In Defense of Politicians

In a poll surveying popular feeling about the trustworthiness of persons in various vocations politicians ranked next to the bottom of the scale, just above car salesmen.

Skunks and wolves were off the bottom of the scale, although there are pet skunks, pet wolves and pet politicians. Owners of such subhuman pets are few in number, but almost everyone tries to own a piece of a politician with clout. There is an old adage, People get the government – and the politicians – they deserve. Politicians are put in office to serve the wants of those who put them there.

Years ago, in the early 1900’s, Lincoln Steffens did a series of case studies of corruption in government. One such study, in the city of Boston, analyzed the political machine of Boss Martin Lomasney. Lomasney explained to Steffens exactly how the thing worked – who got and who gave. Steffens challenged the boss and his machine to try to give Boston honest government. The challenge was accepted and the crew studied the possibilities, but after a year they gave up. They learned that if they gave honest government they would be thrown out of office by some of the people who complained about graft. A corrupt government results from the demands made on politicians by people who want special favors outside the law.

A few years ago I was talking with a businessman in Miami about a zoning variance which ruined the symmetry of a residential neighborhood. I asked him how it happened. He replied that there were some payoffs. I wondered why they didn’t elect honest officials, to which he answered, “If officials stayed honest in this city, they couldn’t be reelected.”

Politicians know the attitudes and the wants of their constituents, and try to work out compromises to satisfy their conflicting interests. They do this by catering to as many requests as possible and accumulating a bunch of IOU’s to be redeemed on Election Day. Politicians are no better nor worse than the voters who put them in office.

To paraphrase Cassius in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, the fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we have corrupt government. Or to quote Pogo (only people over 40 knew him), “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The prostitutes, the shady hustler, the traffic law violators push through the precinct committeemen or the ward chairmen to have their misdemeanors overlooked by police and judges. They are joined by developers and builders who want building codes eased and violations ignored, and by business owners and managers who want health and safety regulations, and environmental protection requirements, forgotten.

Huge defense contractors bill the government for hundreds of millions of dollars in excess and illicit costs, and if a low level government worker whistles down the deal, he is shipped off to bureaucratic nether land, responding to pressure from the corporate executives and their well-placed stooges. To top it off the president of a major brokerage firm invites the attorney general of the United States to lunch and discusses the problem of the government’s discovery of more than 2,000 dishonest deals which cheated banks out of millions of dollars of earned interest. The result of the discussion: no person is charged with any offense.

It reminds me of the story in the New Testament (John 8:1-11) according to which a woman taken in the act of adultery was brought to Jesus for judgment. “Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone her.” Jesus replied, “Let him that is without sin among you first cast a stone.” One by one the accusers slunk away.  Jesus asked the woman, “Did no man accuse you?” “No one,” she answered. “Neither do I condemn thee,” was the Master’s judgment.

Passing judgment on the honesty of politicians too often demands that we point a finger at ourselves.

Soothsayers and Prophets

Would-be leaders always arouse a bit of skepticism in me.

A cartoon I saw pictured a man running around and saying, "The people are on the march. I am their leader. I must find out where they are going , so that I can lead them." A more pointed observation was made in a recent article, "A leader tells the people what they want to hear." Perhaps the essence of leadership is the ability to articulate the crowd's desires.

Franklin D. Roosevelt did this with his comforting "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself", and "Happy Days Are Here Again." Ronald Reagan played on the popular mood with "Government can't solve our problems, government is the problem", and his promise to minimize government so we all could get rich. Hitler promised Germans wealth and power by eliminating the Jews from German society. Lenin and Trotsky, in 1917, won the support of the Russian people who, hungry and disheartened by the slaughter of their armies by the Germans, rallied to the slogan, "Bread and Peace."

Here at home, Carter and Mondale fell short because, instead of presenting a glittering future, they presented to the voters problems to be solved. The voters - or a majority of them - chose what they wanted, including horrendous government deficits, an increasing number of citizens condemned to miserable poverty, and a mounting promise of mass suicide in nuclear war in a world wide shoot out. Any ethical criticism of the government now becomes a criticism of ourselves and therefore is unacceptable.

This business of telling people what they want to hear brings to mind a story in the Bible (I Kings 20:1-40). Ahab, King of Israel, had a state visitor, Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, and asked his guest to bring his army to help Ahab recapture Ramoth-Gilead, an Israelite city held by Syria. Jehoshaphat agreed, but suggested they first ask fortune-tellers to prophesy concerning the expedition. Four hundred of the seers met and told Ahab, "Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the King." Jehosaphat was skeptical of such unanimity and asked whether a prophet of the Lord was anywhere available. Ahab replied there was one, named Micaiah, who also spoke evil of him. But, nevertheless, he sent for the prophet.

The messenger found Micaiah and said to him, "Micaiah, the King wants to go to war to recapture Ramoth-Gilead. He is going to do it, and four hundred seers have told him he will be victorious. Now, Micaiah, have a little sense. You're one against all of them. What you say won't change a thing. Be agreeable, go along with the crowd. Speak favorably of the King's venture and don't be a trouble-maker."

Micaiah replied, "What the Lord says to me, that will I speak." In a dramatic confrontation with Ahab and the soothsayers Micaiah predicts that Ahab will be killed, his army scattered, and Israel left leaderless. Ahab was infuriated and orders the governor of the city, "Put this fellow in prison, and feed him on scant bread and water until I come in peace." He went up to Ramoth-Gilead and was killed by a random arrow. The only words Ahab heard were those he wanted to hear.

It is interesting to note that with all the acclaim whipped up for the present political administration's programs as it moves to recapture a past - a figurative Ramoth-Gilead - the most consistent evaluation and critique of them comes from the leadership of Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Synagogues which put loyalty to God above self-interest and popular pressures. The basis for that criticism is the dearth of ethical concern in those programs.

An English divine of the seventeenth century, Bishop Butler, once told his flock, "I do not want to make you happy, for to make you happy I would have to pamper your vices."

It's comforting to choose soothsayers over prophets, but it can have tragic results.

A Source of Shame - and a Remedy

The Reagan administration continues to be a source of embarrassment, if not shame, to the American people.

After the CIA, following administration orders, supervised the mining of Nicaraguan territorial waters, that nation filed suit against the United States in the World Court at the Hague. It asked for an order to the United States to stop the illegal mining, and the illegal sponsorship of the guerrillas fighting to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. It also sought damages for injuries allegedly inflicted.

The first issue went to the UN, but the United States vetoed any consideration of the dispute. When Nicaragua took the controversy to the World Court Reagan's crew announced its refusal to permit the Court to consider any American actions of the last two years. The Court heard arguments regarding its jurisdiction, and decided by a vote of 15 to 1 that Nicaragua had a right to sue and the the Court had jurisdiction. Only the American judge voted for the Reaganite position. The judges of all the countries allied with us politically voted for Nicaragua.

Why?

Senator Barry Goldwater, a conservative Republican, defined the situation. "This is an act violating international law," he wrote to CIA Director William Casey, "I don't like it one bit, from the President or from you."

America was a prime mover in establishing the World Court, and codifying international law. We used both in suing Iran after that nation had seized the hostages in 1979. The World Court decision at that time marshaled support for pressure on Iran, and eventually secured release of the hostages without loss of life. Now we have the spectacle of a government that denounces terrorism, as Reagan does, refusing to allow a Court of law to pass judgement on its own terrorist acts.

Reagan has put America in the same gang of international outlaws as Khomeini put Iran. Iran did try its case before the Court. Reagan won't even do that. The administration is like the mugger who won't obey a law that prohibits mugging, because such a law limits his freedom of action. Reagan says that submitting to the World Court would limit our freedom of action.

Perhaps none of this is shocking. Perhaps the observers who say - some with satisfaction and others with sorrow - that America now has a society and a government it wants, are right. A government devoid of ethical sensitivity and dedicated to greed, camouflaged as self-interest, the rallying cry of Ayn Rand, the guru of right-wing conservative dogma. Perhaps we are like the street gang, which, with guns and knives, takes freedom to terrorize its community.

We are in the Christmas season. Christians celebrate the coming of God into the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. We find hope in the angelic proclamation, "Glory to God in the highest, Peace among men of goodwill."

The first step toward the peace we want is to get an understanding of what an opponent wants, why he wants it and a knowledge of the experiences that have molded his thinking. Listening to an opponent is a lost art for the ideological fanatics of both the right-wing conservatives and their counterparts in the leftist crowd. Honest peace seekers will take the necessary steps and listen.

A top official of a certain labor union once told me of an experience he had in dealing with a national corporation with about fifty operating units throughout the country. The Chairman of the Board of the Corporation came to him with a problem. The union and management were squabbling in labor disputed to such an extent that, despite negotiations, about three hundred such disputes were going to arbitration each month. Could they cut back on that number? The two men developed a program in which they would go as a team of two to each plant for a series of seminars. The Board Chairman would lead the management team in an in depth study of the working man's point of view and attitudes. At the same time the union leader would conducts an in depth study of management problems and attitudes with the local union officials and stewards.

They took a little over a year to implement the idea. But at the end of that time the number of disputes going to arbitration had been reduced from three hundred to about twenty. The key factor was that each side listened to the other. The union got a superb contract and management got a stable, cooperative operation.

Instead of shouting epithets and making threats, adversaries (a favorite term in the Reagan administration) might try a little listening to minimize the disputes that go to the World Court, and might try a little listening to minimize the disputes that go to the World Court, and might contribute to a mutual understanding that will help achieve "Peace, goodwill among men."

Our Roots and Economy

Our civilization’s roots are in Greece, Rome and Palestine. The major root stock is of Jewish origin, and of its offspring Christianity. The cross-fertilization of Biblical ethics, Roman law and Greek philosophy has determined our social goals.

Even our economic life was stimulated by religious ideas. “Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism” makes this point. He notes that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, after the Reformation, certain nations developed more rapidly than others. They were the nations in which John Calvin’s theology was dominant. Calvin laid down a basic dogma: God had chosen, before the beginning of the world, those who would go to heaven and those who would go to hell. Nothing one could do for good or evil could change his fate. How did anyone know where he would go? The answer was easy. If God prospered you, you were saved; if he did not prosper you, you were damned. Everyone wanted to be saved and set out to prosper. The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century and the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century flowered. In France, which had been a commercial rival of England and Holland, a Church oriented government slaughtered and expelled the Calvinistic Huguenots. After that France’s commercial power declined.

Adam Smith studied the pattern of events and wrote his “Wealth of Nations”. He theorized that the free market place was the key to economic progress and laid down a set of principles as economic law, as immutable as the law of Medes and the Persians. Karl Marx went a step further and declared that all human actions were determined by economic factors. Marx was a Communist, but non-communists seemingly endorsed his premise. In college I was taught that enlightened self-interest was the ultimate control of human behavior. A whole school of philosophy grew up, glorifying selfishness. Ayn Rand was its guru. Unfortunately self-interest is rarely enlightened, and degenerates into cunning greed. The ultimate extreme is a statement by a few conservatives politicos that, “Some people may have to go hungry to improve the economy.”

The economy is not sacred. Useful it may be, but not holy. People are sacred.

The whole idea of human rights has its origins in the Biblical record. Nathan stands before David and Elijah stands before Ahab to pronounce doom upon them because they have murdered humble men in order to get their victims’ property. In the Great Books seminar, the first unit of study combined the story of Naboth’s vineyard and our own Declaration of Independence. The spiritual kinship is unmistakable. The prophets of Israel, with increasingly incisive insight, expand the range of human rights. Societies, governments and systems exist only to meet the needs of persons, - of all persons. Jesus capped it in the story of the last judgment. Even the poorest, the weakest and the least is a child of God.

Some Modest Proposals, with Apologies to Jonathan Swift

In his satire, “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift suggests that the poor peasants of Ireland might add to their pitiful incomes and alleviate their poverty by selling their small children as tender meat to intrigue the epicurean tastes of their rich landlords feasting at banquet tables. Trying to adjust myslef to the current political goal of deregulating all industrial and commercial transactions, leaving everything to the whimsies of the law of supply and demand in the free market, I offer some “Modest Proposals” of my own.

First, let the National Collegiate Athletic Association lift all restrictions on how much an aspiring athlete may charge to provide his skills to any of the colleges which may want his prowess on the gridiron, the basketball court, or the baseball diamond. At present, of he accepts more than tuition, books, board, room, and $300 a month in cash he becomes ineligible. How unfair. The poor guy needs a car, some walking around money, and provision for his future when he will be just a poor, uneducated has-been. I remember George Plimpton’s story about “Night Train” Lane, who, after four years of college football and five years as a star cornerback for the Detroit Lions, lay awake nights worrying about what he could do when he couldn’t play football. If some college wants to prostitute itself and its academic status by paying some young fellow $50,000 a year for ten touchdowns a season or ten baskets a game, what right do that college’s competitors have to set a cap on the earning power of a high-school kid?

On the other hand, why limit a college’s willingness to pay for a winning team? A 9-1 season for a football team may entice a Bowl game offer worth as much as $7,000,000 to the school. If the school wants that prize money, it, or its wealthy alumni, will have to buy the best players available, with payment either under the table or across it, openly. Academic ethics and standards should not stand in the way of commercially profitable deals between consenting adults.

Another element in the picture should be the repeal of all laws and rules prohibiting deals between athletes and professional gamblers. This is all part of the open market in the purchase and sale of services, all according to the laws of economics. That is one “Modest Proposal”.

A second “Modest Proposal” is to deregulate the drug business; repeal all laws concerning the production, sale, purchase and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other mind shattering substances. Leave it all up to the open market, the laws of supply and demand. Think what this would do.

a. It would reduce process by making drugs available at lower cost.

b. It would release thousands of persons convicted of drug crimes, reduce demand for prison space, reduce prison costs and save taxes.

c. It would make unnecessary the crew of federal, state and county drug law enforcement officials, and further reduce taxes.

d. It would provide jobs for hundreds of unemployed people to refine raw materials into useable form, and thus reduce the welfare rolls.

e. It would produce increased income taxes from dealers operating in the open, and help reduce the federal deficit.

f. It would help the real estate market. Every dealer would rent a store rather than peddle the stuff from a car or on a street corner.

g. It would reduce the number of burglaries, muggings and robberies, because fewer crimes would be needed to finance the habit with lower priced drugs.

h. It would eliminate gang wars for control of the drug business.

i. It would harmonize with the prevalent political philosophy of letting the market govern our social patterns.

The “Modest Proposal” is nonsense. Does it irritate you? Good!

Ethics and economics have nothing in common, though ethicists and economists may be friends. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”

In each of us a tug-of-war goes on between cash and conscience. Sometimes cash wins. Sometimes conscience. One of the tragedies of life occurs when we try to marry the two into one unity. 

Fairness in Media – The Con Game

P.T. Barnum and Jesse Helms have one thing in common. Both accept Phineas T.’s dictum, “There’s one (a sucker) born every minute.” Barnum’s heirs, following the maxim, offer a surgically altered goat as a legendary unicorn. Jesse tries to sell the illusion that his personal prejudices are acceptable standards for “Fairness in Media”. Both deals are flim-flam operations.

One difference between the two con men appears. Phineas T. understood what he was doing and found a bit of humor in outwitting his patrons. Jesse is entirely serious in his efforts to hoodwink his victims. He wants to silence the publication of any unfavorable information, true or not, which might affect his political future or his friends’ accumulation of wealth. He wants to buy Columbia Broadcasting System, and fire its news broadcaster, Dan Rather. He asks his public to buy CBS stock, and vote it according to his dictates in order to accomplish his goal.

There is plenty of evidence that CBS newscasts are fair, so far as any news broadcast can be 100% objective and fair. Academic studies of news broadcasts place CBS in the center between liberal and conservatives. It attracts listeners, in competition with other broadcasts. If people perceived it to be unfair, they would turn it off. In the market place of cash values CBS news, under Dan Rather, measures up as a good bargain for advertisers. What it would be, if Jesse adulterated its output through censorship, is open to question. If Jesse’s investors follow his advice they may find they have out their money in a sinking ship. Profits, not political prejudices, govern the broadcast business. CBS news makes profits.

If the Senator wants a different news broadcast he can start a TV station and see if his newscast can compete with the newscasts he wants to destroy. Or he might try to persuade his cohorts not to listen to CBS. In the light of the Senator’s past record of bias, his protestations remind one of Matthew’s gospel (7:3-5). “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? – First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

One fact must be faced: no person who tries to inform or influence another person is unbiased. Each of us has a mind-set, slanted and bent by the pressures if our past experiences. A scientist sees the universe as a mathematical formula. An artist sees it as a beautiful harmony of shape and color. Lovers see in each other beauty and charm. To outsiders they appear plain and ordinary. Lovers will never suffer much disillusionment, but the rest of us need to be aware of our prejudices. I have a bias in favor of Jesus of Nazareth, His teachings and His way of life. I interpret events and experiences in accordance with my understanding of Him. But I never try to gag those who disagree with me.

The motto of the ancient Greek Sophists, “Know Thyself”, is pertinent. When you are aware of your own bias and prejudices you become more tolerant of those with different attitudes. You contest the validity of their ideas; you do not demand that they be silenced, nor deprived of their livelihood.

Like Senator Helms, we want “Fairness in Media”. We have no reason to believe we can get it from him.

Hunger and Easter

Two news stories published during the Easter week carry an extra significance when matched against one of the episodes in the Biblical account of Easter (Luke 24:13-35).

The first item, in the Wall Street Journal, reported that in 1981 there were 31,800,000 Americans forced to live below the poverty level. That was the largest number of persons so classified since 1965. The number was still larger in 1982.

The second story cites testimony before a United States Senate Committee that due, in large part, to Reagan’s budget cuts, the number of children suffering from malnutrition has radically increased. The result is less brain growth in the children who will be permanently damaged by the reduced nourishment. The Committee is chaired by Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, a Republican, who is trying to hold the line against further ill-advised cuts in food stamps and child health care programs, as such cuts are demanded by the Reaganites.

It is amusing and disgusting to see the TV commercial showing the well-groomed woman in expensive clothes with every hair locked in place by a high priced hairdresser, walking through an upper middle class home, telling us how good it is for President Reagan to refuse the “quick fix” to provide jobs for the unemployed, help the homeless families whose homes were seized by foreclosures, and provide adequate school lunches for the children about whom the Senate committee if hearing. There is no hint of social sensitivity or social responsibility.

It is also a bit disturbing that no great army of “right-to-life” proponents are coming forward to protest the damage done by the short sighted programs of this administration. The highly touted retraining programs will be helpful to people a couple years from now, but homeless and hungry families need help now, today, “quick”.

All of which brings to mind the story of the walk to Emmaus, as told by Luke. Two followers of Jesus were walking from Jerusalem to that village on that Sunday, talking about the crucifixion and the empty grave. A stranger joined them and asked about what they were discussing. They informed him of the events involved and he related those events to Old Testament Jewish writings. As the two reached their home at dusk they invited the wayfarer to stop and have supper with them. As they broke bread together and shared their food with the stranger – and only then – were their eyes opened and they saw Jesus. What a lesson for those who profess to be Christians: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of those, my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

The doctrine of separation of Church and State bars the use of Biblical writings in the public schools. However, a course in English and American literature can highlight these same set of values and even excite interest in the Bible. James Russell Lowell’s poem, “The Vision of Sir Launfal”, parts of which we memorized when I was in school, is illustrative.

The knight, Sir Launfal, strong, rich, handsome (as all good knights were), resplendent in shining armor, rode his charger out from his castle to begin a search for the Holy Grail, the cup from which Jesus drank at his last supper. The quest was fruitless. After two score years he returned on the way to his home on foot, impoverished, wrinkled and aged, garbed in shabby rags. By the roadside, as he trudged along at eventide, sat an old beggar. The knight stopped for a sparse evening meal, a few crusts of bread shared with the beggar. Then he took an old battered cup, filled it from the roadside stream, and offered it to the beggar. And lo, the cup shone with a brilliant glow, - it was the Holy Grail. The Last Supper was observed again at that roadside.

Quite possibly we shall experience a renewed spiritual fervor in America, when we are as concerned about sharing with the hungry as we are with profit and loss statements. If that requires cancellation of tax reduction – so be it.