What Does the "Tea Party" Really Want? (Part Two)

(Note:  This is the second segment in a three part series under the general heading of Recent Currents: From the "Tea Party" to the 2012 Election.  Click here to view the first segment.)

What does the Tea Party really want?  Is it just about making a case for a smaller federal government?  Or is there more to it than that?  Does the movement have a real, unstated agenda, which is a poorly kept secret?

Many ordinary citizens would sleep much better at night were they to understand that the Tea Party movement was just about cutting federal spending and the size of the federal government.  Interestingly, the Tea Party’s stated platform sounds quite similar to the Bush/“43” agenda for compassionate conservatism at its inception.  Which, given how that particular political movement turned out, should give ordinary citizens pause.

Some current events may present ordinary citizens with but a hint of what the Tea Party really wants.  One example, in particular, is informative.  In the words of Lindsay Graham, the respected moderate US Senator, R-SC, known for crossing political lines to get things done:

'Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at.'  …  On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups.  The first, in his Senate office, was 'very, very contentious,' he recalled.  During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: 'What do you want to do?  You take back your country --- and do what with it?  …  Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.'

Another example, subtle as it may be, consists of the present movement among some Republican members in Congress to eliminate funding for National Public Radio (NPR).  Congress had passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which then-President Lyndon Johnson signed into law, creating NPR.  Millions of listeners have come to rely upon NPR, which receives about $90 million in federal funding annually.  But the Congressional Budget Office calculated that the net savings from defunding the network would be zero.  Some say the proposed legislation is no more than an ideological attack on public radio, masquerading as a fiscal issue.  For it is well known that Republicans have long been critical of public broadcasting and accuse it of having a liberal bias.

In a final example, in working towards final passage of the new national health insurance law, President Obama had said that all options were on the table, except the status quo, which was no longer working.  And as the president had said, Republicans simply offering to do “nothing” was indefensible.  Since the system was in need of reform, it was the correct approach.  Against the advice of many experts, including some of his own personal advisers, the president braved great political risk, continuing to push the issue.  His own perseverance was rewarded.  In March 2010 a triumphant President Obama signed into law his landmark national health care overhaul, saying it enshrined “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”  The passage of this signature legislation had escaped every American leader that has tackled the issue dating back to T.R. more than 100 years ago.

While much of the new law is still unclear, ordinary citizens are made to understand that the main benefits of the law are not designed to kick in until 2014, after the upcoming 2012 presidential election.  Among the important benefits include the elimination of an insurance company’s previous right to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, the ability of a child to remain on his or her parents’ family insurance plan to age 26, and documented cost savings of $1.3 Trillion spread over a 20 year period, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (as compared to an “alternative” model where “nothing” was done).

Republicans and Tea Party activists nonetheless want to “repeal and replace” the law, believing, rightly or wrongly, that their success in the 2010 midterm elections was a mandate to do so.  But, when asked what their “replace” law should look like, they can cite no additional benefits which the new law does not already contain.  They are completely lacking on specifics.

There are yet other examples of what appears to be a secret, hidden agenda: from union stripping bills through the elimination of the right to collective bargaining; to attempts to “privatize” Medicare; to restricting access to the voting booth to those with a valid driver’s license or state picture ID card on the guise of a disingenuous claim of previous voter fraud (designed to make it harder for students, the sick and disabled, people of color, all of whom typically vote the Democratic ticket); to making it difficult if not impossible for a woman to get a legal abortion; to implementing mandatory drug tests for citizens receiving public assistance; to opposing same sex marriage laws; to declaring war on the EPA and the provisions of the Clean Water Act.

These examples may provide but a preview of the real agenda.  The results of the 2010 midterm elections are perhaps best viewed in the context of a play in a football game where an offensive lineman moves before the ball is snapped.  The official throws the yellow penalty flag, blows the whistle and a false start is enforced.  The offense re-huddles.  When it re-sets at the line of scrimmage, meanwhile, the play formation itself does not change.  It consists of a moral agenda, so indicative of the Neocon religious movement which appears to have effectively infiltrated the Tea Party.  The two ideological cousins, the evangelicals and the Tea Party, seem to have fused into a new force which may be more appropriately described as the “Teavangelicals.”

The 2012 presidential election represents the actual play that will be run.  Will ordinary citizens allow the Teavangelicals to advance?  Or will the Teavangelicals be stuffed at the line, turned back and thrown for a loss?

(The third and final segment in this three part series contemplates the primary features of life among the ordinary following a Teavangelical victory in the 2012 presidential election.)

-Michael D’Angelo

Recent Currents: From the Tea Party to the 2012 Election (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series.)

With a de-regulated, sinking economy, hemorrhaging debt and spiraling downward toward depression, the ordinary citizen turned away from the Neocon movement in the election of 2008. In a cartoon analogy, it was as if the voters swooped in just in time to snatch the Neocons from a train racing toward the cliff’s edge. In its place President Barack Obama’s message of hope, a relief train, was embraced. Perhaps a bridge to the future did appear to look like a more promising alternative than the status quo...

Following its defeat in the election of 2008, the Republican Party has been engaged in the healthy process of re-examining and re-organizing its political priorities. Rescued from destruction and once safely upon the relief train, the Republican Party has had the opportunity --- the luxury in fact --- to sit down, relax and catch its breath. What it had just been through, and put the nation through, was indeed traumatic. Once the picture stopped spinning, there would be time for a shave, a shower, a hot meal and a beverage. It could re-group. It would thereafter claim a re-doubled effort on the elusive goal of smaller government. After all, this had been the stated goal at the inception of the Bush/“43” administration. In the meanwhile, previous efforts to ban abortion in the US would be abandoned.

Consequently, entering the 2010 Congressional midterm elections, the Republican Party was re-energized through its conservative base. The phenomenon of the Tea Party had been born. Beginning as a “headless” movement, not attached to either party, it quickly began to flex its new vocal cords, finding a home among conservative Republicans on the political stage. Its main platform seemed a familiar one in Republican Party circles going back at least several decades: to reduce the size of the federal government --- and curtail its involvement in the daily lives of ordinary citizens --- by shrinking its budget. The Tea Party cited effective examples of a federal government continuing to grow unchecked and out of control, among them the financial bail out of Wall Street and the newly enacted national health care law. And a stalled economy with a stubborn jobless rate persisted.

The message resonated. The 2010 midterm elections would serve as a backlash to President Obama, as they had similarly set back then-Presidents Reagan in 1982 and Clinton in 1994 before. Some say that this time it was as a direct result of the Tea Party. In one evening the Republican Party would re-capture the US House of Representatives in an election that just about put Republicans on equal footing with the president's party. The Republican Party would also re-claim a significant number of state governorships, important in positioning for the presidential election of 2012. Through its new ally, the Tea Party, the Republican Party had claimed another “mandate” to reduce the size of government.

In the summer of 2011 the Tea Party utilized its influence to effective end in the political imbroglio surrounding the raising of the nation’s federal debt ceiling. The timing, however, was interesting. History had reflected that Congress had previously raised the federal debt ceiling some 17 times during the Reagan presidency, 6 times during the Bush/“41” presidency, 4 times during the Clinton presidency, 7 times during the Bush/“43” presidency and 3 times during the Obama presidency. That’s a total of 37 times since 1980.

It was a high stakes game of political brinkmanship, the Tea Party using the threat of US government default as a political weapon. Treasury officials warned that the failure to act to raise the national debt ceiling, which the then-Reagan administration had claimed was a matter of “routine housekeeping,” would have calamitous consequences. Democrats even quoted Mr. Reagan’s words that the failure to act would result in consequences which were “impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate.”  Others, however, contradicted the conservative icon, expressing “no doubt that we will not lose the full faith and credit of the United States,” that the failure to act would presumably be of little consequence.

Tea Party advocates utilized what was described as a harsh, “cuts only” approach to negotiation, a necessary condition precedent before they would agree to raise the debt ceiling. In the process, and as President Obama pointed out, the Tea Party had flatly rejected a “balanced approach” which had been utilized previously by former Presidents Reagan, Bush/“41” and Clinton. This balanced approach featured a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, requiring the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions.  In fact, many of the leading Congressional Republicans who voted in favor of the Tea Party’s “cuts only” approach had also voted in favor of the previous spending binges of Mr. Obama’s Republican predecessors.

When a budget deal was finally hammered out, it was not without consequences. The nation’s credit rating had been downgraded by one of the major national credit rating agencies for the first time in US History.  As a result, financial markets both in the US and around the world continued to wobble.

In the aftermath of the Congressional battle, both sides were left bruised and exhausted. But President Obama was conciliatory and inclusive. “The reason I am so hopeful about our future --- the reason I have faith in these United States of America --- is because of the American people,” the president said. And although individual opinions can and do differ, the president identified what has always made America great, and distinguishes us from the others: “It’s because of their perseverance, and their courage, and their willingness to shoulder the burdens we face --- together, as one nation.”

(Next week's second segment tackles the provocative question: What does the Tea Party really want?)

-Michael D'Angelo

Distinguishing the Wheat from the Chaff

Is separating the wheat from the chaff as easy as it sounds?  How does the ordinary citizen tell the difference?  How do we try to make it real?  Compared to what? …

One of the more challenging and less talked about difficulties of human existence involves distinguishing what is real from that which only appears to be real.  Some use the old farmer’s cliché of separating the wheat from the chaff.  Perhaps it is easier on a farm.  In real life, for example, when the vices of greed and pride are presented or appear as virtue, it’s not so easy.  Beneath every truth and appearance there seemingly lies a measure of paradoxical opposite.  Although confounding at times, that which has one guessing keeps life interesting.

In my impressionable years, my father taught me many things I have not forgotten.  He was an insurance broker and had done quite well for himself, as far as I could determine, having raised five children with my traditional, stay at home mom.  Dad was a great speaker, not so great at changing a light bulb, however.

One day, dad was pontificating about the various traps and pitfalls which one must encounter on the way up the corporate ladder of success.  As one of my good friends likes to say, “Remember, the toes you're stepping on today could be attached to the ass you're kissing tomorrow.”

Anyway, my dad was starting to sound a bit frustrated, his passion catching my attention, and so I began to listen.  Sensing this, dad continued: “You know, Michael, when you get to the top, there’s only two things, basically, which you’ll find there: cream and human excrement (actually, he used a different word that began with “sh” and ends with “it”).  They both float to the top.  And, as incredible as it may seem to you, it’s exceedingly difficult sometimes to tell the difference between the two!”

At the time, given the folly of relative youth, I had no idea what he was talking about.  But, I remembered his words and learned later that dad had been right about this.  Such that today, in mid-life, I continue to find it amazing how smart my dad really was about certain things.  One of his strengths was that he could always seem to judge the character of people extremely well.

Perhaps, this was because dad was a salesman, who lived in a professional world not necessarily of “what was,” but rather, “what do you want it to be?”  In other words, his world was about image making or creative marketing.

For example, US History paints the mid-20^th century American Western man as being basic in his needs, fiercely independent, individualistic and self sustaining, without the need for (government) assistance.  The image was of John Wayne, the cowboy, and the Madison Avenue marketing creation of the “Marlboro Man.”

Some swear they are the sole torch bearers, the reality on which the hope of enlightened progress depends.  The gray suit, heavily starched white dress shirt figure of the White Anglo-Saxon Prostestant (WASP) male Ivy Leaguer fits that particular bill to a tee.  But can we count on it to be it real?

There are yet other people who walk the walk, talk the talk, and actually sound quite real and legitimate, except that they are fake through and through.  The pathological liar is the most egregious example.  They live in a nebulous world, their brain short curcuited from the ability to separate fact from fiction.  What sets them apart is one would swear they were telling the truth, even when it became certain that they were not.  There is no intention to deceive, but the message is clearly disconnected.

A terrific, concrete example of dad's metaphor in action came to America by way of the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas for the position of Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.  Thomas had been nominated for appointment by then-President Bush/“41” to succeed the celebrated Hon. Thurgood Marshall, holder of the so called “black, liberal seat.”

At Thomas’ US Senate confirmation hearing, things got strange.  A witness was put forth to testify in such a fashion as to discredit Thomas and thereby attempt to dissuade the Senate from voting in Thomas’ favor.  The witness, Anita Hill, was an attractive, educated black woman, who had initially been hired by Thomas in connection with his first federal job appointment.  Ms. Hill also worked under Thomas later at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where Thomas had headed up that agency as appointed by then-President Reagan.

Day after day the battle raged on during the confirmation hearings, which were broadcast via live television into the living rooms of ordinary citizens, who watched in fascination.  The public was mesmerized, one day by Thomas, the next day Hill, then Thomas again in a final rebuttal.  And it seemed all but impossible to tell who was telling the truth.  Perhaps we’ll never know for sure, the only certainty being that such is the way of the political process. 

Finally, distinguishing what is real from what is merely a facsimile was boiled down to its essence by Bill Parcells, the successful, former NFL head coach with two Super Bowl rings to his credit.  Coach Parcells lamented players who made excuses for poor or unacceptable performance.  Those players  typically attempted to rationalize their particular team’s slow start, for example, an 0-3 record out of the gate, with a proviso that the team really was “good” and would turn it around.  Coach Parcells would have none of it, however, formulating his standard response: “You are what your record is.”

For anyone who has played team sports, it is apparent that such a statement is unassailable.  Rarely in life does reality tend to be that black and white.

-Michael D’Angelo

The Face of Capitalism (Part Three)

(This is the concluding segment in a three part series. The first segment traced the economic system of capitalism to its birth during the administration of President George Washington and through the winding course of US history. The second segment discussed how the face of capitalism goes about the business of amassing wealth in present day America.)

What ever happened to Henry Ford’s simple but then radical idea to double the wages of his assembly line workers? After all, Ford reasoned correctly, it was the workers who would be buying the cars coming off the assembly line. They couldn’t buy the cars without money. Henry Ford seemed to know instinctively that his own success would be fleeting without the participation of the middle class...

Instead, today we have outsourcing. Outsourcing is but an example where human labor is viewed merely as a line item expense on an income statement. It seems to be all about the maximization of profit, nothing more. Everything is viewed as a commodity, including human beings. Why is the manufacturing base vital to the health and vitality of society? The main economic component, as well as the glue that binds our society together, is a job.

But when a business outsources, it unwittingly constructs a dependency which destroys individual initiative and self worth. Consider this as an unintended consequence. Think of the American Indians both before and after the arrival of the white man. We remove the buffalo herds. We remove their livelihood. We make it impossible to sustain themselves. We set up government agencies. The net result is lines of people waiting for basic subsistence. They wait for food, cooking materials and alcohol.

Ordinary citizens are essentially “kept” at a subsistence level, yet dependent on the power structures that would mean their destruction. Today, some call it a “Wal-Mart economy.” At about 30 hours per week, Wal-Mart wages place their workers below the poverty line. Together with an employment application, a would-be Wal-Mart worker is also provided an application for food stamps. The net result is the government subsidizing the Walton family fortune.

Others see outsourcing plainly as a “frightening window into the primacy of (monetary) profit over human dignity and human life.” And that’s just American human life. It does not address the particular horrors to human life on distant shores. Workers swelter through sweatshop conditions, the kind we had here during the Industrial Revolution, until Theodore Roosevelt weighed in on the side of the worker. T.R.’s example reminds us that human welfare comes before profit. But is that what drives the face of capitalism in America today?

Typically, the “exploitation of human beings is always accompanied by the exploitation of natural resources, without any thought given to sustainability.” In this model global warming is and will forever be a fiction, a liberal plot to thwart the legitimate aims of business. Will it remain this way until it is too late and the effects of global warming have become irreversible?

By definition and in practice, American capitalists idolize individual initiative as the holy grail. What they seem to miss is the vision of the founding fathers: the idea of individualism within the larger context of the commitment to a collective social identity, that we are all in this together. When individualism becomes extreme or indiscriminate, the net result is praise for leading citizens like Mr. Romney, the head capitalist. The face of capitalism is the hero among the hoarders of gold.

An “I built that without help” mentality. Even though very few build anything without a lot of help. Some may be able to borrow money from their parents, as the face of capitalism suggests if there are no better alternatives. But most ordinary citizens do not have that luxury. Selfish, proud of it and greedy. When a successful person says “Nobody helped me,” what they're really saying is “Don't expect me to do anything for anyone else.”

Presently we are a nation which needs many things. Among our national priorities, many would include the return of jobs to American shores to re-build the middle class and our manufacturing base. Many more would include paying down our federal debt through a balanced, sensible approach, combining tax increases and spending reductions.

This would necessarily include the reformation of our tax code to restructure and simplify rates and close loopholes so that all, including the wealthiest individuals and corporations, pay their fair share. Consider it a reformulation of the old Jesse James rule. When asked why he robbed banks, James said that’s where the money was.

But the larger question is: Who will lead us forward? Can we place our trust in the face of capitalism whose fortune derived through benefit from things that need fixing now?

-Michael D’Angelo

(Note: Portions of the second and third segments were written in reliance upon the following source material:

1. Drucker, Jesse, “Romney ‘I Dig It’ Trust Gives Heirs Triple Benefit,” Bloomberg.com, September 27, 2012;

2. Ford, Henry, “When Capitalists Cared,” New York Times opinion section, September 3, 2012;

3. Moyers, Bill, “Capitalism’s Sacrifice Zones,” interview with Chris Hedges, July 24, 2012).

The Face of Capitalism (Part Two)

(This is the second segment in a three part series. The first segment traced the economic system of capitalism to its birth during the administration of President George Washington and through the winding course of US history.)

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, projects the face of capitalism. As such, his face has become a lightning rod. It's not personal. It's strictly business...

What is it that ordinary citizens rather like about Mitt Romney’s face, the smiling face of capitalism? What is it that we do not like about his face, when it frowns, or the smile seems more unfriendly, or contrived? It depends on how we value certain matters of importance, how we set and follow our priorities.

Based on ample historical precedent, the sometimes questionable business practices behind the face of capitalism may be assumed. But will that same face still seem so very desirable behind a mahogany desk as the chief executive officer of the land?

The US brand of capitalism is particularly unique, the individual path to success extraordinarily difficult to navigate. Although America is a land of opportunity, there is masked peril seemingly behind every rock. One must be a maestro on several dimensional planes. It is not enough merely to master a particular business niche or technological innovation. History is replete with examples of brilliant inventors who were business failures. More is required. One must adopt the changing form of a chameleon: “Who do you want me to be?”

Today the face of capitalism uses a variety of economic tools at its disposal. First and foremost, the face takes advantage of a system where there is one set of rules for the moneyed class, and another set of rules for those who are not moneyed. With the playing field tilted, fairness and equal protection, the kind the constitution is supposed to guarantee, are put into serious question. Is that what Thomas Jefferson seemed to be complaining about way back when?

Financial gain is privatized, while loss is socialized.  Reward is doled out to individuals privately.  But risk is spread out socially among the masses. The corruptive influence of money naturally extends to its influence over lawmakers.

Let’s return to the example of candidate Romney. The goal of his successful company was to buy stakes in undervalued companies and then in his own words “harvest them at a significant profit” years later. American jobs were eliminated en masse and outsourced to foreign shores.

Certainly this is legal – and beneficial. And it hardly breaks new ground. The idea that a country should outsource a particular service or commodity to another country which does the job cheaper and better traces to Scottish economist, Adam Smith, and his iconic book, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. This is how business efficiencies are created, and out-of-whack balances restored.

The face of capitalism takes rightful advantage of the law of contracts, the US legal system and its global military strength, to earn individual profit and then protect it from plundering. But then the face uses the US tax code which has been favorably tweaked by the unnatural alliance (of politics and corporations to enthrone privilege) to shelter its fully ingested meal from taxation.

Some is placed in Swiss bank accounts, some in places like the Cayman Islands, neither within the reach of American law. Through use of generation skipping trusts, the face avoids gift and estate taxation altogether as it passes the money safely down through the generations, controlling wealth from beyond the grave. The digestion process is complete. With a full belly, the face can now settle in for a good long nap on the couch.

The face of capitalism recently released its 2011 tax return, which reflected $20 million in “unearned income on investments” with a taxable rate of about 14%. This is a lower effective rate than an ordinary citizen earning a pedestrian salary of $50,000 per year. Does the face pay a fair share? Or is it just effectively writing off 47% of ordinary Americans as dependents?  Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican in another time, would have recognized a textbook case in successful dishonesty and undertaken appropriate remedial measures.  But T.R. no longer commands Republicans.

Since at least the time of President Reagan, the face has argued that lower taxes on high individual wage earners is “fair” as a driver of additional investment and job creation. But the facts as revealed in the monthly employment numbers consistently fail to support the argument. The one important factor which these so called pro-business policies do bear out decisively is a growing disparity in wealth between the rich and poor. Society’s unrest naturally follows.

(The third and final segment ventures from the shared success of Henry Ford with his assembly line worker to the dark side of outsourcing and the Walmart model of individual economic dependency for displaced American labor.)

-Michael D'Angelo

The Face of Capitalism (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series.)

A certain group of citizens tends to confuse and disregard the basic principle that capitalism is an economic system.  It is not a form of government.

We begin by straightening out some facts and establishing some definitions.  In 1776 we declared our independence from Great Britain and established a large scale experiment in republican democracy.  We are a nation of laws by elected representatives.  By 1789, with the experiment at serious risk of failure and to preserve internal political stability, we held a constitutional convention.  With a perfect record of attendance by the founding fathers, we ditched our first constitution in favor of our second and present one.  It was a significant but bloodless revolution.

The form of government having been decided, George Washington was elected our first president.  This was at a happier time pre-dating politicians, partisanship and political parties.  President Washington had many important decisions to make, precedents to set, not the least of which was to decide upon a preferred economic system.  His troubles started with the knowledge that the new constitution did not espouse a particular economic theory.  In fact, the constitution said nothing at all about an economic system nor mentioned the word "bank."

To help get things moving, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, proposed a system of capitalism based on the highly successful model of the British mother country.  But Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, objected.  He was sure that Hamilton’s proposed system flowed from principles adverse to liberty.  By creating an influence of his department over members of the legislature, Hamilton’s system was calculated by Jefferson to undermine and demolish the republic.  This was a most serious charge, a difference of opinion which also pointed to the birth of political parties.

President Washington sided with Hamilton, reasoning soundly that his plan would provide the greatest good for the greatest number.  Following the Civil War, the forces of capitalism coupled with the onset of the Industrial Revolution enabled our economy to take off.  By the time 1900 rolled around, our manufacturing capacity enabled us to become the #1 economic power in the world.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Capitalism puts money to work for specific, profit oriented ventures.  Through use of corporations, money can be amassed and concentrated quickly and efficiently under one roof.  Typically, investors’ downside is limited to the amount of their investment.

The early capitalists of that era featured names like Rockefeller in the oil business, Morgan in banking, Carnegie in steel, and Vanderbilt in railroads.  They were firm believers in a free, unregulated market promoted by competition.  A new consumer class was created and became a thriving force in the industrial economy.  Its name was the middle class, a new term in the vocabulary of ordinary citizens.

With the incentive to reap great profits, the leading men consolidated operations, streamlined the various systems of production, eliminated redundancies and maximized efficiencies.  While consolidation permitted them to control their industries, a primary goal was still to give the customer the best product at the lowest price.

While capitalists were champions of competition, ironically, their goal was to eliminate competition.  Specifically, they sought to accomplish this by creating and then maintaining a hierarchy with themselves at the top.  This highlighted one of capitalism’s main criticisms.  If left to its own devices, capitalism will by definition concentrate wealth into the hands of a very few.

Many had arrived at the top through superior intellect or other legitimate means.  But some used questionable or even illegal business practices.  Bribes, kickbacks and other monopolistic trade practices were all utilized to destroy competitors.  Human labor was exploited as no more than an expense item on an income statement. Stewardship of the environmental was disregarded. Short term gain trumped any long term considerations.  For this reason these early capitalists were sometimes referred to disparagingly as robber barons.

They used their vast financial resources in an unnatural alliance with the elected representatives of government to cement their place at the top.  In a final assault on equality of opportunity for all citizens, they enthroned their privilege through favorable manipulation of the laws of taxation and inheritance.  And the rout was on over the ensuing generations.

Theodore Roosevelt tried his hand at reforming this growing wealth disparity through various innovations of government.  But it wasn’t until after the 1929 Great Depression and the 1932 election of his distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, that we learned the hard lesson that capitalism needed meaningful  regulation by the government of its creation.

That government was not simply to be about condoning an economic system of capitalism and the gamesmanship that went along.  It was also about helping its citizens, especially in time of need.  In providing a social safety net, it was about restoring our faith in capitalism by making it seem more humane.

Since those dark economic times, we have ebbed and flowed, debated both in theory and practice through our national political parties the extent to which capitalism should be regulated.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008, Democrats under President Barack Obama favor sensible regulation as the last defense against unbridled individual greed.  Republicans favor less regulation as the most efficient means of achieving the American Dream.  Democrats see government and business working in partnership for the common good.  Republicans see government, especially more government, as the enemy of business and individual initiative.

(Next week’s second segment discusses how the face of capitalism goes about the business of amassing wealth in present day America.)

-Michael D'Angelo

The Man in the Arena (Part Three)

(This is the third and final segment in this series.  The previous segments (Part One and Part Two) documented the advantages of flying under the radar. But sometimes, flying under the radar just doesn't fly.  More is necessary.  A different approach may be required.)

Are there advantages to being in the arena, as opposed to flying under the radar?  How effectively can light be projected from under a bush?

Despite the apparent advantages of flying under the radar, it is not without valid criticism, mainly highlighted by the old adage that “talk is cheap.”  Anyone can talk, but doing is the hard part.  In truth, there is something most favorable to infer from the image of the gladiator in the ring, as opposed to the spectator on the sidelines.  As Theodore Roosevelt reminds us:

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

T.R.’s famous Man in the Arena quote was meant as an attack on skeptics “of lettered leisure” who, cloistered together in academia, “sneered” at anyone who tried to make the real world better.

And then there is the following quote from Christ, which appears in the Holy Gospel of Matthew:

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works … 

It’s both easy and convenient to sit back and criticize, rather than take action.  This is because human nature is such that ordinary people are naturally averse to change.  Change involves the unknown, which generates the fear response in human nature.  It follows logically, then, that the unknown is feared.  It also follows that certain individuals have figured out that ordinary citizens can be controlled en masse simply through use of scare tactics.

This phenomenon helps to explain, in part, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous quote, during the very depths of the Great Depression of the early 1930s:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

F.D.R. was speaking of the Great Depression, and its effect on the morale of ordinary Americans.  He was saying, essentially, that if the mass of ordinary citizens could not shake out of their pessimistic economic outlook, then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to turn things around.  In the election that brought F.D.R. to the presidency, his adversary had campaigned on a platform which called for no change from the status quo.  This despite economic conditions that had brought record and, in fact, staggering national unemployment numbers, hunger and bread lines.

More recently, former President George W. Bush/“43” seemed to deftly transform the tragic events of September 11, 2001 (“9/11”) into a successful politics of fear campaign.  Many have said that his successful exploitation of this particular vice of human nature assured his re-election to a second term.  National security was said to be at risk.  Whether it was or was not involves another discussion.

But, consequently, many of the personal freedoms to which ordinary citizens had become accustomed, including the right to free speech, were curtailed, under the provisions of the Patriot Act.  While there is ample legal precedent for this in US History, President Bush reduced that precedent to an art form, deploying the familiar “Listen to me, or we’re all doomed” politics of fear rhetoric.

Here is seemingly yet another useful lesson in the science of human nature.  Staying the course, and avoiding change, even at seemingly exorbitant cost, is the easier and preferred method.  Human beings are imitative creatures of habit, by nature, comfortable with the routine they know.  Life outside the box (of accepted knowledge or practice), so to speak, is unsettling, even troubling.  Content with the world they know, most ordinary citizens rarely challenge themselves even with minimal risk, perceived to be inordinate and thus unacceptable.

We've all heard the familiar expression that “the devil is in the details.”  Implementing change involves many details that involve experiment and thus can be worked out neither in advance nor easily.  Absent some precedent that provides a known comfort level that ordinary citizens can latch on to, the devil we know typically is preferable to the devil we don’t.  This helps to explain why many ordinary citizens will decline the prospect of a new job.  Even though the potential reward may be greater, the details are unclear, and the risk of the unknown is consequently too great and therefore unacceptable.

Put another way, if you want something you’ve never had before, you have to do something you’ve never done before.  But which is the better approach: flying under the radar or being the man in the arena?  The debate remains an interesting one on the path to human progress.

-Michael D'Angelo

Flying Under the Radar (Part Two)

(Note: This is the second segment in a three part series. The first segment discussed the first of two distinctly different approaches to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, it is most prudent to fly under the radar.  Robert E. Lee, if not the greatest military general in US History, then certainly one of the most admired and revered heroes of Southern lore, is a primary example.)

U.S. Grant presents another interesting, yet entirely different, flying under the radar story.  The eventual head of all Union armies during the Civil War, Grant’s name is linked for eternity in military terms with his adversary, Lee.  For one thing, he looked more like a common foot soldier, rather than the man who at the Civil War’s end had grown to become the most trusted Northern man in the Southern Confederacy.  But, Grant did not receive the title until a series of Northern generals had failed miserably before him.

U.S. Grant’s background had also included graduation from West Point, but, unlike Lee, he was no better than an average student in the classroom.  He was an uncomplicated man from humble beginnings in small town Ohio, with a pleasant and straight forward disposition and a plain writing style to match.  His most noteworthy talent during his school days was a legendary proficiency in the handling of horses.  Even the most rambunctious, wild and stubbornly resistant to authority were brought to him and in short order these horses were broken and became obedient.  Grant consistently demonstrated the uncanny ability to become seamless with the four legged equine.  This would serve him well in his ensuing military career.

U.S. Grant’s journey to greatness, however, was neither direct nor without controversy.  After graduation from West Point, he was stationed in the West Coast territory above the new state of California, lonely and separated from his wife and family.  Bored and despairing, he began to drink more than what was good for him, and it began to affect his performance.  Having reached the degree of Captain, his commanding officer had then found him inebriated during a visit to the outpost.  The consummate military man, Grant’s commanding officer gave Grant a choice.  Grant could either resign the military without further inquiry into his conduct or face a damaging military court martial trial, during which all of the dirty laundry would be aired in public.  Grant abruptly chose to resign without giving reason, but the involvement of alcohol was confirmed.  Years later, Grant stated that “the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign.”

Returning home to Illinois, a subsequent attempt at farming failed.  When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Grant was broke and destitute, found peddling firewood on a street corner in St. Louis.  To say that he was flying under the radar at that point would be a gross understatement.  Nevertheless, a premium was placed on men who had officer’s training and experience, which fortunately Grant had, thus enabling him to re-enlist and entertain a command.

In 1863 President Lincoln summoned Gen. Grant to Washington, D.C. to attend the official ceremony, commemorating Grant’s appointment to the rank of Major General.  The ceremony truly was a big deal, since it marked the first such appointment, since Gen. George Washington ascension to the same rank generations before.

Grant traveled to the nation’s capital with typical understatement, in the company of his 13-year-old son.  A welcoming committee to meet the train and escort him to his hotel failed to materialize.  He was inconspicuous and unrecognized, most of his uniform hidden by mud and travel stains.  When the pair entered the hotel, the desk clerk, bored and accustomed to dealing with the capital city’s most distinguished guests, saw no one in particular.  The clerk suggested there might be a small room, if agreeable.  Grant politely accepted and signed the register.

However, when the clerk twirled the book around and saw the name, “U.S. Grant and son, Galena, Illinois,” suddenly everything clicked.  Recognizing the magnitude of his error, the stunned clerk was transformed into a model of hospitality.  The previously offered small room was forgotten, and instead the clerk suggested the best suite in the hotel, where President Lincoln had stayed the week before his inauguration.  Grant accepted the change without comment, not wanting to call attention to himself.  As he saw it, any room would do.  He was flying under the radar.

To be sure,

Not a sign about him suggested rank or reputation or power.  He discussed the most ordinary themes with apparent interest, and turned from them in the same quiet tones, and without a shade of difference in his manner, to decisions that involved the fate of armies, as if great things and small were to him of equal moment.  In battle, the sphinx awoke.  The outward calm was even then not entirely broken; but the utterance was prompt, the ideas were rapid, the judgment was decisive, the words were those of command.  The whole man became intense, as it were, with a white heat.

Grant’s rather ordinary, pedestrian disposition provided the perfect cover from which to fly under the radar.

One of the enduring legacies of U.S. Grant, his rightful place as the face on the $50 bill aside, is the trust and respect, if not the love, which the South had developed for him.  These accolades were earned largely on account of his having given Gen. Lee “honorable terms” of surrender at Appomattox.  They were also largely responsible for his accession to his place as the nation’s 18th president during the turbulent era of Reconstruction following the Civil War.

More than any other single factor, perhaps, the presidential administration of U.S. Grant set a more constructive, flying under the radar tone for Reconstruction, which could have been  much bloodier than it already figured to be.

(The third and concluding segment identifies the contrasting second approach to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress.  Sometimes, flying under the radar just doesn’t fly.  More is necessary.  The shirt sleeves must be rolled up tightly.  A man must stoop down into the mud and get dirty.  There is no better way.  He must enter the arena…)

-Michael D'Angelo

Flying Under the Radar (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series.  There are seemingly two distinctly different approaches to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress.  This segment identifies and discusses the first of these approaches.)

Is there any appreciable benefit to flying under the radar?  What is the enduring message to be taken from the life of Civil War General Robert E. Lee?  For whom did General Lee reserve his greatest reverence?  And why?

I’ve heard it time and again.  Friends routinely lament my very existence (or so it seems) in a rant that goes something like this: “What is it with you?  You live right in amongst us.  You’re accessible most of the time.  You show up at enough social events to conclude that you’re still alive and in the loop.  Yet no one truly knows what you’re doing.”  In fact, even while in the course of writing this, a colleague called and left the following voice message, which I will paraphrase for convenience: “You have a new nickname: ‘The Phantom,’ who is mysterious, who comes and goes.”

“That’s because I fly under the radar,” I respond glibly.  But what does it mean?  Why is it important to fly under the radar?

In a commercial setting, radar is a device typically used to locate and map the direction of airplanes, travelling in different directions or flight paths and at different speeds and altitudes.  This facilitates safe, efficient civilian air travel.

But, consider the concept of radar in its more ominous, military application.  The radar operator uses the device to locate and lock on a target, typically an enemy plane, to deliver information to a weapons system designed to bring the plane down.  These days, the weapons system is guided by radar actually affixed to the weapon.  During the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, military briefers reveled in public briefings to display the devastatingly accurate effect of radar guided bombs on their intended military targets.

So, if one flies under the radar, as the expression goes, one may go about the business of daily, ordinary life with fewer distractions and minimal detection.  This enables sharper focus with corresponding productivity gains and a higher quality of life.

Another way to minimize the glare of the spotlight in one’s life is to keep it simple, or, if it is overly complicated, to learn to simplify.  US History is replete with examples of exceptional men who had begun their lives as merely ordinary men, flying under the radar and keeping it simple.  But, due to a sudden change of circumstances beyond their control, these men would become forever immortalized by historians, academics, as well as ordinary citizens, thereafter.

A primary example is Robert E. Lee, if not the greatest military general in US History, then certainly one of the most admired and revered heroes of Southern fame, to this day.  Robert E. Lee was a Virginia native, a top student at West Point, a born leader by all accounts -  tall, handsome, spirited, yet reserved in many ways, and honorable to a fault.  In a letter to his son in 1860, a copy of which Mattie Truman also gave to her son, Harry, on his 10^th birthday in 1894, Lee counseled:

You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage.  Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right.  …  Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice.  Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy that wears best.  Above all do not appear to others what you are not.

Few will recall that the lasting message of Gen. Lee was not his legendary generalship against great numbers in numerous acts of courage on the battlefield.  Rather, the enduring message of Robert E. Lee was the way in which he handled defeat.  Perhaps you could say that Gen. Lee’s message has flown under the radar.  The issues which had brought on military hostilities could not be solved politically.  Consequently, they were submitted to the battlefield, and then resolved on the side of the Union.

Gen. Lee was aware of the script that had to follow.  On that fateful day in April 1865, Lee agreed to a meeting with Gen. U.S. Grant at Appomattox to negotiate the terms of surrender, like the gentlemen that he was.  He accepted his fate and the fate of his fiercely loyal troops, put down his sword and returned to peaceful civilian life.

But what would Lee do, now as a former general?  After declining several more lucrative financial opportunities, he finally settled on what he felt was an appropriate position which would permit him to fly under the radar in a new civilian role.  He agreed to accept the presidency of Washington College, a small, Southern school located in rural Virginia (better known today as Washington and Lee University).  Lee understood the implications of his enormous influence as a role model to his devoted people that they, likewise, must bury the ax and carry on peacefully.

But perhaps it is best for the ordinary citizen to appreciate that his greatest reverence was reserved for the common foot soldier, infantryman (or GI, standing for government infantry, as these soldiers are called today).  According to Lee, these soldiers did what they were ordered to do without complaint, without question, and without regard for what might be in it for them.  Lee’s men would perform any act; endure virtually any hardship, of which there were many, if Lee would only say the word.  Fight hard and spirited, endure incredible deprivation, and usually prevail in battle against the overwhelming material and numerical superiority of the North.  This would be proven time and again.  His common foot soldiers were totally selfless, according to Lee, who took care of his men.  Not flashy, perhaps, nor even newsworthy, they flew under the radar.  But, Lee loved his men, and they loved him.  So, they performed for him.

(Next week’s second segment in this three part series on the approach to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress continues through the story of Lee's military counterpart, U.S. Grant.  Grant and Lee were very different men in appearance.  Yet despite their differences they shared common traits which underscored both their popularity and success...)

-Michael D'Angelo