Op-Ed

Well into its third century, the American experiment in democracy remains unfulfilled. Far from ready for export, American democracy is still a work in progress, inclusive and resilient in many respects, yet divisive and uncaring in others. The framers of our Constitution, having established a set of legal rights admired and modeled throughout the world since, neglected to also establish the economic rights essential towards securing a decent life for every member of our society.

At the beginning of a new millenium, American citizens find their security under threat. Islamic fundamentalism and rogue nations with nuclear ambitions are the obvious and external threats, but there are growing threats to our economic security as well. The threats of hunger, poverty, inadequate housing, inadequate health care, inadequate child care, inadequate education, and inadequate retirement security loom larger for an increasing number of Americans.

AUSTIN, Texas -- And a Merry Christmas to all, including people who have white Christmas trees decorated entirely with purple balls. Merry Christmas to the Red states and the Blue states, to the R's and D's, and to all the troops stationed in Afghanistan, including the French troops there -- Mais oui, Chwistmas, y'all.

            Merry Christmas to all the people who had to eat bugs on reality shows this year and to all the professional athletes who have not gotten into duke-outs (lumps of coal to the rest of you jocks). Merry Christmas to the homeless and the people in the shelters, and especially to those who are feeding the people in the shelters. Season's Best to all the cops who collected for Blue Santa this year, and a Tiny Tim Salute to all the prisoners, including Martha Stewart. Her cell-wing lost the prison's Christmas decorating contest this year -- when it rains ...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Now is the time for all good men -- and women -- to race to the aid of their country. Liberals and libertarians unite! The Sinclair Broadcasting Group has moved this election into the realm of creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing. What me, hyperbole?

This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?

Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.

For Sinclair's lobbyist and on-air editorialist Mark Hyman to claim this long attack ad is "news" is ludicrous -- almost as strained as his claim, somewhere between infelicitous and crackers, that those who disagree are like "Holocaust deniers."

AUSTIN, Texas -- "The aide (a senior adviser to President Bush) said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." -- Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004.

             This is the quote that now has some noted bloggers identifying themselves as, "Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community."

Dear Virginia:

In your letter, you asked me if there really was a Democratic Party. You said that all of your friends have told you it’s a big fat lie, a story that grownups tell little kids so they won’t worry about mean old Republicans who eat children like you. You wrote me also that you have a tough time believing there could ever be a political party that cares about the difference between right and wrong, and wants you to have clean air to breath and pure, fresh water to drink in the middle of the night when you wake up thirsty. And you told me that after listening to President Bush on the TV, you think all that stuff about Democrats who think it is wrong to kill people in countries that haven’t done anything to hurt us is all make-believe, too. After all, you never see those Democrat guys talking back to the President, and telling him he’s bad.

The usual notion of big news is the unusual. Journalists are taught to look for "man bites dog" stories -- the events that raise eyebrows and make us think, "Wow!"

News of the ordinary also makes the cut in media outlets, of course, but it's not what sizzles, and it's not apt to get onto front pages or prime-time broadcasts.

A simple rejoinder to the media status quo is that what we really need are more "dog bites man" and "dog bites woman" stories. For every spectacular event, there are many others -- just as terrible or just as wonderful -- that barely register on the media Richter scale because they're happening all the time. What's earthshaking in people's lives is often barely visible to the hype-hungry media eye.

But journalism has the challenge of simultaneously tracking what's usual and unusual. One complication is that important ongoing realities may occasionally receive a lot of attention as a result of media whim. A certain social ill might suddenly get a burst of national publicity because editors at the New York Times decided to make it a page-one news feature.

AUSTIN -- It is both peculiar and chilling to find oneself discussing the problem of American torture. I have considered support of basic human rights and dignity so much a part of our national identity that this feels as strange as though I'd suddenly become Chinese or found Fidel Castro in the refrigerator.

One's first response to the report by the International Red Cross about torture at our prison at Guantanamo is denial. "I don't want to think about it; I don't want to hear about it; we're the good guys, they're the bad guys; shut up. And besides, they attacked us first."

But our country has opposed torture since its founding. One of our founding principles is that cruel and unusual punishment is both illegal and wrong. Every year, our State Department issues a report grading other countries on their support for or violations of human rights.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Goody, goody, gumdrop. We could get Phil Gramm back again, this time as secretary of the treasury. Oh how I've missed that little ray of sunshine, the bleeding heart from Bryan, the man who thinks poor people are all fat. As author Jim Hightower used to say, if you need a heart transplant, try to get Phil Gramm's -- it's never been used.

Just what we need for treasury secretary: the banking industry's errand boy. The man who helped bring us Enron.

According to The Washington Post, President Bush wants a new economic team. Can't imagine why. Oh, here it is. It's "part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda." He wants someone "who can better relate to Congress and be more effective in dealing with financial markets and television interviewers."

There you have it -- Phil's perfect for the job. Mr. Charm. And he knows how to talk those seniors into getting rid of Social Security. He's in practice. He's been back here in Texas lobbying to make it legal to sell "dead peasant" life insurance to the Teacher Retirement System.

In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?

Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.

We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.

How do we learn to keep on in this difficult political time, and keep on with courage and vision? A few years ago, I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at a Los Angeles benefit for a South African project. He'd been fighting prostate cancer, was tired that evening, and had taken a nap before his talk. But when Tutu addressed the audience he became animated, expressing amazement that his long-oppressed country had provided the world with an unforgettable lesson in reconciliation and hope. Afterward, a few other people spoke, and then a band from East L.A. took the stage and launched into an irresistibly rhythmic tune. People started dancing. Suddenly I noticed Tutu, boogying away in the middle of the crowd. I'd never seen a Nobel Peace Prize winner, still less one with a potentially fatal illness, move with such joy and abandonment. Tutu, I realized, knows how to have a good time. Indeed, it dawned on me that his ability to recognize and embrace life's pleasures helps him face its cruelties and disappointments, be they personal or political.