AN AFTERNOON AT THE BARBECUE JOINT

            When the phone call came from the local Obama campaign office, I had already grabbed my calendar.  Another organizational meeting, I thought.  But the caller had a cryptic bit of news.  The next day Washington would be visited by an unnamed “administration official”.  Would my wife and I like to attend the meet and greet?

            On Thursday we were at the iconic Hog Fathers restaurant, along with a handful of older Obama volunteers and a contingent of the young people who help staff the Pittsburgh office.  We quickly learned that Vice President Biden was the attraction, his motorcade returning to the Airport from West Virginia and Ohio.  As is typical for these affairs, the VP would be late.  We were instructed to be discreet, have some barbecue and meet new friends.

            An hour later the pack of Chevy Suburbans rolled in.  A smiling Biden stepped out and greeted the owner.  The media in attendance was corralled behind the counter and the Vice President began what he came to do.  This was no photo op.  He wanted to talk issues and find out what was on the minds of South Western Pennsylvania voters.  While the secret service bought lunch for the ride to the Airport, Biden let each of us have our say.

            I brought up the Air Force Reserve Station at the Airport.  “Do not close it” I told him. “It will give us enough votes to make a difference”.  He listened and understood the dilemma.  There are national economic and strategic concerns he informed me.  Others spoke of education, health care and the upcoming election.

            With the exception of the Mayor, no elected officials were in attendance.  I am sure some egos got bruised.  The individuals who were invited had been with the Obama campaign 5 years ago when the politicians were not.  I guarantee that we will now work even harder to paint our small part of the country Obama/Biden blue on election night.

THE EQUALITY GLASS IS HALF FULL (the vintage is struggling, young & brown)

When I look beyond the 24/7 political noise, it is the best of times to be a social democrat in the United States of America.  In my lifetime there will be more positive gains in both civil rights and economic equality than at any time in our history.  As our country becomes younger and more diverse, further social change in both areas is inevitable.  

Moreover, it is no coincidence that the deprived generation coming out of the great depression readily adopted our first large wave of FDR social democracy.  Our younger generations most affected by the 2008 great recession will likewise adopt a second wave of personal and economic equality, with a flourish we should all see coming.  The equality glass is half full and the vintage is struggling, young and brown.

  Regarding civil rights, I proudly display in my office the Vernon Jordan quote: “After Years of disturbing the unjust peace- all men are finally created equal”, below a photograph of Barack Obama.  Within a few years, our changing social structure will guarantee that this quote also applies to our first female president and to a national affirmation on gay marriage.  Our founding fathers will finally be able to smile, roll over in their graves and sleep peacefully through eternity.

Regarding economic equality, it has become clear to me that modern western democracies will evolve toward universal economic opportunities and wealth leveling (both nationally and globally), in order to fulfill their potential.  Further, our next generation of leaders will adopt growth not austerity strategies during economic downturns and retain tax surpluses when the economy is vibrant, saving for the next inevitable rainy day.  In other words, the next generation will learn from our mistakes.

I have come to realize that within decades, Fox news and older Americans with deeply held prejudices will have no choir to preach to.  The moral majority is becoming the moral minority and the outcome of the cultural wars is becoming a foregone conclusion.  Like other flash points that have tried to hold up the equality train, the present brand of angry, homophobic social conservatism is losing its grip and will soon be an interesting footnote in American History.

Lastly, I have come to understand that this new landscape has little to do with the work of aging progressives like myself, or the constant political chatter.  Maybe my generation helped set the stage 30 or more years ago.  Sure, it would be nice if we could help win the next election.  But whatever the near term outcome, recession, youth and demographics will prevail in the long run.  My job is really to get out of the way and not muck it up before they take over and fulfill the destiny of this great country.

GAME ON

It is time to brush off the armor and sharpen the swords.  While not quite as bloody as the War of the Roses (white vs. red) the coming election conflagration will be much more expensive and leave a larger mark on western civilization. Blue democrats will be jousting against red republicans across the countryside.  As was the case four years ago, the readers of this newspaper are living and working at the site of the projected major battlefield in 2012.  More advertising dollars, candidate appearances and news stories will be dedicated to South Western Pennsylvania and Ohio than anywhere else in our country during the coming months.  The 2012 Presidential campaign will be won or lost under our feet.

A recent editorial in the O-R was spot on.  The blue army under the Obama banner has changed.  A term in the white house has shifted its focus from vision, transformation and the giddy confidence of youth to governance, maturity and the hard issues and reality of middle age.  The former pink cloud campaign of hope is now the dark cloud campaign of preserving the heart and soul of everything that matters to me as a citizen.  No longer cast as feel good idealism, this campaign feels more like hand to hand combat in the trenches.

The blue foundations of the conflict remain the same.  To name a few:  there can be no personal liberty without systemic justice.  Practical wisdom must trump political ideology in decision making.  Our constitutional republic can only survive if all its citizens give equally till it hurts on the one hand and receive equal benefits and opportunities from their government and institutions on the other.  There can be no more trickledown economics with the few crumbs dispersed to the middle class and poor.  Religious freedom for all, starts with separation of church and state.  In foreign affairs, our country must be admired, not feared.

For letter writers like me and concerned citizens like many of you, it is time to join the fray.  It all starts with barackobama.com/pa.  Our contributions, our work, and our vote will make a difference.

In support of Renaissance men (and Women)

     

Not long ago, my friend Gordon, a Renaissance man in his own right, invited my wife and me to tour the Di Vinci exhibition at California University.  It was a marvel.  The film clip, full scale working models of Di Vinci’s drawings and other materials introduced us to a thinker far ahead of his time.  Local residents should make plans to view this world class exhibit before it departs, on May 6, 2012.

For Di Vinci, there were no walls between art, architecture, science, medicine, anatomy, aviation and industrial process.  His mind flowed freely from one discipline to the other.   This permitted him to connect the dots on matters that would not be revisited for a thousand years.   Unfortunately, unlike Di Vinci or Newton or even Einstein, the day when one can know everything there is to know about everything, or even a great deal about many things, is over.  Even my friend Gordon, who can jump from dry bulk shipping, to game theory, to Mediterranean history gets lost on quantum physics.  The modern era is mostly about knowing everything there is to know about one thing, and only one thing, extremely well.

We do not permit our personal physician to perform heart surgery.  The pastry chef cannot prepare our brace of quail.  The man who hangs dry wall cannot repair our roof.  The roofer cannot clean our chimney.  No one would hire a family lawyer for a murder trial.  My daughter, the avian veterinarian, will not examine a cat.  Most people feel safer in the hands of a specialist. The world is complicated and there is simply too much information.

  Having said this, in a world where everyone is specializing in something, the future may still belong to those who can connect the dots and cross over into several disciplines.  The renaissance of the Renaissance man is upon us.  After viewing the Di Vinci exhibit,   I thought about an orthopedic surgeon I know.  He has a Carnegie Mellon engineering degree and graduated from Harvard Medical School.  In his spare time he helps run the Carnegie Robotics lab.  Engineering and bone anatomy make him the ideal choice.   Another example is Obama’s choice for the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim:  Dartmouth President, medical doctor and anthropologist.  Polymaths like the best -selling authors, Jared-Diamond and Malcolm Gladwell also come to mind.  These roving scientist/ journalists explore many disciplines to give us new views of our past and future.

 Then there are the new and expanding fields of cross-over academic study.  For example: behavioral economics, environmental studies, emerging country developmental studies, evolutionary psychology and medical and legal philosophy come to mind.  These disciplines require our future professionals to dive into the hard sciences and the social sciences. To learn to think like a lawyer or physician, from a philosophical prospective.  In other words, to connect the dots.

 We will continue to need specialists to know everything about a narrow subject.  We will also need the new renaissance men to pave the way to the future.  Like my friend, Gordon, they are a lot more interesting at a dinner party.

BOOMERS & THE AMERICAN DREAM

As a progressive member of the “boomer” generation it is all too easy to feel righteous when it comes to the debate on inequality in America.  After all, while my life is comfortable, I am certainly not wealthy.  I can blame the rich 1% as the income gap widens and proudly wear my 99% t-shirt.  It is a no brainer to point to the income, capital gains and estate tax laws to find the problem and the solution. Tax the rich.  My task is made easier when economists recently declare that the bottom 99% received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation.  The top 1%, whose average income is $1,019,089., had an 11.6 percent increase in income.

It has taken a lot of soul searching to finally admit that, by and large, the attack on the 1%, while relevant and necessary, is largely a smoke screen.  The real problem with and solution for inequality in America, for now and for years to come, belongs to me and my generation. (I must admit this statement was difficult to write)  There are simply too many of us, asking for too much, to ignore.

Warren Buffet rightly proclaimed his economic class as part of the problem.  It is time for boomers, as a generational class, to do the same. Intergenerational inequality is the elephant in the corner and we boomers must get to work and help clean up the mess, or the manure will continue to pile up exponentially.

 Our grandparent’s sacrifice was the great depression; our parent’s the Second World War.  We boomers must make our stand against the economic dysfunction that has placed capitalism and the American Dream in crisis in this new millennium. If for no other reason, we boomers by and large were responsible for the dysfunction.  We ran the economic, political and financial institutions that made it all possible.

With the exception of the Vietnam War (where many of us protested but easily avoided military service), our boomer lives have been blessed.  Most of us made it through our work lives with no depression, no austerity programs, the longest bull market in history and low taxes.  Our higher educations were funded with government stipends and miniscule loan rates. We took jobs in the public and private sectors, where it was difficult to be fired and received generous defined benefit pensions for life. With easy credit, our homes became ATMs so we could borrow and live like kings.  Our extended life expectancies are such that the Social Security and Medicare payments we will receive are quite the bargain.  Unfortunately, it appears that our children will have few or any of these economic benefits.

No one is attacking the boomer generation in this election year, or even suggesting that a little sacrifice might be in order.  While the rich 1% provides an attractive scapegoat, we boomers are the most powerful political force in the history of the civilized world.   We are courted by politicians and corporations.  We are analyzed by social scientists and marketers like no one before us. AARP makes the tea part appear as insignificant as well, an afternoon tea party.  Older voters (who tend to actually vote) are always given a pass by government.  Because of our numbers, the boomer generation magnifies this tendency.

If my daughter were to ask me why our much richer society cannot provide her generation with the same benefits I have received, I could simply blame the wealthiest 1% or mark it off to the luck of time and place.  In truth, we boomers have to step forward and begin giving back in a meaningful way.  Supporting less benefits, beginning later in life, is a starting point.  Paying higher taxes on earned and retirement income is another. (In Pennsylvania, our pension benefits should be taxed)  Calling for limits on needless healthcare would help, as would living wills and end of life directives.

Individually, each of us wants a better world for our children. As an organized political monolith, boomers ask for more and want to give back less.  The wealthiest among us may be greedy but at least they protect both their children and their resources.  This is why they must contribute first and give often.

 For the rest of us in our sixties, who are taking a larger slice of the pie, to give our children less, it is time to end this irreconcilable position.  Living out our golden years on the backs of our young is selfish, destructive and a breach of the intergenerational social contract we have with the next generation.  Let us roll up our sleeves and show what responsible boomers can do to extend and improve the American Dream.

DON'T VOTE, SHOOT

Gov. Corbett and Republicans across the land would have us believe the American dream is safer when it is more difficult to vote than to buy a gun.          In Pennsylvania, while new photo id requirements limit access to the polls by those without a photo card, appropriate background checks on gun purchases are considered an affront to basic freedoms.

 I am trying to remember the last time I heard of voter fraud in the Commonwealth.  It seems to me that older folks and the poor have enough angst struggling to survive, now that the Governor has taken away their benefits.  How would they find the time or energy to vote twice?  Obviously, the Republicans want to ensure they don’t vote once.

On the other hand, every few weeks we have another act of senseless gun violence.  Most incidents appear preventable by putting in place gun laws that the rest of western civilization adopted when the industrial revolution started.  The Republican supported gun lobby will continue to ensure that every mentally ill citizen can turn a suicide into a headline.

Republicans claim “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as their creed.  That is unless you do not drive and want to vote, want to have control over when you give birth, or espouse a non heterosexual lifestyle.  At least Ron Paul is right about something.  You guys in the red party cannot have it both ways.

OUR DESERT ADVENTURE

A change of scenery always provides a new prospective.  Our trip to Southern Arizona not only erased every ache and pain of this aging boomer, it also provided a different view of our pluralistic society.  In the desert below Tucson, in Patagonia Az., where we were guests at a ranch, the green border patrol vehicles appear every half mile.  The National Guard is out in full force with the same armor seen on the nightly news in Afghanistan .   In Nogales, that town half in Mexico, half in the States, a fence stands 30 feet tall and is grounded by a six-foot deep concrete slab.  Ranchers talk of when to use deadly force in protecting their homes and livestock.  Clearly we were as close to a combat zone as has existed in our country since the Civil War.

 The Latino residents seem resigned to and mostly supportive of this show of force against their southern neighbors and in many cases, extended family.  They know the problems of drugs, smuggling and illegal immigration are real.  They also know that Arizona has been their home for many generations.  Almost every Anglo resident I met was from somewhere else.  Every Latino was born in Southern Arizona.  They are proud of their heritage and proud to be Americans. Moreover, boarder security is a big business and provides thousands of direct and indirect jobs for the locals.  Latino citizens want fair immigration policies, not a sieve at the border.

From Tucson to the border, everyone had a Gabby Giffords story to share.  Before the shooting and her retirement, she was truly a new breed of politician.  She saw her role as facilitating projects for her district, not prolonging her tenure in Congress.  Giffords embodied the Latino mindset, pragmatic not ideological.  In the next election, the ever more important Latino vote will go to the presidential candidate who tells it straight and does not pander. ( In a recent poll, 60 percent of likely Latino voters believe the Democrats will help them achieve the American Dream, while only 10 percent said the same for Republicans.)

Until recently, South Western Pennsylvania has not seen the influx of Latino families that the North East has experienced.  Drilling ventures with new workers from the West will slowly change this equation.  We should welcome Latinos as hard working, family oriented individuals who will bring a young and vibrant population to our aging communities.  Like the Irish and Italians before them, Latinos will change and enrich our local culture.  One can only hope that this will include an eatery with a decent tamale and mole sauce.