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.