December 20, 2005 by lonbud
Le Fait Accompli
For reasons known only to themselves, many of the nation’s 100 senators remained in Washington, DC yesterday evening, ostensibly going about the business of the Legislative branch, while their counterparts in the House of Representatives adjourned for the year. After the winter recess, one might reasonably question why any of them should bother returning for the 2nd session of the 109th Congress, given that President George W. Bush has effectively rendered their work meaningless.
American government as it was envisioned and proscribed at the nation’s founding — and was for the most part practiced during the ensuing 200 plus years — ended with the presidency of William J. Clinton and the 106th Congress. Mr Bush, the first president ever installed by order of the Judicial branch, ushered in a new era in the nation’s history — and has in five short years remade the entire structure and balance of power in American government.
Aided by a cabal of likeminded hegemons in both the Legislative and Judicial branches, Mr. Bush has assumed the perogatives of an all-powerful Chief Executive, whose vision and methods are subject to no oversight or regulation from within, nor to criticism from without his office. This radical transformation of the government is unprecedented in the history of nations and has come about virtually unchallenged by a compliant press and a sonambulant public.
As Steven Stills wrote during a time when Americans were more passionate about ideas such as Liberty and Justice for All,
“there’s battle lines being drawn and nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong.”
At this point, Mr. Bush has laid down the gauntlet. He has virtually dared the Congress and the People to either impeach him or get out of the way and let him handle the problem of terrorism as he sees fit.
Henceforth, remember: all calls may be monitored for quality assurance. You should be receiving your very own copy of the lyrics to “Onward Christian Soldiers” soon.
Tam O’Tellico - January 8, 2006 @ 3:51 pm
M: “why should I care if you’re struggling to get by?”
Once again, Michael, you reveal the naked truth about Conservatives in general and Bush Republicans in particular, a naked truth on full view with the tragedy of Katrina. This is your truth:
“I got mine, I don’t care about you, and I’ll fight anybody who tries to take any of mine from me with my words, my vote and my gun.”
I’m familiar with that attitude; it’s rampant around here in spite of the fact that I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt. How that is supposed to jibe with their Christian faith and this being a “Christian nation” escapes me, but I suspect you’re not really interested in a religious discussion.
So let’s look at reality and political theory instead.
M: “Further, NOTHING prevents coal miners … from moving to where the livin’ is easier.
Reality check: This is the same idiotic notion as that espoused by the people who couldn’t comprehend why the poorest citizens of New Orleans didn’t buy a plane ticket or just load up their Hummers and get the hell out of the city in advance of Katrina.
As I mentioned in my canary post, I have lots of relatives who are from coal mine country, and there are many practical reasons why they are unable to move to “where the living is easier”. But you would just cite endless, heartless statistics in the face of such arguments, so I won’t bother.
But in any case, it ought to be obvious that economics is not the primary reason these people stay. They stay for the same reason people stay in ghettos where they must put their babies in the bath tub at night because stray bullets occasionally pass through the thin walls of their apt. They stay for the same reason people stayed in the Dust Bowl in the Thirities. They stay because they know they will be ridiculed in some far-off place and discriminated against because of their accent, their color or their faith, particularly by people of your political persuasion. They stay because it’s hard to leave behind all you love and all that sustains you, they stay because it’s all they know, they stay because going requires either great desperation or great courage — and usually both. For details read Camus’ The Stranger.
I am proud and glad my father had such courage, but I can tell you it’s rare. And I can tell you, my father spent a lifetime yearning for the family and the culture he left behind. I can also tell you his children benefitted immensely from that decision, but not necessarily in the way you imagine.
The primary benefit was not economic, but social and educational. We grew up in two vastly different cultures, and we able to see that there was more than one way to view the world. We saw my father’s culture, the culture he loved so much, and that we loved in so many ways, also had its dark side, a side that was racist and hypocritical, a side that to this day can’t see the difference between the faith of Jimmy Carter and George Bush. But I guess I’m back to religion again.
So let’s look at politic theory. Some time ago I offered what I felt was a reasoned discussion on these matters and cited the work of Thomas Hobbes as offering the simplest reason why intelligent conservatives should care about the Other — every man must eventually sleep.
Hobbes point and mine is that while we must learn to compete in this jungle, we must also learn to cooperate. So if one can’t be compelled to CARE out of moral obligation, at least one ought to have the good sense to see the practical necessity.
Apparently, you missed that point in my Canary in the Coal Mine piece. else you could not so cavalierly dismiss this human tragedy. In that you exhibit the same callous disregard for the lives of others as the mine operators.
So it is that I must keep singing, hoping that one day even the deaf shall hear.
Michael Herdegen - January 9, 2006 @ 9:20 pm
Yeah, it’s all someone else’s fault…
These poor ignorant savage coalminers can’t reason like you or I, and so they stay, despite all that could be gained by moving…
Yes, they stay for emotional and sociological reasons, but at least I honor them by assuming that they’re making adult choices, based on knowledge, and by weighing the options.
You make them out to be ignorant children, in need of a fearless leader.
Perhaps you should re-examine your father’s legacy; there are lessons there that you’ve apparently yet to take to heart.
Tam O’Tellico - January 9, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
M: “at least I honor them by assuming that they’re making adult choices, based on knowledge, and by weighing the options”
Well, as we say in country, Michael, that was plum pitiful — the pot has now taken to calling the kettle black. You accuse me of making the poor out to be “ignorant children” when it is you who continually denigrates them as being not only ignorant but lazy. Your “respect” for the poor is well-known in these parts.
I was trying to make you understand that there are many reasons for poverty and for remaining in abject conditions besides ignorance and laziness. If you had ever been poor, no one would have to explain these things to you. Believe me, I’ve been poor, and I know how hard it is to escape poverty, and I know no ignorant child ever does.
I also know I escaped because I was born with every advantage short of wealth. I was raised in America in the last half of the Twentieth Century by two loving parents. I am a white male with an exceptional mind and good health. But I did nothing to earn any of those advantages, and if you were to take away any one of them, my life would be very different indeed.
You seem to be blind as well as deaf when it comes to the reality of the poor, and you seem to believe that your situation in life is mostly a matter of choice and striving. Well, I say it is mostly an accident of birth. I suspect that like most “self-made” men of my acquaintance, you are woefully loathe to accept or admit that fact. And that is why you, like so many conservatives, live life by slogans like “I fight poverty; I work.”
Good for you, and I hope that you do not succeed by stepping on those beneath you. Part of my father’s legacy was the teaching that no man is success who succeeds by taking advantage of another.
Michael Herdegen - January 10, 2006 @ 12:10 am
Once again you make some declarative assuptions without attempting to verify their veracity.
Good work, Einstein.
Tam O’Tellico - January 10, 2006 @ 7:37 am
There is no assumption made in taking you at your word. The evidence is clear from your words that you believe the poor choose to be poor, and that they’re either too ignorant or lazy or both to pursue self-evident solutions that would alleviate — nay eliminate — that condition. There is no assumption made in suggesting that your moral philosophy amounts to “Every man for himself”.
As for my assertions about you and your personal experience with poverty — if you’ve ever lived in the projects, if you or your hard-working father has every run out of unemployment benefits and been reduced to welfare, if the only food in your house has been powedered milk, yellow corn meal and cheese from the USDA, if you’ve ever had to work for two dollars a day (yes, a day) and meals, if you’ve ever had no place to sleep at night or not known where your next meal was coming from, it you’ve ever seriously considered suicide because you can’t see anyway out of your pathetic circumstances — well, then I stand corrected.
Meantime, I’ll continue to assume you are among the “self-made” men like Dick Cheney, Clarence Thomas, and George Bush who have never had to rely on getting a check from the government.