Bring on the Lepers

    I stopped by an exhibit in the station this eve, a nice large format profile of dozens of homeless and the sheltered, their stories - the guy who finds out he's adopted when he finally gets his various documents on leaving high school, the woman who manages to free herself from an abusive husband only to lose her leg to disease and get thrown out of guest work in England, another who can't manage to stay off the juice, one's a mechanic who works hard but always finds himself on the wrong end of some scam or people who don't pay the bills. They describe their day, how they survive and pass the time. I see similar folks in front of the station, handing out their magazines trying to earn a few coins of respectable money in return for their soup and sandwich. Some have started giving tours to tourists and locals, showing the city from the homeless point of view, even though one's a struggling male prostitute with AIDS, others have different impediments that make it unusual for them to mingle and present their world.

    "There are a million stories in the naked city - this has been a few of them". A few that cut through.

    I remember reading the Theosophist Alice Bailey, who described the book of Job as far older than other books and stories in the Old Testament. Whether she's right or not, the tale has a timeless quality to it - the question of whether we create our own failures, Karma, whether it's up to us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, whether we've wronged God and must find our way back on the trail.

    We laugh at or mock the Hammurabi code - an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - but we haven't gotten past our primitivism as soon as we - define that term as you might - are the target of the smallest infraction or inconvenience.

    I started to write a piece on WWI, on the end of civilization following that period when we thought we'd tamed war, conquered disease, tempered man's inhumanity to man, the new dawn of civilization, only to end in mass war and a subsequent plague and then a global economic collapse and another war. But we all know that - we call it "The Greatest Generation", without irony, when you'd think it'd be a bit greater to avoid all these mishaps in one way or another. The reason Job is so timeless is we're still struggling with the concept of God's will or karma vs. man's ability and power along with the vicarious nature of fate.

    See, American exceptionalism is built on a mashup of countervailing ideas. We're the greatest because God deemed it that way, but if we're not on God's path he will spit us out, but then God doesn't work on deeds, but faith alone, and while it's easier to fit a camel through a needle than get a rich man into heaven, it's much better to be rich here on earth even if you can't take it with you, and despite there but for the grace of God go I, those that aren't going to well are slackers or guilty of some other sin, fault, defect...

    The "Undecideds" link I put up earlier addressed the shifting views and responses of certain mainstream "heartland" audiences, but being called "deplorable" was a deeper, more unforgivable blow than all the lies and outrages of the campaign - this one was personal, and of course just as those other people getting the support these folks thought they deserved, these themselves never felt they were responsible for their dire straits - though those other folks over there sure the heck were.

    We supposedly know the answer to this tale - that really God was testing Job like on some TV reality show where he'd end up with a Beverly Hills home with servants for the indignities he'd been put through for the home audience's entertainment - the original Truman Show. But still we have our doubts - that skin disease, there could have been some impropriety there, or just being unclean - hell, look how he scratches. And how pompous he is about his piety - he thinks he's better than everyone else, and it's just his own come-uppance.

    There's a war on to divide us, to abandon our pet projects and core work, to adapt to the new America, the one focused on all wheat no chaff, that if we get back to God all things will be okay, though that definition of getting back to God seems pretty arbitrary and flawed. We have to be careful with our pronouncements of racism and such - their sin is sometimes not so much in racial superiority, but simply being born on 3rd base and thinking they/we hit a triple, in whatever guise.

    I came from a not-so-special family, a few claims to fame not so different from everyone else's brush with faint stardom or meeting the very occasional celebrity or somehow being "smart". But somehow we still came out with a bit of an elite attitude, that our feces didn't stink, that our ideas and view of the world was superior, a misperception easy to note through years of travel. Success and smarts are very different beasts, and wisdom comes in all shapes, sizes and circumstance. We believe in luck, but we seldom believe in the overwhelming prevalence of luck, happenstance, and the inertia of precedence and the preponderance of laziness and "no dog in that fight" that drives most of the world's outcomes.

    We just spent 1 1/2 years on a campaign where folks largely voted the exact same way as they would have at the beginning, with almost no changes in reasoning or heart or real evaluations of one party or another. On the Republican side it was another "straight shooter" with Trump reprising the perennial "tell it like it is" role that Reagan, Perot, Bush and McCain occupied, while the Dems split between their usual majority mainstream programs-and-alliances figure and their minority social causes opposition, same as in 2000, same as in 1980, only slightly different in 1992 with Bush Sr. being less dynamic than Perot, and Jerry Brown playing the conscience of the left.

    The point being that there's simply not too much we can do at any moment aside from putting lipstick on the pig and trying to drive enthusiasm a bit higher through sleight of hand and extreme cheerleading. And if we can see how frustratingly unlikely it is to change an opinion in politics, especially this year, with all the absurd statements, imagine what unlikelihood there is to change anything less pressing,

    Buckminster Fuller roughly espoused appealing to the selfish nature in people - tailoring solutions around what they were going to do anyway, rather than try to change their opinions or behavior. The GOP has flipped that on its head by appealing to what people'd like without actually doing anything. But still, we're in a time of inner turmoil, of "what could we do different". As Jesus famously said, "the poor will be with us always" - the lepers, the prostitutes, the sick, the maimed, the crazed possessed souls. It was a strange Big Tent he put together - Kazantzakis describes his disciples as a ragtag group of cripples and misshapen midgets - hardly at one with the "establishment", though in the end he wasn't railing against their money or their system - he was railing against the intrusion of money in spheres that were too sacred and important for such foul mercantilism.

    While many people think money is the natural reward for hard work, the evolution of our economy over several centuries tells us different. Sure, some breakthroughs are through sweat of the brow, but just as many are from good connections, access to inherited cash, illegal dealings, class and status, and sure, being white and male.

    But when we break up the demographics, we see other things happening. 1/6th of the voters are disabled in some way - 1/4th are disabled or have a family member that is. Blacks mistreated as they are make up 12% of the vote. Women with all the issues they have to deal with are 52% of the vote. While we call our system "Judeo-Christian", Jews at 3% of the electorate voted overwhelmingly (~3/4) Democrat, while Christians favored Trump by a small margin - I'd imagine social justice had more than a little to do with this difference. We don't even know how many poor are persuaded, how many minorities are inspired (even those who don't manage to vote), how many girls and women have been emboldened by moral and practical support and general acknowledgment.

    The beauty of Bernie was bringing that social justice back into focus, when the post-crash years have been heavily spent on dry financial bean counting, tough love, tightening belts, and little of the flexibility and personalization that people require - the mortgage thefts adding insult to injury. Just like the homeless exhibit, these are all lepers among us - "everybody hurts", as REM's hit single puts it - even among the rich, 1 unsure step from poverty through mishap, disease, birth problems, scandal or financial collapse. Weiner is an idiot, but not an uncommon one - just higher profile.

    We *are* the party of lepers, the freaks, the outcasts, the dispossessed, all the noble caring & compassionate ideas for looking after the undesirables and even many of the deplorables. We're also the optimists - that government, policy, action, care, technology, finance and hard work can pay off, that people can be rehabilitated, improve, "prevail" rather than "endure" as Faulkner put it.

    But we're fighting against a do-nothing, faith-based attitude inherent in our own national mythology - that we built this land (despite the decidedly hostile Indians having cleared and tilled the soil until being wiped out by disease), that our independent spirit rather than simple migration, resources and a ton of money to burn created much of the success, that our moral values are superior despite contrary evidence in slavery, brutal invasions to steal Hispanic lands, exploitive labor practices, and a myriad of other cluesticks scattered around to show our darker sides.

    But we're not "bad" - we're flawed like most humans, awful and admirable at the same time. We can point to many successes - just need to temper the bragging. But our complexity is our biggest problem as Democrats. Lepers really aren't that much fun to be around. While many black issues of injustice are obvious (Danny's tale as case in point), it's also frustrating to keep fighting so many cases of self-destructive behavior among the community over so much time. Our Hispanic "diversity" isn't that diverse. Women's issues are continually subordinated to men's or race or religion or other "more pressing" discrimination or allegiance or identity. Liberal crusaders frequently push the boundaries between help & needed urgency vs. annoying & unhinged.

    And nobody likes to think of themselves as a leper. So while we try to appeal to the underdog, we're turning off the underdogs with the superiority complex, the impoverished who track the Dow Jones to glimpse hope. And believe it or not, there are a lot of them - barely surviving paycheck to paycheck, roughneck work, little education, but indoctrinated and fully believing in God, family, country, prosperity, and good ol' defense, in whatever order, and with whatever inconsistency that entails.

    The Democrats' brand & message keep running into America's brand (not just the GOP's), and while we can tune the 2 to be roughly compatible, we're having trouble with the simple expression of it, both in words and practice. We don't fight uniformly for rights and justice, we do judge a helluva lot, we frequently have as nasty a tone as Republicans, we do get caught up creating class grievances and money grudges when what we should really want is enough prosperity and funding spinoff to handle our agenda. (We talk about jobs and minimum wage but more or less condemn the entrepreneurship and mechanisms that create them, except for very tightly forgiven circumstances). We stiffarm those on the top from playing a positive expansive role - our vision rises only so high. We offer to feed and care for the poor, but less so the struggling (especially if not in our demographics).

    Like with Africa, where everyone's down with charity, not so much in helping create real businesses and buying stuff made there. Even with global warming, we act the scold - that it's our greed and intentional consumption that led to all of this, rather than just chalking it down to the obvious - we didn't know, up to recently we were just trying to grow for good economic reasons, and it's gotten worse than imaginable quicker than we expected.

    In short, Job and the modern lepers are tests - not to condemn, but to understand, help out, within our abilities and a wider approach, but still simple and cogent approach. The Great Society failed not because of arrogance and vanity, but simply lack of experience and vast problems with large scale City Building 1.0. Our current messages haven't failed - simply because most of them haven't even been heard through all the noise, much less digested, yet even there we got 52% of the popular vote between the top 2 candidates.

    It's a Pyrrhic victory, but still it should inspire less handwringing and more determination. It's not that we're so much on the wrong track, but traveling at the wrong speed with not a big enough bus, or in need of more than one technology/communications upgrade. We should have a message for everyone - even "blessed are the Deplorables, for they shall inherit the ranch". A chicken in every pot, a job for who wants to work, and a doctor's care for whoever needs it - and security with justice. It's the same recipe since forever, and it still works. If we manage to get it to the kitchen. Less judgment, more helpful ideas, better communication, efficient support - this is our real brand, it'll do us all well, and besides, we just don't seem to be very good at the mean stuff. We've spent so much time trying to care for lepers, we've become quite the pariahs ourselves.

    [N.B. - I'm typically re-editing posts for another hour from the time I post - just my M.O. Presumably the piece gets better through this process, so latecomers welcome - I've never been one to be on time myself, and however much I try to plan, I'm always better at winging it. PP]

    Comments

    PP, I took my time reading this, because every paragraph was thoughtful and true.  

    Bottom Line:  We need to run on something like, "Make America Great Again."  Sure, they'll believe us.  We just need to tell the lies they want to hear and then do the right thing once elected!!!!

    But this brought back memories of what we used to say in nursing school:

    See, American exceptionalism is built on a mashup of countervailing ideas. We're the greatest because God deemed it that way, but if we're not on God's path he will spit us out, but then God doesn't work on deeds, but faith alone, and while it's easier to fit a camel through a needle than get a rich man into heaven, it's much better to be rich here on earth even if you can't take it with you, and despite there but for the grace of God go I, those that aren't going to well are slackers or guilty of some other sin, fault, defect...

    When we would sit around and gripe about our boyfriends, we would all chant:

    Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder.....Out Of Sight Out Of Mind,,,

    One can always find a simplistic phrase that will appeal to the masses, but actual effective policy plans -- too boring.  I am so discouraged.


    Learn to live with paradox, contradiction and uncertainty. Throw them off by mstly doing what you say you will even tho no one else does. But don't rely on them knowing that  - more bread and circuses. The slogans are important - just don't put too much stock in your own, just placeholders for intentions turned into deeds. And son on. Turn discouragement into kerosene.


    Well, the Job story is about who are you going to listen to when the shit hits the fan.
    The wager part between God and Satan is not an explanation as much as a description of facts on the ground. The situation might as well be created by opposing super people. You are not going to their parties so you don't get to know what they wagered upon.
    Job blows off all of his interlocutors and sticks with his own understanding of the events.
    We need a lot more of that sort of thing. The element obviously has the danger of being wrong but nothing happens without it.


    Very interesting post, PP. Not sure I can wrap my arms around it enough to make a lot of sense, so I'll settle for some observations.

    A year or so ago, Chait wrote this article that I thought was very perceptive. It was about the difference between conservative and liberal policy proposals (in general). Liberal proposals are specifically designed to do something or change something. Thus, if they don't do that something, they're judged a failure. Sometimes, the failure is excused by resorting to "good intentions," but still results are what counts.

    Conservative proposals are also designed to do something, but their rationale is rooted in principles. What they would call timeless principles that appeal to a certain kind of common sense. So even when they don't work as advertised, the principle survives and serves as a rationale even in the face of failure.

    So, for example, and I'm sort of making this up: When the War on Poverty didn't eliminate poverty and poverty got worse afterward, the WOP is judged to be a failure. It didn't eliminate poverty, and things are much worse now. However, flawed this judgment may be, you'll find many, many conservatives, not just pols but regular folks, who believe this to be true. It's even become common sense wisdom.

    It's conservative companions are numerous, but take this one: It's wrong to take my money and give it to someone else. I worked for it; they didn't. Why can't they work for their own money. I came up the hard way; why can't they? The WOP might have made sense as an example of America's widely acknowledged spirit of generosity and looking out for the downtrodden--the "deserving poor"--but the thing didn't even work. So, you're taking my money and throwing it away.

    There's a lot more to this, but here's what I'm getting out: When the WOP is judged to be a failure, there is no reason to continue with the policy. Yes, it was "the right thing to do," but it doesn't keep being the right thing to do when it isn't even achieving its own goals. OTOH, the idea that it's wrong to take one person's money and give it to someone else is a principle that makes sense to everyone. It's not judged by whether it works; it's judged as a principle; and most people would, leaving aside all other things, agree with it.

    So even when tax cuts don't help the economy or produce more revenue than they cost, it's hard to argue with giving the people back some of their own money, which I believe was GWB's rationale for his first or second big tax cut. This led to many wags, including myself, saying that for conservatives, tax cuts are ALWAYS a good idea in any circumstance. They may not have produced economic growth, but you can't go wrong giving people back their own money. In fact, that's Ron Paul's rationale for bringing home pork: He was simply getting back his constituents' money for them.

    So, I would argue, this is one of the inherent strengths of conservative proposals vs liberal ones.

     

    The Democrats' brand & message keep running into America's brand (not just the GOP's), and while we can tune the 2 to be roughly compatible, we're having trouble with the simple expression of it, both in words and practice. We don't fight uniformly for rights and justice, we do judge a helluva lot, we frequently have as nasty a tone as Republicans, we do get caught up creating class grievances and money grudges when what we should really want is enough prosperity and funding spinoff to handle our agenda. (We talk about jobs and minimum wage but more or less condemn the entrepreneurship and mechanisms that create them, except for very tightly forgiven circumstances). We stiffarm those on the top from playing a positive expansive role - our vision rises only so high. We offer to feed and care for the poor, but less so the struggling (especially if not in our demographics).

     

    So conservatives, for the most part, root their proposals in over-riding, timeless principles. One of the others is the Constitution. They've essentially absconded with the Constitution. Liberals TRY to root our proposals in the Constitution, but somehow, it falls flat. (So one guy told me once that "promote the general welfare" doesn't mean "provide for the general welfare," just to show you the verbal lengths this is taken.)

    When conservatives criticize the U.S., they criticize it for straying from the Constitution. We do that, too, but somehow, we end up sounding like we "hate America." Or else, it is easy to paint us as hating America, and make it stick. So if all conservative proposals are somehow rooted in timeless principles we can all agree on and rooted in the Constitution, this gives them a unity that Clintonian proposals famously lack. This unity also gives them a strength and simplicity that makes them memorable. Cutting through to their hollow core often takes a lot of egg-head-ery which, even when valid, isn't memorable.

    "Make America Great Again" was far more memorable than anything Clinton came up with (not to pick on her). It was a critique of America as she is now, but in the vein of having strayed from the principles (the Constitution) that make her great and that are generally admirable.

    The exception, maybe, of "Change You Can Believe In," we have a devil of a hard time encapsulating what we stand for in simple, memorable phrases. It's not just a matter of communications, though it is, but of enabling people to "get" what it is you stand for and what it is you plan to do.

    Turning the page...

    When you talk about condemning the entrepreneurship we need to fund our proposals, you are pretty much summarizing the Clintons' key insight that has driven the Party since 1992 and is now, but only now really, being condemned as corporatist, etc. And it ran headlong into Bernie's approach. And--ironies of ironies--ran headlong into Trump's appeal to the working class, etc. Trump, though, seems to have glued this populist approach to a business-friendly approach in a way that you ALMOST might agree with. So, some on the right have talked about using the extra revenue from repatriated cash that gets taxed, albeit at a lower rate, to pay for the spending, whether on infrastructure or the safety net.

    Somehow, we have to resolve the conflict between the Clinton and Sanders wings of the party. Interestingly enough, Bernie himself has no problem resolving this conflict himself, and neither do others. So I read that Andrew Cuomo was on stage with Bernie to unveil his plan to offer free tuition to state colleges to in-staters making less than $120,000. Ironically, as the article noted, this proposal was closer to Hillary's proposal than to Bernie's...but who would ever know that outside of a few Hillary nerds?

    Anyway, I pointed out this great news to someone whom I'd call a "Bernie XXX," that is, someone who may be more Bernie than Bernie, and his first response was to wonder whether Andrew was doing this to cop some Sanders cred in an ultimate bid to become DNC chair. I honestly couldn't believe what he was telling me. Given that Bernie lost... and lost in the primary...this has to hold the record for a losing proposal being adopted by the governor of a large who didn't support the losing candidate in the primary. And yet, he was ready to toss it into the trash. I dunno.


    Appreciate the long response.

    Perhaps the GOP way can be seen as cloaking proposals in vague attire with an audacious proposition and a win-if-I-win/win-if-I-lose outcome preordained - either I get my way or have a new rallying cry against "the left" or both - and they're always ready to carry through.

    Republicans are always trying to *compromise* even as Dems undermine the Constitution and the Founding Fathers and original intent. Dems dare traitors trying to destroy our values, and even though we tried doing X tjey cooked the books and cheated to do Y. Give up? Hell no, George Washington depends on us...

    Try writing a few pages or paragraphs of conservative rant to see how eay it is. I meant to do this already, but I'll post an open thread with a bring-your-jingo-lingo contest.

    The fake new paid agitprop is to sow suspiscion, to weaken the foundations, not win outright. Your Bernie friend is par for the course - if they're accepting you they must see a kink, an advantage - no one is sincere, they're all vulture neolib/neocon capitalists. If you're rejected, you're on the right road so complain some more. And that's the better side on the left. The right is straight out of Absurdistan.

    Anyway, we need to still find a way for those who need help.


    Latest Comments