Civil Discourse. RIP.

Jonathan Daniels, the firebrand editor and publisher of the Raleigh News and Observer, so offended many readers with his views that the newspaper was widely known as "The Nuisance and Disturber." His wife, Lucy, used to say that periodically, she would "put on my bonnet and walk around downtown just to see who wasn't speaking to me."
Those were the days of civil discourse, before "concealed carry" laws and open sale of machine guns to yahoos.
As David Sirota put it the other day, "We are becoming a nation of haters."
The haters, he said, "have succeeded in turning political discourse into a war of attrition against their personal demons -a war won by those who can go nuclear the fastest. That's clearly been the story of the summer on health care - and it continues to be the story on most major issues. I mean, conservatives are quite literally calling the president's plan to promote the value of education to the nation's schoolchildren a secret socialist plot. All of it has convinced me we are living through one of the darkest periods in the last 50 years - one in which intense hatred has now become an accepted - even celebrated - part of our democracy."
The boorish goons who disrupted recent town hall meetings with Congressmen won admiring attention in the mainstream press. During this same period the media ignored several genuine news events that took place around the country: free public health clinics set up in some of the poorest areas of the U.S., both rural and urban. They were inundated beyond the capacity of the doctors and nurses who volunteered to conduct them. Thousands of people camped out in line for several nights to get a tooth fixed, a baby's cough treated, or medicine for grandma's arthritis. The clinics had to stay open round the clock and still couldn't give care to everyone who needed it.
Sirota and other real journalists are constantly subjected to really vile public insults by the parrots of Limbaugh, Beck, Dobbs, O'Reilly and their ilk -- overpaid performers, like dancing bears and trained seals, who dominate what broadcasters call "news." This is what passes for public discourse today.
Oh, for the good old days when a lady could put on her best bonnet and safely walk around town to find out who wasn't speaking to her.

Missing the Gunslinger, Sort of. . .

By Steve Klinger

I’ve been watching with a buttoned lip as Obama has had a town hall meeting with half the country and still found time to appear on every news show plus Colbert. I’ve watched him extend an olive branch to Republicans, sweet-talk blue dog Democrats and provide a collegiate lecture on everything from fiscal policy to health care. Every day I am thankful that we dodged the McCain Express and have a president who thinks rationally, solicits advice, considers alternatives and expresses reasons for at least some of his decisions. I remain convinced that Obama cares about ordinary Americans and believes in his heart he is doing his best by them.
I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon of critics who will never be satisfied with anything short of absolute pacifism and total, instant redistribution of wealth, or the doomsayers who continue to predict societal collapse on a daily basis.
But all that said….don’t you miss Dubya the gunslinger even a little bit? There’s something about having a president swagger up to the podium, plant his hands on his hips and say, “I’m the decider!” that fills the belly with gross comfort, like eating a pound of chile cheese fries, even if you know they’ll do you in.
Of course, the kinds of things Bush decided almost destroyed civilization. Most of Obama’s problem is that he has inherited Bush’s infernal mess. But that’s not my point.
I am increasingly starting to believe that Obama underestimates himself. He needs to think back to LBJ and across the spam of generations to his role model, Lincoln. When he’s tempted to compromise on health care and back away from a public option (not to mention the single payer approach he knows in his heart is best), or when he pushes a watered down energy bill that perpetuates the coal industry, he needs to remember his own miraculous election campaign.
The man has public opinion on his side. His charisma (Republicans excepted, of course) is unparalleled in recent political history. He has science and history on his side to support arguments for stronger positions on global warming, against big banks and insurance companies, etc. He has the example of eight years of catastrophic failure by the very forces who oppose him now.
You can argue all you want that the votes aren’t there, that it’s all he can do to get weak legislation through because conservative Democrats and obstructionist Republicans – all bought and paid for by the obscene power of the corporate lobbyists – just won’t support progressive change. And it’s true from a certain perspective: mathematically, the votes aren’t there now indeed. But they weren’t there in 1965 either, when Lyndon Johnson hammered through civil rights legislation and Medicare, lacking even a shred of Obama’s personal appeal but knowing he held the high moral ground — and he could use his leverage as president to twist arms in Congress and win votes one by one. They weren’t there a century earlier when Lincoln determined he had to free the slaves to save the Union and then wage a war to restore it. And they weren’t there in 1933 when FDR envisioned the New Deal that produced the CCC, the WPA and Social Security.
I was resigned to the expediency of passing the wimpy energy/climate bill currently before Congress until I read Dennis Kucinich’s withering analysis of its shortcomings – on coal, on compromised timelines for greenhouse gas reductions, on all the pulled punches that undermine the good intentions of the original legislation. Even then, ordinary logic tells me a weak bill is better than none at all.
But are those really the alternatives when a leader as unique as Obama has the bully pulpit at his disposal and public approval ratings in the mid-70s? Just as he came from nowhere to beat a field of strong candidates, he has that rare capacity to captivate public imagination and support as chief executive, if he chooses to use it and does so with passion and conviction. Only his fear of failure can hold him back.
Ironically, and he’s way too smart not to realize this, it’s his lowered sights and his readiness to compromise that will likely produce failure in the longterm and provide the forces on the right with an avenue to regain power.
I’m not sure what tactics will best get his attention, though I can think of a few things I’d say to him at a town hall meeting. But I do know that those of us at the grassroots level must not buy into the conventional wisdom that compromise is better than gridlock. It’s a false equation, because strong leadership can change the dynamic and break the gridlock.
We must find a way to hold Obama’s feet to the fire on the crucial issues of global warming, health care, financial reform, nuclear disarmament and an end to empire building. But first we must reawaken his belief that together we can accomplish the change we know is desperately needed.
Steve Klinger posts regularly at http://www.grass-roots-press.com/