The following commentaries appear below:
1. Why The Napa Valley Register Should Have Endorsed Senator Obama
2. Rumsfeld Should Leave
3. Why We Should Elect John Kerry President
4. Ronald Reagan, Leadership and the American Presidency
5. An Attack on Civil Liberty
6. A Call for Political Centralism
7. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way
8. ...And Justice for All
9. Ralph v Piggy
5. An Attack on Civil Liberty
6. A Call for Political Centralism
7. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way
8. ...And Justice for All
9. Ralph v Piggy
“No one pretends
that democracy is perfect…indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst
form of government – except for all the other forms that have been tried from
time to time.” Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament, November 11, 1947
Why The Napa Valley Register Should Have Endorsed Senator Obama
by Skip Keyser
(originally published in The Napa Valley Register)
As a businessman, life-long registered Republican, and
retired military officer, I might be expected to agree with the Register’s endorsement
of Senator John McCain for President.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In what I can only assume to be an endorsement driven
by big-business self-interest and an overriding concern for the status quo, not
to mention a defacto and uncritical endorsement of the last eight years of what
is widely recognized as one of – if not the most – corrupt, ineffectual and
misanthropic administrations ever to occupy the White House, the Register has failed
to make a cogent fact-based case for McCain’s election to the Presidency.
Indeed, a thorough reading of the Register’s
endorsement reveals little more than a myriad of un-specific hand-waving, more
appropriate to - and symptomatic of - the pseudo-anonymous blogosphere than of print
journalism. And this assessment
casts the Register’s endorsement in the most charitable terms, choosing to
disregard other less altruistic motives such as those the Republican
vice-presidential candidate and her handlers – in a wholly characteristic
fact-deprived approach – has attempted to insert into the campaign.
The Register’s editorial board ought to revisit their
decision in light of the following substantive issues facing the next President
and the Nation, many of which have been ignored – or exacerbated by – the
current administration’s foolhardy endorsement of unthinking economic
deregulation, unjustified foreign intervention, unilateral diplomatic
isolationism, unconscionable torture of prisoners and other human rights
abuses, unthinking disregard of scientific progress, unpardonable campaign of
disinformation and a general abandonment of any vestige of moral
integrity.
Were McCain (his ever-changing stance, based on the
latest poll results on the issues facing the nation, notwithstanding) not
proposing to continue this bankrupt policy during his administration, there
might be better reason for the Register’s endorsement.
Consider, for example – as the Register should have -
McCain’s most recent stance on the following issues:
Foreign Intervention and National Security: A
wholesale endorsement of the invasion of Iraq, based on lies and manipulated
intelligence resulting in a longer conflict for the US than WWII, at the cost
of over 34,000 military casualties (including over 4000 dead) waste of over
$600 billion of the Nation’s economic resources, and general distraction from dealing
with the widely acknowledged Al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, a policy that McCain, pandering to the ever-shifting political
winds, has only recently ameliorated.
Economic Strength: A continuation of the policy of
“trusting people instead of government” which is a thinly veiled euphemism for
more-of-the-same deregulation and the widely discredited trickle-down economics
of the past. In this regard,
continuing the unconscionable tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% in the US will not
address the issues of increasing wage disparity, an eroding middle-class and
economic piracy of big-business robber-baron CEO’s, not to mention the approaching
$500 billion/year federal budget deficit, compared to the $700 billion budget surplus
the Bush administration inherited.
Energy Independence: Despite a considerable basis of
information that indicates the “drill, baby, drill” policy will have little if
any impact, near-term or otherwise, on energy independence, McCain continues to
espouse this jingoistic energy policy as if popular chants could address such
an important issue.
Education Improvement: Similar to McCain’s uncritical
endorsement of deregulation and trickle-down economics, his intended policy to
“leave the responsibility for [education] decisions in the hands of families”
is an undisguised abandonment of the public school system, long acknowledged to
be the bed-rock of a stable society, competitive workforce and informed nation.
Healthcare Reform: As the US population continues to
suffer from an inability to obtain reasonable medical insurance (currently
resulting in 45 million uninsured individuals) and a doubling of health-care expenses
in the past 5 years alone to over $2 trillion per year and continuing to rise
at greater than the rate of inflation, the Registers comment that McCain
proposes a “more realistic, less burdensome…more fiscally responsible” solution
to the health-care crisis can only be interpreted – in the face of the above
statistics – as a wholesale endorsement of both the status quo and the
increasingly fragile medical well-being of the US population.
Social Security Revitalization and Retirement
Security: McCain proposes to somehow solve this issue by – and here we should
be clear on the facts, not on what we wish – continuing to endorse the policy
of privatization with personal retirement accounts, the consequence of which –
in light of recent events adversely impacting IRAs, 401k’s and other individual
retirement accounts – can only be imagined. Indeed, in this area McCain not only proposes “no tax
increase of any kind” but in fact proposes lowering taxes on investment and
business income (another endorsement of trickle-down economics) yet – without
bothering to provide any specifics - promises to “not hand off a broken Social
Security system” to future generations.
By comparison, here are Senator Obama’s long-standing
proposals for:
Foreign Intervention and National Security: A
reasoned approach involving dialogue, diplomatic negotiation and economic
sanctions that reserves – but does not abrogate – the use of military force.
Economic Strength: Market reforms and creation of a
National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to help reverse the decay of roads,
bridges and mass-transit systems and the creation of millions of jobs, and a
major investment in green-energy resources.
Energy Independence: Tax credits for buying more fuel
efficient vehicles, reduction in electrical consumption, cap-and-trade program
to reduce US carbon emissions, incentives to retool the US auto industry to
make it more competitive, increased emphasis on research and development and a
doubling of the use of renewable sources of energy.
Education Improvement: Increased emphasis on Head
Start and Early Head Start programs, recruitment of a new generation of
teachers and improved pay for teachers, repair of the No Child Left Behind
program, full funding of English Language Learners and Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, and creation of an American Opportunity Tax Credit
for college education.
Healthcare Reform: Besides Medicare and Medicaid reform
(negotiated prescription drug prices, imported prescription drugs and investing
in improved health care information technology) Obama proposes mandated health
care coverage for all children, a new national public health plan and National
Health Insurance exchange with the $50- to $60 billion/year cost to be financed
by cancelling the 2001 tax cuts for those earning over $200,000/year.
Social Security Revitalization and Retirement
Security: Imposition of payroll tax on incomes over $250,000/year while eliminating
taxes on those over 65 earning less than $50,000/year.
All this notwithstanding, however, perhaps the
Register’s most egregious and disingenuous reason for endorsing Senator McCain
instead of Senator Obama, is contained in the comment that we “cannot afford to
project hope on one so unproven.”
Without belaboring the success of such “unproven” Presidents as Lincoln,
Truman and Kennedy, one only needs to look at the vice-presidential choice for
McCain to get a glimpse of what gibberish the Register’s concern with an unproven
potential Presidents is.
Certainly, we ought to expect better from the
editorial board of the Napa Valley’s major newspaper.
Hopefully, come this November 4th, we can
expect better from the voters of Napa Valley.
And the voters of the Nation.
Keyser writes from Napa.
Rumsfeld
Should Leave
by
Skip Keyser
(originally published in The Napa Valley Register, January 27, 2005)
You can manage inventory; you
have to lead people.
The ancient Greeks employed two
artifices in their dramas. On the
one hand, hubris (false pride, arrogance and exaggerated
self-confidence) was frequently introduced as an heroic character fault, often
resulting in retribution.
On the other hand, deus ex machina (literally “god from a
machine”) was frequently employed to provide a contrived solution to an
apparently insoluble difficulty.
Unfortunately, the current
Secretary of Defense appears to embody the former and - regrettably - does not
appear to benefit from the latter.
Or to put it more bluntly, it is
time for Donald Rumsfeld to step aside and give someone else a chance to head,
and to restore confidence in, the civilian leadership of the Department of
Defense.
This is not to say the current
Secretary of Defense is not a good person. By all accounts he is an intelligent, hard working and
dedicated individual. But he is
part and parcel of an administration and a policy which has embarked on a
foolhardy, ill conceived (if not disingenuously misrepresented), poorly planned
and increasingly deadly mission in Iraq.
And his micro-mismanagement of
the tactical employment of - and failure to ensure adequate logistical support
for - the troops on the ground is a failure of leadership of the first
magnitude.
Additionally, the Secretary of
Defense, who is reputed to enjoy a reputation for arrogance seldom paralleled
in an administration known for its arrogance, appears to have gone out of his
way, as evidenced by General Eric K. Shinseki’s forced departure as Chief of
Staff of the U.S. Army, to stifle any dissent within the Department of
Defense. This, as has been repeatedly
demonstrated, is a leather-bound, cast iron, brass plated recipe for
disaster.
And in the Department of
Defense, disasters are paid for with the lives of the military men and women in
the front lines. Or, in the case
of our invasion and occupation of Iraq - there apparently not being any front
lines - by the lives of the military men and women in-country, who are poorly
protected, inadequately defended, and penuriously supplied.
In this regard, one suspects
that, during the Secretary’s infrequent visits to Iraq to bolster the morale of
our beleaguered troops, he is not provided unarmored, or partially armored, or
armored with scrap metal, transport.
But the troops are.
And the Secretary’s answer to
one question about logistic support, taken somewhat out of context and
consequently blown out of proportion by the press, namely that you go to war
with the army you have and not the army you want, is in fact true. But the press missed the point – and
the Secretary begs the question – in this regard.
The real question is why did we
end up with a military force so ill equipped to survive the Iraq situation and
why haven’t we taken appropriate steps to remedy this situation?
Which comes full circle to the
question that permeates any discussion of Iraq – was it really necessary for
the U.S. to unilaterally invade Iraq?
Increasingly, the answer appears to be ‘no,” that we misallocated scarce
national economic and military resources to invade and occupy a country we
didn’t have to and - perhaps intentionally, certainly haphazardly - misled the
public to justify our invasion.
Furthermore, in a startlingly
misconstrued application of the “just-in-time” inventory control that is de
rigueur in corporate America, we have failed to employ adequate force
(“boots on the ground” in the vernacular) to carry the day. This penny-wise pound-foolish approach,
reminiscent of McNamara’s policy in Viet Nam (for which the former Secretary of
Defense is now truly repentant) is fatally flawed in military matters, and
lethal in combat. And Iraq – if
the Secretary hasn’t figured it out - is a combat situation.
Nor is the solution – apropos of
the British tactic in Palestine on May 14, 1948 (characterized by a “when the
going gets tough, the tough go home” approach) – to disengage. We’re there, we’ve dismantled the
governmental and civilian infrastructure in Iraq and – as Secretary of State
Colin Powell so aptly pointed out - having done so we are now burdened with the
Pottery Barn syndrome: we broke it, now we own it.
No less a person than the chair
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a member of the Republican Party and
one who is knowledgeable about and personally acquainted with military combat,
has publicly stated that he does not have confidence in the current Secretary
of Defense. In this, Senator McCain
appears to have hit the nail on the head in his assessment of the problem.
The mission in Iraq has not been
accomplished and it’s time for a regime change at the Department of Defense.
Keyser is a retired military
officer
Ronald Reagan, Leadership and the American Presidency
by Skip Keyser
(originally published in The Napa Valley Register, June 26, 2004)
Compromise makes a good
umbrella, but a poor roof. James Russell Lowell
June
11, 2004. The former governor of
California and the 40th President of the United States was laid to
rest today amid much reflection about his life, his Presidency and his
leadership.
For
me, the enduring legend of Ronald W. Reagan can be summed up in the simple
statement that he brought about the demise of the Soviet Union.
In
today’s environment and surrounded by today’s politics, many may not recall
with any great detail this achievement, or may gainsay it by – correctly –
pointing to the burgeoning deficits resulting from Reagan’s presidency or by
taking issue with his stand on civil right and social welfare programs.
But
all this is naught when compared to bringing the Soviet Union to its
knees.
Let
me offer one example.
Notwithstanding
the contributions of the Strategic Air Command and other components of the U.S.
armed forces to the defensive posture of the United States during the 1950’s
and 1960’s, by the late 1970’s it was an axiom of truth that our cold war
defensive capabilities lay in the U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile fleet,
numbering approximately 50 FBM (Fleet Ballistic Missile) submarines.
Equally
obvious was that our primary offensive capability, particularly in deterring
the Soviet navy’s submarine force, lay with the nuclear powered fast attack
fleet, which at that point numbered some 63 submarines, and whose primary
mission was anti-submarine warfare.
The
primary advantage enjoyed by both types of submarines lay in our superior
technological development, particularly in reducing radiated noise. We enjoyed, at that time and depending
on the noise frequency in question, an undisputed advantage over Soviet
submarines measured in powers of 10.
And in the arena of submarine warfare, silence is - indeed -
golden. He who shoots first
generally wins and if you can’t hear the other guy before he hears you, it’s
hard to know when to shoot, or how to shoot accurately.
So
whereas the Soviets enjoyed, by virtue of a command economy and a somewhat
paranoid view of the world, a 3:1 advantage in submarines, they lacked the
technological sophistication to enable them to compete on equal footing with
our submarines.
And
then, overnight, they got quiet.
Not a gradual reduction in radiated noise. Not a reduction in noise associated with a new class of
submarines. Just an overnight
multiple decibel drop in radiated noise from existing Soviet Victor-class
submarines.
Eventually,
the source of this technological breakthrough was ascertained. It wasn’t from engineering advances
pioneered by Soviet technicians.
It wasn’t from a change in operational methods of Soviet submarine
crews. It came instead from the
perfidious sale to the Soviets by multi-national corporations based in Sweden
and Japan of the numerically-controlled milling machines and software which the
US had developed – at great expense to ourselves – that allowed our submarines
to operate so quietly. Technology
which we had shared with our allies in the mistaken belief that some degree of
enlightened self interest might overcome the lure of a quick sale to the
highest bidder of technology so crucial to the defensive posture of the western
world.
All
this drove home one salient and overriding point, namely that blunting the
thrust of the Soviet military, and by extension the threat of the Soviet Union,
was not going to be easy and, in light of some of our friends, was going to be
downright difficult, if not impossible.
Enter
Ronald W. Reagan. To his
everlasting credit he initiated what amounted to a full-court press in an
attempt to basically bankrupt the Soviet Union. Whether by threatened deployment of a largely undeveloped
and untested space-based missile defense system, development of a 600-ship
Navy, and/or deployment of 13 battle-groups around the world, we took the
economic powerhouse that was, and largely still is, the United States to the
doorstep of the Soviet Union’s economy.
It
wasn’t cheap and it may not have been pretty, but it worked. The Soviet Union unraveled and –
destabilization of the balance of power around the globe notwithstanding - we
no longer have the threat of what Reagan, correctly in my opinion, characterized
as the evil empire.
As
a consequence, the U.S. has emerged as the preeminent world economic and
political power. Whether we can
intelligently take advantage of our new position in dealing with other nations,
whether we can adequately safeguard our economy and the domestic infrastructure
and educational system that placed us in this position has yet to be
determined.
But
we have the opportunity largely due to the political leadership of one person –
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of these United States.
Keyser
is a retired submarine officer
Why We Should
Elect John Kerry President
by Skip Keyser
On Sunday last the Napa Valley Register editorial board, in
a stunning example of the 50-50-90 rule, endorsed President Bush for
re-election.
For those who aren’t familiar with the 50-50-90 rule, it
goes something like this: “In any selection involving two choices you have a
50-50 chance of getting it right - and a 90% probability that you’ll get it
wrong.”
And did the Register editorial board ever get it wrong.
In fact, the Register’s endorsement of the Bush-Cheney
ticket over Kerry-Edwards can best be described in one word – egregious. I’ll save you the trouble of looking up
this favorite word of attorneys: Webster’s defines egregious as flagrantly or
conspicuously bad. In this case,
not only was it flagrant, but fragrant.
The Register’s endorsement of President Bush can be
condensed into a couple of short sentences (the kind Bush favors):
1. We needed
a strong president after 9/11. 2. President Bush stood on
the still-smoking ruins of the World Trade Center. 3. President
Bush spoke. 4. President Bush invaded Afghanistan and
Iraq. 5. We haven’t had a terrorist attack since. 6. Therefore President Bush is a strong president. 7. President Bush ought to be re-elected.
In debate this is a well known fallacious argument called “post
hoc, ergo propter hoc,” literally “after this, therefore on account of
it.” A quick example should
suffice to demonstrate this fallacy: “I got promoted after I arrived late at
work today, therefore I got promoted because I arrived late.”
Or, according to the Register’s editorial board: “We haven’t
had a terrorist attack since invading Afghanistan and Iraq, therefore invading
Afghanistan and Iraq prevents terrorist attacks.”
The absurd conclusion of this argument is that to prevent
further terrorist attacks, all we need do is continue invading countries. At two or three per year, this should
keep us safe for another 60 or so years - even longer if we invade Canada and
Mexico. Horsefeathers!
Now I could spend the remaining 500 or so words of this
commentary describing why President Bush should be returned – permanently - to
Crawford, Texas. But un-electing
Bush isn’t the point (well, not the entire point, anyway). What is the point is why you should
vote for Kerry and Edwards.
Consider what a Kerry administration is likely to accomplish:
- Immediately implement, by Executive Order, the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
- Remove unilateralism from our foreign policy
- Increase troop strength to stabilize the Iraqi situation while simultaneously re-establishing the goodwill of the European Union.
- Establish a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem as part of a cohesive Middle East program.
- Remove ideology from the governmental decision making proces
- Curb unnecessary secrecy in Government, particularly the Justice Department.
- Eliminate unjustified and overly restrictive provisions of The Patriot Act that result in denial of Constitutional rights.
- Stop the move of the current administration to reverse Roe vs Wade.
- Establish a rational economic program to reduce federal debt and halt ransacking of the Treasury
- Roll back the tax reduction for the top 1-2% of the wealthy
- Plug loop holes in the corporate welfare program by requiring disgorgement of profits made by sending US jobs overseas and establishing tax incentives for those companies that do not export jobs and/or return these jobs to the USA
- Amend the Medicare program so that the focus is on service to Medicare recipients and not concern with pharmaceutical companies’ bottom line.
- End a hypocritical approach to health care whereby we outsource flu vaccine production to the United Kingdom but restrict purchase of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
- Reestablish equitable funding to Planned Parenthood, and allow US service women on military bases to again have family planning information and the right to choose.
- Make enlightened appointments to the US Supreme Court
and to federal judicial and appellate courts.
Now much
has been made of Kerry’s record of votes and co-sponsoring legislation. Some critics characterize Kerry’s
record as flip-flopping. But only
an idiot would maintain an untenable position in the face of incontrovertible
evidence to the contrary. If
stubbornness and refusal to listen to reason are the hallmarks of a good
president we have a lot of two-year olds who are presidential material. That’s not what we need.
And we
don’t need – to steal a line from Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose – more Bushwhacking. Lord knows, we’ve been Bushwhacked
enough.
What we
do need is more intelligence in the presidency and a less intolerant,
knee-jerk, “my way or the highway” approach to foreign and domestic policy.
What we
need is to elect John Kerry President of the United States and resume being the
leader of nations.
And the
editorial board of the Register needs to reexamine its endorsement of President
Bush for a second term.
Keyser
writes from Napa
An Attack On Civil Liberty
By Skip Keyser
(Originally published by The Napa Valley Register, January 30, 2003)
If I wished to put a curse on a nation, I
would invoke the gods to decree that it be governed by those who consider
themselves to be the only true patriots.
Sidney J. Harris
In this post 9/11 era, with the enactment of the
USA Patriot Act and creation of the Homeland Security Department, we are
witness to an assault on civil liberty unparalleled since the Federalist party
forced adoption of the Alien and Sedition Acts just twenty-two years after our
country was founded.
Indeed the provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which
reduces the need for subpoenas, expands the ability of law enforcement and
intelligence agencies to conduct searches, detain and deport suspects,
eavesdrop on private citizen’s communications, monitor their financial
transactions, and obtain individuals’ electronic records, are eerily
reminiscent of the Naturalization, Alien, Alien Enemies, and Sedition Acts of
1798. And they strike at the heart
of two key provisions of the Bill of Rights:
Amendment I “Congress shall make no
law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people…to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Amendment IV “The right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but
upon probable cause…”
In this context the words of no less a person than
Thomas Jefferson are as applicable today as they were in 1798 when he remarked
that broad and loose constructions of the Constitution used to impose domestic
tyranny “sours the mind and spirit of our country and laws.”
Now, some 200 years later, we are encumbered by an
Attorney General whose arrogance in broadly applying the provisions of the USA
Patriot Act seems guided more by President Bush’s assertion that any
questioning of the government gives aid and comfort to the enemy than by
various provisions of the Constitution which both the President and the
Attorney General are sworn to uphold.
Added to this is the administration’s decision to
selectively detain suspected terrorists outside the United States, to deny them
access to counsel, to refuse to arraign them, and to authorize trying them by
military tribunal, whether or not they hold U.S. citizenship.
Such military tribunals, and the procedural rules
adopted for their conduct providing for the use of hearsay and secondhand
evidence, suspending review of death sentences, eliminating any right of the
defendants to confront their accusers, staying writs of habeas corpus, denying
speedy trials, and allowing such trials to be held in secret, stand in stark
contrast to other provisions of the Bill of Rights:
Amendment V “No person shall be held to answer
for a[n]…infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand
jury…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of
law…”
Amendment VI “In all criminal prosecutions, the
accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial…and to be informed
of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses
against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,
and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
Amendment VIII “Excessive bail shall not be
required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted.”
And while it has been argued that the Constitution
in general, and the Bill of Rights in particular, do not apply to all
individuals detained by the government, they ought to. For to the extent we allow our
government to deny these basic rights to others, we not only jeopardize our
moral position in the world but subtly undermine these rights at home.
Fortunately, the Constitution also provided for
three counterbalancing branches of government. While we have heard from the legislative branch, which
passed the USA Patriots Act, and from the executive branch, which is
implementing its provisions, we have yet to hear from the judicial branch.
However, we inevitably will. As various cases wend their way through
the courts and up through the appellate process, we can only wait and observe
the chilling effects of the government’s attack on civil liberty with apprehension
leavened by the knowledge that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s
Marbury v Madison decision of 1803 established judicial review of laws
passed by Congress.
In the interim, as the United States adjusts to its
ever increasing role as the dominant economic and military power in the world,
we should take the moral high ground.
We should neither shy away from promoting freedom and democracy abroad,
nor cave into unreasonable, unconstitutional and unconscionable violations of
our civil liberty at home.
Keyser is a retired naval officer
A Call for Political Centralism
by
Skip Keyser
(Originally published by The Napa Valley Register, June 15, 2005)
What if I were a scallywag and a politician? But I repeat myself. Mark Twain
There is increased social and
economic polarization in the United States.
Nowhere is this division more
tangible than on the political scene.
For a group of individuals tasked with running our government with some
semblance of intelligent and even-handed discourse, it is embarrassing to
witness the level of invective, dissembling and character assassination that
permeates political debate - local, regional, state and national.
Yet this should come as no
surprise. As David Brooks (senior
editor at The Weekly Standard) points out, politicians who admit to a
mistake or acknowledge the validity of an idea from the other side of the aisle
are immediately flogged in the press and subsequently pilloried by the
self-appointed true believers and keepers of the faith - in both parties.
Civil political discourse has – sadly – joined the pantheon
of oxymorons.
In fact, I suspect that were the
majority of elected officials kindergarteners, they would be and denied their
daily ration of lukewarm milk and stale graham crackers and sent home with a
“Does not play well with others” report.
This was clearly illustrated to
me in Sacramento some time ago – at a legislative day for delegates to the
California Association of Realtors.
The 1500 or so of us assembled in the Sacramento Convention Center were
treated to what can only be described as a political diatribe – sort of a
one-man, pit-bull, attack-dog, in-their-face, verbal assault by the majority
leader.
As I listened, I rapidly lost
track (after hearing it for the 22nd time in only 3 minutes – about
once every 8 seconds) of the number of times this individual used the L
word. For those of you who’ve
recently migrated to planet Earth, the L word is “Liberal.”
I suppose the majority leader
made points with someone, but not at our table. He either grossly over-estimated the conservative bent of
the average Realtor or underestimated their intelligence – or both. Regardless, I was glad when he left the
convention center and returned to the Capitol, thereby raising the average IQ
in both locations.
More to the point, if this is
how our elected officials behave in public, one can only imagine how they
behave in private. Indeed, if the
majority leader and his colleagues put as much effort into their legislative
duties as they apparently do into berating members of the opposite party, they
might be able to pass a budget on time.
Moving on to the national level…
As the son of parents from the
South (Virginia and Kentucky) both of whom are, in the great Southern
tradition, Democrats through and through, and as a long-time registered
Republican, I am viewed in family circles with some degree of skepticism, if
not downright shame.
Perhaps because of this I might
be overly sensitive to what I see as the unnecessarily acerbic and polarized
political scene in the United States.
This view may be myopic, but I doubt it. Consider that:
Democrats, as
popularly perceived by Republicans, are godless, amoral (if not immoral)
tax-and-spend abortionists and libertarians (and perhaps libertines) who
deserve to be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.
Republicans, as
popularly perceived by Democrats, are right wing, reactionary, bible-thumping,
right to lifers with political and economic agendas just slightly to the right
of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.
There has to be a better way,
one which, to be successful, would not involve a third party. I say this because the salient aspect
of American politics is the overwhelming failure of the third party movement in
the United States. Whether the Bull
Moose, the Green, the Libertarian, or what have you, none has, since the 1854
formation of the Republican Party from elements of the Whig, Free Soil and
(gasp!) Democratic parties, successfully garnered a significant – let alone
dominant – position in American politics.
On the other hand, from time to
time third parties have had a beneficial influence, either by introducing ideas
later adopted by main stream parties or by forcing a political dialogue which –
absent the third party – would not have taken place.
One wonders then, whether there
might be a viable alternative to the increasingly reactionary Republican Party
and the moribund Democratic Party, a humanist, economically conservative yet
socially liberal alternative that embraces:
·
A woman’s right to choose with the understanding
that abortion should be discouraged as a form of birth control
·
A simplified and more progressive tax code.
·
A strong and systematic investment in our aging
infrastructure (schools, public transportation, medical care) without reliance
on federal largess.
·
An even-handed mid-east foreign policy as
regards both Palestinians and Israelis, and especially as regards nuclear
weapons development, human rights abuses, territorial acquisition and
Palestinian sovereignty.
·
Renewed awareness of and investment in Central
and South America and Africa.
·
Budgetary and governmental financial accounting
standards that don’t undermine trust in the Federal Government (such as using
the Social Security Trust Fund to “balance” the budget, keeping military
expenditures off the books, etc.).
·
Abolishing the death penalty.
·
Adoption of an equal rights amendment.
·
Universal medical care.
·
Strict separation of (but not hostility to)
church and state.
·
Elimination of federal (and state) unfunded
mandates.
·
Tort reform.
Well, I can dream can’t I? And it’s enough, in this day and age,
to make one’s mouth water.
Keyser writes from Napa
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
by Skip Keyser
(Originally published in The Napa Valley Register, December 29, 2005)
I was having lunch with a couple of friends the other day
when one got up to get a cup of coffee.
As he left the table, my other friend leaned over and said – sotto voce,
and referring to the just departed individual – “His hero is G.W. Bush.”
Well! (as Jack Benny often remarked) – you could have
knocked me over with a feather.
Now I don’t often make snap judgments about
individuals. At my point in life,
I’ve seen enough to realize that people come in all different shapes, sizes,
colors and – politically speaking – inclinations. The vast majority, to their everlasting credit, are well
intentioned, sincere in their beliefs and basically good people. And it is a long-standing principal in
our society – at least until the passage of the Patriot Act – that people are,
after all, entitled to their opinion.
But G.W. Bush as a hero? Sacre bleu! How
could this be, particularly for this individual? He was not, insofar as I could tell, a bible-thumping, fanatical
right-to-life, Second Amendment rip-my-gun-from-my-cold-dead-hands, it’s us or
them, right-wing wacko, which – in my saner moments – is frequently my
considered opinion of certain neo-con elements of the Republican Party. To the contrary, this individual is an
urbane, educated, well-spoken, sophisticated [retired] professional whom – up
to this point – I had admired.
And he hails from New York, which those of my friends who
are from that area tell me is the bastion of urbane, educated, well spoken, sophisticated
moderate-to-liberal men and women.
[They also throw in intelligent and good looking, but I’ve been to New
York and I’m not convinced.]
Talk about paradigm shifts and shattered illusions! It was as if George Bush had admitted
we invaded Iraq based on faulty intelligence.
Since that lunch I have reflected deeply on this startling
revelation about my friend’s political inclination and choice of role
model. And I have also, to be
honest, attempted to recall the number of times I’ve expressed to this person,
during lunch, an opinion about G.W., Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Alberto
Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove and any number of other elected – and
appointed – officials (or former officials) of the present administration. As best I could recollect, there were
many – far too many to count. I
had, as my wife discretely points out from time to time, put my foot in
it. Apparently both feet.
Now I realize there is a school of thought, codified in
Naval etiquette, that one does not discuss sex, religion or politics at the
dinner [or lunch] table. It is,
however, my considered opinion that this makes for very dull conversation. Far better to launch a lively,
animated, round-table discussion with a simple “So what do you think of that
#%&!* idiot” than to sit there staring at one’s salad while trying to come
up with a witty aphorism about the weather.
Besides, it gets their blood boiling and causes one or two
heads to snap back, and it’s always interesting to see which one does which.
But G.W. Bush as a hero and role model?
Well, sad to say, I think I’ve come up with a reason or two
for my friend’s misguided view of the President. For the current President Bush, right or wrong, like it or
not, for better or worse, has the belief of his (or his advisors’)
convictions. His elocution may
cause the average 8th grader to blush (no disrespect to the average
8th grader is intended), he may have unnecessarily expended American
lives and capital in a misguided adventure in Iraq, he may have done more to
undermine the financial security of the middle class than any President in
recent history, and he even may have – as regards domestic spying - violated
the law and his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution, but he has stayed his
chosen course insofar as his policy on these matter is concerned.
And he appears to be, contrary to some of his recent
predecessors, a personally moral individual.
And, interestingly enough, as recently evidenced, when
backed into a corner he gets out there and fights for his beliefs.
Bully for him!
If you don’t like what congress or the judiciary do, say so. Use the tools at your disposal to
bolster your position. Take your
case to the American people. Don’t
just sit there; do something for Pete’s sake.
In short, lead, follow or get out of the way.
A lesson that the Democratic Party ought to learn, and learn
quickly if they hope to regain power.
Keyser writes from – and occasionally has lunch in – Napa.
…and Justice for All
by Skip Keyser
(Originally published by The Napa Valley Register, October 9, 2001)
The United States stands on the precipice of a
major decision – where and how to respond to the events of September 11th. By all indications, our response will
be severe and have far reaching consequences. In formulating this response we should bear in mind the last
four words of the Pledge of Allegiance which head this commentary.
No less a person than Napoleon I pointed out that
the true measure of the strength and maturity of a nation is the restraint
shown in the face of adversity.
Against this, our inclination tends toward the crux of the 4000-year old
Hammurabi Code in which justice calls for an “eye for an eye”. Indeed, the more one thinks about the
recent attacks the more one hopes, in the words of the late Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr., that “justice [shall] roll down like water and righteousness
like a mighty stream” on those responsible for such carnage.
But in our endeavor to bring those responsible for
recent events to justice we should not confuse what is equitable with what is
just. We should not confuse
retribution with justice.
Neither should we forget those who gave their last
full measure in service to their fellow citizens. The image of police, firemen, clergy and others proceeding,
in the face of certain danger, to rescue or minister to others will certainly
stand the test of time as an icon of bravery and service. And the last final act of those
passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 which ultimately crashed not into the
Capitol or some other Washington institution but into an empty field in
Pennsylvania, must certainly stand as a hallmark of true heroism: to knowingly
and deliberately proceed to do what is right and necessary in the face of
certain death.
In the memory of these individuals, their families
and the over 6000 other victims of last month’s events, we should extract the
full measure of justice from those responsible for such carnage.
But we should not confuse retribution with justice.
We should rather bear in mind another thought of
Napoleon I – that in the acts of government, justice is the exercise of virtue
as well as the application of force.
And virtue demands that we correctly identify the problem before
proceeding to extract justice.
The problem is not the people who follow the faith
of Islam, any more than the problem in Northern Belfast or Jerusalem is the
people who follow the faith of Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism or follow no
faith at all. And the problem is
not the Arab people, any more than the problem in Northern Belfast or Jerusalem
is the Irish, Israeli or Palestinian people.
The problem is terrorism, pure and simple. Terrorism borne out of extremism and
fanaticism and attended to by the handmaidens of poverty, vengeance, racism,
ignorance and religious intolerance.
We should not confuse people with problems. And in the name of justice for all, we
should attack problems, not people.
Keyser is a retired submarine officer who lives in
Napa County.
Ralph vs. Piggy
by
Skip Keyser
(Originally published in The Napa Valley Register, Octobeer 13, 2005)
We are now, apropos of Piggy in
William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” once again witness to that venerable
Washington tradition of “piling on,” wherein various and sundry politicians
gather around to publicly flog some current or former public official in order
to divert attention from their own shortcomings and misdeeds.
In this regard, the chosen
public official is Mike Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
If we are to believe the
invective flowing from Bush Administration supporters in the legislative and
executive branches of government, Mike Brown is single handedly responsible for
derailing the local, state and federal response to what is already shaping up
as the preeminent natural disaster of the decade, if not of the past century.
And I suspect some in the
current administration as well as at the state and local level in Louisiana
would like to blame him for Hurricane Katrina itself – if they only thought
they could get away with it.
This, despite FEMA's assigned
mission, as a newly subordinated part of the Department of Homeland Security,
“…to effectively manage federal [not state or local] response and
recovery efforts following any national disaster.”
Regardless, Congress, having gutted
past appropriations for disaster preparedness in and around the New Orleans
region in order to pad their local pork barrels (witness the recent
$223,000,000 allocation for a bridge between Ketchikan, Alaska and Gravina
Island, home to 50 people) and the current administration, having siphoned
hundreds of billions of dollars for a misguided military adventure in Iraq, now
seem intent on publicly pillorying Mr. Brown and portraying him as the
single-point-of-failure in the federal response to Katrina.
However, the administration’s
and the House Select Hurricane Katrina Committee’s “let’s blame Mike Brown” approach to Hurricane Katrina
relief efforts fails the test of common sense, not to mention common decency. [One suspects if Congressional hearings
and public posturing were sandbags we could have repaired – indeed,
substantially upgraded - the New Orleans levies long ago.]
And the misguided, uncoordinated
and counterproductive lack of effective local leadership, exemplified by New
Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, must bear
significant responsibility for the lack of effective response to Hurricane
Katrina. This is particularly true
with regard to the former’s “what Amtrack evacuation train?” and “let’s get
them back in New Orleans as fast as we can, lack of public health, sanitation
and safety notwithstanding” and the latter’s public “please send help”
hand-wringing and then apparent refusal to acquiesce to federal control of
disaster relief and civil law enforcement.
Mike Brown’s other shortcomings
notwithstanding, one suspects that he hit the nail on the head when he
characterized Louisiana’s disaster relief efforts as dysfunctional.
That’s not to say Mike Brown is
above reproach in this matter.
Sometimes the price of accepting a political appointment is that you
swing at the end of a rope woven of equal parts malice, political intrigue,
ineptitude and – to be certain – circumstance. Timing, as they say, is everything.
And Mike Brown certainly appears
to be a prime contender for the 2005 Marie Antoinette “Let Them Eat Cake” award
for public relations fiascos.
But unless and until this
administration, Congress and the rest of us acknowledge the fallacy of and
responsibility for our nearsighted short-term approach to infrastructure
maintenance and development, the sanctimonious condemnation of Mike Brown by
those principally responsible for our weakened state of U.S. civil disaster
preparedness will be little more than an exercise in perfidious political
persecution.
To his credit, however, Mike
Brown did do one thing right. When
the time came, he did the honorable thing and resigned.
Would that others in Washington
and Louisiana, equally – or more – responsible for the nation’s third-world
response to this national disaster, follow his example.
Keyser writes from Napa
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