Frontline Lessons Brought Home: Others, Selfs and Manners
This is another post that's taken, even required, some thought and our focus is on the 
fundamental question we left on the table at the end of the last post (Reflections & Remembrances: Memorial Day, D-Day, Today). What lessons can we take from the sacrifices of the veterans and how can we bring it into our lives, private and public ? People join the service for many reasons but a major one is in service of our core ideals: government of, by and for the people. Without exception that we know of veterans endure what they endure for the sake of their brothers, and now, sisters. Major Dick Winter, the real life hero of Band of Brothers, tells the story that he wasn't a hero himself but he served with a company of them. They all say the real heroes are the ones left behind. A Hero is someone who sacrifices themselves, in whatever form, for the betterment of us all. Ultimately they are motivated by COMPASSION, the ability to see the other as themselves. We argued that for those of us not there the best we can imagine is from movies and TV but in some ways an even better source are the works of the artists who were there, as this drawing from the Navy's Combat Art Collection shows. If that's not the most profound love of one's fellow man on the faces of these Marines, watching their fallen comrade to see if the plasma will save him, we have no clue as to human nature.
Hero's Virtues and Ordinary Lives
One of my favorite artists is Norman Rockwell, even if it's customary to sneer at him more often than not these days, because of the bedrock virtues of ordinary life. A favorite Rockwell painting (to the best of my recollection) is the umpire glowering down at the tiny batter arguing with him about a call, "You're OUT ! Now PLAY BALL !!". Unfortunately we couldn't find that one and have substituted another that still speaks to the same message. I'm sure we've all been there, done that or seen it. But, especially when Rockwell drew them the chances that the umps had in fact been veterans of one sort or another were pretty good, in fact so good as to be likely. My dad flew C-47s in combat, my math teacher P-51s and the science teacher was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 while both another teacher and a family friend had lost arms as infantrymen. Some of the prices were daily reminders for us then. Yet here is the man, who may have been to hell and back, arguing - if not calmly then civilly - about a call according the book of rules everybody had agreed to play by. Rami Khouri, the editor of the Beirut Daily Star lived in this country and become a baseball nut. He tells the story during a Rose interview about one of the reasons he loves the game. It's because it didn't matter who you were, the rules were the rules and no matter who your father was you were out if the ump said so. That respect for playing by the rules of the game and the voluntary support of a civil society is at the root of our society. In fact we argue, and have argued (Peace, Stability and Prosperity: the Nature of Good Government), that it is the root of the long-term stability and success of all prosperous societies.
Welcome to Notre Dame
Which brings us to our core question - how do we take the willingness to serve others into our normal lives and especially the public sphere ? Slighly over a month ago Pres. Obama gave the commencement address at Notre Dame. The invitation and actual event provoked outrage, debate and critiscism among a wide range of commentators. We can applaud his courage for stepping into the lion's den, but then that's his job just as on another day it was the job of the Rangers to go up the cliffs of Pont du Hoc. Better that we applaud the courage of Notre Dame for inviting him, even though they clearly had disagreements. Most of the commentariat recognized a (typical ?) great speech but didn't pay much attention to the substance of the arguments. As for the demonstrators and objectors, well....we suspect they are so trapped in their own viewpoints that the issue didn't even come up. Shall we consider what he actually said ?
Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you are today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare - periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle. You, however, are not getting off that easy. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world - a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations - and a task that you are now called to fulfill.This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit - an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work.... we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity - diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.
Unfortunately, finding that common ground - recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a "single garment of destiny" - is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man - our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.
I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground. That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions. So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women." Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.
Whatever your personal position on the specific issue the OTHER question on the table is do you respect your fellow citizens enough to grant them the right to their own opinions, to respect the necessity for free and open debate as each side tries to persuade the other and respect the foundations of our civil society that those veterans spent so much to sustain ? Or are some issues so over-ridingly important that being right and winning, forcing compliance with your views is so critical, that you are willing to win at any cost ? We remind you of the other side of coin of Rami Khouri's story, coming as he does from a society torn to pieces by sectarian strife for decades.
Freedom Is Not Free
Another of my favorite Rockwell series if his paintings on the "Four Freedoms", which he did as a reaction to an FDR speech which were later turned into posters during WW2. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Fear and Freedom From Want are not just slogans or nice sentiments. They are both some of our loftiest goals and the bedrock on which we've built this society. Let me quote from a recent e-mail exchange of mine:
Two small hopes and a big one though. I hope it's more than a sentiment, or just a sentiment. We're all "moved", or at least give lip service to their sacrifices. I think it's because we all recognize it's for us all and not self-serving. The same way we applaud the righteous who risked their lives to stand for decency and help the Jews during the Holocaust. They act for the best that is in us.
My big hope is that we can all learn, in some small way, to learn that sacrifice for the other is not limited just to war but that we each can and do do it in small and large ways in every day of our lives.
And contrawise when we act out of narrow interests, hate or anger we do so for the worst of us. Especially when it's not just in the heat of the moment but a sustained or deliberate act of damage.
The answer to how we best honor the veterans sacrifices is not in laying flowers on their graves nor in applauding them as they walk by in the airport or during the Memorial Day parades. It lies in conducting our own lives according the values of honor, integrity and self-sacrifice that they showed in theirs.
As We Speak: the Posturing Inquisition
Last fall, literally, Western Civilization almost collapsed. Two men were primarily responsible for saving it - Hank Paulsen and Ben Bernanke. If they had failed to arrest the collapse of the credit markets, restore order and get things moving again our chances of having a Great Depression again were near certainty. Given the scope and magnitudes of the potential breakdowns the downsides were so much worse that the GD might have looked like a walk in the park. Yet despite being under enormous pressures 24 X 7, dealing with unprecendented events that nobody had faced in years, if ever, they managed to right the ship and save us all from disaster. And their rewards have been an almost un-ending stream of critiscisms from all points of the compass. There behavior in the crisis was truly heroic. There is nothing so difficult as keeping you head in a crisis, especially when everyone around you is loosing theirs. To do it day after day under a drumbeat of one damm thing after another is extraordinary. To do when the answers aren't clear yet you must remain calm, collected and decisive is more extraordinary. As Gen. Peter Pace pointed out in his commencement address to the cadets of VMI it often takes more moral courage to support an unpopular position, let alone carry it, in the meeting room than it does to command in combat. It's all to easy to give in to the common wisdom, even when you know it'll lead to disaster. To conduct yourself in such a manner subject to so much critiscism is more difficult yet. When that critisicsm is both ignorant and largely motivated by narrow self-interest the challenges are beyond my imagination. Yet day after day during the crisis, and as I write, these guys were civil, calm, intelligent and right. As the President pointed out at Notre Dame, and many times before and since, we face challenging and difficult times that call for new solutions. They do NOT call for the continued search for partisan advantage. To act in that way, seeking a scapegoat to sacrifice to the political gods, is a violation of everything that we should have learned from the veterans.
That calm face preparing to respond to yet another ill-informed, vituperative and critical attack, masquerading as a question, is the Chairmen listening as he is accused of perjury by the ranking Republican and ex-chairmen of the committee.You can listen to some of these attacks starting around minute 40 and continuing on and on.
In my book we don't deserve such public servants, do everything we can to drive them away, and we can only wonder that they do serve. Truly heroic in every sense of the word IOHO !
Politics, Partisans and Civitas
The Meaning of Bloody Omaha The skies over Normandy are invariably filled with dark rain clouds. But on one day in late April the sky was cloudless and the English Channel tranquil. Youngsters built sand castles on Omaha Beach and dogs romped in the surf. It was a vastly different scene from the bloodshed and violence that occurred on this same beach 65 years ago. In an effort to understand what the GIs experienced on that fateful day of June 6, 1944, I climbed up a steep hill to the plain above the beach. Unlike the soldiers, I didn't carry an 80-pound pack on my back. And even though I observed German fortifications on my way, no one was firing at me. The cemetery for the fallen overlooks Omaha Beach. It was noon when I stood at the edge of the cemetery, looking out at row after row of the graves. The bells played "God Bless America." There was a burly fellow wearing steel- frame glasses standing in front of me, most likely an octogenarian. As the bells sounded our eyes met. I wanted to say something to him, but he removed his glasses and wiped the tears from his eyes. Words were unnecessary; he and I shared a silent understanding. There is simply no way to describe the sacrifice Americans made on the D-Day invasion to reclaim Europe from the grip of totalitarianism. Even the notoriously dispassionate Europeans realize that this is consecrated ground, a place where angels spread their wings to honor the deeds of youthful warriors. No St. Crispin speeches were necessary here, for this Band of Brothers knew what need not be stated: They were saving Europe from enslavement. We have grown complacent as a people in the last six and a half decades since the war in Europe reached the beginning of the end. But it is hard to remain unemotional at the hilltop cemetery that honors those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we may live in freedom. Though we owe these men a debt we can never repay, what we can do is honor them. Their bravery can still inspire if the story of D-Day is told with passion and honesty.
The Return of the Hot-Button Issues In the good old days of the last century, the years before the collapse of the economy and the World Trade Center towers, political discourse in the U.S. was, too often, rutted in issues that didn't affect the lives of most people. They were important moral and symbolic issues, to be sure. And they were difficult issues, although their subtleties were obscured by extremists, who tended to dominate the debate. Still, the people directly affected by the so-called social issues — abortion, gay marriage, racial preferences — pale in comparison with the tens of millions who have lost their jobs and fortunes in the past year and with the global, life-and-death impact of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Consequently, social issues weren't decisive in the elections of 2006 and 2008, or in the early days of the Obama Administration. At the end of May, those issues returned with a vengeance. A doctor who specialized in the most controversial sorts of abortions was murdered in Kansas. President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, which restarted a tired debate about affirmative action. And while the blowhards have taken up their battle stations — the leadership of the Republican Party, especially, seems to have shifted from politics to infotainment — the terrain on these issues has shifted subtly in the past few years. (Indeed, gay marriage — once the hottest of hot buttons — seems to be easing toward public acceptance, as state after state approves it.) The point is, there are civilized compromises to be made — not always, but often — on even the toughest social issues. We are beset by wars and economic distress, and we no longer have the luxury of ceding these discussions to demagogues and fundraising interest groups. It's time to move on.
Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters But he knows, and privately acknowledges, that the fundamental point of his candidacy is that it is happening now. In politics, timing matters. And the most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse. Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you. At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce. This is the critical context for the election of 2008. It is an election that holds the potential not merely to intensify this cycle of division but to bequeath it to a new generation, one marked by a new war that need not be—that should not be—seen as another Vietnam. In normal times, such division is not fatal, and can even be healthy. It’s great copy for journalists. But we are not talking about routine rancor. And we are not talking about normal times. We are talking about a world in which Islamist terror, combined with increasingly available destructive technology, has already murdered thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Muslims, and could pose an existential danger to the West. The terrible failures of the Iraq occupation, the resurgence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the progress of Iran toward nuclear capability, and the collapse of America’s prestige and moral reputation, especially among those millions of Muslims too young to have known any American president but Bush, heighten the stakes dramatically.
Where the Angriest Words Can Lead Words have consequences -- a lesson I've learned, and relearned, after nearly 20 years of editorial and column writing. Which makes Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly all the more unbelievable when he holds himself harmless in creating the atmosphere that helped diminish the humanity of George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions. O'Reilly used his show, "The O'Reilly Factor," to demonize Tiller. A few of his words, as reported by Salon.com: Tiller "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birthdate for $5,000." Then-Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius "doesn't seem to be real upset about this guy operating a death mill, which is exactly what it is, in her state, does she?" And: "No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands." No calls to murder, for sure. And certainly no license for the suspect in Tiller's death, Scott Roeder, to gun down the doctor last Sunday during services at a Wichita church. But to suggest that O'Reilly should not hold himself accountable for his incendiary words is to ask too much. Words have consequences. Words have consequences. That thought seems completely lost on the Fox News network, which launches a daily rhetorical assault on Obama, starting with the "Fox and Friends" morning show. The anti-Obama beat goes on through the day, and reaches a fevered pitch at night with Sean Hannity. Witness excerpts from Wednesday night's exchange between Hannity and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh: Limbaugh: "I do not hide from it. I do want and I still want Obama to fail." Hannity: "But it's interesting here. . . . A lot of things you are saying -- [Obama] is apologizing for America's arrogance. He has taken over car companies. They want to dictate CEO pay. All of these things have been unfolding. Socialism is the Obama vision for America." Limbaugh: "And fascism. We must not be afraid to use that word either. It is a combination of the two." Limbaugh and Hannity know the standard definition of fascism: "a regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." And they must know how their characterization of Obama goes over with those Americans who live in fear that all they hold dear is coming under attack by a fascist in the White House. My words may have helped get a man fired. What do Hannity, Limbaugh and the pro-gun lobby expect theirs will do? Words, after all, have consequences.
Young Muslims Seek Way in Post 9/11 World Many had just entered high school in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks and now, eight years later, they are leaving college and choosing their path in life. Young Muslims in the Washington area are part of a generation that appears markedly different from their parents in career choices, assimilation and views of their religion. Their youth has often been affected by the mistrust and wariness many Americans have of Islam. They are struggling with how to live their faith, from how to dress to whom to date, in a broader American society that frequently views them with suspicion. Many of their parents came to the United States to study engineering, medicine and the sciences. But many in this generation are drawn to politics, journalism and public service, researchers said. The aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies, which many Muslims opposed, have motivated many of them in their 20s to pursue newly established public-policy internships and fellowships created in government and the private sector. Sufia Alnoor said she also wants a career that will allow her to live her religious values. Although her mother wanted her to be a doctor or lawyer, she wants to use her communications degree from George Mason University for environmental or international aid work. The 22-year-old from West Springfield said she is troubled by the messages young Muslim children are receiving. "We were taught to take care of seniors, not to eat more meat than we needed, that those values were living Islamically," said Alnoor, who prefers hipster attire -- a colorful headband and Power Rangers T-shirt -- under the head covering and looser clothes she wears outside of the house or around unrelated men. Muslim children now are taught to be defensive, not to watch television, she said, to be braced for rejection from the dominant culture. A broader understanding of Islam will come in simply doing work that helps others, she said. Action will speak louder than words. The Pew Research Center has found that young Muslims are more religiously observant than their parents, and Gallup polling shows they are more likely than their parents to think of themselves as Muslim first and American second. In interviews, many of the generation say they are striving to define for themselves what being Muslim means.
Crisis Managers vs. Naysayers Last fall, during the darkest days of the financial crisis, if you'd predicted that by the middle of this year, 10 of the biggest banks would have paid back all $68 billion of their bailout money and begun to raise private capital again, that General Motors and Chrysler would have been run through a dramatic bankruptcy restructuring and that the stock market would be up 35 percent from its lows, I probably would have given you 10-to-1 odds that you were wrong.Now that it's all come to pass, you might think we'd take a moment and offer a pat on the back to the people who helped to engineer this little miracle -- folks like Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Neel Kashkari, Sheila Bair, Barney Frank and so forth. There was nothing preordained about this fortuitous outcome. Nor, given the extraordinary amount of government intervention, can most of the credit go to the free market's natural self-correcting process.Instead of celebrating this feat of economic policy, however, there are those who seem more in the mood for second-guessing and recrimination.A House subcommittee yesterday worked itself into a self-righteous lather over the strong-arm tactics used by then-Treasury secretary Paulson and Bernanke to persuade Bank of America to go through with its purchase of Merrill Lynch after the bank discovered, long after it should have, that the firm known for being bullish on America had a balance sheet full of manure.Committee members were shocked that regulators would threaten to use their supervisory powers to remove Bank of America's directors and chief executive if they backed out of the transaction at the last minute.Never mind that if the deal had collapsed, the federal government would have had to step in with tens of billions of additional taxpayer dollars to prevent Merrill from collapsing and taking the already wounded financial system down with it.And never mind that confidential Federal Reserve documents obtained by the committee showed that Bank of America itself -- with its own mounting losses and thinly capitalized balance sheet -- would have been the first and biggest casualty in such a meltdown.Now that the deal has gone through and crisis has been averted, committee members were only too willing to summon a full measure of self-righteousness to denounce what they saw as a market-distorting abuse of governmental authority.
