The phrase is often credited to Ben Bernanke, but variations of it have been around for decades. The “Fiscal Cliff” that went largely unmentioned during the campaign now dominates the talk out of Washington. It is probably the most important thing that will happen in the next Congress, and it will certainly set the tone for the end of the Obama administration. Yet almost no one has taken the time to explain what’s at stake in plain language.
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All about the standing-upright chimps that really love to talk about themselves.
William Penn
After the election, it’s time to remind us all what it means to be an American. This story, first run in 2010, is very important to me personally – and to our nation. I hope you enjoy it as we all look ahead to a great American holiday.
It naturally comes up in my family just before Thanksgiving every year. The Puritans’ deliverance to America is billed as a search for religious freedom, something which is a core value of our nation. It’s good that we celebrate such a thing, but do the Puritans really deserve credit for it? The short answer is no, they do not, because they were seeking to establish their own theocracy – and across the ocean where no one would bother them seemed like the perfect place.
Religious tolerance as a founding principle of America came from a different source – William Penn, the “absolute proprietor” of Pennsylvania. The reason that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves is murky at best, but may have its origins in a prejudice that most of us wouldn’t even understand today. I think it’s time to correct that.
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Patriotism
This is a piece first run for the election four years ago, updated a bit for today.
Election Day is not a national holiday, at least not in the traditional sense. But it is the one day that our nation asks something from all of us, even if it’s just a few minutes. If you follow calle ocho through Little Havana in Miami on Election Day, you’ll see a long line houses with the red white and blue of US and Cuban flags stretching off into the horizon. Families sometimes come together across generations, as with any holiday, before they go off to vote. Cuban exiles in Miami are a people that know what it means to be free because freedom and good times are often best measured against their opposite.
Work Creates All Wealth
On a bizzy day, it’s time for another repeat. This one is from October 2010, just before the Republicans took the US House. I’m going to leave it just the way it is because I think the message is still important – but we’d be in a much stronger position if we too this to heart, IMHO.
As Democrats contemplate holding the minority position in Congress yet again, there are many ways we can handle it. We could all sit in the back and throw stuff, much as the Republicans did for the last few years. We could turn on each other and rip our own guts out in a festival of shame and blame. Or, if we’re intent on really standing up to our principles, we can use this time away from being the responsible ones and understand what it is that we, as a party really stand for.
We have a lot to offer if we can only get it together for once. But I, for one, think it’s going to take a much deeper understanding of our core values and what is really happening around us before we can make it happen.
Paralysis
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt
One of the key features of the time we live in is paralysis. Uncertainty creates risk aversion, since risk is much more difficult to calculate. After a few years living like this and people start to live day to day. It eventually becomes “survival mode” when tomorrow becomes very difficult to imagine. The result is nothing – and that often comes even when one person is calling the shots, let alone a system based on consensus among many.
The evidence is all around us that something unusual is happening. Change is coming faster and in ways that are not often talked about adequately. The economy is not simply recovering the way it has after any other post-war recession. What should we do? FDR had it right – try something and see if it works. If that goes against every instinct you have right now, you’re not alone. But let’s see if we can convince you that there are, in fact, some things that point to very different actions than we’re all used to.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 