SO, YOU DON’T LIKE POLITICS! — REALLY? TRULY?

By Edwin Cooney

Perhaps my most consistent pronouncement over the years, whether I’m discussing civic affairs with academic types or with my watering hole friends, has been that I like politics and politicians.  The inevitable response to that is: “How can you? They’re all a bunch of crooks!”

Then the person I’m talking to will start naming the crooks: Franklin Roosevelt, (“the root of all evil”), Harry “S for nothing” Truman (Joseph Stalin one upped Americans when he referred to Harry Truman as “that noisy shopkeeper”), Lyndon Johnson (that “wheeler dealer” who stole his way into the Senate back in 1948), Bill Clinton (that womanizing gangster) and Rod Blagojevich (the former Illinois governor who was caught selling President-elect Obama’s Senate seat). Actually, not many people name Rod because they can’t pronounce his last name.  Additionally, they might name Richard (“Tricky Dick”) Nixon (who one of my college professors used to call (“rigid Ricky”), Spiro Agnew (the opinionated VP on the take), and Bob MacDonald (the former Virginia governor who is about to do jail time for influence peddling.)  Usually these “crooks” have their political affiliation in common.

The problem is that most people are convinced that in order to benefit from politics you have got to be a politician or one who finances politicians.  The truth is that politics is more fundamental to human nature then are politicians!

The political practitioner is one who has mastered the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.  A lot of politicians aren’t really politicians.  The best politicians are job applicants, sweetheart seekers, sales and advertising personnel, and, above all, kids.  When my youngest son was still a tot he once got his mother to let him out of his room by insisting that all he really wanted her to do was to let him sit on her lap and put his head on her shoulder.  Believe it or not, she bought it.  The next step was to be allowed to go out and play.  He got that, too!  That didn’t happen all of the time by any means, but in this instance mama needed affection and little Ryan needed to play, thus the two former antagonists cut a one-time deal.  Now that’s Politics 101, plain and simple!

Politics, whether or not you like it, is the most fundamental part of a free society. George Washington strongly urged two of his Virginia neighbors, Tom Jefferson and Jemmy Madison, as well as his top political and financial aide, Alexander Hamilton, to refrain from party politics.  His reasons were all legitimate.  Political parties would distract the Congress from responsible legislating, create jealousies amongst the people, spread false alarms, and invariably entangle us in the politics of other nations.  The problem was that President Washington didn’t offer an alternative to political parties and politics in his famous Farewell Address back in 1796.

I’m not sure that politicians are the real corruptors of politics.  The legitimate business of a politician in a free society is to create methods and institutions that respond to the people’s legitimate practical living and functioning needs.  Good government is the legitimate goal of good politics.  Politics usually gets sour when it comes under the influence of wealthy financiers regardless of their personal or corporate ideologies.

Between the end of the Second World War and the early 1980s, national politics was, for the most part, about who could most effectively stop the advancement of World Communism.  Most members of Congress grew up affected by two common experiences, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the soul-rattling experiences of World War II.  The major difference between Republicans and Democrats was strategic rather than moral.  Sure there were pockets of moral contention such as McCarthyism and the struggle for civil rights, but for the most part, off the floors of the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats genuinely liked each other.  Deal-making and compromise were a part of the political process.  Beginning with the Reagan Revolution, all of that has changed.

Politics has gone from the possible to the personal.  Liberals and Conservatives alike play “gotcha” politics.  I’ve played it in these pages now and then.

Between now and November 8th, 2016, twenty very willful people will clash over their desire to get to the top of the “greasy pole” where symbolically sits the “presidential chair” as they used to refer to it during the early and middle Nineteenth Century.  That means a bunch of powerful egos will be punctured and a number of powerful and well-healed Americans will be disappointed.  Successful people aren’t used to being disappointed -- thus we have the comfortably unhappy.

Yes indeed, I’ve always liked politics and politicians.  However, this generation of politicians is harder to like because they take themselves, their agenda, and their feelings way too seriously.  Politicians, many of their financial backers, and talk show hosts grew up without having to face the challenges of Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” – namely, national Depression and world war.  They are not used to coping with forces beyond their control.  Thus, they turn to theory rather than good government to master what irritates more than harms them.  As I see it, when you say you’re proud to be a Liberal or proud to be a Conservative, you’ve switched your allegiance from “Old Glory” to the banner of a political movement.  The airwaves and the internet will, for the next 15 months, be full of ego bashing which once was a mere element of politics but today has sadly become its main ingredient.

I think most people feel deep within themselves that they are above politics.  The truth is that we have all benefited and we expect to benefit in the future from the legitimate fruit of politics — effective government.

FDR put it best in a 1938 Fireside Chat:  “…the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to maintain the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.”

That’s solid advice from perhaps the greatest politician in history.

As for the nature of 2016 politics, only one word suffices — “yuck!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK — TIME AND OPPORTUNITY MARCH ON, HAND IN HAND!

By Edwin Cooney

I don’t much like to think about this topic let alone write about it.  However, this topic is one of two things each and every one of us has in common!  We are all born and we are all going to die.  As formidable as the second observation is, the second observation is as natural as the first.

Before proceeding with this topic, let me share with you what compels me to think and ultimately write what’s here.

On Wednesday, August 5th, 2015 one of the most companionable men I’ve ever known died unexpectedly at the age of eighty-five.  Sure, he had lived a long time, but it was still way too soon.   His health was pretty close to robust.  He was still an excellent bowler and he was a fine fellow “well met!”  He was funny, interested in the thoughts, feelings and needs of others, and generously helpful and thoughtful toward practically all who knew him.  He was also a reader of these weekly musings.  Suddenly, on Friday evening, July 17th, 2015, he became ill which was diagnosed as severe pancreatitis.  Within days of being stricken and hospitalized, his condition was evaluated as out of control.  Being a man possessing the capacity to face the “unfaceable,” Will decided to let nature take its course and slipped away into that dimension the rationalists and the logical amongst us label simply as death.  Will’s passing leaves a void in the lives of his widow and his surviving son and daughter as well as in the lives of his many friends.

On Wednesday, August 12th, just one week later, former President Jimmy Carter who will be 91 on October first announced that he has cancer which is spreading throughout his body.  While he has yet to make the details of his diagnosis public, such a diagnosis is to most of us a pretty clear sign that “Mr. Jimmy,” as his Plains, Georgia neighbors call him, is likely headed beyond the reach of the love millions across America and around the globe feel toward him.

The above incidents force me to face, however reluctantly, my own mortality.  Somewhere I read that the late Winston Churchill titled the planning for his own funeral “Operation Hope Not.”  However, Mr. Churchill (who more than once in his life put himself well within the reach of death) demonstrated the brave man’s assertion: “He who is afraid to die is not fit to live.”  While I certainly find that assertion way too harsh and judgmental, it is a rather bracing observation that compels analysis.

Birth is beyond our control and death, while it is not beyond our capacity to summon, is beyond our capacity to comprehend.  As such, whatever it consists of or may command of us staggers our imagination.  Millions of us, “Mr. Jimmy” in particular, cope with both life and death through our religious faith.  Others merely surrender to the inevitability that life lasts only so long. They are often offended by those whose religious faith directs them to indoctrinate those who are solely energized by the rational or provable realities of existence.

Ah, but therein lies the key!  If life is beyond our capacity to summon and death is beyond our capacity to comprehend, both are one in the same.  We can’t summon life before we’re born because we don’t exist within the dimension of life.  We are incapable of comprehending death and thus fear it, because that state of dimension is beyond rationality or comprehension.

Recently, I received the happy news of the birth of a granddaughter.  Little Olivia’s birth, as happy as it is, was beyond either her control or comprehension.  Her contentment or happiness in her life will depend on a lot of things that aren’t clear.  If she has good health, loving parents and grandparents (which she has) and lives in a safe and prosperous social, political and spiritual environment, she will likely be quite content dwelling in this new dimension of life she herself never had the capacity to choose for herself.

A number of years ago, I was told about a young lady who was born a quadriplegic.  In addition to paralysis, she suffers frequently from spasms and backache.  “I’m trapped in my own body,” she observed as she was assisted during a meeting from her wheelchair onto a cot where she could rest to regain the energy to sit upright again for a few hours.  Others who are perfectly healthy are born in Sudan or were born and lived under Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot.  These circumstances were beyond their comprehension since pre-life comprehension doesn’t exist.

Thus, here is our irony: because we’ve never experienced death we’re sure that at best it is eternal sleep. (Even the religious among us pray that they and their loved ones will “rest in peace.”)  As for life, it is physical, rational and scientifically provable. It may be the only dimension that contains illness, sorrow and physical, emotional or spiritual pain and uncertainty!  As such, life itself might be the dimension to avoid as beyond comprehension as it is it awakens us from our prenatal slumber.

The source of our sorrow over the passing of the departed is the realization that we’ll never see or be with them again in this life.  The joy of a new birth is a new opportunity to be close with and show love for a life blooming before us.  No one, least of all the one who is affected by it the most, summons life.  No one, not even the most rational or brilliant among us, can be absolutely sure of his capacity to comprehend death.

It is right that we want to live as long as we can, but as inevitable as death is, it is as natural as being born.

It is even possible that birth is far more dangerous than death!  More than once I’ve heard it observed that hell exists solely on earth rather than in any spiritual realm!

I’m convinced that if we live as fully as we possibly can and utilize love, life’s greatest gift, as effectively as we can, our individual end is likely to be surprisingly gentle and perhaps, just perhaps, even welcome!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHAT MAKES US ELECT ANY PRESIDENT AND WHAT MIGHT THAT PORTEND FOR 2016?

By Edwin Cooney

What do you suppose compels Americans to elect any one person President of the United States of America?  Well, according to the Constitution of the United States, we must -- hence, we do!  So, let’s start from the very beginning and see what our motives are and what they might portend for 2016!

In 1788 and 1792, we elected General George Washington of Virginia.  As for why Washington, the short answer is that the new nation didn’t collectively know anyone else.  Ben Franklin was on his last crippled legs.  John Adams, cranky and quirky as he was, probably was the best known across the nation other than Washington and Jefferson -- who wasn’t in the country in 1788.  Jefferson was busy representing us in Paris, hanging out with Maria Cosway, another diplomat’s wife, and having one hell of a good time.

As for the election of John Adams in 1796, Adams was, after all, Washington’s Vice President so he had to almost automatically be the most qualified man available.

As for 1800, which would be labeled America’s second revolution (or the Revolution of 1800) because it was the first time we “threw the rascals out,” powerful men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (despite their political differences) said it was time we did just that. By Election Day 1800, Adams had successfully ended our quarrel with France so we didn’t need him anymore.  Besides, he’d agreed to those awful Alien and Sedition Acts which made criticism of the president a punishable offense during an international crisis.  Thus, in the name of civil liberties, that prickly old man had to go.

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson was a hell of a lawyer, writer, scientist, and strict constructionist of the Constitution.  Hence, we elected him.  Had Jefferson violated the Constitution by purchasing Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, there would have been pure hell to pay.  Americans might have even dumped him in 1804 for Aaron Burr, his ever wayward and unpredictable vice president!  If we elected Jefferson to purchase Louisiana, history does not record it!

Skipping ahead to 1828, we elected Andrew Jackson because he was the greatest soldier since Washington.  Jackson offered no political program except that he hated aristocratic elitists like John Quincy Adams, and wayward Indian tribes.  Besides, old Quincy Adams was as pompous and irritable as his old man!  Jackson was exciting and unpredictable and he knew how to handle the Indians.  So, we elected him.

Surprisingly, we elected James Knox Polk in 1844 because he agreed to annex Texas no matter what Mexico thought and especially if it helped the cause of slavery.  Polk’s ultimate political legacy was that he kept all of his major campaign promises.  Still, he would leave office in 1849 exhausted and increasingly unpopular.  Though he was only 53 the previous November 2nd, he would be dead by June of 1849.

Interestingly, the election of perhaps our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, exacerbated rather than salved the crisis at hand.  Had we elected Stephen A. Douglas (known as the “little giant” because he was only 5 feet 4 inches), the benign John Bell of Tennessee, or President James Buchanan’s feisty vice president John C. Breckinridge, also from Tennessee, there might have been still another compromise rather than secession throughout the spring of 1861.  Because of who he was and how he conducted his office, Abraham Lincoln was the right choice.  Or was he?  Is war ever a good choice?

The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt over the incumbent Herbert Hoover on the surface seems to be the most genuinely responsive presidential choice for the solving of a major national problem.  However, although FDR promised during the campaign that he would do something about those who were speculating with “…other people’s money,” most Americans voted for him because his name wasn’t Herbert Clark Hoover.

Harry S Truman won in 1948 because he knew how to campaign better than his GOP opponent Thomas E. Dewey.  Ike won over the far more eloquent and intellectual Adlai Stevenson because, like Washington, Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant, he was a deserving war hero who could protect us should enemies “foreign or domestic” challenge us.

Jack Kennedy was far more exciting and glamorous than Richard Nixon who was glamor minus.  Besides, Americans invariably value entertainment over “do nothing” boredom!

For that and other reasons, Ronald Reagan defeated the earnest incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.  After all, Carter was originally elected primarily because he was a political outsider and immune to Washington’s ways.  Hence, when Carter appeared to be less than competent, a trait he had promised the people to demonstrate on their behalf, it was time for him to go!

The election of President Barack Obama was a combination of a desire for change and the dawning of a new era of tolerance and cooperation in a country that was beginning to taste the bitter flavor of an oncoming recession.  Thus, when during the presidential campaign his opponent John McCain appeared uncertain as to how to handle himself -- let alone the growing crisis -- the “black man” was in!

As for what it all means? We usually don’t elect a president because he (or perhaps she) proscribes a solution to a national or international problem.  Seldom is there an overwhelming consensus on a specific solution to a domestic or foreign policy matter. Richard Nixon’s “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam wasn’t the reason for his 1968 election over Hubert Humphrey.  However, his reputation for having had sufficient foreign policy experience under President Eisenhower may have given him a decisive advantage over Humphrey in that otherwise too-close-to-call political campaign.  Reagan, who promised to balance the budget which was a trillion dollars when Jimmy Carter left office, tripled it with worthwhile military expenditures.  Thus, America may well be ready for — take a deep breath now — Donald J. Trump.

A look over the 17 GOP presidential candidates doesn’t indicate that any of them, especially Mr. Trump, offers compelling solutions to our healthcare needs, the dangers in the Middle East, issues concerning immigration or even how to secure Social Security for yet unborn retirees.  What Trump seems to offer disillusioned voters is an opportunity to settle scores with the whole of our political establishment — especially the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Historically, politicians insist that they are really capable businessmen at heart.  Of course, we have elected two pretty good businessmen during the 20th Century — Herbert Clark Hoover and James Earl Carter.  Politicians are supposed to be bad for the country, but the best politician we ever elected saved more people’s homes, businesses and ultimately their country from the ravages of depression and war than any businessman president.  As Casey Stengel used to say: “You can look it up!”

The Trump possibility could be as infectious as the 1992 boon was for (Henry) Ross Perot in view of the fact that he has yet to promise not to run as a third party candidate should the GOP snub him.  (The late great comedian Will Rogers once observed that “…old men are contrary --- and rich old men is awfully contrary; they’ve had their own way so long…”)

Here’s something to ponder!  If soldiers, businessmen, lawyers, and politicians aren’t worthy of election — who is?

Here’s another possibility and it may even be a likelihood in view of how so many Americans feel about today’s leaders and would-be leaders: perhaps nobody is worthy of our trust.  If such is the case, perhaps we have lost the capacity to trust.  If that’s the case, whose problem is that — ours, or those who dare to try to lead us?  Is it possible that we’re just too good to be led by anybody?

If we’ve lost our capacity to trust or to believe in any leader, if we’re really and truly too good to be led, what matters about the whys of our past and what value is there in our future?

If that question doesn’t cause you to at least pause and consider it, then you and I should agree to never again discuss history, politics or tomorrow’s unknown treasures!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

GOODNESS! HERE COME THE CHICKENS, HOME TO ROOST!

By Edwin Cooney

It’s all so sad!  I was once proud to be a Republican.  The party of Abraham Lincoln that sought the benefits of national unity and free enterprise with minimal government seemed to me to be the ticket for limitless prosperity and harmony as far into the future as one might see.  Suddenly, in August of 1976, it all began to change when the Republican Party shifted from the political to the personal in its evaluation of palatable political allies and enemies.

GOP conservatives had two ambitions in the summer of 1976.  One, which was perfectly legitimate although not so pleasant for President Gerald Ford, was the nomination of former California Governor Ronald Reagan in Ford’s stead.  The second was the humiliation of Nelson Rockefeller even though the vice president had taken himself out of the running for nomination in late October 1975.

According to Richard Norton Smith’s comprehensive biography of Nelson Rockefeller entitled “On His Own Terms,” Rockefeller’s breaking point occurred during the convention that nominated Gerald Ford and Robert Dole for president and vice president.  Like President Ford, Nelson Rockefeller had suffered numerous instances of hostility from the GOP right.  That, to a degree, was all part of politics.  Rocky knew and understood the resentment felt by conservatives since his nonsupport of the Goldwater/Miller ticket back in 1964.  Hence, he had graciously left the field and was no threat beyond his support of the President to Governor Reagan’s hopes.  Besides, the struggle was over.  However, a final needless indignity was about to be visited on Rockefeller. After all, he was a divorced northeastern liberal pretender to power.

The date was Thursday, August 19th, 1976.  Rocky, as requested, had gone up to the podium to nominate Kansas Senator Robert Dole to succeed him as vice president.  As he began his speech, he noticed that the sound was turned down.  He asked the engineer nearby to turn the sound up.  “I can’t,” replied the engineer.  So Rocky, doing the best he could, concluded his speech.  Seconding speeches were next and the vice president turned to Peggy Pinder, a blind woman, who was scheduled after him.  He told her that she’d have to speak right up as something was wrong with the volume -- except that absolutely nothing was wrong with the volume.  Ms. Pinder’s speech was clear as a bell.  The sound had been deliberately turned down on Vice President Rockefeller’s address.  Rockefeller blamed Dick Cheney, then Ford’s Chief of Staff, for that insult.  Never again would he sit down with President Ford’s rightwing-oriented staff which included such men as Donald Rumsfeld, William Simon and Dick Cheney. Rocky, whose money and influence had been a staple of the party’s goals   and fortune since the 1940s, would have little or nothing to do with the party throughout the two years and six days remaining in his life.

Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory was the dawning of a new day for conservatives.  Most of their formidable opponents within the party were gone.  Their affable and articulate leader’s capacity for eloquence was that of a persuader not a dictator.  Hence, it fell to professional conservative ideologists to keep the public ever mindful of all enemies, foreign and domestic, and their need for protection against dangerous forces from abroad as well as from the demands of the unworthy poor here at home.  Freed from the need to compromise in the crafting of legislation to realize their foreign and domestic agendas, they began representing their proposals for foreign and domestic tranquility as moral issues rather than matters of practicality.  As time has passed, those who dare to challenge them for public favor aren’t opponents; they are now “gangsters” (the Clintons), “thugs” and “rapists” (Hispanic refuges) or foreign-born “Socialist Muslims” (President Obama).

For the past few campaign seasons, they were content to argue with one another as to who was most like President Reagan.  This year however they face a new challenge.

Now, Donald Trump (who mostly represents himself), wants the GOP presidential nomination.  He represents more than mere conservatism.  He represents the anger their anti-consensus and anti-government pronouncements have stirred up during recent years especially against President Obama.  Writing in the New York Times, Timothy Egan asserted that Donald Trump is “the poison Republicans themselves have concocted.”  Trump’s attack on John McCain might be beyond the pale except that Jeb Bush’s brother, President George W. Bush, benefited considerably in 2004 from GOP attacks on John Kerry’s patriotism and loyalty even though the U.S. marines made him a Medal of Honor winner for heroism in Vietnam.  Their continuous lack of respect for Barack Obama, despite his high office, is legendary. James Wilson of South Carolina shouted “You lie!” from the floor of the House of Representatives during President Obama’s healthcare address and it reverberates endlessly through the national awareness.  Nor did Republicans complain when Trump continually used the “birther issue” against President Obama.  Now, even though he’s been a money source for GOP candidates in past campaigns, Trump’s slur against John McCain is their latest excuse to be the angry men many of them really are.

Political parties as instruments of political conquest are by their nature prone to take advantage of our normal sensitivities.  Nor does the Republican Party have a monopoly on political vengeance.  The late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s response to Jesse Jackson’s objection to the mayor’s call for a unanimous vote on a resolution Jackson once opposed comes to mind.  “Well, then,” said Mayor Daley, “we’ll just make this vote unanimous without you.”  Then there was the treatment Senator Tom Eagleton received during the 1972 presidential campaign when it was revealed that he’d had shock treatment for depression.  These episodes of personal degradation are part of political life.  The problem is when personal degradation becomes a habit.

At this point, the GOP appears to be a party of resentment and little else.  Its leadership, even as they struggle for individual supremacy, appears to offer little reassurance or tranquility in our immediate future.  They say they love freedom, but they appear to be much more in love with their own freedom than with your freedom even if your convictions are within the laws and mores of American tradition.

Just as liberals began to do in the late sixties and early seventies, conservatives appear ready, willing and eager to start cannibalizing each other.  Remember Ronald Reagan’s old admonition: Thou shall never speak ill of another Republican? Forget it; the fat’s in the fire!

Ah! Those conservative chickens are coming home to roost — Yum, yum!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY