Author: bfaure

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Celebrating the Bard

     In the non-descript river town in south central England known as Stratford-on-Avon, in the last week of April, 1564, the modern English language was born.  Prior to the event of birth occurring at John Shakespeare’s house at or about April 23rd, the language known as English had developed from the ground up on the backs of many influences. An initial germanic invasion of the Angles into the Northumbria region had impacted directly into the polyglot of dialects derived from the native Celtic and Saxon tribes and the 400 year influence of the Roman colonizers’ Latin creating a distinct language base known as Old English. Though not used as an administrative language, Old English found itself roots in literature most prominently displayed through the epic poem Beowulf.  The invasion of the french Normans led by William the Conqueror in 1066 brought a ruling class of Gauls speaking predominently a French dialect, and the romance language inflection converted the pre-existing language of commonality into a new dialect known as Middle English.  Its literature champion was Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales.  To this point Britain was an island under constant threat of invasion and domination from warrior classes as diverse as the Germans, the Vikings, the Romans, and the Normans and each wave bent the language curve again and again, until it lay passive in wait for the spark that would create a distinctly English culture.

    The spark required two pieces of kindle.  The first was the Tudor queen Elisabeth I, who presided over Britain from 1558 until her death in 1603, marshaling in a permanently outward reflection of British influence through her defeat of the invading Spanish Armada in 1588, creating a British power progressively on par with continental powers, and assuring a unique English culture through her establishment of a state protestantism that evolved into the Church of England, and encouraging local dialects in administrative actions of the state.  The second was the birth in Stratford-on-Avon of John Shakespeare’s son, William, who in his life of 52 years secured the language vehicle of modern English for all time as the language of art, poetry, history, and unity of a people.

     The Bard of Avon was so spectacular in his talent for bring voice to a new, modern English that historians have fought for centuries as to whether a son of a glover and a farmer’s daughter, educated in local schools, could have possibly been the creative force behind the enormity of the masterwork he articulated. Shakespeare had basic grounding in grammar and the classics, but a keen ear for the lyrical tradition of the bard, the muse who memorized the ancient epic stories of ancient people who inhabited Albion and help create a distinct culture. He worked first as an actor with a local troop then as actor and playwright for an actor’s company, the King’s Men, at the Globe in London. His initial impact was not historical, but visceral, as the first mentions of Shakespeare in London are by “educated” critics who felt he was writing plays above his “station” in life. Obviously the popularity of the plays was a driving force in getting elites to take notice. The very existence of criticism indicates a developing sense of a “right way and wrong way” to display a nation’s culture, the initial recognition of nationhood and national identity.at time when few were literate and printing presses few, the risk of Shakespeare’s brilliance to be swallowed whole by time was great, but thankfully, 8 years after his death, two compatriots of Shakespeare’s with his acting company achieved the publishing of all but two of his known works as the First Folio, and western civilization was given one of its all time creative jewels.

     A brief salute to the Bard on his birthday has no hope of forging a worthy dissertation of his genius.  It is enough to say the English language and culture and its immense effect on western civilization was due in no small part by William Shakespeare’s gift for word and drama.  His evolution from historical plays and poetic sonnets into the magisterial tragedies that created for the first time an audience’s window into the psychic and very human forces that drive thought and action have no cumulative equal in his language.  From comedy to epic history to romance to tragedy, the unbroken line is of an ever more human voice that elevates and personifies life, death, and man’s own recognition of individuality.  Over 400 years from their origin, the phrases and lyricism seem as fresh and meaningful today as upon their introduction to the English language.  The words as expressed by Shakespeare forever cemented a reason for an English language and their universality explain much as to the dominance of English as a global language today.

      On the 447th anniversary of the great Bard’s birth, let’s again celebrate the genius of his words, and one of the prime examples of western civilization’s greatest gifts to mankind, the freedom of the individual to develop his unique talents in his own unique voice, no matter his “station” in life.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

                                                                                                         William Shakespeare – As You Like It

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

                                        William Shakespeare – Hamlet

     Happy Birthday, Bard of Avon. 

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And Now For Something Completely Different…

     President Obama determined today at a press conference to finally release his long form birth certificate, in order to end what he termed the “sideshow”, and declaring, “We do not have time for this silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do.”  Better stuff to do, indeed.  Putting aside the president’s motives in withholding the certificate for over three years after his birthplace was initially questioned by the Hillary Clinton forces in the democratic primaries of 2008, the announcement clearly puts to rest for the time being the quisentential American time honored tradition of the Conspiracy Theory. The rupturing of the “birtherism” conspiracy leaves of course all the other wonderful residual conspiracy theories attached to this mystery of a man – who got Obama into Columbia and Harvard University – who really wrote Obama’s “autobiography” – what really is the religion that Obama professes as his faith – that will take us right up through the next election cycle, and will continue to deflect from what the President refers to as “better stuff”. Conspiracy theories live in the world of incomplete information, and this President, who promised to be the most open in history, has been the master of the tabula rasa.
   

       The historical expanse of American Conspiracy Theories projects back to the founding of the republic and is driven by the assumption that successful entities achieved their success not through hard work but a vehicle not available to the “average Joe”. President Obama himself daily participates in such yarns when he implies the “rich” are not “paying their fair share” as a tribute of their “bounty”, that the oil companies are “price gauging” every time the price of gasoline reaches painful levels, or that reform of medicare will preferentially harm the “aged” and the “disabled”. The conspiracy theories with the most staying power are usually the most obtuse and bizarre, and often involve the government. Take for instance the 9/11 Truther conspiracy that claims the United States government destroyed the World Trade Center either by “allowing” it to happen or even physically directing the planes to strike pre-armed sections of the towers. This theory builds upon the historical trellis of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s supposed pre-knowledge of the Japanese Pearl Harbor Attack December 7th, 1941, again, “allowing” it to happen to draw us into war. Both scenarios draw on the inadequate intelligence information available to the Presidents Bush and Roosevelt that supposes that the destiny of the event was clear to all, but ignored for nefarious means. A different kind of government conspiracy is the public health menace in which “experts” seek to control the population, such as the US creating AIDS and releasing it from a lab, or the placement of Fluoride in water not to reduce tooth decay, but to poison people. Insidious conspiracy theories based on racialist notions have induced great harm, such as the conspiracy of Jewish world domination, or the western world’s response to 9/11 as a device to corral the world’s oil supply from Arabs or a return of the Crusades, inflaming the Arab street. Another venue is the small group knowing elites controlling the world, such as the Tri-Lateral Commission, the “New World Order”, or earlier the Masons.  The list goes on, and on, and on.

     We are, in short, a nation full of suspicions and rationalizations of what effects history and events, and we are not soon to be cured of this affliction.  The best device for controlling the conversation and focusing the people on the hard work and challenges inherent in conquering large problems is a willingness to be open and upfront about the small distractions.  The president in his dribbling out of information only enhances those who would assume an irrational explanation for their concerns about his decision making.  As the president says, it is time to put away such silliness, and focus on what is the true conspiracy of this presidency, the willingness to talk about our difficult times as an adult, yet act upon potential solutions with the avoidance and disdain of a distracted child.

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He is not here.

          The miracle that is Easter morning will be celebrated by over 2 billion people today in reflection and adoration of the triumph of life over mortality. The power of the messenger resonates with such clarity over the millenia that historical significance of the event still drives enormous academic study, and the religious significance unbounded in its power still to convert. The conceptualization of a miracle that frees man of his sinful character and provides a means for eternal salvation in a world that constantly torments is still the single most powerful philosophical force in humanity’s understanding of being, and continues to grow amongst all religions.
     He is not Here. With those simple words the New Testament describes the “impossible”. A Nazarene named Jesus, borne some where around 4 BC, and unknowable to history until three years prior to the above event, had developed a new strain of religious philosophy that was powerfully drawing people of all persuasions to a new perception of life and religion that was beginning to threaten established traditions and hierarchies. At a time at the height of the Roman Empire, the recent establishment of a “devine” emperor did not leave room for a philosophic religion that had no place for his divinity. Additionally this new religious strain taught concepts of individuality that flew in the face of the local Judaic tradition – this religious teacher claimed inward purity was more important than outward acts of precise following of the letter of biblical law.  He spoke in parables and claimed miracles, and had a place for those who had been scorned or punished by establishment law or creed. He saw a loving and forgiving God, and saw the individual as the sole claimant to that love, “You are the Light of the world.”  Thousands believed and thousands began to follow. The implied threat was visible to established order, and the action to end the threat ruthless. The man Jesus suffered the painful death of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, and the threat to their order they thought they had just ended was ignited a thousand fold with the miracle of the empty tomb, as prophesied, three mornings later.

     He is not here.  The empty tomb was the consequence of a Risen Jesus.  No single reported event in world history has shown the prosthelitizing power of this one. The witnessed miracle led to his apostles risking all to spread what they had experienced to Jew and Gentile alike, and through Peter and Paul, into the very heart of known world, Rome itself.  In the course of just three hundred years, the Roman Empire that attempted to snuff out the fragile message of individuality at its origin, ended up fully converted to the powers of the event by the act of its own emperor Constantine.

     What exactly happened so many years ago is an article of faith. Like all unexplainable events, the faithful have been buffeted over the centuries with distortions and trials by those who would seek to control the masses through the control of the message and memory.  The clarity of the message over time grows sharper and more distinct with each year more removed from the miracle of Golgotha.  If one focuses on a life of personal charity, love, and forgiveness, no greater path to eventual happiness exists, and no happiness exists that is more palpable and enduring.  Happy Easter.

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The Makings of the Battle To Come

     There is a large consortium of republican standard bearers developing a year and a half before the 2012 presidential election as evidence continues to mount that the current president is progressively running out of time to adjust the economic landscape that will be present come next November. As an upstart candidate who managed to come from nowhere to defeat an incumbent president now several decades ago so aptly put it, “it’s the economy, stupid!” The massive stimulus spending has proved to be an economic bust, inflation driven by basics for the economy like food and oil is gaining momentum, the debt process is progressively de-valuing the currency, and the mythical ability of a government to “create” jobs has once again been disproved. Who wouldn’t want a shot at the title belt running against that record? Charles Krauthammerwith his usual verve sizes up the potential combatants and assesses their individual chances of being in the title match. Its almost a Shakespearean group of protagonists. There’s the Mormon businessman running on conservative competence who when given a state to run put in place his own version of Obamacare, to the death of that state’s finances. How about the former House Speaker, who puts out more ideas about everything like a lawn sprinkler, but has not proven to those who have worked with him that he can show the personal discipline necessary to cleave out the bad ideas. Okay, maybe the populist from the great expanse of Alaska, who shoots bears and takes on the establishment with equal verve, or maybe her twin sister from Minnesota with equal populist sentiments and tough mother appeal? Best yet, how about the gas bag from New York City, who would like to run on an agenda of birtherism, lessons gleaned from the Apprentice TV show, beating up on the Chinese, and techniques learned from going bankrupt multiple times without ever being called on it – oh yeah, that one would be a good one. And those others – the good guy former governor from Minnesota who no one is paying attention to, the Mississippi governor who struggles to escape his cultural past, the former governor of Arkansas, who liked tax increases, cap and trade, and …oh forget it.

     All right, I admit it. I am not that impressed with the options. Is there no one of the necessary substance and intellectual heft to take on the coming demagoguery that is sure to flow from our current prince? Is there no one trudging through the still snowy fields of the Midwest working on the craft of communicating to the people, devising and adjust the message of necessary sacrifice, reform, and adult responsibility? Is there no one who can synthesize the byzantine inner workings of government, discern its draining effect on the economic impulses of a nation, and articulate a clear concise strategy to achieve a soft landing and energetic and sustained economic future for America? Nobody? Really?

     Wait a minute, that person sounds just like…Paul Ryan. Christian Schneider of National Review Onlinedetails what Mr. Ryan is up to in small town hall meetings in Wisconsin this spring and the public reaction to his message. It is no wonder that the floundering Washington prince has determined that, in a series of speeches across the country to detail the lack of detail in his deficit reduction plan, pointedly isolates Mr. Ryan as enemy numero uno to the status quo of negligence and demagoguery he wishes to protect for one more term. Mr. Ryan may not fully admit to himself what he is up to, but everybody else including the President himself is viewing it as Mr. Ryan’s spring training, in which he is warming up his vaunted talent and trying out his many pitches. It seems he can no longer go to a meeting without someone asking Ryan “The Question”, and his pat answer that he is happy doing what he is doing now, may not fly when, after the game really begins and the outcome is at stake, the crowd looks out at who is pitching the message and asks for the Closer.

     Mr. Ryan has the necessary skill set to close out the contest, its just a matter of time before circumstances dictate that he ask for the ball.

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The Philadelphia Sound is in Trouble

     The below the fold news of the day is in the musical world. The Philadelphia Orchestra, one one of the greatest vehicles in the world for the transmission of organized sound is considering a declaration of bankruptcy. Music performance has always been a precarious business, and in the mode of symphony orchestras, often a money loser. Orchestras have to fund large groups of musicians in such a way that they can maintain continuity and performance discipline, an achievement that creates a specific sound character. This takes hundreds of hours of shaping rehearsal and costs loads of money through salary and benefits. Additionally, the performance halls, conductors, score rental, concert artists, supporting personnel, concert performances, and tours to highlight that sound character to the recognition of the rest of the world is constant drain on endowments and charitable giving to maintain the whole enterprise. For lesser orchestras, the battle of the budget has always been a dicey affair.
     America has been blessed for most of the past 100 years with the presence of five universally recognized world class orchestras, known as the Big Five, that due to their prestige, recording capacity, loyal listeners, and huge endowments to be beyond the potential threats to an orchestra’s existence. The Five, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, And Chicago Symphony Orchestra have each created a very unique character of sound that is recognizable through the generations and makes each an unmatched champion of symphonic excellence recognized the world over. Of special note has been what has been referred to as the Philadelphia Sound, a special warmth and vibrancy created from what has been a tradition of virtuoso talent at every position in the orchestra. The recognition of the sound was first developed under the baton of the legendary Leopold Stokowski, who pioneered with the Philadelphia Orchestra classical recording, establishing the sound with both record and radio performances that the public hungrily devoured. The face of classical music was locked in by Stowkowski as the Philadelphia sound, when the orchestra was selected to perform the musical score for Walt Disney’s Fantasia, and the great conductor even made an animated role in the film itself. As television progressively took over as a means of delivering performance to mass audiences, an equally legendary and public savvy conductor in Eugene Ormandy took over, and led the orchestra to unrivaled fame for the next 40 years. The orchestra was America’s cultural jewel that was selected in 1973 to be the first American cultural exchange with the People’s Republic of China, initiating the return of that great nation to global interaction after years in self imposed isolation.
     The recent course of the orchestra, however, has been considerably more dysfunctional, with a succession of poorly matched muscical directors following Ricardo Muti, Ormandy’s successor, and the ballooning costs of maintaining a huge musical organization with outsized expensive talent. The final blow has been the recent recession, with significant reductions in attendance of concerts as people in harsher times finding it more difficult to pay out the 40 to 125 dollar seat per performance required by the orchestra’s budget. The endowment, at 125 million dollars, barely half of what is felt to be required to secure orchestral economic independence, is not available for budgetary shortcomings, and the donors are not lining up to fill in the gap.
     The result is the heretofore unmentionable, bankruptcy, that threatens to take one of the great icons of American classical music performance, and make it just another band of musicians. The times are painful, that’s for sure, and that which is iconic in today’s world, must compete for the entertainment dollar with considerably less iconic figures. The answer lies were it always has, in both the musicians and the public determining the appropriate economic value of securing a unique musical sound for the eternal enjoyment of the performer and those who listen to the brilliant display of humanity’s creative genius. Here’s hoping that Philadelphia, and other cities supporting great vehicles for western civilization’s most evolved invention of the marriage of organized intellect and emotive expression, find a way out of the threatening waters.
     As a tip of the hat, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, displaying the Philadelphia Sound:

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Tactic Ground Zero: Hypocrisy

    This has been an eventful week in the annals of hypocrisy, a storied section of the human library if there ever was one.  We had the passing of the U.S. budgetary resolution to prevent a governmental shutdown with a alleged “crushing” 38 billion in savings painfully carved out of the federal budget of 4 trillion. That draconian 0.95% cut from overall spending achieved with much gnashing of teeth and wailing by politicians regarding pain on closer inspection by the Congressional Budget Office accounting, turns out not to be a cut at all, but a 300 million dollar gain- hey, who knew?  Then there is the “this is not a war” war in Libya, in which “our involvement will be days, not weeks”, now heading for its third month, with the Libyan dictator still in place, and no identifiable resolution on the horizon.  But wait, there’s more – on center court, the king of the tactic, the big Kahuna, the Masters Class in Hypocrisy- was provided this week by no less than the President himself in what was billed as a national retort and “serious response” to Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan to gain control over spiralling debt and achieve stability in our nation’s impending entitlement crisis.  This effort at hypocrisy was so transparent, so state of the art, that its deserves a full Ramparts recognition, so we may be in awe of a master at his craft.
     On April 13th, 2011, President Obama delivered his vision for America’s priorities and the need for budgetary discipline, in response to Representative Paul Ryan’s comprehensive budget plan recently passed by the House reforming entitlement programs and putting America on a path to fiscal solvency. For several years now, the President has engaging in budgetary discipline rhetoric, demanding that “grown-ups” step forward to suggest serious plans for deficit reduction, while himself engaging in ballooning deficit spending at historic levels. Two groups of “grown ups” stepped forward. His own deficit commission he appointed provided a template for maintenance of governmental spending at a GDP of 21%, and Rep. Ryan’s plan securing a cap at 20% while addressing the vexing entitlement problem which threatens to consume the budget. He has ignored them both, and in a particularly pointed Presidential smack-down, lured Ryan and his deficit commisioners to sit a few seats away from Obama as he delivered his apparently more “grown-up” response. The drizzle of hypocrisy was sustained and arrogant.

     First, the President framed the nation’s budgetary history as in line with the current crisis, suggesting that prior administrations had recognized and tackled a similar fiscal problems presented by entitlement spending through budgetary discipline and tax hikes.

Now, at certain times -– particularly during war or recession -– our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities.  And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn’t going to hurt if it’s temporary.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon.  They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.  Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation. 

To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit — three times.  They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush, then made by President Clinton, by Democratic Congresses and by a Republican Congress.  All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice.  But they largely protected the middle class; they largely protected our commitment to seniors; they protected our key investments in our future. 

As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000.  We went from deficit to surplus.  America was actually on track to becoming completely debt free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

 It would be difficult to find a President who has been looser with the facts of history.   The coming baby boomer entitlement wave has been recognized for decades but nothing has been done about it.  Taxes passed by congresses and presidents adjusted current budgetary debts, not future deficit drivers.  Representative Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, head of the Ways and Means Comittee suggested in 1988 a form of catastrophic health insurance and prescription coverage to achieve control of Medicare’s burgeoning expenses and was nearly lynched for it, and the bill was repealed.  Social Security, a progressively unfunded mandate, was recommended to be put in a “lock box” by Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election and was summarily laughed out of discussion.  The momentary debt reduction achieved by the Clinton Administration came to a crashing halt with the .Com bubble burst and the catastrophe of 9/11, and no mechanism was in place to maintain the spending discipline required in the face of such threats to the economy.   In contradistinction, commission after commission acknowledged the devastating effect of  70 million baby boomers entering into an average of 20 years of entitlement exposure in both securities and health care. and no mechanism under present structures to remotely pay for them.  Its a farce to imply America’s finances “were in great shape.”

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed.  We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program -– but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending.  Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts -– tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

     Oh, of course; now its clear.  Once again, its all George W. Bush’s fault.  You have to understand; according to this president’s logic, the money available is all the government’s to spend.  If it wasn’t for those treacherous citizens receiving some of their own money back, the government would have more available to spend in its progressively uncontrolled fashion.  Unfortunately the facts again don’t fight.  Under the Bush tax cuts, governmental receipts went up every year until the fiscal collapse of 2008 and subsequent recession, and the budgetary explosion in spending versus tax receipts occurred with President Obama’s first budget.  In fact, he signed into law an extension of those cuts for an additional two years when every economist warned him to do other wise could sink the recession into a depression.  Once again, the Obama reality:

So, thankfully, having discovered that the entire debt crisis arose only out of the 8 Bush budgets, the President, the only “grown up” in the present argument, is going to right the ship with mature budgetary cuts that take into account the obvious arthrimetic of the entitlement wave, right? Not quite. After over 4 trillion dollars of deficit spending in two and one half years of Obama economics, what is needed first is…more deficit spending:

The America I know is generous and compassionate.  It’s a land of opportunity and optimism.  Yes, we take responsibility for ourselves, but we also take responsibility for each other; for the country we want and the future that we share.  We’re a nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness.  We sent a generation to college on the GI Bill and we saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare.  We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.  That’s who we are.  This is the America that I know.  We don’t have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit our investment in our people and our country. 

To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices.  But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in.  And as long as I’m President, we won’t.

So today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years.  It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission that I appointed last year, and it builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget.  It’s an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table — but one that protects the middle class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future. 

The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week.  That step alone will save us about $750 billion over 12 years.  We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs that I care deeply about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments that we need to grow and create jobs.  We will invest in medical research.  We will invest in clean energy technology.  We will invest in new roads and airports and broadband access.  We will invest in education.  We will invest in job training.  We will do what we need to do to compete, and we will win the future.

     The money for this new investment will come from the usual sources.  First, we will “eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse” from government.  Okay, that’s never been tried before, and based on the waste, fraud, and abuse inherent in the Obama stimulus package, should be a pretty good pot of money.  Then there is that defense department, which will need to reduce its last two years of budgetary reductions again, while find funds for the expansion of nation building in Afghanistan, and  the third conflict Obama recently started in Libya, which thankfully we will soon be out of.  Then, the President will tackle health care expenditures, not in the cruel way of the Republicans like Ryan with their ridiculous notions of reforming the entitlements- no the President will reap the savings by – appointing another commission:

We will change the way we pay for health care -– not by the procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results.  And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services that seniors need.  

Now, we believe the reforms we’ve proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional $1 trillion in the decade after that.  But if we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, then this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare. 

     After that independent commission has achieved the trillions of dollars of efficiency savings that the previous hundreds of independent commissions have been unable to achieve, the real muscle in in deficit reduction will be obtained from the culprit in this whole deficit mess- the American taxpayer who refuses to pay enough for all this governmental largess:

The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code, so-called tax expenditures.  In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans.  But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society.  We can’t afford it.  And I refuse to renew them again. 

     Did you catch that?  The President will reduce spending in the tax code, so called tax expenditures.  He now sees spending as not when the government spends, but when the government receives insufficient funds to cover its expenditures from those paying in! And more good news- if the government would fail to reduce expenditures (which of course never happens- see above) a debt failsafe law would be enacted that would lock in automatic tax increases (I’m sorry, tax expenditures) to cover the shortfall.  The government would now be immune to ever looking again at the “spend” side of the equation, and having to stand up for a vote on increasing taxes.  Wow. That says it all – a new democratic king of anti-democratic hypocrisy has been crowned.

     The president ended his remarks with a call for bi-partisanship, after spending the previous thirty minutes savaging every bi-partisan instinct in deficit reduction.  Representative Ryan, forced to sit through the whole speech and listen as the personal invite of the President to a step by step insult of all his hard work and rationalizations, showed in a strong response to the farcical performance why Ryan should be our next President:

     To our current President, who has convinced himself that his distortions, deceits, historical fudges, and lack of responsible leadership on the critical economic issue of our time and the emerging threat to our society of freedom should hold court, I think a classic John McEnroe puts our opinion of our president’s comic book math and lazy solutions in perspective – Mr. President,  YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS!

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The First Space Man

      Fifty years ago today something new, brave, and wonderful  occurred in the golden fields of Kazakhstan.  Only 58 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright proved man could achieve controlled flight and resist the confining bonds of gravity in their 1903 achievement at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a Russian hero proved forever that man could break those very gravitational bonds, and escape the confines of earth and find heaven.  Despite the political overtones of the time, it is an achievement unsullied in its magnificence.  Yuri Gagarin, a Russian test pilot, was propelled in a staged rocket into orbital flight, and became the first man to see the earth from beyond the blanketing atmosphere. The reality of manned light into space, long the stuff of science fiction and fantasy, became the very zenith of man’s capacity for greatness, and for a time made the then Soviet Union the center of science and technology in the civilized world.

     The glorious achievement was the crowning accomplishment of a brilliant aerospace engineer named Sergei Korolyov, a man who had tasted the dark side of Stalinist Russia, when in experimenting with rocket flight, he was imprisoned for six years for “wasting” state funds in unsuccessful rocket experiments.  With the German rocket success of World War II, Korolyov’s skill set proved too valuable for further abuse by the state and he was released at the end of the war to investigate German rocket technology and incorporate what he could into a Russian program.  The Americans managed the coup of rounding up the majority of Germany’s most successful rocket scientists including the young genius Werner Von Braun, and the initial lead in the concept of intercontinental rocket technology. Korolyov rapidly caught up and by the late 1950’s determined means of achieving multiple rocket engines harmonically delivering thrust in a single rocket, dramatically increasing payload lift capacity.  In 1958, he stunned the world by sending a satellite into stable earth orbit with the launch of Sputnik, igniting a dramatic US effort to close the gap.  The United States continued to formulate multiple options for rocket design, from the Atlas to the Vanguard and , finally the Jupiter, which would eventually be the successful and reproducible design.   This continued multi-directed formulation resulted in occasional launch embarrassments and dead ends, resulting in a hesitation to take the leap to projecting man into space. The game was on, however, as the Russians placed a dog in space, the Americans a chimpanzee, and progressively more aggressive satellite weights were thrown into space.   Korolyov saved what he knew would be overwhelming spectacle in leapfrogging these sub-orbital efforts with animals and went for broke, proposing man flight into space, having the man complete an orbit, and safely delivering him back to Earth.  The gaps in what was known were huge – how would man tolerate weightlessness, could he be counted on to tolerate the enormous gravitational forces, could he live through the fiery atmospheric re-entry? Korolyov left little to chance regarding the knowns he could control and determined to preconfigure the mission and have the space traveler be a passive voyager, with the flight controlled by preset radio signals from home.  He determined he would need a man for the job that would be brave but compliant, look and act the part of a hero, and he found his man in Gagarin.

      Yuri Gagarin was only 27 years old in 1961, but already a celebrated military pilot of the class of the Russian airforce the MIG-15, attentive, mathematically accomplished, and at only 5 feet 2 inches tall, perfect for the tight confines of the space capsule that would be his home in space.  He was a member of the Sochi Six, an elite group of russian pilots selected to be the first to engage the cosmos, and on the fortnight before the flight, he was finally selected in a last second discision over Gherman Titov for the epic flight.  Given the political circumstances of beating the Americans to the punch, the Vostok rocket was fitted for the manned flight after only two previous unmanned flights, and Gagarin was fully aware of the enormous risks involved.  On the morning of flight he was withdrawn and contemplative, and the weight of a potential dark outcome certainly weighed in his thoughts.  In the best tradition of great pilots, he took his place without hesitation, and at about 0600 am at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Vostok rocket with a payload of 10,420 lbs and a solitary man was lifted into space.  The capsule was projected into space into an oblong orbit that reached an ultimate height of 203 miles off the earth’s surface and in a little over 108 minutes, completed an earth orbit, and Gagarin became the first man to send a radio message from space, the first man to see the earth night fall from space, and the first man to experience a space emergency when a portion of his mechanized craft failed to separate from the re-entry vehicle, causing the craft to initially tumble wildly.  The craft luckily separated from its undesired companion, and achieved stability just prior to re-entry. In a falsification propagated by the Soviets, Gagarin was reported to have landed with his craft, but Korolyov secretly had him eject from the craft at 23,000 feet and land by separate parachute, to attempt to assure a safe delivery of the human cargo on the very first manned flight.  Gagarin and the Vostok 1 capsule landed separately, and safely, and the Soviet Union had a huge technological achievement and propaganda triumph.  Gagarin was instantaneously a world hero, and his accomplishment significantly dulled the American response three weeks later, when Alan Shepard rode the Mercury space craft into a meager sub-earth trajectory and a brief 15 minute flight.  Gagarin, through the brilliance of Sergei Korolyov, achieved what it would take the Americans another year to accomplish, true orbital space flight and safe return, a spectacular achievement that has not been dimmed one bit by the years of the subsequent American spectaculars.

     Yuri Gagarin was a hero for the rest of his short life, and a profound influence on his time.  He never was asked to pilot another spacecraft, considered too valuable to risk loss, yet ironically died in a MIG 15 plane crash in 1968 at the young age of 34.  In that brief, shining moment fifty years ago today, he became the first space man, and turned the heavens and stars from the stuff made of dreams, into the reality of what man can do, when he puts his mind to it, and has the will to risk it all.

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Descent into the Maelstrom

       April 12, 2011, is the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Civil War initiated by an artillery barrage by South Carolina Militia Lieutenant Henry Farley at 4:30 am into the United States  military base at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.  The good lieutenant had an resolutely clear concept how this war would start, but like everyone else caught up in the maelstrom of state’s sovereignty, issues of slavery, union domain, southern versus northern cultures, and wounded honor, absolutely no idea how it would turn out.  It would turn out,  a perfect hell on earth.  In four unimaginable years of pain and loss , inconceivable to the aggressors of that early morning, the Civil War would span the continent, take hundreds of thousands of lives, destroy entire swaths of country, and change forever the relationship of a people to each other, and their relation to the constitutional basis of this country.  No one firing those early mortars had any idea that the world they knew was to be extinguished with the very first mortar flash.

     Fort Sumter was perfectly positioned to be the martyr in this American Iliad.  The fort lay in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, home to the most rabid of the secessionist strain infecting the southern culture, the first state to declare secession from the United States in December 1860, and spiritual home to the former Senator and Vice President of the United States, John C. Calhoun, who first argued a states rights theory of the nullification that suggested states could consider”null” federal laws they considered unconstitutional.  The most odious “law” of all to the south considered for nullification was the federal pressure to restrict the borders of slavery “ratified” by the election to US President of a staunch opponent of the propagation of slavery to developing United States territories contemplating statehood, Abraham Lincoln.  Slavery had proved so controversial to the founders of the country that they tip-toed through its very existence in the founding documents of the land, in hopes of not undermining a collective will for a unified people.  The interwoven nature of slavery to the culture and economy of the south was bound so tightly, that its inherent contradiction of existence among a people willing to fight to the death for their own rights while subjugating others, established no momentary indecision or hesitation.  The pressured momentum of eight decades of “kicking” the problem down the road had finally come to fruition with a citizen of the United States firing a mortar at another citizen of the United States in a bracing smack down of all who believed the forces of compromise would win out forever.

     The commander of Fort Sumter, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson, had long ago acknowledged his strategically weak position in the center of the Charleston Harbor surrounded by hostile batteries but was equally aware of his critical position in the tragic play that was to commence.  He initially looked to hold out long enough for re-inforcements to reach him, but recognized soon that a massive southern force had no intention of releasing the trap and after 34 continuous hours of fire, with  injuries and little residual ammunition and food for his men , Major Anderson ordered the fort abandoned to the rebel troops.  The new President had studied the realities of the Fort Sumter position for some time.  He had made many momentous conclusions.  Fort Sumter was a United States institution on United States soil and would not be “given up” to those who felt the fort was manned by a “foreign” oppressor.  The war to determine the existence of the union was inevitable and had to be initiated by those who would seek its destruction.  The nation would best rise up in indignation and commitment to the difficult task if the aggressor was clear.  The President was right on all counts.  The loss of the fort led President Lincoln to call for the mobilization of 75,000 troops to put down the insurrection, and the northern states in this initial phase enthusiastically responded with a bounty of volunteers.  The nation had taken the President earlier words to heart :

 A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

      The battle for Fort Sumter, brief as it was, was the harbinger of an expansive and cruelly extended conflict that would test Lincoln’s words on the ultimate field of debate, the battlefield.  Brother against brother,  father against son, state against state, and will against will.  In the perfect maelstrom, the circular forces of fate led to the conclusion of the argument almost to the day four years later.  Fort Sumter will on the 12th of April , the 150th anniversary of the lighting of the powder keg, be remembered in ceremonies attended by thousands of people, and memorialized for its historic triggering of the ultimate national argument.  It will be celebrated , however, by no one, for its horrid role in the birth of a national cataclysm.

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Wilmer McLean’s House

     On April 9th, 1965, a crowd developed in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean’s house in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In no small irony, the final vestiges of the great storm transcontinentally roaring across the American land expanse over four strife filled years found itself guests in the house of the gentleman whose previous residence had received artillery damage in the first battle of the war at Manassas, Virginia. McLean, a sugar merchant, after narrowly escaping with his family from the destructive artillery of the first battle of Bull Run at Manassas, determined to pick a peaceful spot in Virginia he felt far from any strategic value and therefore safe for his family in a backwater known as Appomattox Junction in 1863. Despite his best efforts, the war that started in his front lawn was destined to end in his front parlor, for the collection of uniformed gentlemen sitting down in his house on April 9th, were the commanding officers of the Confederate and Union forces of the epic tragedy known as the Civil War.

     There was certainly nothing civil about the Civil War. A harsh and uncompromising four year series of massive battles and countless skirmishes, the war took the lives of over 600,000 Americans and the limbs of countless others. No home was spared the tragedy of a family member or a relative falling to the vicious battles or oppressive health conditions that killed so many more. Despite the appearance of inevitable triumph that seemed to harken out of the Union Army’s simultaneous victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg on July 4th, 1863, the nation had in reality only begun to suffer, with spectacular losses of men and materiel over the battles of the next two years, as Union commanders sought to split and finally sinter the Confederate army. The overwhelming economic power of the union north and its seemingly endless supplies of men and material, however, slowly but progressively overwhelmed the southern confederates apparent advantage in strategic command and fighting spirit related to defending their “homeland”. After the final collapse of Confederate defense at the many month siege of Petersburg, Virginia in late March , the remnants of General Robert Lee’s proud fighting army struggled to escape a vise devised by General Ulysses Grant and sprung by General Phillip Sheridan’s cavalry, and retreat westward towards interior lines of southern defense and hoped for re-grouping. This time however, the Union forces were not going to relent, and Lee found himself in the impossible position of defending both front and rear lines with no possibility of re-enforcement. The old tiger was caged, and he knew it.

      At Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9th, 1865, in Wilmer McLean’s front parlor, the two great warriors sized each other up, as one prepared to deliver, and the other accept, the harshest wound suffered by any warrior, the acceptance of surrender. General Grant, with little training in the art of politics, proved to be a natural master, creating a surrender document that preserved the loser’s dignity, but not his capability, and Lee was impressed. Lee signed the articles of surrender, and at 400 pm the guns at Appomattox fell still, and a nation’s crisis of identity had come to a conclusion.

     General Grant, so persistent in attack and resilient despite incredible pressure resulting form the massive loss of lives his army had incurred in the twenty some months of his command, proved the perfect opponent to Lee’s flashy and flexible style. He had simply crushed the life-force out of the southern confederacy through his plan to divide and subdivide, helped with the spectacular victories of his southern panzer attack across the deep south by General Sherman, and dominant calvary led by General Sheridan, and finally the bulldozer like capacity of the Grand Army of the Republic. He had great respect for what Lee had accomplished but not what he had fought for. Grant put it eloquently in his memoirs:

” I felt anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and so valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought.”

     Lee left Wilmer McLean’s house and got on his steed Traveller, and rode to his troops to tell them of the surrender, where he was surrounded by thousands of his troops fighting tears upon word of the end, tears for their loss and particularly tears for the burden absorbed by their beloved commander.  Grant, in his unique fashion, went back to his command tent to contemplate alone what had happened, and wrestle with another of his never ending migraines.  The nation would celebrate, and suffer, in its own way, with the spontaneous celebrations of enormous and overpowering relief, and the cataclysmic grief of the loss of so many her sons and just a few days later a martyred president.

     The many lessons of principled stands run amok filter down to us to this very day.  We have become harsher in our discourse, and more radical in our beliefs, to the point where every contest or debate, however miniscule, becomes painted with political overtones.   It paralyzes us to achieve any studied and  consistent resolutions to pressing problems, and like 15o years ago, could become a flood that exceeds its banks, leading to real turmoil.  General Grant understood the need for getting past the concept of winners and losers and on to cooperative success.  When hearing the celebrating cannon of the union army announcing the surrender, he ordered them immediately stopped.  He announced to his troops, ” The celebration is unfitting. The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.”  We would do well to heed the words of our great general, who recognized that what separates us has no place in comparison to all that bind us together. Perhaps Wilmer McLean could lend his house to one more meeting of what it takes to find common ground as Americans.

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Duty Calls

     Every generation hopes for a leader that transcends the self absorption and indecisiveness that consumes the political discourse at various critical times in history to become a beacon of clarity and direction to the benefit of all. The founding of the nation, so fragile in birth, received a framework for all future leaders through the calm and steady George Washington. The country was consumed with insurmountable philosophic division in 1860, leading to Civil War, discovering a leader in Abraham Lincoln, who achieved the impossible task of translating the country’s original founding principles into a more modern version that restored unity when all thought it lost. The nation found in Theodore Roosevelt a unique vehicle for the country achieving a position as a world power while restoring the promise to the individual citizen of a fair shake in their own world. In its greatest test ever, buffeted by the twin catastrophes of great depression and apocalyptic war, the nation was steadily and safely led to the position of superpower by Franklin Roosevelt. Finally, out of a crisis of confidence in which many thought the nation’s best years behind it, Ronald Reagan restored a nation’s vitality and in each individual promise for a better tomorrow.

     Every generation hopes for such a leader, and this generation is no different. The current crisis is self created, with a burgeoning national debt progressively suffocating all flexibility for addressing the nation’s needs, and inevitably draining the nation’s life force. Like all previous crisis situations, the political landscape is filled with pretenders and charlatans, deniers and demagogues, mediocrity and downright mendacity. The simplistic contribution of a self absorbed population to its own ills in welcoming an entitlement Trojan horse into its own future, feeds the comfort of all the sunshine patriots who claim the crisis is overblown or simply addressed at a later time.

     The numbers are staggering – a 14.2 trillion dollar national debt, equal to the gross domestic product and expected to double within ten years, 4.6 trillion in US debt held by foreign countries, an indescribable 113.2 trillion dollars owed future generations in unfunded liabilities, and an estimated incurred debt per citizen of 51,000 dollars. Yet, the recent response of both congress and President was to pile on further debt and unfunded liabilities a a record level in complete disdain for the gathering storm.  No leaders here, and certainly false and fatuous hope and change.

     Like earlier times a leader has arisen from unassuming quarters, a back waters district in southeastern Wisconsin, and with no other calling than his profound desire to assure a nation worth inhabiting for his own small children. This leader, Paul Ryan, (Ramparts People We Should Know #4), has decided to put into action against all odds a means for this nation’s salvation. He has determined like all great leaders before him, that the position to lead is in front with clarity and courage. Like all great leaders he will face a storm of resistance and undercutting, and will be abandoned at times by his erstwhile friends, afraid of the heat. He will be impugned by the chief pretender, who adrift in a sea of his own inconsistencies and lacking in any semblance of original thinking, will see him as a threat and look to destroy him. Like all great leaders before him, I think Paul Ryan has realized that it is his time and his calling to bring America back from the brink. He has stated that his quest is not a personal one, but I foresee the willful force of history calling him to assume the mantle that he has to this point denied. Unfortunately for Paul Ryan and his desire to be an initiator but not the vehicle of change , he will soon find out, that he is the right one, at the right time.  Paul Ryan is about to realize his own truth….A Nation’s Duty Calls.