Joe Biden: America's Golden Retriever

Listening to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is like watching an old golden retriever--you know it doesn't mean any harm, and you don't expect great things. 

Yesterday's speech was the habitual barking: Biden, who ran for president in 1988, began well and meant well, but soon reverted to his old playbook. In a talk timed to support freedom of speech and racial justice, Biden began praising unions and "essential workers" in the same sentence, unaware his linguistic separation exposed a harsh truth: that the rise of the "warrior cop" and failures of K-12 education nationwide can be traced to teachers' and police unions, which have created separate and unequal disciplinary and compensation terms disadvantaging dispersed voters. If that's too much information for you, let's make it simpler: the more complex a government--especially one with three different layers--the easier it is to hide institutional corruption and to create jobs benefitting only loyalists. Though I switched to a different channel soon after, it wouldn't surprise me if Biden also mentioned the value of lawyers, judges, and rule of law in an outing meant to address the fatal black boot of a white police officer on the back of a black man's neck for eight minutes and forty six seconds. 

As voters, we must reject the usual platitudes and demand to know why, if politicians have been sincere or awake for the past thirty years, we're seeing an exact replay of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, but with George Floyd replacing Rodney King.

We average a major war every 20 years in this country so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are [because] we’re not very good at anything else any more! Can’t build a decent car, can’t make a TV set or a VCR worth a [damn], got no steel industry left, can’t educate our young people, can’t get health care to our old people, but we can bomb... your country, all right! Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that don’t we? That’s our hobby! That’s our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch... out or we’ll goddamn bomb them! -- George Carlin, Jammin' in New York (1992)

Such historical repeats do not occur without each part of the legal ecosystem considering its own needs above the public's over a substantial period of time. In 2018, New Jersey's Senator Cory Booker identified the results of decades of political inefficacy: a lack of empathy combined with excessive ego: 

What I often find is we’re at a point in our society right now where we have just stopped listening to each other and stopped being empathetic, and instead are leading with... judgment. The problem with that is it disables us and our ability to come together to do the kind of things that need to move our society forward. That’s why I think now more than ever... in America we need a courageous empathy, where we are willing to let go of our own ego and tune into another human being, to really listen to them. I may not agree with that Black Lives Matter march. They may offend me, but we’re all wired the same way. So why are they out there yelling and screaming? Is it because they’re bad and I’m judging them, or am I taking time to really try to surrender my own position for a minute and listen to that person in the Midwest who is a serious Trump supporter and try to really understand where they’re coming from?

Fortunately and unfortunately, Biden's problems do not stem from a lack of empathy, but a failure of pro-active thinking and, like many Catholics, a preference for colorful stories over accountability. On the same day of Biden's flaccid performance, Booker delivered a speech for the ages, one befitting a presidential candidate. Though we are told race and religion should not matter, I must mention an inconvenient truth: Booker is young, Baptist, and black; Biden is old, Catholic, and white. Verily, if Congress be the den of insiders, compromisers, and lifers, then Biden's comfort--and lack of discernible principles--can be understood just as easily as Booker's undeniable appeal. Indeed, it has always been this way, the conscience of America colored with the blood and sweat of black and brown bodies, even as the descendants of white Catholic Spaniards and white Frenchmen try to convince us San José and New Orleans represent not slavery and Dum Diversas but terracotta tiles and religious freedom.

There are only two kinds of men: those who compromise and those who take a stand. -- Muhammad Ali 

Such deliberate schisms between black/brown and white experiences in America necessitate if not a cover-up, indecent propaganda. Consequently, American citizenship requires school-mandated brainmucking, and ones who break free often find their way to other inconvenient truths, becoming sufficiently disillusioned to march forward independent of whiteness or American institutions, choosing Islam or southeastern France. 

My first rule. Never believe anything anyone in authority ever says. None of them. Government, police, clergy, the corporate criminals. None of them. And neither do I believe anything I'm told by the media... I don't believe in any of them. -- George Carlin, 3 x Carlin (2011)

And it is only after we remove the muck from our eyes that we find ourselves not in 1992 Los Angeles, but further back: at Vietnam, at Kent State, at the Watts riots, at Jackson State College, and at the Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches our teachers never taught. Such is the way of the military-industrial complex: deflect criticism, harass opponents, admit nothing, and when all else fails, murder and imprison "The Other." Seen properly, Mr. George Floyd is the victim of not only the police, but every lawyer, judge, and legislator who looked the other way when America repeated Vietnam by invading Iraq, preventing substantive reforms and allowing conflation between local police and national/international military.

My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America... Shoot them for what?... How can I shoot them poor people? -- Muhammad Ali

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East... We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people... How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. -- Harold Pinter (2005)

 

How did Biden vote when the time for independent thinking arrived? By now, you know the answer. Biden joined 76 other United States Senators in authorizing Iraq's invasion. Mind you, not all 77 were golden retrievers--some were surely Rottweilers and German Shepherds. At least when Biden enters the Senate Chamber and most likely the White House, one must admit to warm feelings when he stumbles, eager to please. The old boy just can't help himself; after all, don't we already know an old dog can't learn new tricks?

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (June 3, 2020) 

Dedicated to political columnist George F. Will, who found a conscience in his later years.

In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth... Houses live and die: there is a time for building And a time for living and for generation And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane... humility is endless. -- T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"

Update: it took fewer than 40 days for newly-sworn-in President Biden to bomb the Middle East. 

Chaos Theory: Politics in America

I sense people trying to achieve an intelligible synthesis of actress Stormy Daniels, the President of the United States, and society. Let me make it simple for you: it's none of your business.  

Western society has declined because of backlash against elitist judgment that reaches through our private doors and knows no limits. It's not democracy per se that failed, but the lawyers, judges, journalists, newscasters, media executives, and teachers whose job was minding the store while everyone else did the real work that created a sustainable community. 

Gossip is nothing new, of course. Brandeis still has the best lines on the subject: 

When personal gossip attains the dignity of print, and crowds the space available for matters of real interest to the community, what wonder that the ignorant and thoughtless mistake its relative importance. Easy of comprehension, appealing to that weak side of human nature which is never wholly cast down by the misfortunes and frailties of our neighbors, no one can be surprised that it usurps the place of interest in brains capable of other things. Triviality destroys at once robustness of thought and delicacy of feeling. No enthusiasm can flourish, no generous impulse can survive under its blighting influence.

What is Stormy Daniels but trivial gossip? Unlike Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's affair, not a scintilla of wrongdoing exists between herself and the current president. There is no unequal bargaining power, no lies, and no alleged force. We have only a publicity-seeking character arrested for domestic violence--admittedly a tame episode where we learn the "star's" husband's father was washing laundry in a house not his own--eagerly anticipating a payday even larger than the generous one already received. (Say what you want about Ms. Lewinsky, but her 24 year-old self never wanted or needed cash or publicity: "I never expected to fall in love with the President. I was surprised that I did.") 

I am well-aware I am defending a man whose actions and words are often indefensible, but unlike my so-called liberal colleagues, I also understand the man comes with an office, one that will remain long after a Presidential library is defiled with a copy of The Art of the Deal. In short, permanence exists even if every gear within its structure cranks towards the chaotic, and it is because of this permanence that we must act according to some principle other than prurience. 

Consequently, anyone supporting Stormy should note two uncomfortable details about the current media storm: it is Ms. Daniels who breached an agreement and violated its terms; and it is Ms. Daniels who was paid 130,000 USD and violated her word, not for a higher principle or to expose wrongdoing, but for more publicity and more money. One doesn't need a high IQ to realize what ought to been a private affair has now become yet another meandering distraction threatening to further erode whatever credibility mainstream journalism and media have left. Furthermore, I do not know who or what will bring down a president, but a person who lacks integrity is not--and should not be--the vehicle that ends this car crash Americans call a presidency. 

I have now wasted my time writing about an incident that should have remained between two consenting adults, with or without an NDA. How many interesting, good people have avoided pubic office because Americans have normalized their role as third parties to the violation of someone else's privacy? More importantly, what principle does America stand for in the year 2018? Obviously not privacy or integrity. Why, then, is anyone surprised the presidential office is held by someone the natural result of such a void? George Carlin once remarked, 

Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. 

In my previous post, I scolded an 84 year-old politician for bullying an American basketball player. I knew then I was wasting my breath, and I know I'm wasting my breath now. A society that cannot self-regulate its voyeurism will soon lose respect for privacy and other essential values. Its lawyers will spew more paper, but their paper-pushing will be worthless without a greater menace: a growing and expensive police state ready and able to carry out their words, diverting funding from more useful or compassionate enterprises. A best case scenario where insurance companies run the country even more than they do now isn't palatable to anyone decent. 

In fact, I remember speaking with an insurance company lawyer's daughter when I was in law school and mocking her father's chosen profession. She later told me her father wanted her to ask me, "How exactly does he plan on changing the world?" I didn't have an answer then, but I have one today: "By not being an insurance company lawyer." Similarly, you, too, can have an answer when presented with an opportunity to judge a person's bedroom behavior or any other consensual behavior between two adults: "Just say no." 

Over a long enough timeline, given a choice between being a moral busybody and an agent of chaos, I--and anyone else desiring a life worth living--will pick chaos every single time. Apparently, so will the American people. Would that they had better choices. 

George Carlin on Manifest Destiny

George Carlin has got to be the most funny, stinging, and subversive comedian in American history:

We were founded on a very basic double standard. This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free. So they killed a lot of white English people in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out the rest of the red Indian people and move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people.

You know what the motto of this country ought to be? "You give us a color, we’ll wipe it out."

--George Carlin