The Dole Blog

ABC News reports that Americans are losing confidence in President Obama. But he is what we voted for. What did he tell us he would do? He was hard on ‘terror,’ much more so than the ‘hawkish’ H. Clinton, during his campaign. He promised reforms he thought necessary: education, environment, and health care. He succeeded on his education reforms. He succeeded on environmental reforms. (It is probably the neither the education or environment reforms will be sufficient. But they are action, which he felt necessary, which he campaigned on, which he delivered.) He has not succeeded, but he has not failed, on health care reforms. He has, for better or for worse, asked congress to do its job and present him with legislation that he can approve or reject.
Those are the things he promised. Those are the issues over which he has control, as president. It is his job to see that the laws are faithfully executed. Are we, as a country, losing confidence in Obama? My confidence level in him changes. I don’t agree with many of the things he does – I don’t agree, for instance, with AfPak policy – but he told us that he would pursue these policies.
Why did you vote for him? Did you vote for him because the system was so broken that he was the least bad option? Or was there something there? He is inspiring, certainly. Even if you don’t agree with him, he is inspiring; just observe the hate-speech that he inspires from those who don’t know how else to react to him. I voted expecting both the reward of hope and the realization of failure; he has been generous in granting us both hope and failure. But if not Obama, then who? Can we lose confidence so easily?

I have the privilege to write  this post from my perspective.  Usually, I try to address universal issues — issues that affect us all — and I’ll try to do that here.  But I am writing this post, unapologetically, from my own view, addressing issues that are my own.  I can only assume  they are problems you have, or will, experience(d).  This is, moreover, an opinion piece, lacking the research I may sometimes put into posts.  Quite unlike some posts by my good friend Mike Villegiante.

What are we doing?  I mean, we twenty-two, -three, -four, -five, years-olds?  Generally, because these are the people I know, I’m referring to people with a college degree, plus or minus a few units.  And I mean, where are we going in the  broader scheme of things?  Sometimes, often, but not always, I know where I’m going when I’m walking on the sidewalk.  I envisioned myself answering a telephone call that did not come, in which I was asked ‘what are you doing?’ and going into precisely that discussion – do you mean now, or in the  grand scheme of things?  It  turns out, what I want to discuss is mostly the grand scheme of where we are going.

First, to understand where we might be going, I have to address where we are.  As I say, I’m blogging from my perspective, which is a college student (almost done), who knows mostly college students and graduates.  As have always assumed, grades be damned, that college — education — is a means to an end.  We come to college for what we think of as professional ‘advancement’ (whether that’s beneficial or not I’ll judge a different time), expecting to leave college after several year with some opportunity in whatever field we chose to pursue.  For instance, I chose (at least so far), that I do not plan to be a doctor, and that my direction is somewhere in the humanitarian/social services sector.  So far, then, I know what I’m doing.  But it doesn’t work that way.  At least, that is my observation, and that is what I’m told, after all this time at school, by my parents.  Not, of course, a wholly surprising fact.  Look around, and it seems to be true — we choose an interest to study in-depth but do not pursue that course of study in life.  What, then, is the point of college, if it is not to guide us in 1)finding and interest to study, and 2)studying that subject?

Now, we have gotten through, or mostly gotten through, college.  What do we do?  We can work in a market (I compliment my friends who do), or another service-sector job.  But, surely, if there is a significant percentage (I believe higher than 40%, though I don’t want to look right now) of people who either dropped out of, or never studied beyond, high school … then we should leave some jobs for them?  Why, with a college education, especially a four-year college, should we want such a job?  And if we want such a job, and it does not not require a college degree, why obtain a degree?

What are we doing?  Most of us, it seems, after we finish college, want to go back home.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  After four years (or eight-plus years for Webb students and others) away from home it’s nice to go back.  It gives us time to think of what to do next.  But — and this fault belongs to all of us (institutions, students, EVERYONE) — shouldn’t college have given us some idea?  Well, yes.  As I said, at the moment I see a future (I don’t know where) in the public sector, working on social issues.  I have some idea.  And I’m scared of them.  This may be an issue of mine, or it may be a universal issue, but I’m scared of my own ideas.  I don’t know how to execute them.

So, what are we doing?  I haven’t the faintest idea.  If I leave where I am, I will end up in one of two places (or, in a weird sense, in both of them).  Washington — there’s nothing for me there.  Santa Barbara — I don’t know what there is for me there.  That is why I’m scared of my ideas.  If I go to Santa Barbara, I want to do things differently than my family.  With all respect to my many cousins and family members, I don’t want to major in English and run farmers’ markets; I don’t want to major in the arts and end up in Los Angeles teaching yoga and reading stories; I don’t want to major in political science and work in a restaurant and do odd accounting jobs; I don’t want to major in criminal justice, join the army, and pursue a completely separate line of work when I leave the army.  I chose my major, and despite the fact that each time I entered a new class I wondered why I would do so to myself, I LIKE my major.  I don’t like all that it entails, or how frustrating politics is, but that’s not the point.

I ask once more, not to belabor the point, what are we doing?  I always thought that college would give me some understanding of how to accomplish what I should do next, regardless of what that is.  But it hasn’t.  I am aware of what I’m good at and capable of, and for that I thank the school and my analytical mind.  I am no closer to knowing what I should do next.  I have received no great advice — I don’t know that I would know what to do with the advice if I got any.  I don’t mean that nobody has put ideas into my head, or that there aren’t ideas.  I do mean to suggest, though, that we should have some clue of 1)what we should be doing, and 2)how to do what we should do, and 3)what prioritization methods we should regard as most significant if there is more than one thing that lies open to us.

I close this thought not knowing whether or not I am any closer to understanding what we are doing.  More precisely, I observe that we (I say ‘we’ meaning college grads, etc, that I have been referring to) are doing menial tasks.  I guess, and I am not sure, that we are doing this because we don’t know what else to do.  I assume, of course, that a college graduate should be ‘in charge’ of things, although I do not mean to disparage people without some college education.  I am well aware that we are all meant for separate duties, whatever they are.  But, are we all that we are capable of?  And what are we doing?  We don’t have to know precisely — we can’t — but some idea would be nice.

No, not my own unemployment, though that sucks too.
I refuse to accept the notion, put forth by laissez-faire economists, that what is now 15 million people in America are out of a job because they are too lazy, indigent, or unlucky. People (I grant some exceptions to this rule) do not stay unemployed because they enjoy it. The “natural” unemployment levels we accept of 5-7% may be in part due to workers in between jobs. But I don’t think that 7% of people sit around saying, “I wonder how I can avoid work today, so my credit can fail and I can be homeless.” Sorry, no.
Some level of unemployment is unavoidable. Some people are not right for the job they have, lose the job, and must look for another job. But not, I contend, 5-7% of the workforce. (Actually, now it’s 10% of the workforce). That’s not a choice people make. But unemployment is not for the greater benefit to society, and even a ‘rational’, profit-first business model should recognize that unemployment — even of its own workers — does not help.
If the economic multiplier is 5 (there’s some disagreement of whether if falls around 3 or 5), and an employer decides to permanently remove a job, guess what happens. The very-micro-economy of that area of town falls. Do that across the country and guess what happens. REMOVING JOBS IS NOT A SOLUTION. Yes, short-term interests are wonderful, but they won’t really ever help us.

My greatest dilemma is that I can do anything. I mean that all opportunities lie open to me. I can also set my mind to anything; some things, of course, are more difficult than others. And I do not mean to complain; there are many people willing to give a great deal for a decent meal, much less the opportunity or ability to do anything.
But what do I mean? I amend my statement. I can do anything in an academic sense. My chosen course is Political Science. I can, if I chose a different life, master Shakespeare; master the great histories of Greece, Rome, France, or China; calculate factorials; or count the stars and search through billions of years of history. I can do any of this, but not all of this.
It is the great curse of those of us who pursue education in the institutional sense. It is why many find choosing a major so hard. We come hither, and we come being able to do more than one thing. Do you think excessively? Why, so dost thou. Can you understand people? Can you learn also the theories of designing an effective (or affective) government? How about physics? Is statistical analysis something you can master? Most likely, the answer is yes to more than one thing.
When I attempt sleep, my brain continues to be so occupied that sleep is not easy. I debate with myself the pros and cons of Higgs-Boson theory, necessary measures of statistical analysis of demographics, foreign policy, average the time on my clock (or try to figure out its square root, or prime factors), or any number of other cross-disciplinary subjects. I try to figure out what I’m doing, in a grand sense, measure my own abilities, think on the abilities and futures of acquaintances, and constantly quest for the meaning of things.
I can do anything. How scary that is. It means I must make a choice as to what to do. I am not compelled to do as my father did. I can choose any path; the beauty of our American system, but also its curse. For it means I must choose. In order to choose something correctly we must follow the great Socratic command: “know thyself.” I can do anything, but will I do what I am meant to do? There are so many people who don’t….

ARRA: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Kind of like TARP, only it doesn’t sound like it covers you as well. Reporting on the issue of Umar Farouk Abdulmattab, who should not be called the underwear bomber, MotherJones discusses the issue of full-body scanning in airports, which should not be an issue, because it should not be allowed. From the Washington Post:

In the summer, TSA purchased 150 machines from Rapiscan with $25 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.

Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago (according to the Washington Post article), not only advocates Rapiscan (which operates under a no-bid contract), but profits from its increased business through his consulting firm. Yeah, we can just ignore all of that.
About that thing called ARRA: I haven’t read all of its provisions and don’t really want to. But the last time I checked, ARRA was designed as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, designed to prevent the collapse of the American credit system; help recovery, maybe by expanding and improving transportation; and generally recovering and reinvesting American credit and value (and not only in a monetary sense). However, I missed the part that suggests that a $25 million no-bid contract is a good step to recovery.
All of the above points could be ignored about full-body scanning: it’s intrusive; no-bid contract; not part of the intent of ARRA — and still, by increasing the presence of these machines, we’re making a mistake. If our goal is to “win” the “War on Terror” (which, kind of like the “War on Drugs,” doesn’t have a viable end), then our method must be to reduce our collective feeling of terror. If we increase the number of full-body scan machines, we increase our collective feeling of terror. If, on the other hand, our goal is to “lose” the “War on Terror” — and nobody would suggest we should lose — and we increase the number of full-body scan machines, which will increase our collective feeling of terror, then we have successfully lost.
I’m all for ARRA; let’s recover and reinvest. But, The War on Terror doesn’t recover or reinvest.

Yesterday on a flight from Seattle to Santa Rosa I was sitting behind a young brother and sister, flying alone. I couldn’t see the sister, who was sitting in front of me, and didn’t know much except that she was a couple years younger than her brother, who was about seven, and that she had an odd name, like Senda or Sempa or Simper — what’s with the names of kids now, anyways?

I could see the boy. He was a good-looking kid, somewhat blond, probably seven or eight. It struck me that in a different era boys younger than him would be king. He would be king, and how do you explain to a seven year old, or a four year old, that a king must never draw with crayons, or or smile or laugh more or less than necessary? Or if he were not king, then so recently as a hundred years ago, or two, three, or four hundred years ago, he would have been a shepherd, or a coal miner, or a water boy. At the age of seven (and, indeed, younger) fate has already set a path: are you gamin (wild peasant child) or are you haughty king? The choice is not yours to make.

Can we get rid of the Thousands Standing Around (Transportation Security Agency) now? There’s no director, and we all know it’s a pointless, lousy, agency that doesn’t do it’s job. All it does it raise the level of discontent and make us more of a police state.

It doesn’t provide jobs to Americans either; those are mostly Phillipinos or Ethiopians, which would be GREAT if we were in the Philippines or Ethiopia, and we’re not. And I’m all for functioning governmental agencies, but really, what does the TSA protect us from? Our cellphones?

Tony Blair (whoops, just typed his name as Bliar, as in B-liar) admitted that he would have supported removing Saddam Hussein from power even without the argument that Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. In response,

A lawyer for Saddam Hussein’s jailed former deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, wrote to Britain’s top legal adviser Saturday asking permission to prosecute Blair for war crimes.

It seems to me that Blair, former Prime Minister of what was, until World War II, one of the greatest modern empires, denounced the possibility of leading his still great island nation with dignity and independence and claimed the role waiting for him as the greatest lap-dog-prime-minister of the expanding United States empire. So much for the inspiring empire on which the sun never set; the British empire that should have inspired awe in all people, despite its many faults, because of the grandeur it promised and the hope (even false hope) which it engendered. The empire that challenged France for moral greatness even in France’s best day, the empire which challenged even the intellectual and artistic grandeur of the short-lived Weimar Republic — that empire is no more. That is nothing new, but, Blair, you have sounded the final note. Was that your wish?

Postscript: I titled this post “Blair War Crimes” well aware of the bluntness of that title. I do not mean to adjudicate blame without cause. There are many people who have committed war crimes. Some of those people have been tried and prosecuted, some have not. I say “Blair War Crimes” with perfect sincerity and with an understanding of what that means; he has not been found guilty in a court of law, so I cannot say he is guilty except by the perception that he has, along with many others, committed war crimes.

India has created a new state by splitting the large southern region of Andhra Pradesh. Several ministers have resigned in protest. (A note: be careful reading the linked article: the way it’s written seems to imply that part of southern India just became a new country, which it didn’t. Basically, it would be like Texas, or California, being split into two states by the federal government.)

Is there a good justification as to why some areas of regions, seeking autonomy or independence, succeed in political demands, and other areas don’t succeed? What prevents some separatist movements, like the Basque (to take just one example), from succeeding, while others do not fail in their demands?