Plan B X 2

Does changing the world require high-minded, top down solutions, or can regular, ordinary people make a difference? Is it possible to envision and begin working towards eliminating war, inequality, or at the very least, bad television, from our realities?

While that first paragraph certainly has a high-minded tone and a certain liberal arrogance to some, that’s not my intention at all. Rather, I wanted to highlight a couple of people—one whose book I recently read—the other, a speaker I happened to catch briefly, on NPR’s Cambridge Forum. Both offered a perspective and some practical ways of coping that parallel shifts in my own way of thinking about issues and the world I live in.

My life has been really busy of late. This is an exciting period for me on several fronts. I am being pushed to prioritize my time and be very protective of it, almost to the point of being selfish. At the same time, I’ve become more conscious of the value of time. One of my challenges has been finding pockets of opportunity to read. One thing I’ve been doing is waking up ½ hour earlier and reading for 30 minutes when I get up, rather than waiting until the end of the day, when I’m much more likely to fall asleep, with the book resting on my chest. I have also become more selective of what I read. I’m moving beyond negative screeds and trying to find books that help me to vision, or see things in a new way I also am seeking books that reinforce values that are central to who I am. Anne Lamott’s Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, is one of those books.

For those who’ve never read Lamott, you’ve missed out on one of America’s special writers. This 50-year-old, dreaded (as in d-locks) and irreverent to the core, stays firmly grounded in the 21st century, but is not afraid to carry her readers back to a time like the 60s, when people still dared to dream and imagine a better way. Not so full of herself as to deny the hopelessness of living in the time of Bush, when at any moment, our dictator of a president could bring a hard rain down on the heads of all Americans on the basis of his “Left Behind” eschatology, Lamott still finds a way to invoke hope and laughter and sometimes tears and honestly shares her life and own unique brand of spirituality with her readers.

In talking about living at such a time as this (the beginning of the second Bush term, when the book was being written), Lamott writes about being at her rope’s end with the thought of four more years of GW. Here is an example of her style and tenor of writing.

“Hadn’t the men in the White House ever heard of the word karma? They lied their way into taking our country to war, crossing another country’s borders with ferocious military might, trying to impose our form of government on a sovereign nation, without any international agreement or legal justification, and set about killing the desperately poor on behalf of the obscenely rich. Then we’re instructed, like naughty teenagers, to refrain from saying it was an immoral war that set a disastrous precedent—because to do so is to offer aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Then her Jesuit friend, Father Tom, whom Lamott describes as a “scruffy, aging, Birkenstock type” calls her to wish her “Happy Birthday” and Lamott “unloads the truck” on poor Father Tom lamenting, “How are we going to get through this craziness?” And like so much of the book, which dispenses with sermonizing and holier-than-thou pontificating and instead, offers grounded advice and old-fashioned common sense, well-written with heavy dollops of gallows humor, the advice coming from Lamott’s friend and spiritual advisor, Father Tom is simple and yet, profound:

“Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe,” says Father Tom.

Sometimes, Father Tom’s type of advice is all we can get our minds around in our crazy world.

Later in the book, she writes about a trip she made to San Quentin, that hellhole of a prison that epitomizes our nation’s “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” brand of prisoner rehabilitation. She’s been invited to come and teach the prisoners how to tell stories and decides to bring along a friend and fellow storyteller.

Anne recounts the experience of she and Neshama, a grandmotherly woman and most unlikely of candidates to connect with maximum security prisoners, yet these men, many of them hardened by doing time in the bowels of the prison-industrial complex, end up giving Neshama a standing ovation, as she wins them over with her stories and honest delivery, much to Lamott’s amazement. Using this story to drive home her points, Lamott powerfully illustrates Jesus’ injunction to care for the poor, without coming off as moralizing or condescending to her reader. By making it obvious that when Jesus spoke about the poor, he was including America’s prisoners. As she does throughout the book, Lamott shows why writers also need to be readers, because she quotes other writers in the context of her vignettes from her life and weaves them seamlessly into her prose. In this particular case, she quotes Reverend James Forbes, who was fond of saying that “Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.”

Lester Brown is the founder of WorldWatch Institute, an independent research organization that works for an environmentally sustainable and socially just society. Their mission is geared towards the meeting the needs of all people and accomplishing this without threatening the health of the natural environment or the well-being of future generations. While this sounds lofty and some might say, impossible, to someone like Brown, it’s achievable, if we can break the bigger issue, down into smaller, “bite-sized” pieces.

In a media age that offers mostly right-wing blowhards, drug addled hosts and talking heads that prefer to spew anger and venom, rather than offer solutions, its rare to hear someone as measured and downright optimistic as Brown was, yesterday, on NPR’s Cambridge Forum.

Speaking on topics addressed in his recent book, Plan B 2.0 (which I’ve just added to my list of “must read books”), Brown convinced me, as I’m sure countless others within the sound of his voice that while global warming is important—maybe in the top five, as far as global issues are concerned—it is something that we can take positive steps towards addressing. Rather than assume the role of crazy-eyed prophet in burlap clothing, chewing on locusts, Brown was soft-spoken, yet forceful and led me to believe that we can alter the course we’re on to, marching towards environmental perdition. I’m not opposed to prophetic voices and at times, they’re necessary. On the issue of the environment, however, I don’t think people are frozen about what to do because they can’t recognize the dire consequences of maintaining the status quo. In my opinion, most people want to take positive steps and move in the direction of earth-friendliness, but they honestly don’t know what to do.

He clearly painted a realistic picture of what an environmental sustainable economy might look like. Unlike so many doom-and-gloom types, Brown talked about simple steps that Americans can take to make a profound difference. He discussed the conversion of our car to gas/electric hybrids. In places like Maine, where the reality of public transportation is so far into the future for most, to think about alternatives to our cars is “pie in the sky.” We can talk about sprawl all we want (and I have), Mainers aren’t giving up their cars. However, as Brown carefully explained, gas/electric hybrids could, even if everyone didn’t change their driving habits one iota, dramatically lessen the amount of oil we consume as a nation. If we could lessen our dependency on foreign oil, it might move us away from always feeling the need to solve every geopolitical problem by flexing our military muscles.

Brown said that if you took the average gas/electric hybrid, added an extra storage battery, local commuting (which is what most of us do, Monday-Friday) could be accomplished entirely with electricity. By adding wind power to our energy mix (and getting the NIMBY crowd to play along), Brown made a compelling case that we could eliminate our need for oil from the Middle East. The military-industrial scenarios were getting downright rosy in my mind, at that moment.

Here’s an interview I found, from Grist, conducted last March. I think it gives people a sense of this man’s ability to cut through the rhetoric, politics and not scare the bejesus out of people, which only causes hopelessness and paralysis, fueled by the fear. (maybe it's the bowtie?)

As I start to taste small successes in my own life, I find that trying to find a local way of seeing the issues helps me to later put things into a wider context. I know that it is helping me to more optimistic than I’ve ever been before. Now don’t start thinking I’ve joined some new cult of positive thinking, or anything like that. In fact, I may be back here in a day, a week, or a month ranting at the world, or some newfound enemy. Still, I’m finding personal empowerment fulfilling and discovering new ways to move even the tiniest projects forward. This truth and utilization of the skills and abilities I’ve always had, have given me a new sense of possibility and I’m not succumbing to negative energy like I have in the past. This energy can act as a cloud that tends to overwhelm and keep many feeling powerless and unable to use their gifts and unique talents for the benefit of others. Not to mention it makes us miserable to be around, most of the time.

Birthing pangs

I've been trying to post regularly again, but this week's been crazy (as I expect most weeks will be for me, at least over the next few months). I have high hopes to have a new post up soon. I began this morning, before work, but duty beckoned.

Stay tuned...new thoughts on life in Baumerworld should be up some time this evening. Thanks for your patience.

Jim

Rich vs. poor in Peyton Place

Income disparity in the U.S, or the growing gap between haves and have-nots, is obvious to anyone who cares to look at the numbers and various reports that detail this phenomenon that should be on the radar of every policymaker, journalist and community organizer, as well as anyone interested in the health of local hamlets.

In a brand new study released by the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, the issue is brought close to home, for those of us in New England, as the region has experienced the biggest increase in income disparity among eight regions, nationwide, from 1989 to 2004. At both ends of the socio-economic spectrum, New England outpaced the rest of the country, as the wealthiest residents of the six state region saw their incomes growing faster than the rest of the country, while the poorest New Englanders experienced the greatest income losses.

Connecticut topped the New England states, with their $60,528 median household income placing them number two nationally, trailing only New Jersey. New Hampshire, which had been ranked #1 in 2003, fell to the sixth position. The region scored very well and is considered the wealthiest region in the country, surpassing the west (California, Colorado, Washington, Alaska, etc.) in median income levels.

It was interesting, in light of this report, to spend my Saturday afternoon in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the epicenter of wealth in New Hampshire’s well-heeled Seacoast. I was meeting my son, who recently moved to Boston. Since Portsmouth is a good halfway meeting point, we decided to grab an early afternoon lunch and talk over some editing work that he’s doing for me for RiverVision Press’s next publishing project. The conspicuous wealth on display was very apparent to me, as I rarely miss an opportunity to observe class differences on display. Just the parking garage where I domiciled my own 10-year-old car was filled with high end sedans, including an abundance of Porsche’s, which you almost see north of the Piscataqua.

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont now are ranked in the top five nationally, when it comes to income disparity. These bastions of political liberalism now have some of the nation’s largest income gaps. Included in Carsey’s data is a listing of six New England metro areas that placed in the top 20 nationally, for growth in disparity between the rich and each community’s poor. Nashua, New Hampshire, joined New Bedford, Massachusetts and four Connecticut metro areas (Danbury, Waterbury, Stamford-Norwalk and Bridgeport) as areas of growing income disparity, as the region has moved from one of relative income egalitarianism, to one that is divided economically.

From the report, it’s clear to see that “the change in household income distribution in New England and the nation goes beyond simply the 'rich getting richer' and reflects a fundamental shift in the national economy and differences in implications by region. The shift from 'traditional' commodity-based manufacturing to technology and knowledge-based businesses has created a new economic context and structure for New England.”

Once again, another report shows a clear direction for Maine and the region, while at the same time, any efforts to increase R & D and investment in growing the skills of low-end workers is stifled by short-sighted calls by groups with Heritage Foundation affiliations for “slash and burn” policies regarding taxes. In fact, the Carsey’s data shows that finding ways to develop ways to tax the haves is the only hope we have of raising all boats in the region. Also, our sorry attempts at development, ala big-box stores and policies devoted to sprawl-promotion are failing. Unless, of course, your future vision for New England is for our region to become an apocalyptic land of gated communities, with low-wage security guards, manning gatehouses on the edge of growing camps of poverty, the only hedge against rampaging rogues, seeking to acquire the means of survival, through any means possible.

Wal-Mart: Planting flags where the sun don't shine

There are very few companies that mine the vein of pro-American, red-white-and-blue flag-waving patriotism, like Wal-Mart. Walk into any one of its thousands of stores and the pro-American, love-it-or-leave it ambience is readily apparent, right on down to the piped in redneck country tunes playing on the sound system.

Watch any local television station and your bound to have the privilege of viewing one of Wal-Mart’s hokey ads, equating their corporate theft with small town values and extolling the chain’s supposed commitment to community causes—like low-wage jobs, environmental damage and sprawl are values I desire for my little corner of the world!

What bothers me the most and is most ironic, is that the people who have the most to lose by supporting Wal-Mart, merrily drop their hard-earned money on counters in community, after community, all over the country. These duped consumers are the very people that Sam Walton’s heirs keep pitching their disingenuous marketing drivel to.

It reminds me of Thomas Frank’s book, What’s The Matter With Kansas, which came out in 2005. Frank wonders how his fellow Midwesterners—descended from free-soil, abolitionist progressives and prairie socialists—could back a candidate with an agenda like George Bush, who shows little, or no concern for the issues that ought to make these members of the working class deplore this midget of a man? Frank goes on at length about the place that historian Walter Prescott Webb called a “hotbed of persistent radicalism,” the seedbed of Social Security and agrarian reform, yet, it sided with the bosses and backed an ideology that promises the destruction of the liberal state's social-welfare safety net.

Just like Frank, I shake my head and wonder, whenever I drive by a Wal-Mart store and see the human vestiges of 20 plus years of class war, driving their run-down heaps of metal, all being drawn to Wal-Mart's smiley face like flies to shit.

On top of all the obvious reasons why consumers ought to march to their local spawn of Sam Walton and burn it to the ground, the multi-national retailer, whose motto ought to be, “profits, over people, all the time” is currently fighting legislation, which would tighten security at our ports and close some of the gaping holes in security that currently exist. Like always, Wal-Mart’s motive is profit, as if they couldn’t sacrifice a million, or two, to make sure that storage containers were properly scanned.

Since 9-11, Wal-Mart, along with its lobbying group, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, have systematically undercut security by working diligently to defeat proposals and undermine current laws that are designed to make our ports more, not less, secure. These slick lobbyists, with their expensive suits, probably with a flag pin affixed to their lapels, have been working overtime to sway Washington politicians to their position of making sure that Wal-Mart and some of their other clients—large retailers like Sears, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy—don’t have to have their foreign containers properly inspected. The primary reason—profits, at the risk of security for Americans.

Most recently, Wal-Mart, along with the RILA has been lobbying hard to ensure that their containers won’t be required to fall under recent legislation that calls for 100 percent scanning of all containers entering U.S. ports, which was part of a new U.S. House bill. Wal-Mart is claiming that it would needlessly impede the speed of imports potentially hurting Wal-Mart’s profits.

As Jerry once sang, “Wave that flag, wave it wide and high.” Wal-Mart is a master at that practice, while the cameras run—when the whir of the cameras stop, however and the lights go down, good ole’ Wal-Mart takes that very flag and sticks it up America’s hind orifice, while laughing all the way to the bank, with their loot.

Is Rush Limbaugh irrelevant?

For all of President Bush’s first term and during the euphoria accompanying his reelection and the start of his second term in office, Republicans have presented a united front. They’ve rallied around their party leader and funded the “war on terrah,” billionaire tax cuts and supported just about everything else that this century’s Warren Harding has wanted to do.

As support for the war has turned sour and the majority of Americans now in opposition and wanting our troops back home, more and more Republicans, eager to distance themselves from the wake of the Bush presidency, have begun speaking out against policies of this administration.

For more than a decade, every day at noon, Republicans, particularly Republicans of the conservative stripe, could turn on their radios at noon and receive their right-wing marching orders. For all intents and purposes, Rush Limbaugh was the voice of the conservative movement. Love him, or hate him, Limbaugh symbolized the brazen, in-your-face arrogance that has characterized American conservatism since the Republican “revolution” touted by Newt Gingrich back in the early 90s.

While Republicans aren’t exactly beating a hasty retreat from their exalted perch, happily spending their political capital, they’ve fallen upon a difficult patch and conservatives no longer speak in a monolithic voice, with talking points emanating from Limbaugh’s golden microphone.

On Tuesday, California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in an interview on NBC’s "Today Show," when asked about how he felt about certain Republicans, like Limbaugh, called America’s conservative voice, “irrelevant.” Schwarzenegger, while demonized by some as a shallow former actor, is actually quite politically shrewd and has actually been a much better governor than I ever expected him to be. Not content to merely “paint by the numbers” politically and carry water for the conservative agenda pushed down most Republican’s throats by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage and O’Reilly, Schwarzenegger has actually tried to represent his constituents in California and forge his own political identity. An example of Schwarzenegger’s independence from the right-wing establishment came earlier in the year, when the governor proposed a $12 billion health care plan, which requires doctors, hospitals and some small employers to pay into a state fund for the uninsured. This angered many conservatives, for whom anything smacking of universal coverage is an anathema.

Characteristically, Limbaugh spent much of his show referring to Schwarzenegger as a “Total Sellout,” which was a reference to his former Hollywood days and the movie, Total Recall. After being the darling of conservatives for so long, it must hurt when someone like Schwarzenegger calls you irrelevant, particularly when you’ve occupied the epicenter of attention.

Despite Schwarzenegger’s slam and the disaster we know as the Bush presidency, Limbaugh and other conservative hosts still command the attention of a large segment of "Kool-Aid drinkers." These followers still march in lock step, following their own pied piper, ready to plunge off a cliff, if necessary, rather than face the facts and examine the realities of how far down the road to nowhere the conservative agenda has taken us as a nation.