The Sheila Variations

I'm with you. I was just ranting yesterday on the way that we have to vote by "strategy" instead of by who we actually think might do the job well. The strategy being, of course, that ANYONE is better than Bush, and voting for anyone besides Kerry is just throwing their vote away, or worse, they're actually voting for Bush by poxy. I really hate Bush, but Jesus, Kerry's such a weasel. He even looks like one.

When I see Bush giving big State of the Union addresses, I am very proud. Mostly because I agree with a lot of what he says. So I'm biased. I like the content, so I approve of the form.

But I wish we could let off steam a bit more, in a humorous way ... I just ... There's so much HATRED now - from both sides - It feels like this country is on the verge of splitting up.

But I still can't picture Bush defending his views to a bunch of drunken-sailor Congressmen. He now seems to be too isolated from disagreement - it throws him.

This is my opinion, based on nothing other than observation - so I realize it's anecdotal.

Lengthier comments on my part to follow eventually, I think, but a point to be made is that Tony Blair can wade into the formalized riot that is PM's Question Time in the House Commons because he IS an MP: he, the head of government, is also just another legislator, in his case representing Sedgefield, somewhere in northern England, i.e., this is something owed to the fact that the UK does not have anything approaching our level of separation of powers. There are both pros and cons to that, and while he may have more of the form of accountability, we have more of the substance: Lord Hailsham called the office of Prime Minister in the UK an elective dictatorship in the 1960's, and it's only become more powerful and less subject to any real checks and balances since.

The State of the Union is much more similar to the State Opening of Parliament (by the Queen) than it is to PM's Question Time. An American president is, after, head of state as well as head of government.

I suppose I'm just mourning that we lack that tone in our country. The tone of good-natured disagreement.

I think Bush (or any president) could use a good Question Time.

I'm with you on the lack of humor. I rant, I blow off steam, and get accused of lack of patriotism. Or worse, of not honoring the victims of 9/11 or the men and women in the military.

I'm against Bush because I think he uses fear as a strategy. I'm against Kerry because he's just anti-Bush, nothing really to offer.

Is there a people who are sick of all this crap party? Preferably with a qualified female presidential candidate?

QT is my favorite TV show. I kid you not. I love watching MPs stick it to each other in the neck. They throw papers. Holler. Bicker. Heckle. I love it. It's like watching a car crash, except the blood is only metaphorical.

Was it Churchill that used to moan, wrap the newspaper over his face and snore REALLY loud when he was bored?

I love watching it, too. It's hysterical. It's irreverent. I appreciate it.

Maybe blogging is my own version of having a QT with my MPs.

Question Time is SO much more fun live, Emily, difficult as I know that may be to even imagine. Of course, I was there for the last days of John Major, who couldn't compare to Blair (or Thatcher) as a performer, but he made a good straight man for all the madness, like Graham Chapman as a military officer in some Monty Python sketch saying "this has all become much too silly."

Jealous!! Jealous of Dave J! I would love to see it live!

Yeah, I knew you'd be jealous. :-p

Wow, it's priceless that Kerry was a member of both the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats. No Young Communists? He should have done a better job of covering all the bases.

That rant, Sheila. It was just. I don't know. So Irish of you. But what do you really think.

Oh, and I love the way the media handicaps the election as though it were a horse race.

Bush (wearing saddle cloth #3) 6/5
Kerry (wearing saddle cloth #5) 3/5

Can you think of even one President in your lifetime that could handle QT? I disagree with Dave J. I think John Major acquitted himself very well with the room. The only ones I can think of that could handle it are John Kennedy or Harry Truman. The rest are just too stiff and/or over-coached.

I couldn't agree with you more, Red. For all of the factors you listed, and more, I haven't voted since voting for Jimmy Carter. I refuse to cast a "negative" vote, the lesser of two evils.

Our system of government has been broken for a very long time: the military/industrial/congressional complex; the enormous power of PACs, special interest groups, and corporations; do-nothing congresses, etc. For someone who came of age in the 60s, and grieves for how much we've lost since then, I am sick at heart. I have been for decades.

I see nothing to give me hope that our country will return to true Democracy.

I wonder...the increasing emphasis on never being wrong and on winning at any cost..could this have anything to do with the proliferation of lawyers and of lawyer-like thinking in our society?

Bud -

A quibbling point: we are not a democracy. We are a republic. Democracy is the people governing, which often leads to complete and utter anarchy.

I don't so much have a problem with our form of government - as with the overall tone.

To listen to some people, I truly think that they would be happier in a one-party state.

These people scare me.

Rob - I can imagine Teddy Roosevelt having a grand old time in QT.

Oh, and Bud - sorry I can't let this slip past me!!

No matter how pissed off I am right now, I value my right to vote - and even if I were delirious with a fever of 104 I would drag my ass to the voting booths.

I cherish the privilege. I believe in the revolutionary nature of our government (in its ideal state) - and that only by my consent are those people in power.

Without voting, I feel I give up any right to complain or participate at all.

David -

(Dave J: you're getting it from all sides today! In another thread, there is an anti-lawyer conversation going on)

I'm sure that that's part of it. The rigidity of the attitudes, the black and white nature of debates ... But I think the people who go into politics these days are not the renegades, the natural leaders, the cream rising to the top. They're people who decide to President when they're 8, and their whole life follows accordingly. Career politicians, what have you. And so, necessarily, they are cut off from the start from uncertainties, or from ... having to question their actions.

I have to think about it more. I don't know.

I certainly don't want a wild WAFFLER in the highest office of the land - of course not. I want someone firm, and strong. And yet - within being firm and strong, there is STILL ROOM to admit when you are not sure, that you are uncertain ... that you are, inactuality, taking a risk, and you don't know how things are going to turn out. (That's what the Brooks article discusses)

People's personalities are polarized. "I AM A STRONG LEADER. I SHOW NO UNCERTAINTY. I DO NOT FALL DOWN ON MY SNOWBOARD."

Whatever, Ozymandius.

You're older than I thought. :)

Rob,

You have no idea. :)

Rob, I wasn't saying that John Major was bad at QT, just that Blair is, and Thatcher was, so much better than at it than he was that he holds up poorly by comparison. And that may be his larger reputation rubbing off on perceptions of his performance at the despatch box: unfair though it probably was, Major was simply thought of as so incredibly boring that Spitting Image made him "the Gray Man," who appeared in black and white even though everyone else was in color.

Those are tough comparisons but I suppose you're right in that respect. I only saw Qt with Thatcher once. She handled those guys with ease.

Apropos of both politics and Irishness, I suppose, the first image that popped into my mind as I started reading your rant was the Election Day sequence in Gangs of New York. I saw it for the first time over the weekend, and I can't get it out of my head.

Red,

Point taken on the meaning of "democracy." I, too, have no problem with our form of government; it's all about the execution that, of course, includes the tone.

And the execution--that could include the carrying out of the Framers' vision--has on many occasions thoughout our history demonstrated just what you mean when you say our leaders are there, or not, because of our consent. However, the fact that the Supremes--not the majority of the people--installed the current regime, has rendered voting at the national level (I do vote locally: all politics is local!) less than fully representative.

Also, for all intents and purposes, we do live in a one-party state. Where have the Democrats been in recent years?

As to the right to complain or participate afforded by the act of voting, I dare say that inestimable good has been done by folks who have failed to vote but have demonstrated their concern for our country and communities--and for their fellow Americans--by individual and collective efforts to bring about social and political change.

I think another thing that could make our government more interesting if there was the occasional Senate-clearing brawl, a la the Taiwan parliament. It would make the soulless politicians seem more human and we could drink beer while watching C-SPAN and making bets on who can kick who's ass.

I don't want to let the majority of politicians in both parties off the hook, because they're contemptible. However, I also believe that we're essentially getting what we ask for. Politicians crave approval. If a politician's approval numbers went down by 20 or 30 points every time he or she held a press conference and blithely recited campaign talking points instead of actually answering the questions, you can bet that a helluva lot more questions would start getting answered.

Politicians are like eight-year olds who have learned to lie to get what they want and whose parents are too distracted to realize they're being sold a bill of goods. One of my major gripes with our educational system is that we don't teach logic to our kids from grade-school forward. It's nothing short of educational malpractice to send defenseless kids out into a world full of ever-more sophisticated media manipulation.

Neither the Republicans or the Democrats really want the general population to have the ability to recognize logical fallacies, because in that case winning would be a LOT less fun. No, it's going to be up to us to force them (along with the educational establishment) to do it.

Come to think of it, THAT'S what we need a 9/11-style commission for - to investigate why we're not teaching our kids to recognize a simple, obvious logical fallacy when the damn thing is being brazenly shoved in their face!

I guess that was a bit of Brooks' point, too, Mike R:

"Now we're talked to as if we're children, which, if you look at the hypocrisy-laden terror debate, is about what we deserve."

And Amen about the lack of logic. It's a disaster.

Bud - I do not know what has happened to the Democratic Party. I have voted Democrat my whole life. But ... it does seem to have lost its way. They certainly lost my vote.

Red - I can't help but agree that the Democrats have lost their way, but I see the Republicans in an even more unfavorable light. I actually have a lot in common with moderate Republicans like John McCain, Warren Rudman and Christie Whitman, and I'm even comfortable with more conservative but still reasonable guys like Bob Dole.

However, moderate voices have now been almost completely marginalized within the Republican party (only one of the four people I mentioned currently holds public office). Most of the Republicans I respect are soldiers fighting a lost cause - they have little chance of being nominated for anything above dog catcher these days. The Republican ruling majority is an unholy combination of the religious right and the ultra-wealthy, and I will NEVER trust either of those groups with the future of this country.

I'm sorry to say this, but there are a big portion of the we out there that don't crave logic and good natured debate. They crave watching people eat increasingly gross stuff on TV, and watching Donald Trump fire others. If you want to see what the majority we wants, check out the highest rated (polls) shows on TV. They don't care about politics, unless it get juicy, and they certainly don't care about good education. They won't fund what we have now, much less logic classes (see Oregon for a good example).

I just want to make clear that I don't think "waffling" or changing your mind TOO much is a good or an honorable thing. I don't. People who are swayed too much by public opinion or the input of others when making a big choice do not get my respect.

However. I believe in deep contemplation about serious issues, and I believe in a sense of gravity and humility when it comes to making these massive choices. Sometimes, with deep contemplation and research, comes a total change of opinion.

Ben Franklin's change of opinion about the nature of "the Negro" is a perfect example. This was a man who grew up in a slavery society, who imbibed the racist doctrine of the day - like everyone did - and all it took was one day in a little school for African children, and observing them learning, for him to throw out all of his old ideas on this score. He realized he had been limited in his own understanding - he realized that their entire society was way OFF in thinking that Africans were not capable of higher education - His writing on this topic in the wake of the visit to the African school is incredibly moving, prescient, and powerful. It is also EXTREMELY humble.

"I think that we are wrong in our ideas. I have been wrong in my ideas."

This only came out of contemplation, and a willingness to wrestle with uncertainty, and not just receive truths from above - but to investigate.

Many many men, obviously, observed the same thing Franklin did and did not change how they felt. It was Franklin's discomfort with certainty (and he wrote about this often) that allowed this change to occur. By the end of his life, Franklin had hooked up with the Quakers and was instrumental in starting some of the first abolitionist societies in the country.

THAT'S what I'm talking about.

To do what Franklin did requires the willingness to place the truth and the needs of the country above one's own venal and selfish interests. These days, anyone in either party who tries to do that is immediately marginalized. We shouldn't be tolerating open warfare between the political parties, because it prevents us from addressing the daunting problems that lie directly ahead.

Of course Theresa is right - much of the public does seem to have an overwhelming craving to be pandered to. We appear to be in a Catch-22 scenario. Maybe there is no practical way to fix what's broken. I can't claim to know the answer, but I am certain that there's no way things can possibly improve unless and until we start teaching kids to think more critically about both technological AND social problems...

MikeR -

You write To do what Franklin did requires the willingness to place the truth and the needs of the country above one's own venal and selfish interests. - I won't say I disagree, but I sense something else in his actions, something that is, categorically, missing from politicians today:

Introspection. Contemplation of one's SELF - as a CITIZEN - not as a potential leader. An interest in ethics, philosophy - and a willingness to sit with one's self and really figure out how you believe about things - as opposed to just accepting party-line doctrine.

It's a question of character.

Again, I have no evidence - it's merely what I sense. From both sides.

Oh, and I don't claim to know the answer either. :)

Just needed a bit of a rant to clear the air.

mmmmm I love waffles

I've seen British parliamentary sessions on C-SPAN too! Interesting isn't it, the open hazing from both sides of the aisle? Not like here, where legislative sessions are much more concerned with decorum (except for the occasional outbreak of violence). Even in times of intense partisanship, I've never seen our Congress be quite as vocal!

Then there's the Taiwanese legislature...they should sell video footage of their sessions in pay-per-view!