Morning Fog

A Woman For U.S. Currency

The U.S. Treasury is looking at putting a woman on U.S. currency within the next few years.  That's a fine idea, though there appear to be a few bumps along the way.

A minor one, in my view, is whether she ought to be on the $10, or the $20.  Initially I didn't think it made much difference, but blogger Alexandra Petri helped sway me to the view that if someone must go, it should be Jackson, not Hamilton.  Hamilton's contributions to the building of our nation are more far-reaching and admirable than Jackson's.  I would add one that Petri missed, too:  Hamilton was no slouch on progressive civil rights thinking.

So on this narrow issue, I vote for replacing Jackson if possible, though I suspect the decision will be made on more practical terms, i.e., the twenty has just been updated; the ten is due for remodeling.  We can always dump Jackson later, maybe even Grant and Franklin too, as inevitable and probably irresistible cries arise to represent African-Americans, Latinos, LGBTs, and others on our legal tender. 

The harder question is:  Which woman?  That's going to require a lot of thought.  Coincidentally, Ms. Petri's blog post also helps illustrate the difficulty of making the selection, because to argue the merits of Hamilton and all his contributions to the nation, is, like it or not, also to raise the question of what woman measures up.  The "people's choices" so far identified don't bowl me over in terms of their impact.  I began thinking about others, but had no luck thinking of someone who approached the broad-reaching, fundamental, and lasting impact that Washington, Lincoln, and maybe Hamilton have had.

Might that be because women were unenfranchised in the early days of the Republic?  Obviously, yes.  It just makes the choice more difficult.  I don't have the answer, but I don't envy those who will have to make the decision.  Because, while I am sure we'll come up with a viable choice, I'm sure that choice, be it Tubman, Roosevelt, Anthony, Parks, or another, will evoke objections from the fans of the others.  Let us just hope that politicians can stay out of it, or at least avoid injecting partisan factors. 

One marginal thought:  In this discussion I have heard the view that women must be on the currency so that girls and young women will be led to realize they, too are "worthy," or can reach the pinnacles of success, etc.  To be blulnt: That's nonsense, or I hope it is.  In the 21st century, any young, or even old, woman who needs that sort of visual reinforcement to help her recognize her potential probably is not the sort who has much potential.  She'll need more imagination and gumption than that.  But even if I'm wrong about the power of example, I believe inspiration is more likely to come from depictions in television, film, and popular culture, than from the faces on the currency we never look at.

 

Riffs On The Release Of "Selma" (The Movie)

Our media have wrapped "Selma," the new movie about the famous civil rights march, due to be released soon, in controversy about its historical accuracy.  In writing briefly about that topic yesterday, though, I found that it brought to mind some other thoughts of varying depth.

Obviously the film must be timed to coincide with the observance of Martin Luther King Day, observed this year on January 19.  It was about that time, now six years ago, that I started Morning Fog.  Time flies - we all know that, so so what?

Well, it caused me to think back to January 2009, when we were inaugurating our first African-American President - a great day in a symbolic way, even if many might argue that his Presidency has been flawed (time will tell).   On the other hand, the intervening years seem to confirm my view then that the election of Obama neither signaled that racism had finally been overcome, nor promised significant progress in that regard.

There may be a lesson there in the "Selma" story.  In the movie (reportedly) Johnson and King have different views about the strategy and timing for action on a mission they both considered critical.  Proponents argue that one man or the other was more important to the civil rights achievement of the 1960s, but it's evident, I think, that both were crucial. 

Yet at the risk of arousing the ire of those who despise the idea that progress on equality for blacks too often is shown being delivered by whites, I also contend that Johnson was the critical factor when it came to legislation.  The Civil Rights Act could not have happened without him, because in addition to his political savvy and deep knowledge of how the Senate worked, he was a fully credentialed "Democratic Southerner" to whom the other ancient Jim Crow southerners would, at least, listen.  So: Nixon the rock-ribbed Republican forged our "opening to China;" Johnson was able to father the Civil Rights Act; but sadly, Obama is/was not the guy to pry open more doors on race. 

Another passing thought:  In discussing the film and the surrounding controversy, many journalists have revived the (to me) misleading idea that Johnson was "discredited" in his day because of Vietnam and is only recently coming to be recognized for his other contributions.  Well, perhaps that is true, yet personally, I have viewed him pretty much since the day he left office as one of, if not the, best Presidents in our twentieth-century history - not because of something he didn't accomplish (ending another President's war) but because of what he did get done. 

History Lashes Back

Events in Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, and on the U.S.-Mexican border have captured our attention in recent months.  Although they are unfolding in different parts of the globe,  they have certain features in common.  

First, of course, each vies to be singled out as the best example of man's inhumanity to man.  Irredentist Russian nationalists in Ukraine have resorted (first) to an uprising against their government with Russian support and (second) to warfare against unarmed passenger aircraft.  (Here, we might excuse the latter as just a tragic accident, had they confessed the deed and cooperated with international investigation. They have not.)  Meanwhile, parents of children in Central America have made a lamentable decision to abandon and endanger their children by sending them north.  A cadre of Muslim zealots began, and continues, a war that will kill lots of the very people they claim to be fighting for. 

All these fomenters of trouble share both a sense of desperation, and a cynicism about using other people's lives to advance their own purposes.

It can also be argued that each of these crises arises from various past attempts to "correct" history.  The state of Israel was created and imposed by WWII Allies with total disregard for the reality on the ground at the time, a reality that had itself been created by the Ottoman Empire.   The American southwest was effectively stolen from Mexico (which in turn had stolen it from the native American inhabitants).  The exactly boundaries of "Ukraine' as a national construct have never been clear, but Russia under Stalin defined them as a ploy to gain additional votes in the UN, including areas of very mixed ethnicity; and subsequently in the Soviet period, Russia encouraged the settlement of ethnic Russians in Ukrainian areas.  

Land grabs and the migration of peoples are a part of the tapestry of history.  Sometimes they form a new reality that lasts for centuries; sometimes they are less permanent.  But History doesn't like to be "corrected." Those who attempt it can find themselves in difficulty.   

     

The Entitled Military

When stories came out a couple of days ago about the budget agreement, I checked some of the reader comments on the Washington Post website.

Prominent among the early ones were a number of comments from (presumably) service members or veterans.  They were not positive.  One memorable one opined that those who voted for the legislation imposing very minor cuts on military pensions were guilty of treason.  Mere civilians daring to cut a few bucks from our bloated military pension system?  How dare they!

There is no better evidence of the danger to democracy that arises from dependence on a "professional" military.  Professional they may be, and there's no question that they perform their duties with dedicated effectiveness.  For now. 

Yet the sense of entitlement is clear -- and just as clearly unwarranted.  Many people may not realize that the military's generous pension - which they can collect after only 20 years of service -- is paid fully by U.S. taxpayers with NO contribution from the beneficiaries themselves.  [They do pay into, and collect, social security.]  Contrast to the civilian government (I paid 7% of my salary throughout my working life for a less generous pension than the military had at the time) and you see what a "sense of entitlement" really is. 

These protests merely demonstrate unequivocally how necessary entitlement reform in the military is -- not to mention the crying need for a system that, if not relying entirely on conscription, can still produce a military force that involves both "professional" servicepeople AND the "old-fashioned" citizen soldier -- both in positions of authority.

The Ottoman Empire, the Roman Empire - both succumbed to the pressures of trying to pay increasingly demanding military forces for their increasingly costly defense, often receiving less and less actual defense as time went on.  The U.S. is not an "empire," but is fairly comparable to these equivalent world powers.  Let's not follow their example. 

It's Fate

Political commentator Chris Cilizza's feature article on who had the worst year in Washington seems about on target - Obama "wins" the mantle of worst year, with the  Republican Party having had just a very bad year, and John Kerry and Chris Christie very good ones. 

Now, for me, the very concept of "worst year" or having a bad year hinges on those occurrences that are accidents or things we can't avoid.  In other words, fate.  This is something we also know from our own lives. Curiously, though, in his exposition, Cilizza several times suggests that Obama (and certain of the others) engineered their own bad year.  In different places, for example, he writes that Obama "wasted," squandered," or "torpedoed" what should have been the best year to establish his legacy.

I can't see that.  In fact, most of the factors mentioned (IRS scandal, the Snowden leaks, disarray in the Republican Party) were hardly matters that Obama could have controlled.  Only in the instance of the Affordable Care Act, where the President could have avoided a disaster by paying more attention to what his minions were doing, was the wound at least partly self-inflicted.  

So truly, for Obama, and for the others (the GOP, Virginia Governor McDonnell, Redskins QB Robert Griffin, Kerry, or Christie) it was the turn of circumstance that did them in. 

Coincidentally (or not), in the same newspaper, within a few pages of Cilizza's article, is a review of the new book Strategy, by Lawrence Freedman.  The juxtaposition is instructive.  The reviewer, University of St. Andrews prof Gerard deGroot, suggests that the chief lesson of Freedman's history of great strategists is that "the most careful arrangements often run aground on the shoals of circumstance."   Too true!

Taps For Kennedy

Many writers have already quite properly proclaimed their feduppedness with all the 50th-anniversary rehashing of the events surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, right down to the most minute and irrelevant details.  I feel the same way.

But one small bit that I appreciated was an interview I saw with the Texas lawman who was escorting Lee Harvey Oswald -- and in fact handcuffed to him -- the day Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby.  After that gent described the experience, and how he had pulled on the handcuffs to try to get Oswald out of the way, the interviewer asked a twerpy question.  Noting that the trooper had been assigned to protect Oswald, he asked "do you think you did your job?"  The Texan thought a sec and responded, "Well, no, obviously I didn't, because he died!"

Points for frank self-assessment, which is pretty darned rare these days.

Also today, on this Veterans Day, there was another story I had not heard before, and found interesting, about a mistake the bugler made playing taps at Kennedy's funeral - a nice little human interest story that's worth a read.  

Further intriguing in this context is the fact that since that day, by some strange coincidence, many buglers across the land seem to have made that very same error that sounded "almost like a sob, befitting the moment." (Well, that's show biz.)

And, something else I learned, was that "Taps" has lyrics.  Did you know?  Never in my Army days did I encounter any lyrics.  The original version runs thus:  

Day is done, gone the sun

From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.

Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.

Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky
As we go, this we know

God is nigh.

 

 

Historical Perspective In Politics

• "We are ... mired in governmental deadlock, as Congress blocks or kills not only [Democratic] programs but Republican programs as well."
• "This Congress has gone further than any other within memory to replace debate and decision by delay and stultification ... there is reason to wonder whether the Congressional system as it now operates is not a grave danger to the Republic."
• "It has seemed impossible to bring about any resolution of the deep and embittering divisions in Congress."
• "The scandal has put our whole system of parliamentary democracy in question."

The above are a few observations I read today.  You can find this sort of thing almost daily, somewhere, in the flood of political analysis and commentary in the media.  So what's new?

Nothing new.  In fact, something old.  These comments were all made in 1963.  The first was the historian James MacGregor Burns; the second, the political columnist Walter Lippmann; the third is from another columnist, Marquis Childs; and the last, from Life magazine.  I extend thanks to historian Robert Caro, who collected these comments in the latest volume of his ongoing biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power.

The lesson, I suppose, is that despite chicken-little predictions that our political system is failing, we've seen deadlock before, and maybe we (I included) should be patient and let things take their course.  The system will survive.  Let us hope.

It's a useful lesson, yet on another plane, it's more than a bit discouraging to think that we've been wrestling with the problem of deadlock for so long (and no doubt well before 1963.)  Since the Kennedy years, perhaps we have had a couple of decades of a functional Congress; but the obverse is that we've had a couple of decades when nothing got done. 

Can the U.S. thrive, or even survive, in the 21st-century world with an 18th-century political process?  In Ben Franklin's day, we were a relatively insignificant power in the world, and news of developments around the globe came via slow boat, in weeks, if not months.  Just as I don't believe we can remain the greatest country in the world without constant self--examination and admission of our flaws, I don't think we can rationally continue to put blind faith in the mantra that our Constitution is valid for eternity.  Let's keep a keen eye open for flaws, and an open mind about how they might be fixed.

Shared Burdens: Eisenhower And Obama

Not so long ago, I sang the praise of old-time, commonsensical, moderate politicians from the U.S. heartland.  Eisenhower was one of those.  If many people today may view him as a boring, ineffectual boob, the latest biography (Jean Edward Smith's Eisenhower in War and Peace - see right-hand margin) may help change that perception.  In fact, Eisenhower dealt effectively with a wide range of problems and the solutions he put in place are in many cases still with us today.

In reading Smith's book, one thing I hadn't reckoned with was the extent to which Eisenhower, as a moderate Republican, frequently faced (and faced down) extremist conservatives in his own party; people who by their outlook bear striking resemblance to the rightist extremists of today, and who bear witness that regressiveness and reaction are not new.  Here are the examples I noticed, with my own comments, if any, indicated by the "--"

• Writing to his brother Edgar, Eisenhower opined that there was only a "tiny splinter group" in politics who still believed it was possible to abolish the main accomplishments of the New Deal, including social security and labor laws.  -- Splinters can be annoying; sometimes unfortunately for years if not decades.
• Eisenhower ruled out severe cuts in social programs, arguing instead for finding money for them elsewhere, particularly in the defense budget.  He wanted a defense policy that could be sustained over the long run without "sending the country to the poorhouse."  (Smith's words)
• The GOP majority in the 83rd Congress seemed "less interested in grappling with the problems of the day than in repudiating the work of Truman and Roosevelt."  -- Sound familiar?
• One of Eisenhower's initial goals was to set up a health care plan for the nation similar to what everyone had in the Army.   He had to drop it because of near-hysterical opposition.
• Here's a noteworthy statement from Eisenhower himself:  "The Republican Party must be known as a progressive organization or it is sunk.  I believe that so emphatically that I think that far from appeasing or reasoning with the dyed-in-the-wool reactionary fringe, we should completely ignore it."   -- Today's party leaders might take this advice!
• Ike was not spared encounters with paranoid rabble-rousers.  Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, accused the President of purposely creating a storm over segregation in the south, subtly promoting increased violence, and steering the situation toward the objective his "communist bosses" wanted.  --  If the communists wanted to end segregation, presumably those who tried to preserve it were ... fascists?  And if universal health care is a socialist plot, what does that make those who fight it tooth and nail?

Historian Smith is clearly a fan of Eisenhower (at least as regards his days in mufti) but that doesn't obscure the fact that there is a curious commonality between the goals of the reactionary right in the 1950s and their ideological heirs today, more than 60 years later.  It's been said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it seems very evident that those who want to stop the march of history in its tracks do.   

 

Even Museums Are Getting Divisive

It's satisfying when somebody says exactly what you might have written, and perhaps says it - perish the thought! - even better.  It saves the blogger (me) a lot of work!

I find that Steven Pearlstein is frequently such a writer.  So I ask that you consider his item ("Why Not A Museum for American Ingenuity?").  It was occasioned by this week's  groundbreaking for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington DC, but its subtext is what Congressman James Moran has called the "balkanization" of our national museums.  

Indeed, the idea of having different museums for different segments of our population screams out for correction (see Morning Fog, or public architecture critic Philip Kennicott - and the new Director of the NMAAHC proclaims, in the same newspaper, has a me-too moment -- says that he doesn't want to create a museum just for African-Americans.    It makes even less sense to infuse our national museum system with segregation just as our people vote with their feet and hearts to move toward integration -- latest reports indicate that the rate of marriages across racial lines is growing at an accelerated rate. 

Yet it's gone too far to stop, I fear.  The bandwagon of cultural particularism is rolling down the slope, out of control, and will inevitably lead to the splintering of museums' foci, just as our pop music, once a single broad category, got separated into country/western, r&b, soul, new age, hiphop and other niche-oriented categories. 

The only hope is that, with all these museums (except the Holocaust Museum) under the Smithsonian Institution, sense will prevail.  The SI powers-that-be will see the separation, the duplication, the failure of this cluster of museums as a whole to present a varied, coherent reflection on our history, and will reorganize to do something about it.

In about 100 years. 

Some Presidential Lore For Presidents' Day

Today is officially "Presidents Day," so it seems a perfect time to recommend a lengthy piece by James Fallows in The Atlantic entitled "Obama, Explained." 

It really isn't about Obama - not much anyway.  Fallows spends much more time examining how we tend to evaluate Presidents in a historical and political context - deciding, for example, who were our "greatest" Presidents.   It's a theme I visited only yesterday, by accident, in discussing Dwight Eisenhower, and Fallows has some useful insights on it.

One sample: Fallows suggests, correctly I think, that our evaluation of Presidents depends heavily on whether they are elected to a second term or not.  If they are, we will tend to view their accomplishments more favorably; reelection in itself suggests "success," and if there were missteps or false starts in the first term, they'll be seen as part of an overall long-term strategy.   A two-term President gets "credit."  On the other hand, the one-termer may be downplayed, and even his real achievements during his one term may be discounted.

If you're interested in politics, and in the historical assessments of our Presidents, this is for you.