The Audacity of Being There
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We just watched the classic 1979 movie Being There,
about an illiterate gardener who basically repeats things he hears on TV and makes simple statements about gardening that are interpreted as wise allegorical statements about the economy, and how he suddenly becomes the darling of Washington...and by the end of the movie, a potential presidential candidate. People take different messages from the movie, but most striking to me was how desperate people were for wisdom and inspiration from leaders--so desperate, in fact, that they found both in an illiterate gardener. I am struck by how little some things have changed in Washington in the 28 years since "Being There," but before my conservative friends get their knickers in a knot, I am not saying that George W. Bush is an illiterate gardener.
What I am saying is that people are still desperate to be inspired. Most of us are skilled without knowing it at imputing and projecting our own values and opinions on non-radical candidates who are able to electrify crowds with soaring, graceful rhetoric. Chance, the gardener in Being There, was not able to inspire people with graceful rhetoric; instead it was his calm, understated simple language. But Chance had no idea he was inspiring people...he thought he was talking about gardening and was oblivious to the stir he was creating.
A contemporary example of people being hungry for inspiration is the response to Barack Obama, who is also far from an illiterate gardener. In fact, Obama may well get my vote. But it's amazing that a person with not even a full US senate term under his belt is a leading contender to be president of our country, electrifying and inspiring large crowds around the US with soaring rhetoric that allows people to project their own values, thoughts and priorities onto Obama, and assume that he will be their champion.
I am nearly finished with Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," and if he really wrote it, then next election, we may have a chance at having the most intelligent, thoughtful, realistic, and yes, inspiring president in a couple of generations.
The book has been very helpful to me in understanding the nuances and complexities of Obama's stances on many issues. Getting to the meat of the nuances is beyond the scope of this thread, but one general example is Obama's stance on unions. Obama is pro-union, but if you believe the book, he is absolutely not going to let unions walk all over him and be their water boy; he is will aware of the shortcomings of unions. My grandpa on my mother's side was a hard-nosed union activist in Philadelphia in the 1950's and I was raised to believe that crossing a picket line was one of the worst things I can do. But my parents also taught me to think for myself, so I hope they would at least respect my differing opinion today. For example, I have no problem crossing a picket line of grocery checkers...in Southern California at least, most of these folks make $19 per hour and more for pulling groceries over a scanner. The job is so unskilled that Ralph's and Home Depot, among others, have "outsourced" the "scan-and-bag" function to customers themselves through the automated checkout lines.
I also think that the $125K-$200K per year made by many unionized stevedores on the docks in Long Beach, CA is utterly absurd.
Like Obama, I believe teacher's unions are overly protective of their own; especially when it comes to failing teachers. Obama points out that peer review should be an important component in teacher evaluation; teachers almost always know who the good and bad ones are. I probably agree most with Obama in the area of education; he understands just how important it is to our future; I simply think he "gets it" with respect to education.
Where I probably disagree most with Obama is taxes; I think I already pay more than my fair share, and he wants to raise my taxes. But I can probably get over that if I am convinced that our government will spend the money more wisely than the government has spent money in recent years.
I think Obama is also getting real-time lessons on the nature of trade-offs in campaign finance. Obama earnestly strives to not be hypocritical, but there he was ripping rap stars for using words like "ho" and "nigger" (and I agree with Obama on this count; people need to speak out forcefully against the use of those words by idiots, racists, and entertainers who are not named Don Imus) but yet one of Obama's most prominent supporters and contributors is David Geffen, whose fortune is built on music, and a large piece of it from rap with with utterly despicable lyrics.
Obama demonstrates an immense and nuanced knowledge of history in the book, and articulately describes where we have been, where he thinks the country needs to go next, and how to get there.
However, one part of the book was dead wrong factually. I have heard what Obama is saying about the following national debt issue from many journalists and politicians, but the facts are not on their side. The issue is the national debt (which, at least, is an issue upon which Obama is focused).
On page 187 of "The Audacity of Hope," Obama writes, "How do we pay for it? At the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, we had an answer. For the first time in nearly 30 years, we enjoyed big budget surpluses and a rapidly declining national debt."
The part about the national debt is simply wrong. From a US Treasury Department website, I give you the following US National Debt information:
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03
Looking at these figures underscores the abandonment of the traditional Republican strength of fiscal responsibility by the Bush Administration and the Republican-led congress. But that is a separate story. The point here is the inaccuracy in Obama's book. The last time I checked, when debt actually increases for several years in a row, it cannot be simultaneously "rapidly decreasing."
Last year, I wrote to a financial journalist who was extolling the virtues of the Clinton administration for paying down the debt, when in fact the debt was increasing the whole time. He replied that the debt held by the public was being paid down, (hence his statement), but the component of our national debt that is comprised by government IOU's to trust funds (mainly social security) was going up at a faster rate. This is absurd Washington double speak.
Here's the simple reality: When dollars are deducted from our paychecks for social security, the money taken far exceeds current social security needs (this felicitous situation will be massively reversed during the coming decades). The US government then borrows the excess social security money to help fund current government expenses. The US government then has real obligations to repay the money, hence the inclusion of the obligations in the US Treasury Department's accounting of our national debt. To lop off such obligations when talking about our "national debt" is the height of fiscal absurdity and executives of private sector companies could easily get sent to jail for such accounting chicanery.
This is how I replied to the financial journalist at the time:
"Your explanation is a good reminder that we have to be wary when politicians claim to have made progress paying down debt....it's a bit analogous to a college student reporting to mom and dad they they are making great progress paying down credit card debt, but neglecting to mention that their debt to the "bookie" in the dorms increased by more than than the credit card debt reduction.
With the republicans spending like drunken sailors and the democrats itching to get back in power so they too can spend like drunken sailors, I am not optimistic that our national spending binge will end in the near term, nor in a pretty way."
about an illiterate gardener who basically repeats things he hears on TV and makes simple statements about gardening that are interpreted as wise allegorical statements about the economy, and how he suddenly becomes the darling of Washington...and by the end of the movie, a potential presidential candidate. People take different messages from the movie, but most striking to me was how desperate people were for wisdom and inspiration from leaders--so desperate, in fact, that they found both in an illiterate gardener. I am struck by how little some things have changed in Washington in the 28 years since "Being There," but before my conservative friends get their knickers in a knot, I am not saying that George W. Bush is an illiterate gardener.
What I am saying is that people are still desperate to be inspired. Most of us are skilled without knowing it at imputing and projecting our own values and opinions on non-radical candidates who are able to electrify crowds with soaring, graceful rhetoric. Chance, the gardener in Being There, was not able to inspire people with graceful rhetoric; instead it was his calm, understated simple language. But Chance had no idea he was inspiring people...he thought he was talking about gardening and was oblivious to the stir he was creating.
A contemporary example of people being hungry for inspiration is the response to Barack Obama, who is also far from an illiterate gardener. In fact, Obama may well get my vote. But it's amazing that a person with not even a full US senate term under his belt is a leading contender to be president of our country, electrifying and inspiring large crowds around the US with soaring rhetoric that allows people to project their own values, thoughts and priorities onto Obama, and assume that he will be their champion.
I am nearly finished with Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," and if he really wrote it, then next election, we may have a chance at having the most intelligent, thoughtful, realistic, and yes, inspiring president in a couple of generations.
The book has been very helpful to me in understanding the nuances and complexities of Obama's stances on many issues. Getting to the meat of the nuances is beyond the scope of this thread, but one general example is Obama's stance on unions. Obama is pro-union, but if you believe the book, he is absolutely not going to let unions walk all over him and be their water boy; he is will aware of the shortcomings of unions. My grandpa on my mother's side was a hard-nosed union activist in Philadelphia in the 1950's and I was raised to believe that crossing a picket line was one of the worst things I can do. But my parents also taught me to think for myself, so I hope they would at least respect my differing opinion today. For example, I have no problem crossing a picket line of grocery checkers...in Southern California at least, most of these folks make $19 per hour and more for pulling groceries over a scanner. The job is so unskilled that Ralph's and Home Depot, among others, have "outsourced" the "scan-and-bag" function to customers themselves through the automated checkout lines.
I also think that the $125K-$200K per year made by many unionized stevedores on the docks in Long Beach, CA is utterly absurd.
Like Obama, I believe teacher's unions are overly protective of their own; especially when it comes to failing teachers. Obama points out that peer review should be an important component in teacher evaluation; teachers almost always know who the good and bad ones are. I probably agree most with Obama in the area of education; he understands just how important it is to our future; I simply think he "gets it" with respect to education.
Where I probably disagree most with Obama is taxes; I think I already pay more than my fair share, and he wants to raise my taxes. But I can probably get over that if I am convinced that our government will spend the money more wisely than the government has spent money in recent years.
I think Obama is also getting real-time lessons on the nature of trade-offs in campaign finance. Obama earnestly strives to not be hypocritical, but there he was ripping rap stars for using words like "ho" and "nigger" (and I agree with Obama on this count; people need to speak out forcefully against the use of those words by idiots, racists, and entertainers who are not named Don Imus) but yet one of Obama's most prominent supporters and contributors is David Geffen, whose fortune is built on music, and a large piece of it from rap with with utterly despicable lyrics.
Obama demonstrates an immense and nuanced knowledge of history in the book, and articulately describes where we have been, where he thinks the country needs to go next, and how to get there.
However, one part of the book was dead wrong factually. I have heard what Obama is saying about the following national debt issue from many journalists and politicians, but the facts are not on their side. The issue is the national debt (which, at least, is an issue upon which Obama is focused).
On page 187 of "The Audacity of Hope," Obama writes, "How do we pay for it? At the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, we had an answer. For the first time in nearly 30 years, we enjoyed big budget surpluses and a rapidly declining national debt."
The part about the national debt is simply wrong. From a US Treasury Department website, I give you the following US National Debt information:
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03
Looking at these figures underscores the abandonment of the traditional Republican strength of fiscal responsibility by the Bush Administration and the Republican-led congress. But that is a separate story. The point here is the inaccuracy in Obama's book. The last time I checked, when debt actually increases for several years in a row, it cannot be simultaneously "rapidly decreasing."
Last year, I wrote to a financial journalist who was extolling the virtues of the Clinton administration for paying down the debt, when in fact the debt was increasing the whole time. He replied that the debt held by the public was being paid down, (hence his statement), but the component of our national debt that is comprised by government IOU's to trust funds (mainly social security) was going up at a faster rate. This is absurd Washington double speak.
Here's the simple reality: When dollars are deducted from our paychecks for social security, the money taken far exceeds current social security needs (this felicitous situation will be massively reversed during the coming decades). The US government then borrows the excess social security money to help fund current government expenses. The US government then has real obligations to repay the money, hence the inclusion of the obligations in the US Treasury Department's accounting of our national debt. To lop off such obligations when talking about our "national debt" is the height of fiscal absurdity and executives of private sector companies could easily get sent to jail for such accounting chicanery.
This is how I replied to the financial journalist at the time:
"Your explanation is a good reminder that we have to be wary when politicians claim to have made progress paying down debt....it's a bit analogous to a college student reporting to mom and dad they they are making great progress paying down credit card debt, but neglecting to mention that their debt to the "bookie" in the dorms increased by more than than the credit card debt reduction.
With the republicans spending like drunken sailors and the democrats itching to get back in power so they too can spend like drunken sailors, I am not optimistic that our national spending binge will end in the near term, nor in a pretty way."
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