Category: USA

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Rise & Fall of Great Powers

I cannot really recall if Paul Kennedy came in person or if I “met” him on an electronic program, but I do recall having him for a program on his book the Rise & Fall of the Great Powers.  That was back in 1989 and the general idea then was that the U.S. was about to be overtaken by Japan as the great power.   It seems pretty absurd in retrospect. Japan doesn’t have the resources or the demographic strength to challenge the U.S. in the long-term.  Of course now we talk about China and India, maybe even Brazil.

The decline & fall of the United States was a very popular topic back in the 1980s.  Actually, it is always a popular topic.   Different commentators emphasize different things at different times.   Back in the 1970s when I first became aware of the genre, the favorite danger was ecological collapse.  We have come back to that one somewhat today.   Running out of energy is also a perennial favorite.   But the one that encompasses them all is political-economic failure.   That is the one that Kennedy talks about.

I hadn’t thought much about him in the last decade but I was reminded when I saw him on the PBS Newshour. He explained that the timing of his U.S.decline, replaced by Japan hypothesis was a bit off. Japan was the one that went into decline. The Soviet Union unexpectedly collapsed relieving the U.S. of the superpower competition.  American productivity (and so wealth) jumped as communications technologies began to be applied to business. He didn’t add, but I will, that American business went through revolutionary change and reorganization. The economy he was thinking of in the 1970s was not the same one he was living with when he wrote the book in the late 1980s.

It is easy to miss the dynamism of the American economy and academics who look at the “big trends” are often the ones who miss it the most. One reason is that they are trying to impose patterns, often anthropomorphic patterns, on complex systems.   

It is hard not to view societies or civilizations in human terms of birth, growth, maturity, decline and ultimate death. The depressing German historian Oswald Spengler made an explicit science of this with specific stages of growth and decline.  Each civilization had a life span of 1000 years. He thought that civilizations have as much chance of changing or extending this lifespan as you or I do with our physical bodies. Spengler codified what lots of other people thought but he really hit a rich intellectual vein. Lots of people who never heard of Spengler implicitly follow his ideas. Spengler is compelling and very interesting, as well as being completely wrong.

Countries and civilizations do not have life spans analogous to people. The only reason we think they do is because of the extreme power of the pattern that we see in our own lives. It is true that countries and civilizations have some beginning and ending but they can copy from others and they have almost endless capacity for change and renewal. They also morph and combine.

The U.S. has been declining RELATIVE to the rest of the world since the end of World War II.  This should be a cause for celebration, not fear. After World War II, most of the world was either in ruins as a result of war or just poorly developed. They had to catch up and the general growth of wealth has helped us too, as others have begun to pull their own weight and contribute to the general welfare. In some ways, prosperity is natural if you just stop doing stupid things. The biggest success story of recent decades is China. As they shifted from their benighted communist system, their economy developed. While they are now a rival in a way we never thought possible, they are also a source of wealth for us as well as themselves. Imagine if they had continued along the Maoist lines.  Is it better to face a rapidly developing China that is a good, if over clever trading partner; or would we prefer a communist state near Malthusian collapse and destabilizing the entire world?

We feel a little nostalgia for the good old days, but they weren’t really that good.  We are better off NOT being the sole superpower, or being the only game in town. If we imagine the world 50 years hence, we will be wrong in detail, but you can see some trends.

The U.S. will still be the most important country in the world in 2060, but we will have several peers including China, India, the EU and maybe Brazil.  You can imagine some regional groupings, but there is nothing currently in the cards.  China has enjoyed a fantastic growth rate, but it will hit some ecological and demographic speed bumps soon.   The same goes for India.  Russia is the power of the past.  In 2060, it will have a smaller population than it does today unless it changes fundamentally, in which case it might no longer be Russia.  The EU will also have a smaller population, but since it starts with so much economic and social capital it will still be important. 

The country I am most interested in (besides the U.S.) is Brazil. The old joke was that Brazil was the country of the future and always would be, but reforms, good decisions and some luck have brought the future to us now.  The U.S. and Brazil share an important characteristic – they are American in the New World sense.  Both our countries were built by immigrants and have been very open to outside influences, techniques and technologies.   Both Brazil and the U.S. are large, resource rich countries with the demographic weight to be powerful into the future.

But I hope and believe that by 2060 the national power will be less acute in the sense of rivalry and it will matter less which country has the biggest economy or the most powerful military. Paul Kennedy talked about the “Concert of Europe” where the great powers more or less cooperated or at least coexisted.  Of course, there were lots of problems with that specific formulation.  Historians can and have written whole books talking about them and of course, we can do better now with our improved technologies and the benefit of the experience that our ancestors didn’t have. 

Having one single country as the “leader” is not the only way there is.  From the fall of the Roman Empire until the end of World War II, there wasn’t really a predominant power in the Western World.   We can have diverse and dispersed power centers within a globalized network.

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Four Legs Good; Two Legs Bad

Chrissy and I went down as far as Indian Gardens.  This is an oasis on the Bright Angel trail and it is the logical terminus of a day hike for a person in average condition.  It took us around three hours to get down but only around two and a half hours to get back up.  It doesn’t make intuitive sense.  I think it is because of all the rocks.  I walk gingerly among them going downhill.  We also had to get to the side of the path to let hikers pass who were coming up or mule trains coming down. There was less oncoming traffic on the return trip and no mule trains came past. 

Of course I am not counting the leisurely lunch-break we spent at Indian Gardens.  The cottonwoods and willow make very pleasant surroundings.  Both are fast-growing adaptive trees but are often unloved because of their weak wood, short lives and susceptibility to wind damage.   Of course, it depends on where they are.  As long as they are not near houses or roads, they do just fine.  Except that they grow in generations, i.e. a lot of them come up the same time and whole clumps grow, live and die together.  This is not a problem except during generational change, when the whole clump of cottonwoods begins to die back about the same time.

PS

The morning later I my complaining muscles reminded me that I am no longer in the top condition I used to imagine.   The pattern of pain was interesting, more characteristic of overdoing cross country skiing than overdoing ordinary hiking.  I suppose it is because of the poles. 

My legs hurt a lot less than I would have guessed, but my arms, chest and lats are screaming. 

I used to cross country ski a lot when we lived in Norway.  I am sure I used the poles the way the Norwegians taught me, which is to push off in back of your body instead of leaning forward on the sticks. I recognize the feelings.   The good news is the pain confirms that the poles worked.  I pulled myself out of the canyon w/o overstraining my legs or knees.  

As they say (for different reasons) in “Animal Farm”, “Four legs good; too legs bad.”

PSPS

The link to my earlier trip down the canyon is at this link.  That time we did it in 117 degree heat and went all the way to the river and back.  That was stupid.  The bottoms of my shoes melted off on the hot rocks. Really. 

This time we had perfect weather. Cool at the top and only warm near Indian Gardens. AND we didn’t go all the way down.

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Montezuma’s Castle & Red Rocks

We headed up to the Grand Canyon via Sedona, which took us through the red rock country along Oak Creek.  Our first stop was Montezuma’s Castle, misnamed after the legendary King of the Aztecs, whose people never got this far north.   Castle is also a bit of a misnomer.  It is essentially a lightly fortified cliff dwelling and it was a Pueblo type people who made the structure as a refuge against enemies.  Archeologists call them Sinaqua people.

Looking at the extent that people lived in fortified villages reminds us how precarious life was in the past.   Violent marauders or dangerous animals could appear at any time and the lookouts could only detect as far as their naked eyes could see.   Since old guys, less useful working in the fields, evidently often got the lookout job, sighting distances were cut even further by failing eyesight.

However, as far as stone-age communities go, this was a top of the line location. It was defensible, as mentioned above. Oak Creek provides a steady supply of water, important to human life and attractive to game animals and the loose soils near the creek were easily worked with simple tools available. 

The community thrived for centuries and then just disappeared around 600 years ago. Nobody is sure what happened.  There was significant climate change at the time, with the area becoming drier. This might have changed availability of game species.  That cannot be the only explanation; since the creek did not dry up and no matter how tough conditions were near the creek, they must have been worse away from it. Below is Oak Creek near Sedona.

I blame Rousseau and his “noble savage” myth for giving us the misconception that life before civilization was good. In fact, life for most was violent, unpredictable, generally brief and often unpleasant. A better question to ask is how people persisted for so long rather than why they disappeared. It was probably a combination of war and changing ecological conditions that drove the people away from this area. Of course, sometimes things just happen. Only around fifty people lived in this village. With a small, preliterate culture a few bad decisions, a couple of nasty neighbors or just a run of bad luck can doom a community. I suppose a bigger question is why they didn’t come back.

I didn’t think of Arizona as a beautiful autumn location, but the sycamore trees along creek were showing off a rich golden color.  It was a beautiful fall day at Montezuma’s castle, as you can see from the nearby pictures. We moved up the road and upstream to the town of Oak Creek and the Sedona area. We stayed at the Best Western in Sedona.  Below is the view from the balcony.

This is the red rock canyons area with natural beauty all around.  It reminded both Chrissy and me of the Petra area of Jordan.   Sedona was a cowboy movie location during the 1940s and 1950s and there were markers with handprints of famous actors who played in the movies.  The only ones I recognized were Gene Autry and Ernest Borgnine.  More recently, it has become a center of arts and crafts and a kind of aging hippie hangout.  There is supposed to be some kind of vortex that connects to other dimensions or releases psychic energy or something like that.  This and the lyrically beautiful scenery attract various sorts of people.  There are also plenty of trails for outdoor activity.  It is a nice place generally.

Past Sedona you climb the mountain in a series of switchbacks.  You are still following Oak Creek, more or less.  That little creek is responsible for most of the beautiful topography.  The natural communities change as you climb with scrub, juniper and pinion pines giving way to open ponderosa forests.

The forest service has been managing these piney woods well, at least near the roads where I could see it.  I noticed the results of prescribed burning programs and the trees were often in clumps, as they would be in healthy ponderosa forests of the past.   I saw lots of evidence of fire along the road.  I took a picture of an area that was still warm from the recent burn to show what is supposed to look like.  We saw smoke in the distance the day before, which may account for some of the haze we noticed in Sedona. 

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Mongomery, Alabama

Montgomery is on a flat site so it spreads out easily.  The central part of the city is very quiet.  It is easy to drive and find your way around the grid pattern streets, and there is ample parking all around.   The country’s first electrical trolley line was set up here in 1886.  That started spreading out the city’s population.  There are no natural barriers, so since it was easy just to move a little farther out and since the city’s population is only 200,000 (a little less than Arlington) the whole place has more the density  of a suburb than a city. Above is the state capitol. 

Below is the Confederate White House, where Jeff Davis lived.  Montgomery was the first Confederate capital. The woman running the reception desk was originally from Czechoslovakia.  Her parents fled Sudetenland when Hitler took over, only to be subsumed when he took over the rest of the country after the Munich sell-out.  After WWII, her family wisely got out when the communists took over.  Although she came to the U.S. when she was only eleven, she still had a trace of a Czech accent, overlaid with the Alabama drawl.

I was a couple hours early for my appointment at the Alabama Forestry Association, so I got a chance to walk around the Capitol area.  The buildings are classical revival built with white marble from Alabama or the neighboring states.  Below is the Alabama Archives building. There is a museum inside.  Notice the classical style with the white marble again. 

The city has clearly gentrified.  Near the river are a lot of old warehouses and railroad buildings, now converted to loft apartments and nice restaurants.  I didn’t take pictures of them, but below is the Dexter Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King served as pastor 1954-1960.  It was from here that he organized the Montgomery bus boycott.

At the Alabama Forestry Association, I met Rick Oates.  Forestry is an important industry in Alabama.  Although the state tree is the longleaf pine, loblolly is a lot more common. Mr. Oates said that woody biomass looks like it will take off and some of the pulp firms are worried about it.  I wish.  The price of pulp is so low now.  It would take a big change in biomass to bring it back up.  You can find out more about Alabama forests at this link.

Above is a memorial to police officers at the Alabama Capitol.  Below is a traditional Alabama cabin.

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Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothin’ Left to Lose

The only other time I was in Alabama was in March 1974, almost thirty-five years ago. It was cold in Wisconsin during the spring break so I decided to hitchhike to Florida. I memorized a map, but I got it wrong and ended up two days later in south Alabama.  It took me that long to figure out that I didn’t have enough money and no plan, so I turned around and headed home. This trip was my first big adventure and the first time I understood that being on your own was not always much fun.

I got a ride all the way from Nashville to Alabama state highway 10. This was a very local rural road back then. A guy in a pickup truck picked me up.  He talked to me for about ten minutes, and I understood not a word.   It worried me.  It was like being in a foreign country.   He dropped me off about two miles down the road, where a farmer was out working in his field.  He came over and talked to me (people were very friendly).  He had an accent, but it was easy to understand.  I mentioned my earlier problem and he just laughed.  “That’s old James.  He’s the town drunk.  Ain’t nobody understands old James,” he told me. 

My turn around point was a cemetery near Brantley, Alabama on the way to Opp.  I found the place and you can see it up top.  I spent the night there, actually right outside.  That was not my plan. I was talking to some guys at a local gas station.  They warned me about the poisonous snakes in the tall grass.  Now I understand that they were just giving me a hard time. As I walked out of town in the dark of early evening, I saw nothing but tall grass, until there was some short grass.  I thought it was a roadside, so I spread out my blanket and went to sleep.   

In the morning, I saw that it wasn’t a roadside.  I was sleeping near the tombstones not far from a graveyard.  Had I known where I was, I think I would have slept poorly.  As it was, I spend a peaceful night with the quiet neighbors but that was enough.  I was hungry and lonely and I wanted to go home. I took a picture near the spot where I think I was.  Those leyland cypresses were not there yet.  There was just I was grass and some bushes.  Just being there brought back the feelings of those days.  I did lots of stupid things when I was nineteen, but I think this was the stupidest, on balance.  Above and below are pictures are Brantley what used to be the business district thirty-five years ago and some houses along the road.

I started to hitchhike back north from the spot on the top picture outside Brantley, Alabama.  (For the last thirty-five years, I have believed that I turned back south of Opp.  I remembered that name because it is odd and I saw it in writing.  Now, however, I am 99% certain that the spot above is indeed the high water mark of my first lonely travel adventure.) I made it to Nashville by that night. 

I might have gotten there earlier.  I had a ride going all the way up there, but I got out near Decatur.  The driver was drinking whiskey.  He claimed that he was going to kill his wife and his former best friend.  The wife had run off with the friend. This didn’t seem to bother the guy too much, but they had also taken a couple hundred dollars of his money. This pissed him off. His story sounded a little too much like the words from a Hank Williams, Jr song.  I remembered the words of the old Roy Acuff song, “Whiskey and Blood on the Highway” (There was whiskey and blood all together; mixed with glass where they lay; I heard the moans of the dyin’; but I didn’t hear nobody pray) so I bailed.  I tried to pay attention to the news the next day and didn’t hear about any spectacular murders, so I figure he was just talking … and drinking.  People who picked up hitchhikers often were just looking for someone to talk at and they often are not serious.  But guns, booze, anger and cars are not things you should mix or mess with if you can avoid it.

I spent my last $7 on a bus ticket from Nashville to Evansville, Indiana.  I didn’t particularly want to go there, but that was as far I my money would take me.  What I really wanted was a warm & reasonably secure place to spend the night and the bus was the best I could do.  I arrived in Evansville just about dawn and set off up Hwy 41.  It was 5 below.  They had an ice storm the day before and then it got really cold. Hitchhiking was hard and I picked up only short hops.  The worst was when some A-hole dropped me off directly in front of a sign that said something like, “Rockville Prison.  Do not pick up hitchhikers”.  I later found out that it was a woman’s prison, but the sign didn’t specify. 

I got up to Chicago about the time it was getting dark and a really nice guy drove me all the way home to Milwaukee. It is probably not a good idea to depend on the kindness of strangers, but I was glad that I ran into some good people. Besides the Rockville Prison guy and the homicidal boozer, everybody I met treated me okay, some were very friendly and shared lunches with me. I would have been a lot hungrier if not for that. 

The whole adventure lasted only four days, but it made a deep impression on me, so much that a half a lifetime later I can still recall details. This was the first time I was really alone and unconnected. I realized that a guy could just disappear.  I remembered how it felt to be “homeless” as I drove back from Brantley to my reserved room at Courtyard in Troy, Alabama. It is comforting to have a place to go. The most disturbing part about wandering is looking around for a place to bed down at dusk and hoping that it doesn’t rain or you don’t get rolled.  It is nice to be able to come & go when you want, but in the words of that great country philosopher Kris Kristopherson, “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

It was a good lesson and not a very expensive one for me.  It was good to learn it early, but it wasn’t smart to set off with no map, no plan and almost no money. I can’t even put myself back in that stupid young-man mindset.  I make much more sophisticated stupid old-man choices today.  I have always been lucky and luck can substitute for intelligence and foresight … until it doesn’t.

I didn’t stop hitchhiking, BTW.  That is how I and many car-free students got around in those days.  And I subsequently hitchhiked around Europe.  But I prepared better.

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Air War College in Alabama

The Air War College is located on Maxwell Air Force base in Montgomery, Alabama.  It is a pleasant place and it is still summer in Alabama.  The housing is nice.  I am here for three days of seminars.  It has been interesting so far. I like to get away sometimes and think about the work.  I only wish I could translate the ideas better into practice.

Above is a B-25.  It is also called the Mitchell bomber, named after Billy Mitchell, who warned America that the Japanese could launch a Pearl Harbor style attack.  For his insight, he was court martialed, although later he was honored.  Too bad he was already dead.  He was a Wisconsin boy and the airport in Milwaukee is named for him too. 

The Mitchell bombers planes were used in WWII and were the planes used during the Doolittle raids, when we showed the Japanese that we were serious about taking the war to them after Pearl Harbor. 

Below is some of the housing on the base.

Below is the Wagon Wheel restaurant, where we had breakfast.  It is simple eggs and bacon … and grits for those that like them.  

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Milwaukee Renaissance

Chrissy & I went up to North 3rd Street.  This was the German part of the city and it still has some German restaurants and Usinger is still there making the world’s best liverwurst and second best (after Clements) bratwurst.  Despite that, we had lunch as Cousins Subs, which is another of my Milwaukee favorites.

Cousins is in an old building that used to be a glove and hat shop.   They even had fireproof gloves.  I think they were made with asbestos fiber, in the days when asbestos was not known to be so dangerous.   Their slogan was something like “Gloves to burn, and some that don’t.” 

You can see the City Hall building on left

The area just north of the river is nice and clean.  I remember when the the industrial sewage stench coming off the river mixed with the yeast stink from the breweries, the pungent fragrance of the tanneries and the sweeter aroma from Ambrosia Chocolate Factory. The Cream City Brick used to be black from the coal smoke.  I actually thought the bricks were naturally black, but most of Milwaukee is built with tan colored bricks, as has now been revealed.  Everything is different now.  The area no longer stinks and it is clean & fresh because all the industry is gone.   The knowledge of what was and is now is no more drains some of the celebration.   The new and improved surroundings are sterile in a couple senses of the word.

I was surprised that the Renaissance Book Shop was still in business.  It is a three story warehouse full of used books.  This is the kind of shop I used to love, but now the Internet has largely supplanted such places. Going into it today is like a magical mystery tour, but not something I really want to do often anymore.  It is fascinating to look at the piles of knowledge.   I was looking for a specific book, “The Epic of Man,” a book I had as a kid.  It takes mankind from the Stone Age through the early civilizations.  And I found it in a pile of books on the third floor.  It is not a great book, but I liked the pictures and wanted to get it out of a sense of nostalgia.  As l looked through the book that I have not seen for at least thirty years, I realized how many of my historical impressions were triggered by the pictures.   It really is true that first impressions are important.

On the way back we stopped to look at the old man’s childhood home.  It used to be the third house from the corner and it used to be in the middle of a neighborhood of similar houses. (It is on 4th St, but my father’s dog-tags say “Port” St.  The old man evidently didn’t speak with a clear and crisp accent.)  Since his time, they widened the road at the side, knocking down two houses, and built the freeway across the street, so it is really different.  St Stanislaw, where my father went to school and his family went to church, is not just across the freeway in easy view.   The neighborhood is now dominated by a view of St Stan’s and the Allen Bradley clock.

There used to be a natatorium nearby, but they are gone, no longer needed.  In the old days, many of the houses didn’t have showers or baths.  Natatoriums were public bathhouses, with showers and a pool.   Men and women had them on alternate days, but men always got Saturdays and they were closed on Sundays.  They were still around when I was a kid.  We used to go swimming at the natatorium on 10th and Hayes.  Old guys would still come in just to use the showers.  Now it is closed down and the building is torn down.  All the houses in Milwaukee now have bathtubs and showers.

Things have changed.

On the left is St Stanislaw Church.

Another relic of old Milwaukee is the iron water spring on Pryor Ave.  Some people think it is healthier and old people come to fill gallon jugs with the water.  The funny thing is that it is always old people doing it.  It was old people doing it when I was a kid and it is old people doing it now. Presumably, the old people of yore have shuffled off this mortal coil and they must have been replaced by others.  Is there some minimum age when you start to like this kind of thing?   Or maybe the water really does work and the old folks who drink it just live forever.  The water tastes like rust and it is always icy cold.  I always take a drink when I go by, but I don’t think I would want to slook too much of it.  Below is the water.

Below is Kinnikinnick River looking from 2nd St.  In the distance is Medusa Cement where my father worked for thirty-six years and where I worked for four summers.

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Battleship Wisconsin

I went down to Norfolk for Virginia Forestry Association meeting.   I have a lot to write from the meeting, but Norfolk itself was interesting.  Among the attractions is the Battleship Wisconsin.

I didn’t know that the battleship Wisconsin was docked there but I really enjoyed the visit.   You can find some of the details at this link.    

Battleships were the symbol of power for almost a century. They were made obsolete by the advent of sophisticated airpower & precise missiles, at least that is the usual explanation.  And it is true as far as it goes.  But there is more and it becomes clear as you walk around the ship.

A battleship is very much a product of the mechanical age.   It reminds you of an old factory and it is a giant machine in the early 20th Century sense.   It is filled with precision instruments and designed to be run by machinists and engineers, lots of them.   Loading the guns took big crews.  Keeping the rust off the boat took big crews.   Oiling the cogs and cranks took big crews.   A modern ship doesn’t have to be so big to carry the firepower and it doesn’t need the really big crews to make it work. 

As with factories on land, a lot of the tasks once done by vast crews of semi-skilled men are now done by machines.  The precision devices are replaced by electronics.  The calculations done by scores of engineers are now done instantly by computers.   We can no longer afford battleships because we no longer can afford the big crews needed to run them and we no longer need them anyway since a much smaller package can pack a much bigger payload.

Above – the battleship deck is made of teak wood.  It protected the steel deck below.  I wonder how much it would cost for such a well constructed teak deck now.  I don’t think I could afford even a small one at my house.

A battleship is beautiful and graceful.   Like a medieval castle, which was also a complicated engine of war, it now seems more a work of artful engineering than a very large lethal weapon.   But that is what it was.   It is worth seeing for all the reasons above.

Above – battleships were classy.  This is the silver set from the Wisconsin.  It was a gift from the people of Wisconsin to the USN.   My mother and father were taxpayers back then, so I guess my family helped buy it.

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Springtime in Washington

It has been a cooler than average spring, but we are getting there.   Today I met Chrissy for lunch up near the U.S. Naval Memorial.  It is around a ten minute walk from my office and it was very nice today.  I don’t have much text, just some pictures from a warm spring day. 

  • Above are kids flying kites on the Mall
  • Magnolia grove near National Gallery of Art
  • Springtime in Washington in John Marshall Park
  • John Marshall, longest serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  His rulings shaped the Constitution.  Among the key opinions:  Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803); Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810); McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819); Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819); Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821); Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824); Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832); Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833)
  • Monument to the Grand Army of the Republic
  • US Navy Memorial. Look closely. The patio is a map of the world. Those guys are walking across Texas and Mexico.
  • Horse Tamer near world commerce center
  • Fountain at Navy Memorial. In background is the Archives Building
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It is NOT Always About Politics

I like to watch the Sunday morning news programs.  My morning routine includes “This Week,” “Chris Matthews,”  “Fox News Sunday” & “Meet the Press.”   I have to switch around among them, since they overlap.   That is interesting because you often see the same “opinion makers”  being interviewed on a couple of them.    It might be easier just to get the talking points.  These shows are ABOUT politics, so I shouldn’t complain, but I think they are too much about politics.

Below is Augustus Caesar, Rome’s first Emperor.

They see everything through a political lens.   I understand that Washington is a political town and politics pervades everything, however I don’t think everything is reducible to politics alone, at least politics in the sense of the competitive game.   On “Chris Matthews” eight out of the twelve pundits thought “the right” would give President Obama the benefit of a long honeymoon.   I agree with the majority.   But I disagree with Matthews and the panel when they characterized this as simple politics.   They will have to give it because they cannot be seen to oppose him.   Matthews et al are smart people and I recall the two old sayings:  “it takes a smart person to be cynical, but a wise man to get beyond that” and “A man’s view of the world is a confession of his own character.”    

Not everybody is motivated by politics – not even politicians – and especially not ordinary people.   I have particular and strongly held political views, but between elections I want my President to succeed no matter what party and I want our Congress to work under the best possible conditions.   In between elections, I don’t want to think about politics very much.  Most people are like that except during tough political campaigns or when making a calls to talk radio or C-Span.    Being politically aware all the time is just too exhausting.

Our system makes good or at least okay decisions most of the time.  More important is our capacity to experiment and reinvent while maintaining the fundamental integrity of our structure.  The fact that we enjoy the oldest living Constitution in the world and are second oldest continuous government in the world (after the Brits) is ample evidence of our stability.   It is noteworthy that the British heritage has influenced so many stable democracies (Besides the U.S. and UK, Australian, New Zealand, Canada, among others, and arguably even India).  To a significant extent, the countries with this heritage allow their citizens more freedom FROM politics than most others.   In America, it is possible to be prosperous, secure and successful w/o strong political connections.   If you think about that for more than a minute and put it into historical context, that is truly amazing.   Freedom FROM arbitrary government action and the capriciousness of petty officials is rare in history.   We complain about our lack of freedom and opportunity, but we have (to paraphrase) the worst possible system … except for everything else.

I worry that we may ask too much from government and I get nervous each election season.   History shows that people voluntary give up freedom in return for the promise of stability and prosperity but they end up usually getting none of the above.   It is useful to read the stories of Republics, ancient and modern, as our Founding Fathers did.  This could happen to us too, but the good sense of the American people and the soundness of our institutions win out in the end.   Most of us are not really interested in letting politics intrude too much into our daily lives and private affairs – especially not “theirs” but even our own.   We get a little hysterical from time to time, but to the disappointment of radicals on all sides, moderation and good sense prevail.