By Edwin Cooney
No matter where you live or what social, religious, or political organization you may belong to, its unlikely that you can escape the feeling that we're doomed to endure a degree of emotional, intellectual and spiritual chaos that could result in the destruction of our civil society. However, I’m guessing that it's possible that a calmer society may be just around the corner.
Last Friday, January 8th, 2021, President-elect Joe Biden held a news conference to announce his nominees for Secretary of Labor, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and for Secretary of Commerce, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo.
However, what has been particularly encouraging and refreshing about the style and nature of President-elect Biden's communication with the American people is his overall civility. His instructions to incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland that he will not be the president's personal lawyer but the people's lawyer constitutes the highest degree of civil government.
Just as encouraging last Friday was his insistence that his priority wasn't the political destruction of President Trump and his supporters, but the construction of his administration and its plans for combating Covid-19 as well as the restoration of efforts to combat climate change along with the improvement of the economy for the benefit of victims of the pandemic.
When asked his reaction to President Trump's declaration that he would not be attending the upcoming Biden inauguration, the President-elect remarked that Mr. Trump's decision was one thing on which he and the president agreed. As for Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Biden said that the vice president would be welcome. Just as gratifying to this observer was Joe Biden's assertion that the nation needs a Republican opposition that's both principled and strong.
As vital as politics is in a free society, in order to be effective, political competition must be regulated by a free and responsible constituency. Such regulation can never be the government's business as much as it must be the people's business. Throughout the 1930s, FDR used to insist that: "The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.”
Over the years, I've heard and read what a number of commentators believe to be at the root of our present cultural divisions. Some insist that it all began with our national conflict over the war in Vietnam. Others say the civil rights struggle sufficiently divided America into hard conservative and liberal camps. Still others say it was the Watergate scandal. Still others point at LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. I suggest a more fundamental cause for the severity of our unhappy political, emotional, racial and religious divide is the loss of a vital break on political recklessness.
In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission instituted "the fairness doctrine" that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues in an honest, equitable and balanced fashion. This regulation was abolished in 1987 during the Reagan administration. Since then, public broadcasting has become a powerful tool for those who possess ample funds to use the public airwaves to promote their political agendas. Not only are many of the owners of large broadcasting entities wealthy, they have an agenda designed to maintain the prerogatives of the wealthy against the demands of middle and lower classes of society. I believe that the withdrawal of the fairness doctrine has gone a long way toward poisoning the political process here in the United States.
As I listened to Mr. Biden's announcements and responses to questions asked him by the media in attendance, what was refreshingly apparent was the calm noncontroversial way in which he responded. If Joe Biden lacks dynamism in his responses, there's still something analytically reflective and thoughtful about his approach to issues. Chalk it up to my degree of emotional weariness or naïveté if you must, but I've sensed way before the outset of the late presidential campaign, that a significant majority of our people are fed up with purely confrontational politics.
Poison politics eventually leads to despotism! It's as simple as that.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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