smile she once had is now cross-crossed by lines. As our friend Peggy Lynn sings in a wonderful song, “I’ve earned these lines.” At her age so has Nancy Pelosi. And it’s pretty obvious that she hasn’t lost any of her so-called “marbles.” That’s what really bothers the Republicans. And that’s the same reason we shouldn’t listen to their objections, not for a minute.

— A version of this commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, November 20, 2018.

 

 

The “Caravan”

Only Trump could turn a line of destitute and terrified people walking thousands of miles in hopes of finding safety in the America that all admired until recently, into a caravan of desperados bent on breaking laws, robbing, stealing and raping Americans.

Actually that’s wrong – the last time I know of was when Gen. Douglas MacArthur ran the bonus marchers off the mall in Washington, D.C. The bonus marchers were veterans of World War I, trying to survive the Great Depression. They came to Washington to petition their government to give them their promised World War I bonuses a little early, since they were desperate and destitute. Disobeying orders, MacArthur ran them off. MacArthur disobeyed four presidents until Truman finally fired him for insisting on widening the Korean War into China.

But the Bonus marchers and the Caravan both remind me more of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath – farmers who lost their lands to the banks after drought, the dust bowl and the Great Depression made it impossible to farm or earn a living in those farming communities. They joined a sad and sorry march from Oklahoma to California. They were farmers, not thieves or rapists. But they were vilifield as beggars. Oakies, originally meaning from Oklahoma, became an epithet. To the loss of their income, the loss of their farms, often the loss of their families, they now added the loss even of human empathy. Cold and hungry, the migrants gathered in shantytowns they called Hoovervilles, named for the president in office when the Great Depression began. They lit fires in steel drums to keep warm. I wish Steinbeck had written a sequel. He described great suffering and often death. Yet some percent of them survived and eventually melded into the population of California.

I thought we had outgrown demonizing the homeless and destitute, but not Donald Trump.

I thought we had outgrown running off the homeless and destitute like vermin, but not Donald Trump.

I thought we had learned that the problems of massive unemployment are not the workers’ making, but not Donald Trump.

I thought we had learned that farmers who’d lost their lands, shopkeepers, factory workers and miners who lost their jobs, were decent people suffering from forces beyond their control, but not Donald Trump.

Come back John Steinbeck and remind us all of our humanity.

Come back Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and show us how to care for our fellow human beings and build a better world out of love and compassion.

Come back America and show a large heart to each other and to the cold and desperate trying to reach the safety of our shores.

We can do it. There is no economic reason why we can’t. We could get to work rebuilding our infrastructure and make plenty of work for everyone. This is America. Si se puede; yes, we can and be stronger for it.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, November 13, 2018.

 

 

The Violence of Bigots; the Devil’s Pox on the Skin of America

October ended painfully: an anti-semitic attack in a Pittsburgh temple killed eleven; a racist attack at a Kentucky grocery store killed elderly African-Americans. Though hundreds of miles from here, friends and colleagues had losses. Close friends were married at that Pittsburgh Temple.

We missed the Sunday interfaith memorial in Albany but joined the Monday gathering at Temple Gates of Heaven in Schenectady. Approaching it, I saw friends who’d been Peace Corps Volunteers. Our job had been to extend this country’s hand of friendship to peoples abroad. Now we shared the pain from prejudice at home.

Schenectady Clergy Against Hate organized the memorial for a standing room only crowd, to share our grief for the dead, the injured, their families, and our country. The Clergy Against Hate consists of many denominations of Christian, Jewish, Islamic and eastern faiths, all of whom mourned the losses and stood for a world of love and concern. Minister Jonathan Vanderbeck, of Trinity Reform Church, told us “We stand against hate and oppression,” adding “that really carries throughout all our religious traditions.”

Our country included people of multiple faiths, origins, and languages from its founding. America’s revolutionary armies included free and enslaved Blacks, as well as Jews who had first settled in the colonies under the Dutch.

The Founders described America as a beacon shining a path from wicked, murderous hate elsewhere to an enlightened place of brother- and sisterhood. A “hundred years war” had scourged Europe in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Thirty years of religious war devastated it in the seventeenth century. A global seven years’ war reached us as the French and Indian War. America’s Founders struggled to protect us from the killing, unifying us into one enlightened country, where we could learn to live with and benefit from each other.

Even before the First Amendment prohibited any establishment of religion or interference with each other’s freedom of religion, the Constitution made three references to religion, reading “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”[1] and providing for a secular affirmation as an alternative to each provision for an oath.[2]

The Founders welcomed and encouraged immigration in order to people the continent. Most understood freedom and human rights as universal. Prominent members of the Constitutional Convention led anti-slavery societies. Southern insistence on slavery postponed the extension of freedom to all until the Civil War, after which the opening words of the Fourteenth Amendment were “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Think about the importance to America of that commitment to universal human rights. By coming here, immigrants from all over the world not only shared the effort and ingenuity that built our country, they showed by their presence that others could see themselves in America. Feeling that bond, civilized countries repeatedly allied with us to protect their freedom and ours. America helped create the European Union in order to bury centuries of warfare among European countries, uniting historic adversaries lest they fight again, and pull us into yet another World War. America led in developing international institutions and alliances which project the power of American ideals to protect us and much of humanity.

Racists claiming to represent the real America, are instead ripping out the veins and arteries that power our country. They’re doing the devil’s work to destroy all that has been great about America.

So don’t forget to vote – we’ve got work to do.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, November 6, 2018.

[1] Par. 3 of Article VI.

[2] Art. I, §3; Art. II, §1; Art. VI, §3; and the 4^th Amendment.