Obamacare, Five Years Later

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In September, 2013, I wrote a piece titled “Subtlety versus Bombast” in which I accused both Republican and Democratic parties of so polluting the political discourse “that it is almost impossible to sift out any factual analysis.” The subject of their contentious discourse was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA), or, mostly disparagingly, as Obamacare. The Republicans claimed that the ACA would cost one trillion dollars over the span of 10 years. The Democrats countered with their argument that the ACA would save the government one trillion dollars over the same period. Both parties quoted the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prove their point. After reading the CBO report, I realized that both parties were quoting out of context while distorting the CBO’s actual conclusion: the ACA would result in a net savings to the Federal Government in its first 10 years of implementation with the promise of a positive impact on the nation’s GDP in the following 10 years. In addition, the CBO estimated that there might be as much as half a trillion dollars in non-coverage savings which it did not include in its analysis. The latter savings would depend upon future action by the health care industry and Congress.

Subsequently, in April of 2014, I wrote another blog titled “What Follows Obamacare?” in which I proposed that Congress should “(1) first, assure these non-coverage savings are realized and (2) relook at the structure of our health care delivery system to identify cost effective reforms that Congress might incentivize the health care industry to initiate.” In that blog I delineated what health care insiders had already suggested: what actions the health care industry might undertake and what incentives Congress might provide. Now, five years after the ACA became law, we have some preliminary evidence of the law’s effect:
• Healthcare spending as a percent of GDP has stopped increasing, remaining flat at 17%; and its rate of growth is the lowest in decades at 3.9% per year.
• Since 2011 annual spending per Medicare beneficiary has fallen from $12,000 to $11,200 and is expected to stay at that level through 2020, resulting in an expected annual savings of $160 billion and a further extension of Medicare’s financial ledger balance beyond the eight years projected in 2009.
• Hospital productivity has accelerated as a result of adapting to the new healthcare law which penalizes hospitals for readmissions, discourages the profit making associated with buying and depreciating the latest expensive equipment with minimal consideration of need or effectiveness, and makes attractive the recent surge in hospital mergers which furthers team medicine, best practices, a salaried medical team devoted more to outcome than quantity of services, and, as a result of economies of scale, supports the digitizing of patient medical records for their dissemination to medical teams working in concert to provide better individual patient care.
• Consumers of health care services have benefited in many ways, to include subsidized premiums, competitive pricing of insurance policies, provision of more preventive care, extension of coverage care to students living at home, elimination of insurance companies’ denial of care for various reasons such as pre-existing conditions, and so on.

Specific provisions of the ACA have not only implemented regulatory restrictions beneficial to health care consumers but have also expanded the insurance market, enriching insurance companies with billions in new revenue. Meanwhile the health care industry has become one of the fastest growing segments of the US economy, spending billions in response to the impetus the ACA has given to improve health care in America. But, in spite of these early milestones, America still spends nearly twice as much as other Western democracies on health care (France being an exception, where health care consumes 12% of GDP). The obvious conclusion is that the ACA has been a success, but that more needs to be done. So what is missing in this limited success story?

The missing element is a willingness of legislatures both in some Republican dominated states and in Washington to build on ACA’s success. While the law’s expansion of Medicaid has had a positive impact on the unemployed and working poor, there are still some Republican dominated states that have refused to accept Federal money to fund this expansion, creating a new victim class of uninsured who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to pay for partially subsidized insurance premiums. The Republican House of Representatives, meanwhile, has passed legislation to repeal ACA over fifty times. They have threatened to shut down the government and have risked America’s financial stability by refusing to extend the debt ceiling. In spite of these backward-looking phenomena, approximately 16.4 million people have obtained insurance through the ACA exchanges, surpassing the most optimistic expectation of 15 million enrollees. So why have some legislatures, including Congress, taken such a negative position?

I believe the Republican Party has painted itself into a corner. All the negative ads, straw-man criticism, and exotic hyperbole (e.g. death panels, job killer, deficit busting, government meddling in the doctor-patient relationship, and so on) have created an insurmountable obstacle to overcome. The Party’s only response seems to be a doubling down on the rhetoric and continued obstructionist behavior. Is it possible for any politician in America—Republican or Democrat—to admit a mistake or, at least, to adjust constructively to the majority position on any policy that they initially opposed? Apparently, the answer to that question is “no”; for the appearance of being wrong or on the losing side of a policy debate cannot be born in our public forum. Public posture is rated much higher than public policy.

The unbelievable irony of this ACA debate is that it took a Democratic president to initiate and pass a Republican policy. It was Ted Kennedy that convinced President Obama that the Democratic position of a universal state sponsored health care program could never be implemented. Kennedy had come to recognize his mistake in turning down the proposal of a mandated private insurance program run through state exchanges offered by the Republican Senate Majority leader, Bob Dole. President Obama has said that the Republican proposal, initially constructed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, was the least disruptive intervention in the health care structure already established in this country. He never believed that it was the ideal construct. His decision to support it was the very model of pragmatism and compromise that our system of government demands. Republicans could have rejoiced in their victory over the Democratic “big government” solution to American health care provisioning. The Republican proposal was not only more practical, but it emphasized personal responsibility (the mandate), private enterprise (expansion of the private insurance economic sector), and market forces to control price and performance (competitive exchanges). To what purpose have Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of success? Apparently, their emphasis is on winning at the polls and in the next election rather than in governing. In that pursuit they have been largely successful. Democrats have been cowed into not defending a law they would never have constructed without Presidential leadership. (Witness their reluctance to defend the ACA in the last two mid-term elections.) And “Obamacare” has become a negative acronym in the public domain.

Having stated all of the above, I want to be clear about the future of ACA. There are problems ahead for we are leaning into an unknown and somewhat unpredictable future. We have already witnessed a few blips in the implementation of the President’s new law: the initial rollout of healthcare.gov, the President’s too generalized statement that “if you like your policy, you can keep it,” the law’s inconsistent wording of participant’s eligibility for subsidies through state vs. Federal exchanges, and, of course, the Supreme Court’s ruling that allows states to refuse Federal funds that expand Medicaid. In November, 2013, I wrote a blog that addressed the President’s misstatement (“ACA: Affordable or Not?”). But in that article I concluded “We are at the beginning of a sea-change in America’s health care provisioning system. It’s going to take years to fully stabilize and hone this system, much as it did with Medicare.” I still believe in that conclusion.

Anthony’s World: A Vision of the Human Condition

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One day long ago as a young undergraduate, I anxiously awaited my favorite professor to begin a class in understanding poetry. His desk and chair sat ominously on a foot high podium, so positioned it seemed to lord over us, his philistine students. When he entered the room on that memorable day, his stride was long and purposeful, like a man anxious to speak his mind. The step up to his chair was not enough for him on this day. Instead he literally jumped up on his desk, startling his expectant students. With his feet swinging freely, he addressed us with a tinge of excitement in his voice, “I’m going to read to you the lyrics of a song. What I want you to do is to determine whether it is a poem or not, and why?” Then he proceeded to read the words to Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “The Sound of Silence.” I will never forget the cadence of his voice, as if he were singing the words in a different key. His face became flushed as he reached the final stanza, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls. And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.”

What this teacher taught us that day was that words can transcend their literal meaning and speak to a part of our humanity that can transform us. Actually, any art form must transcend its medium. If it fails to do so, then, as Joyce so pithily enjoined, it is nothing more than pornography. But when it touches us, beyond what words can adequately delineate, it moves our spirit and raises our aspiration for something more. When Paul Simon wrote his lyrics, he was inspired by an emptiness that seemed to enclose him from all sides: “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dared Disturb the sound of silence.” The closing stanza cannot really be translated into a declarative sentence, for it leaves you breathless as it did that day when read by my professor. And yet you know what Paul Simon is communicating. He was speaking about a truth that no word or metaphor could adequately express, but that his lyrics could elicit in the heart and feelings of any person living in that time and circumstance.

Paul Simon was fortunate that he found a way to support his artistic ability. As a student in that class, I wondered whether I could write anything worth sharing with others and whether I could support a family in the process of doing so. Well, I finally reached a point about a decade ago when I could make an attempt at the first proposition and not worry so much about the latter. My family had become largely independent of me. And so I began to write.

You, my faithful subscribers, know that I began writing this blog in July, 2013, not quite two years ago. My motivation perhaps was a humble attempt to provide a counterpoint to Simon’s pessimistic refrain, “my words like silent raindrops fell, And echoed In the wells of silence.” My words may be critical, but their intent is to awaken a resounding echo of coherence and sanity in a world seemed bent on the insubstantial, the incoherent, and an insane competition for power and status, the very bane of human coexistence. Some of Simon’s angst comes out in my recent blogs on politics and the media like “Perverted Politics” “Compromise: An Unfulfilled Promise” “Why Fable News?” “Is our Free Enterprise System at Risk?” and more. But I also write about matters of the heart and spirit like “In the Zone,” “A Blossom in the Wilderness,” “A Congregation of Life Forms,” “The Womb of Life,” and more. I have written about dogs and centipedes and just about anything that my tagline promises, i.e., “A Running Commentary on Whatever.” But, in all these blogs, my muse speaks to me in fragments and is thwarted by my personal limitations and ignorance. Before I began this blog, I challenged myself to paint on a broader canvas framed only by the limits of my imagination and creativity. As you can readily see, that aforementioned professor had done more than introduce me to poetry.

What you may not know is that I also write novels, actually three novels: “A Culpable Innocence,” a work of historical fiction set in the context of the Vietnam War, “A Life Apart,” the story of a dysfunctional family’s journey into wholeness, and my recently published novel, “In Search of Fate.” The latter is a love story embedded in a high stakes futuristic adventure that bridges the divide between orthodoxy and conscience, capitalism and altruism, death and immortality, faith and fate. The inspiration for these novels came from that same undergraduate professor who taught me that words can be more than signs, but symbols for those unspoken truths that can only be experienced. As a novelist, I create characters and circumstances that speak to our human condition, while intimating our ability to transcend the “wells of silence.” There is another kind of silence that speaks in the heart of every human being like a siren’s call and intones loudest when voiced in the words of compassion and love. That silence can be couched within words that breathe hope and love and function as a wellspring of change. That silence masquerades as the quiet center of a storm, but its centrifugal force can sweep humanity into a future very different than Simon’s lament, “And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made.” His words, like my blogs, convey a specific message. My novels, on the other hand, live in the broader world of interrelationships and the national/international cross currents of culture, politics and economics. If you wish to explore that world as I envision it, check out my website at www.aculpableinnocence.com. There you will find synopses, excerpts and more information than perhaps you need or want. Although I have been reluctant to accept or promote any advertising on this blog, there are now over 1300 of you that seem interested in “Anthony’s Blog,” my running commentary on whatever. Only recently have I been persuaded that you might also be interested in Anthony’s world—my imaginative vision of our contemporary human condition.

Innocence: Gift or Virtue

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Anybody who writes is engaged with language. So I have an excuse for taking my readers down the linguistic rabbit hole with me. Today, I am enthralled with the word “innocent.” Let me explain.

It all started with a dog. During my daily stroll, a friendly mutt jumped my leg, his tail wagging, snout nuzzling, and eyes begging to be petted. The owner laughed, and I smiled as I bent over to return his warm greeting. Continuing my walk, I found a new lightness in my step. Then I remembered the owner’s response. She too enjoyed the moment. What was it about that dog that lifted both of our spirits? My own dog did as much for me. Even when she lay dying in my daughter’s arms, I remember her reaction when I entered the room—she rolled her eyes towards me and wagged her tail. She was happy to see me. Her attitude was spontaneous and not colored by any premonition of her eminent death (as far as any human can tell). In fact, her response was not different from my preschool daughter who, bursting with joy, used to run into my arms upon my return home from work. Both, most would say, were innocent because they lived solely in the moment. The difference, of course, is that my daughter, like the rest of us, would eventually learn to live beyond the moment. The future’s possibilities would capture her imagination not only with its promise of happiness, but also with its risks of harm and the certainty of death. These are the mixed possibilities that all adults face. So does that mean we are all doomed to lose our innocence? Perhaps not. . .

You might write this next paragraph for me with the obvious statement, “live in the moment.” But I think there is more to be said about innocence. It really is not age dependent and may not require us to forego our efforts to plan a future or even to deal with our mortality. The etymology of the word “innocent” suggest much more. The Latin root, in “not” and nocens, “wicked,” means “not wicked.” And nocens is further derived from the verb “to harm.” It is also the root for our word “noxious;” and its genealogy can be further traced back to the Greek nekros, which is, literally, a “dead body.” Our forebears knew what was innocent—both extrinsically and intrinsically. It is not only the naiveté of childhood. An “innocent” life presents itself to the world as one lived without harming others. And that life is truly alive in its very essence, for it cannot be wicked or obnoxious, analogously like the body of the living dead. The latter image is prefigured in the Greek root and elicits a rather bleak existence for the not innocent.

What we term innocent then is more than mere childlike. It is not just the ignorance of mortality or of the trials and tribulations that lie ahead. That ignorance is similar to what we see in other species, especially those that become our pets. We can identify it as a form of innocence. For example, not so long ago, I saw a rooster dead in the road. What was memorable about this incident was the coterie of barn animals surrounding the small corpse. They seemed baffled, like they were waiting for the rooster to rise and parade his cockiness. Eventually, they went about their normal activities. They may have missed the rooster, but seemed not to understand his death. Not anticipating or having to deal with the finality of death is a blessing our toddlers share with all animals. The novelty of life appears to them as an endless adventure. When we adults observe their playfulness and spontaneity, we are inspired to embrace life as the blessing that it is and to live every moment fully. However, that childish innocence cannot be regained simply by ignoring our responsibility to an unfolding future. On the contrary, we must prepare ourselves to accept or change what is to come without harming others and with our personal integrity intact. A life that benefits rather than harms others can face physical death with equanimity; for it averts a more noxious death of the human spirit. That life has meaning and is the only path to the innocence we seek—not as a birthright given, but a virtue attained.

Normally, I would end this blog with the last sentence. But there is a postscript my conscience demands be shared. Sometime ago I wrote about an innocence that is culpable (ref. “A Culpable Innocence”). Of course, that “innocence” was not what I described here, but instead a false innocence born of a willful naiveté or refusal to acknowledge the harm our actions might do to others. Many times in the recent decades, Americans have given silent consent to military interventions without consideration of the human consequences. Not only are we responsible for the suffering of those who fall victim to our weapons but also of those we commission to weld those weapons. We charge our soldiers to harm or even kill others. During World War II, they fought to preserve life and liberty for America and its allies. The soldiers who returned from that war intact seemed to meld back into society and to build constructive lives for themselves and their communities. Our subsequent wars, however, have not been so kind to our returning soldiers. The Vietnam War saw more live fire engagements with enemy combatants than any previous war. Our soldiers, however, were not seasoned veterans, but mostly draftees who fought to survive, not to defend the homeland which was never threatened. Many did not return whole in spirit and did not feel welcome as heroes, but as unwitting reminders of an unwanted war. More recently, many of our returning soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq suffer with the memories of their wartime experiences. The Iraq war has long been recognized as a war of choice, not of necessity. Though Afghanistan was initially invaded to defend our country against Al Qaeda, it has since become an American protectorate against a Taliban insurgency. Neither of these wars has eliminated the terrorist threat that has since metastasized around the world. But they have taken their toll of American soldiers. Too many of them cannot cope with their return to civilian status and find their only escape in suicide. My personal belief is that we are asking too much of these young men and women. It is not only their lives that are put in jeopardy, but their innocence. Fighting to survive, whether for yourself or your comrades, may justify a sense that you did what you had to do, that you did your duty. But the actual wartime experience may have no broader meaning. As such, it can weigh on the conscience as an unremitting emptiness, a dark night of the soul. War is an evil undertaking in any circumstance, but absent an overarching justification it can be a culpable delusion for its supporters and a recurring nightmare for its participants. It can jeopardize the attainment of that most prized virtue, innocence.

Perverted Politics

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Pascal in his Pensées once said that to write about politics “was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum.” Now there are two aspects to this statement. First, there is the laying down of rules. This task befell our founding fathers during the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. They were fully cognizant of Aristotle’s words, “every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good” (the opening line to Book One, Politics). In the Preamble of the Constitution they laid out what good they hoped to achieve: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union . . .” What follows the Preamble were the rules by which they hoped to structure and organize the new United States of America. Emmanuel Kant, though not a political philosopher, believed that reasonably intelligent people would establish universal laws and “a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions” (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals). Echoing the second part of Pascal’s statement, he concluded that “the problem of organizing a state . . . can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent.”

Generally, I would refrain from characterizing my fellow Americans as lunatics or devils, but our current legislators do give me some misgivings about their intelligence. As I write this blog, they are unable to agree on a bill that would fund the Homeland Security Department. The “good” the majority party is trying to obtain is the defunding of the President’s administration of immigration policies. The irony, of course, is that they would be defunding border patrol agents, the very people assigned to control illegal immigration. In the process they would be severely limiting the effectiveness of a department responsible for the safety of all Americans. Is there a logic here that any intelligent person can identify for the rest of us? I doubt that the founding fathers ever intended to grant Congress funding authority so that they could shut down the government they vow to serve or any key part thereof designed to preserve it from harm. While the majority party accuses the President of overstepping his Constitutional authority, it clearly is trashing several of the primary goals stated in the Constitution’s Preamble, specifically, to “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare . . .” Even if you believe the President exceeded his authority by prioritizing deportations—as several Presidents before him have done—his Constitutional authority to do so is already before the courts and will be adjudicated in accordance with the rules set down in our Constitution. With respect to the Republicans in the House, their current action defies the very purpose of the Constitution.

Elsewhere I have written about the failure of our leaders to compromise (ref. “Compromise: An Unfulfilled Promise”), but this new standoff is something different. It is an abdication of Constitutional responsibility. Further, it replaces statecraft with criminal-like blackmail. Remember who the victim is here: “We the people . . .”

War: How Justified a/o Authorized

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Nobody questions America’s involvement in the last World War. The justification is capsulized in two words: Pearl Harbor. However, since that war, the prerequisites for American military interventions or wars have been quite nuanced. Now we are faced with another ambiguous challenge in ISIL. The questions this challenge raises begin with the nature of ISIL’s threat and the Constitutional limitations of the President to engage Americans in a warlike intervention of any kind. The latter has historical precedent that is indeed prologue to contemporary times.

When Thomas Jefferson received a copy of the proposed constitutional articles concerning Presidential power, he cautioned James Madison, his trans-Atlantic interlocutor and fellow Virginian, with his concern that the President would have more power to wage war than the King of England. Since his communication with Madison was long distance (he was the American Ambassador in France at the time), it did not presume a timely response. Anticipating a fit accompli, he somewhat mollified his reply by supporting George Washington as the first American President, a man universally trusted. Perhaps, if he had been in Philadelphia that summer, he would have limited the President’s war powers. But if he had done so, he would never have been able to wage war against the Ivory Coast during his own Presidency years later. He ordered that attack without conferring with Congress. In fact, when he finally divulged his decision thirty days after the war, he explained that he had acted to protect American ships in oceans around the world from Ivory Coast pirates. American warships had rained shells on coastal cities in North Africa just like our drones today rain rockets on potential terrorists in Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria.

A key factor for Jefferson’s support of our first Commander-in-Chief’s power was trust. It must be noted that a President is not elected by a single partisan district or state, but by the entire country. His or her exercise of military power must have the trust and support of a majority of Americans. In order to check the use of American power against this trust barometer, the Constitution bequeaths to the Senate the sole authority to wage war. But, as in Jefferson’s time, there is a vague line of ambiguity between the formal declaration of war and various kinds of possible military interventions. For example, in recent times America has been militarily involved in various campaigns such as Iran (1980, 1987-88), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-present), Somalia (1992-93, 2007-present), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-present), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-present), Pakistan (2004-present), Syria (2014-present) and many more military interventions within our own hemisphere. Ask yourself how many of these interventions have been sanctioned by the American people and its elected Congress. For the most part, most Americans are oblivious and Congress, obsequious in its funding support.

Our current President has not preemptively invaded another country, though he has engaged our military in various forms of interventions with his use of air power, drones, limited Special Forces’ rescue or assassination/capture missions. While these interventions have been targeted against non-existential threats, he has used diplomacy and economic sanctions against more serious threats to global security. In other words, his foreign policy seems to distinguish between nuclear or potential nuclear powers such as North Korea, Russia, and Iran and terrorists cults or criminally induced fanatics such as ISIL or Al Qaeda. Given America’s recent war history, this President’s foreign policy, especially as it concerns the use of our military, deserves to be debated in Congress and properly vetted. He has asked as much and, I believe, wants to gain not just bipartisan support but the trust of the American people.

As Jefferson acknowledged, the American President has enormous power as Commander-in-Chief. So any debate must not be afraid to speak truth to power. What we Americans do not want is opposing arguments invoked to gain power at the expense of truth. There are sane, reasonable Senators in Washington who need to speak their mind instead of the dictates of Party leadership. When America opts to kill people in its own interest, there needs to be a clear definition of the threat and of the measured use of appropriate force. ISIL, for example, has no air force and no means to threaten the American homeland except through the instigation of criminal and marginalized individuals. This form of terrorism is not a homeland insurgency and is very unlikely to match the criminal incidents already incurred daily in our major cities. Surely we need to stop its incursion at our borders, to work in concert with other nations to prevent its spread, and to protect our citizens in jeopardy around the world. The threat is real and clearly falls within the scope of response undertaken by past Presidents.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already suspect how much I dislike war. Both those who are conscripted to fight and those caught in the crossfire suffer. In addition, war’s impact persists long after the bullets stop flying not only for the survivors but also for the nation states affected. War has unintended consequences. Iraq is a prime example: our occupation policies alienated a third of Iraq and gave birth to ISIL; the weapons we supplied to an inept and disloyal army are now being used against the factions we support; and the Western style democracy we attempted to infuse in Iraq is now the staggering prop of a failing state. The question we never asked ourselves before attempting to democratize Iraq was how to relate to a nation and a people whose history and context we so little understood. As a fictional character from the Vietnam War explained to an American soldier, “Eventually you will learn that you cannot fight ideologies with weapons and that you can only promote democracy in the world by supporting democratic institutions and the right of people to find their own path to freedom” (reference “The Vung Tau Trip,” in A Culpable Innocence). In the end, war is the detritus of our failure to relate to each other.
(For the context of the above quote, click here.)

It’s a Small World After All

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As the human population continues to propagate, our world grows smaller. The Disney theme ride does in fact have a point. Whatever distances exists between different locations on the globe, the travel, communication, commerce, and inter-civic relations are now more closely connected than at any time in human history. The old adage that a butterfly can flap its wings in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean has never been more applicable than in our time. I believe this historical drama of a growing interconnection has unique significance for the future of our species.

Relationships developed through travel, international diplomacy, cooperative transnational crisis assistance, and mass media gradually break down stereotypes and lay the ground work for tolerance, mutual respect, and co-existence. Trade, for example, greatly enhances co-dependence. Commodities sourced in one country are often packaged or manufactured into products in other countries and sold through retail outlets around the world. The supply chain forces an interdependence that can only be broken at the expense of each link. Moreover, the demand side of the equation is also part of this interdependence. The capability of underdeveloped countries and of the poor in developed countries to purchase from this global supply chain is intrinsic to future global economic growth. But these issues have been discussed elsewhere and more effectively than here. What more specifically interests me is the mindset required by this paradigm shift in global interdependence.

At some point, perhaps in a distant utopia, we must come to realize that we humans are more alike than different, that tribal/cultural fragmentations are hindrances to collective responsibilities to each other, that only mutual cooperation can preserve the planetary environment for our posterity, and that the internecine violence engendered by our lust for power, possession, and prurient gratification is an expression of our primate nature and not of our human potential. I believe that many, perhaps most, people already concur with this realization. But our institutions and governments are slow to change. And great masses of the world population have little or no access to the reins of power and its more humane use. Some are merely struggling on the edge of survival or trapped between the violent and extreme positions of opposing powers. Even in America where we are free of the type of violent civil strife that we witness in so many places (Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, and so on), are we really free of the violent rhetoric and poisonous opposition of political rivalries fighting for power, influence, and control of the disposition of national wealth. Our political parties are as divisive and violent in rhetoric as opposing factions in other parts of the world are in physical confrontations. (Reference: “Words Have Meaning.”)

Nations may harbor civil wars within; neighboring nations may engage in wars or destructive hegemony that can brutalize civilian populations; governments, like our own, can stagnant into endless political disputes where election to the seats of power is valued over good governance. An American citizen, for instance, may easily justify a feeling of powerlessness before the gridlock debacle too often practiced in Congress. Yet apathy is just as crippling as power mongering and perhaps as culpable. How many Americans vote according to party affiliation, rather than policy initiatives? Identifying with a political brand is like eating the same bowl of corn flakes every morning without thought. Both the Democratic and Republican parties interchange positions while selling the same brand to the electorate: “the Party of family values” versus “the Party of the common people.” The actual discrepancies within this branding are numerous: Democrats pass mandated healthcare under the auspices of private insurance companies, as originally proposed by Republicans; Republicans expand mortgage availability to lower income households (remember subprime mortgages)as originally proposed by Democrats; a Democratic President signs a bill advanced by Republicans and strongly supported by Wall Street to repeal the Glass-Steagall law that would have prevented the recent financial crisis; a Republican President presented to Congress an immigration reform bill that would have included a path to citizenship as advocated by most Democrats. My point is that party politics change with the wind. Nineteen century liberalism is twentieth century conservatism. Twenty first century liberalism is markedly more conservative and its twentieth century counterpart, conservatism, more extreme, even anti-government, than during the preceding decades. To vote the “Party line” is nothing other than mindless “group think.” In fact, it is a form of tribalism that functions to reduce an electorate to an irrelevant mass of followers. There is a cultural minefield here we have yet to transgress before we reach the mindset we need to have to match the paradigm shift that is occurring around us. So how do we confront the challenge before us?

As an individual, I cannot change the world—not even through social media or my blog. But I am accountable for the course of my own life. And so are you. The promise of the future is what we create in our personal lives. The only thing that is inevitable is the past already lived. Each of us can be constructive, thoughtful citizens of the world. You may feel like a single drop of water in a small reservoir, but you can become part of a downpour that overflows that reservoir and spills out into the world. The starting point begins within each one of us, in a singular moment of awareness. Find a quiet place in your home where you can feel your own heartbeat; watch moment-to-moment a sunset’s unfolding hues; look deeply into the eyes of one you love; and experience that awareness which anyone of us can share and which defines our humanity. In that moment, we are truly one. The words “love thy neighbor as oneself” become real. We are in truth not only as distinct as two blossoms on the same tree, but rooted as well to the same life source. Each of us shines with an indefinable beauty and a mysterious presence that disassembles all barriers and exposes each to a collective consciousness, a common awareness. The most amazing part of this awareness is that it reveals what is eternal in our nature, what binds us to the world and to each other. Given this mindset, how would it be possible to view others only as adversaries? How could anyone of us presume our needs greater than the needs of others? How could we live as if life was a zero sum game when universal loss is the only result of such a contest? I believe it is possible for humanity to rise above the fray it creates for itself, once individuals recognize that we are one and that realization becomes the operating mindset of a new generation of men and women.

Keystone or Philosopher’s Stone

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Obviously the Keystone XL Pipeline extension is not the legendary philosopher’s stone that could transform lead into gold. But I wonder whether some believe this myth has become reality in the case of TransCanada’s pipeline project. According to its proponents, it will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, further America’s independence from foreign oil, free us of future interventions in oil rich Middle Eastern countries, offer a more cost efficient and safer transportation medium than rail, and boost our energy driven economy. Is this nothing more than a figurative transformation of crude oil into liquid gold? Perhaps, but it may not seem so to its opponents, especially after two recent pipeline spills into the Yellowstone River. If you are a farmer or rancher in Nebraska or a member of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance in South Dakota, you may not be thrilled with the prospect of your land or water supply being polluted by a broken pipeline. In addition, proponents of climate change foresee Agamemnon if this pipeline extension is built. It seems environmentalists and business interests are irreversibly at odds on the decision to build this pipeline extension. Moreover, these conflicting positions have roiled the cages of our politicians who have emerged with straw man arguments with which to rip apart their opponents. What are we to make of this conflict? Let me offer another perspective. But first, let’s briefly outline a few facts.

Normally, a pipeline cannot be built without hearings to determine justification for the state to force private lands to be sold for public interests. These hearings are generally established to protect private citizens from being damaged by the state’s use of eminent domain. In Nebraska, this protection was overridden by a state law (LB 1161) in 2012 that gave the Governor the authority to grant the use of eminent domain to TransCanada without hearings or any kind of analysis. (It should be noted that Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality has no standards for assessing oil pipeline impacts.) A Nebraskan judge found the Governor’s use of the right of eminent domain to be unconstitutional. This month (January, 2015) a majority of the Nebraskan Supreme Court agreed with the lower court ruling, that is, 4 out of 7 Supreme Court judges were in agreement. However, in Nebraska a super majority of 5 is required to overturn the legislature. So LB 1161 stands and the Governor can force the remaining farmers/ranchers to sell the land needed by TransCanada to complete the Nebraska portion of the pipeline. However, the Nebraskans who are affected by this decision have not given up their fight and plan to reprise their case in the courts. In fact, they are being joined by South Dakotans who are also unwilling to give up their property rights. But now that the Nebraskan Governor can authorize the sale of private property to a foreign company under the right of eminent domain, the same ranchers/farmers will be in a position to claim damages. Recent oil pipeline spills will be brought into court hearings as evidence of the potential risk to fresh water supplies and to surrounding communities as well as of possible unrecoverable damage to private property owners. In other words, the Keystone pipeline will continue to be tied up in the courts for a very long time. Meanwhile, the permit that allowed TransCanada to build the South Dakota portion of Keystone has expired. The Cowboy and Indian Alliance in that state is already celebrating what they believe is the death Nell for this pipeline project. How difficult would it now be for TransCanada to justify eminent domain—to show that America’s need for Canadian oil is a public good that outweighs the property rights of American citizens when that oil is intended for cargo ships destined for foreign ports?

Will TransCanada persists in its attempts to build this Keystone pipeline extension or finally revert to their alternate strategy, a new pipeline extending to Canada’s western shore? If the President or legislative action authorized the border crossing of this pipeline at this time, would that action allow pipeline construction to begin? The answer to my first question is unknown, but clearly the second question can only be answered in the negative. With respect to the pro and con arguments, there are a few facts that we can weigh. Is a pipeline a better option for transporting crude oil in terms of safety and costs? One only needs to review rail transportation fees and recent oil railcar explosions before replying strongly affirmative to this question. Will the pipeline extension provide hundreds of thousands of jobs? Not likely, though it certainly will employ thousands of already employed construction workers and require a relatively small number of permanent jobs to maintain the pipeline after construction. How many additional workers will be hired during the construction phase is open to speculation for it depends on decisions TransCanada will make regarding the pace of construction. The mid-West is already riddled with pipelines; literally thousands of pipeline workers are readily available to sign onto this project. Will this pipeline have any affect at all on American energy use, foreign policy, or economy? Since this heavy Canadian crude was never intended to be refined for American use, its only economic beneficiary is a Canadian oil company. Given crashing oil prices, it is no longer clear whether TransCanada’s capital investment in this project is even worthwhile. And since changing the means of transporting this oil has no relevance to its production or ultimate provisioning to customers, there is no effect on the world oil supply, on climate change, or on Middle Eastern oil producers. The only foreign policy impact that I can visualize concerns whether this oil is shipped out of Texas refineries to Europe or out of Canada’s western province to China. Finally, how relevant is the politicization of the President’s approval of this pipeline extension? In my opinion, the facts reveal an alarming lack of political relevancy. Clearly, the President indicated to the Canadian Prime Minister that he favored the pipeline once it passed legal and regulatory due process. Part of that process was the EPA application of extensive monitoring for pipeline leakage and provision of adequate oil spill clean-up capability. The EPA’s favorable determination was probably the major hurdle for the Administration. But the legal issues still persists in the courts.

Given the facts of the matter, you might be wondering what perspective I might offer. Well, I confess I have a bias here. My mother loss her small business to the state’s application of eminent domain—for a freeway off ramp that was never in fact built. As a result, I find it hard to view the Keystone XL Pipeline issue as anything other than a determination of the lawful and fair application of eminent domain. Some South Dakotans and about 12% of affected Nebraskan farmers/ranchers feel their property rights are being unfairly usurped by the state. Clearly, that is an issue for the judicial system. The Administration has already played its part and can do no more until the matter is adjudicated in the courts. The Nebraskan legislature has done its task. Our Congress has no role at all in the matter.

In conclusion, I would like to see the pipeline built with as much spill protection as technology can offer, BUT only if property owners’ interests are protected. And, frankly, I would like our politics to become relevant once again.

To Nathalie, Wife and Mother

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Stripped bare in alabaster hue
The birch releases its summer growth
Gently falling to the parched earth
That exhales its font to the heavens
Where condensing and billowing forms
Spread over the face of all
Awaken a universe reborn in each,
Like sparkling dew on a rose petal,
A glistening kiss on a child’s cheek,
And a blossoming stem.

AJD, 1/17/2015

Tempered Reactions to Paris Massacres

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In our time any reaction to horrific events has the potential to be not only broadcast but also amplified by both the traditional and social media. Even decades ago the media served in this capacity. Rev. King’s march to Selma for justice and Mandela’s efforts for reconciliation were organized media events to awaken the conscience of a broader audience and to win their support. It should not go unnoticed that radical jihadists have the same motivation. The difference, of course, is the message they want delivered and the greater ubiquity of the medium. No ideological movement—not even for Justice and reconciliation—can be won at the point of a sword, as King and Mandela knew well. And though contemporary media can raise the dead with its volume and eschatological premonitions, its effect can become quite intemperate. You cannot shout “fire” in a crowded marketplace without some people being trampled at the exits.

Many feel that the terrorist attacks in France were not just vengeful and monstrous, but deliberately aimed at one of the sacred institutions of Western democracies, namely, freedom of expression. The demonstrations in France and around the world have been large as a result, while also being peaceful and focused. How then could the West’s response become intemperate? My concern comes from the very nature of freedom of expression. That freedom comes with an obligation to tolerate those with whom we strongly disagree. But tolerance presumes so much more: the effort to understand the basis for disagreement so that it can be either reconciled or a path to coexistence can be found. Yes, we even need to understand the assassins and murderers who want martyrdom at our hands. We may willingly grant them that wish, but we cannot lose sight of the millions who sympathize or whose support they hope to win. The widow of the chief cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo recently said that her husband knew of the danger he faced and was willing to die for freedom. I can imagine that the widow of one of the terrorist—who apparently has sought refuge in Syria—probably shares similar feelings about her husband.

If radical jihadists are fighting for their definition of freedom, we first need to understand that definition. It appears that they offer two definitions: amongst themselves they appear to seek defeat of the West and to gain absolute power over all aspects of governance via Sharia law and a self-serving interpretation of Islam; amongst the audience they hope to influence they offer freedom from perceived Western oppression and the inspiration of martyrdom and extraneous quotes from religious texts. The first definition is the logic of thugs and monomaniacs. The West should have no difficulty relating to this logic, for it is just one more incarnation of fascism. Moreover, Europe especially has a long history of wars and oppression carried out in the name of religion. The wisdom gained from this history formed the basis for America’s separation of church and state as enshrined in our Constitution. It also is rooted in French secularism, which Charlie Hebdo so clearly exemplifies. But Moslems as well have long struggled over the same issue: how to attain both personal and religious freedom without resort to extremism and brutality. Radical jihadists’ idea of freedom is equally irreconcilable to our perception in the West as to Islam’s. I suspect the West can add no more weight to the argument against indiscriminate violence and despotism than what already exists within Islam. Practically every major Moslem cleric in Europe has condemned the perpetrators of the Paris massacres and denounced what was done in the name of their religion. I have seen very little reporting on this fact, even though the strongest ally the West has against jihadists is the Moslem community.

The West can counter the second jihadists’ definition of freedom by eliminating the linkage they advance between their actions and the plight of Moslems around the world. The jihadists are not Islamic liberators, but oppressors of Moslems. Having stated that fact does not completely excuse the West from its historical role in dealing with Moslem populations. It may be difficult for Europe to erase their colonial past. And our history with Moslems includes support for oppressive Middle Eastern regimes and engagement in or support for wars against Moslem populations. Recently, however, I have noticed an uneven attempt by our President to relate to the “Arab Spring.” What is needed now is a much broader effort by the Western democracies to constructive engagement. Some part of this effort involves foreign policy, for example, to foster less corrupt governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, to reach some kind of rapprochement with Iran, to encourage a less oppressive regime in Egypt, and to advance more aggressively a two state solution to the Palestinian stalemate. Another part of this effort should involve more immediate assistance to Moslem populations, along the lines of our intervention in removing chemical weapons from Syria, in assisting with the eradication of Ebola in West Africa, or in funding the rebuilding of Palestinian infrastructure destroyed in the recent war. I know our State Department, along with UN sponsored NGOs, have many programs geared to help the health and education of Moslem populations, especially those trapped in refugee camps and Palestinian ghettoes. The problem with all these efforts is the ongoing struggle within Moslem communities to form some kind of political identity that would differentiate them from tyrannical governments AND radical jihadist that seek advantage from their plight. What appears as a likely scenario is a multi-generational struggle to free Moslems from these shackles and opportunists. The West, while it strives to protect its people from the attacks of jihadists, desperately needs to assist Moslems in their development of a more benevolent political identity wherever possible.

There are at least two reasons why freedom of expression is held as inviolable in the West: it is a bulwark against tyranny and the guarantor that all perspectives, religious and otherwise, can coexist in a truly free society. Personally, I believe this kind of imbroglio of wit and passion can only exists peacefully where it leads to dialogue, the precursor to realpolitik and constructive relations. The West should be able to relate to the plight of Moslems around the world by simply recalling its own struggles with tyranny, religious wars, and extremist ideologies. An intemperate response to terrorist violence in France could further damage relations with Moslems and make any kind of dialogue impossible. For example, belittling the Prophet Mohammed would be offensive, whereas satirizing his misrepresentation by jihadists would be revealing. Because we live in a free society, we tolerate opinions that may offend, but that toleration must extend to Moslem condemnation of offensive speech. At best, we can appreciate the difficulty some Moslems will have with our tolerance of blasphemy, for it disregards their sensitivities and disrespects them personally. Every person’s beliefs deserve respect. We learn this truth through dialogue where an understanding of differences can be aired and accepted as part of our common human condition. Without dialogue no rapprochement is even possible. An intemperate response to the Paris massacres could preclude that dialogue and sideline the one ideological force that can destroy jihadism at its source: Islam.

We will continue to fight jihadists on the battlefields of their choosing, but we can defeat them only if we join with Moslems to disavow the jihadists’ moral underpinnings. I cannot deny their belief in a self-justifying ideology, but I refuse to accept it as religion. There is no such thing as a “religious” terrorist, just a wolf in sheep’s clothing or, as Charlie Hebdo would draw it, an assassin disguised as Mohammed.

Compromise: An Unfulfilled Promise

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Many people have complained of late about the lack of compromise in our elected government. It has been said that the problem in Washington is an inability to concede anything to the opposition or simply to identify common ground. But I think the problem may be language.

Some years ago I read a book about how dogs communicate. What struck me as remarkable was the fact that dog “language” is quite constant across all species of dogs. A tail wag, a raised ear, or a show of teeth always communicated the same message. A British terrier has no problem communicating with an Irish bulldog. Now, if we humans could replicate the same feat in our communication, it would be considered a real breakthrough in international relations and especially in our congressional negotiations. Elsewhere I touched upon our seeming failure to communicate in the hallowed halls of Congress in terms of the misapplication of words and analogies (ref. “Words Have Meaning”). But I think the lesson canines can teach us is different.

If a dog humps your leg, its message is clear. But, as I mentioned in a recent blog, our species can simply change the meaning of something that looks like torture by calling it “enhanced interrogation.” If a dog were capable of such duplicity, I suppose its humping would be interpreted as a desire to clean your pants leg. Of course, dogs are not capable of our dishonesty in their communication. They are quite reliable in their use of dog language. We know why they hump.

Let’s move beyond “torture,” since certain people in a past Administration refuse to use that word to describe certain heinous acts committed in our name. Instead, I want to consider what has been done to the word “compromise.” Its dictionary meaning is a “settlement of differences . . . reached by mutual concession.” Its Latin derivatives—com, “together, with”, and promittere, “to promise”—strongly imply an intent or promise to come together. Now suppose you reverse the meaning. For example, the Democrats in Oregon and the Republicans in Washington State agreed not to replace the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River after deficit hawks on the right and environmentalist on the left lobbied their representatives to do nothing. As a result salmon continue to swim unabated under a rickety old bridge that ranks as the 28th most insufficient amongst 18,984 similar bridges in the U.S.; and the states pass up $1.25 billion in federal funding for a new bridge in lieu of the $900 million it will costs the states to keep the current nearly 100 year old structure temporarily upright. The right and the left “compromised” by agreeing to do nothing. We experienced a similar “compromise” in a recent debt ceiling negotiation: the President agreed NOT to amend Obamacare and the Republicans agreed NOT to shut down the government. Currently, our government is faced with another showdown over funding for homeland security. My guess is that both sides will “compromise” on an agreement that will NOT defund or limit the Homeland Security Department and will NOT revoke the President’s executive orders affecting immigrant families. Both sides will “come together” without any concessions so that nothing will be accomplished.

The situation in Washington reminds me of the failed compromise I tried to reach with my dog. I wanted her to hold it in until I could let her out the back door. But I could not return from work early enough and she could not restrain a doggie dump on the dining room carpet. You see, we just spoke different languages—much like many of our legislators.