POLITICS AND NATURE

What was it the groundhog said?

The wintry weather picked up the last two days here in sunny Arizona. We have received about 6 inches or more where I am while on the other side of town, at least as of this am, they had twice as much. And it is still snowing. All in all, a good day to read John Locke and ponder the meaning of his lack of feminist thought and wonder why he barely even mentions the largest evil of the time...slavery. Well, Locke actually was a stockholder in a slave trading company back around the 1670s so there you go. Although I had to read a paper by a professor from the Midwest who claims Locke had an epiphany around the time he sold his stock in the slave company and realized the error of his ways. Unfortunately, whatever John Locke had written back in the late 1600’s, there was nothing he could have said or done to eliminate the African slave trade and all the evils we have inherited from it. At the same time, without our history, we would not have the intensity and diversity which colors our lives now. Such is Life.

In the meantime, back here in the twenty first century, there is a full moon (or near enough anyway) and plenty of light, even with the clouds, to have a quick hour long ski starting out my front door at about 9:30 p.m. It’s an amazing thing being out on skis in the midst of the woods at night, under the light of only the moon. The only sounds I heard were the crunching of the snow, my gloves hitting my ski pole, and Marley’s dog tags as he galloped his way through the chest high snow. I was not far into the backcountry or anything, just across the way (as it were) so when I stopped, I could see the street lights and headlights of passing autos. Dire warnings filled the local airwaves today about possible treachery on the roads but the diehards did not care. They looked death in the eye (or maybe they just know how to drive in the snow...)

There are always accidents here in Northern Arizona when the snow falls. Jean saw a couple of them on the way home. Slippery roads, no salt, few plows, and a general sense that it will never snow that hard here...and it always does. We are a travel corridor between Oklahoma and Southern California and few people seem to realize when they drive through in the winter that we are not in Southern Arizona. I made the same mistake when I moved here oh so long ago. My old buddy Bri and I were stopping outside Taos, NM to spend time with the Rainbow folk and failed to realize we were going to be in the mountains instead of in the general climate of the Southwest....where it is always warm and sunny. It is true, though, it rarely rains.

I was back in the Catskill Mountains in New York last summer saying goodbye to my lovely grandmother Berneice and it started to rain and it felt like I had not experienced a rain like that in years. I wonder if I have been out West too long. Then, I ponder my return to what most people where I’m from in Chicago would consider civilization and I know what a mistake this would be. It is unfortunate. Such a fantastic place I’m in but the difficulty of survival is tremendous and getting harder. Not that I’m complaining. I mean, check out the photos of the places I get to see and be in on a regular basis. There’s really nothing cooler than Flagstaff. Southern Utah and Western Colorado are both awesome as well. It is rare to discover wealth and privilege in these areas but the sense of wonder at God’s creation will mark your soul forever.

Nature is Forever: So is Poltical Corruption

It is this reason we must strive to protect the wild areas which impact our minds and strengthen our spirits and revitalize out souls. I grew up near a city. One of the biggest. And, I just read Forbes said number three on the most miserable cities list. I doubt this fact from the sense of home and hearth I know all the people I love the most have from living in that greatest of cities. Of course, it is cold and windy and there is a lot of concrete and it is gray, but there is great food and music and the people who are from there are often the kindest, most honest people you could meet. That doesn’t mean this is true of their politicians but my adopted home of Arizona has not had the best track record in that arena either.

Colorado was my home for about five years in total and there did not seem to be a tremendous amount of corruption or problems there, under either party’s leadership. I also lived in Florida for about three years total and I certainly didn’t notice political corruption but I did learn of people who were upstanding members of various communities who would be discovered for their illicit activities in the drug trade. And Florida can not seem to get it together when it came to election time. They, of course, decided the disputed 2000 election (which is funky cause of their inability to create a clear voting system) but then their vote did not even count in the 2008 Democratic primary and, if it had, things could have taken a sharp turn in a different direction. Which is neither here nor there because we have the government we voted for out of conviction instead of fear which I believe is the right way to govern a modern democratic nation.

Yes Colorado, as far as I know, has not been tampered with by the ill gotten gains promoted by radical agendas or seedy politicos waiting in the wings of corporate hallways for their marching orders. Who knows, perhaps I am simply naïve. There are many things I have been mistaken over in my life, which is why I don’t expect our politicians or our political process to be smooth as silk or straightforward and honest at every juncture. I hope it will be. But, perhaps sadly, I am not surprised when it does not turn out that way. On the other hand, I have spent too much time in business to believe people in general are pure as the driven snow, so why should politics be any different.

We are all complicit in the efforts of major oil companies to deny liberty to the people of the Niger basin. We use their oil. We all have a stake in the inexpensive power generated by mountain top mining and other ill considered crimes against nature because we believe cheap power is a right. We should not be surprised when dogs and children get sick from toxic toys and dog treats made from who knows what kind of rotten horsemeat or other garbage because there is no government to oversee the unsafe conditions and disgraceful labor practices other nations pursue which have allowed the perpetuation of our gluttonous consumer habits.

I guess the funny part of all this is that it does not depress me or make me think we can not get it together. I believe we have been working on our collective lives since before the founding of the nation and we have made some terrible mistakes. But the fate of a nation is not decided in one lifetime. Aristotle, I recently read, wrote that the only way to perpetuate a constitution is for the people to understand it. With all their failings and what we would consider wrong thinking, I think these ancient thinkers have a lot to tell us about how we got to where we are, what we should be doing now, and where we might be able to go. You see, I consider myself pro-American. Most liberals I know would say the same things about themselves. Not in a blind and ignorant way. I have studied history. I strive to understand what has been wrong and what has been done right over time. I’m not claiming perfection in this art but it is one more people should pay a bit more attention to. Take the current example.

The Real Past....

We are being told now by a host of counter-reformationists that FDR’s New Deal was a complete failure. Whatever one believes of that time period (and my old granmaw woofie apparently despised FDR) you can not, in good faith, argue the programs enacted during the thirties failed to put people to work or provide great public works which exist to this day. I recently saw a slideshow at Salon.com which visually represented the success of the New Deal in a stunning fashion. It is hard to keep up with all the reading required to truly get the nuances of theory and practice behind the Keynesian/Hayek debates. But it is pretty cool to see it in pictures and I highly suggest anyone who has been able to read this diatribe up to this point to check it out. www.salon.com. Maybe this link will even get you there. We don’t realize how much our government has done and continues to do for us all the time. I’m all for the free market guys. I just don’t think they are willing to engage in an honest debate over the necessity of a dialogue about the public good. This is not to say government is the answer to all difficulties in life and that government should be the guarantor of first resort for all social and material needs.

....And Future

It does mean, as I have said a hundred times, we need open spaces and the market will not provide them.

We need to take care of those who are less fortunate and who need what Bill Clinton called “a hand up not a hand out.”

We need public works projects to keep up with the needs of a modern society. Do we really want to continue to be outdone by Dubai?

We need to pay attention, not to a single ideological form of tunnel vision, but to a grander ideal of what it is to be American.

We need to pay closer attention to basic fairness and equity.

This is what will make this nation and all of us stronger again. We have to discard the ideal of greed and avoid the mistake of thinking that only money is important and necessary. No one person will do this but people must consider working together. I certainly don’t know how to do it but I look forward to the changes the nation will make in the next few years.