The Current Debt Crisis--What a Statesman Would Do

I don’t claim to be an expert on the current debt ceiling debate raging in the beltway and now being felt around the world. It is not unlike a hurricane that is brewing off shore with the possibility that a last minute change may spell disaster or relief, depending on several factors, including the unpredictability of chaos. What I do know is that the debt storm brewing, unlike a real hurricane, was man made. It therefore can be unmade. If it had a beginning, it will have an end. One can argue all day about who created it, when it was created, how to change it, or it’s final impact. All those questions, although interesting, won’t change the fact that the winds are starting to pick up outside and those winds are just the precursor of what might be a great storm that devastates many.

The discussions of some in Congress with the weight of rhetoric and ideology are not methods or tools of change, they are the gravitational centers of a polemic mass. They are not helpful as tools of compromise, but are the flags of politicians looking for the votes of the populous or the chance to make a foe look bad regardless of consequence. Populism is great if it is educated. An educated populous should, however, embrace change and the notion that stress and crisis are necessary for growth. You can paint yourself into a corner very quickly with the brush of ideology. When you are drawing lines, you ought look at what’s behind you.

Good decisions are not made for the masses when extreme polarity is at play. This is especially true when the environment is ever changing. When trying to solve an issue, you need to have as many options available as possible so you are not limited lest you cause the brewing storm to cause more damage.

When 9/11 occurred it was unexpected. There were perhaps signs, but the manner and way it occurred was unexpected. It caused overwhelming pain and destruction. Families and individuals were ripped apart in ways that will never completely heal. It also initially caused financial upheaval. The turmoil was unplanned, unnecessary and unwanted by rational human beings. One of the goals of the terrorists who planned and carried out the plot was to hurt us at our financial center or core. They failed. The economy was strong enough to take the impact and a taller building is rising. Though that storm was unplanned, we survived and rebuilt.

Now, ten years later, a financial storm of perhaps greater proportion may soon befall us if elected men and women do not step forward as statesmen, put aside politics and forego the stale and corrupt immovability of polemic ideology. Is it not ironic that this storm is our own creation? No one else caused this but ourselves. We will be responsible for the damage. Did we not elect the officials that are making the decisions? We apparently like the reality we created. We elect and we watch. It’s like Rome in a coliseum. The problem is, however, we will be the ones that get hurt. We are both the gladiator and the slave.

The other fascinating point is that we have been here before. Debt as a percentage of GDP has been higher in the United States. World War II saw higher debt when compared with GDP. However, the stakes now feel higher. For over a 140 years the United States has been the world’s biggest economy and has made the rules for the rest of the world when it comes to commerce. The rest of the world knows this. China knows this. Maybe we are tired of being number one. Being number one has advantages but so does being number two. Perhaps it is less stressful. Perhaps we want to draft off others in the future as they have done. That debate will inevitably arise more focused as China’s economy gains momentum and influence, and possibly overtakes the US in about 20 years. For now, we have a storm to attend to in D.C.

What is needed are people brave enough to see the future as one of possibility and growth. The keys or tools to solve the problem are also the keys of opportunity. These tools to work solutions are relatively simple but it will take calm and self disciplined people to either change course or prepare for the impact. I hope they start soon if they have not already. It may even storm for a while so remaining calm is even more necessary.

Here are some ideas: Place the leaders of the various factions into small groups. Put opposites in the same room. Bring in facilitators, mediators or peacemakers if necessary. Allow these many smaller groups to handle just one of the issues each. Allow them to hear each others positions informally and to actively listen i.e. “What I hear you saying is you don’t want to have to pay for something unless you can afford it.” “What you want is for people to have a job at a company that is not over taxed so it can hire.” etc. These small groups will hopefully build new personal relationships. Let them come up with creative solutions. People are real when they are one on one. They are not when they are 60 vs 225 vs 210 vs 100.

Next idea: Sometimes you have to sacrifice to finish a deal. Sometimes you have to make concessions to make a deal work. It is not perfect, but at least it allows for there to be momentum. If one side gives a little then perhaps the other side will as well. What’s the alternative? Civil discord or perhaps worse. Politics is by it’s nature a short term project. It yields little long term gain. It is thunder without the rain. Statesmanship, on the other hand, is long term and forward thinking. It knows, for the good of others, tough decisions are made for the future. It does not seek to gain another majority in a few months or to create more argument to justify itself. A fool speaks without meaning. A statesman speaks with authenticity and heart. In the next election perhaps we ought to elect statesmen, not fools. One of our best thinkers, Benjamin Franklin, offered this advise to his fellow statesmen on compromise: Be willing to sacrifice, not your principals, but your overwhelming urge to be right. It’s a republic if we can keep it.

Trust, open options, future looking, and the ability to concede when necessary to continue are the keys to the dilemma we face. The deal will not be done by having separate press conferences or by signing a pledge. It’s “We the People.” Just because you can tie yourself up, should you? What if you need those hands because an unexpected fire starts and you need to pour water on it? The deal will be done by true gentlemen and gentlewomen of intellect and heart placed in small groups across small tables. They will needs their hands in order to shake the hands of each other when the deal is finally done.

By the way, I have a new website at: www.intermountainmediationcenter.com
where you can view additional information about what I currently do.

THE LOST CONTINENT OF ATLANTIS AND THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD

I have a prediction.  This will not be my last post unless in the outside chance Harold Camping is correct about May 21, 2011, 4pm eastern time to be exact.  Reality has a way of doing it's own thing. For many, it gets in the way.  I suppose the rapture performs a necessary escape for those that want a simple answer.  The world has become too complicated for them and so a magic man is going to come and make it all better.  That will show the other several billion of us or so!  I'm sure they won't have an "I told you so" or, "you should have listened to me" attitude when they reach heaven.  Or will they?  The rest of us will be stuck here on earth trying to work out all the devastation and havoc that judgment day has brought.  Escaping it would be nice but some of us will be left cleaning up the mess.  So what if Mr. Camping is wrong?  Well that's okay because we have 2012 and it's right around the corner. What if 2012 comes and goes, what then?  
 
I have a tendency to listen, actually eavesdrop, on random people that I find along the way.  The other day I was in a Cambridge bookstore and overheard a man who was clearly articulate with above average intelligence explain to the patient bookstore owner that he saw remnants of the Atlantian civilization all up and down Massachusetts Avenue and that somehow MIT was involved and it, along with the military industrial complex, knew all about this. Moreover, in the very store I was standing in was an actual relic from that former advanced civilization. It was a collage "dare he say" that was on the wall that had a distinct Atlantian metal bracket as part of the piece of art.  When the owner pointed out that a friend of his had made the art piece and had given it to him as a gift the Atlantian expert asked whether his friend had any particular knowledge as to where that metal piece came from?  The truth is a sticky wicket. It's hard to identify especially when you are less than 100 percent sure. You see, if what you are espousing is less than 100% truth it is technically not true. You can say it is and perhaps many will believe you and it may even make you feel better but it is only a theory or road sign pointing you hopefully in the right direction. I guess we will never really know the truth about that bracket and whether MIT is using that bestowed technology from Atlantis for good or evil.
 
 
Before headlining a GOP fundraiser, the Tea Party darling and possible Republican Party candidate for U.S. President, Michele Bachmann, told a group of students and conservative activists in Manchester, New Hampshire, "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."  My ancestors who fought on both sides of that war were apparently wrong when they thought that those shots were fired in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.  It's probably just me, but isn't it ironic that the Tea Party has a name that goes back to the Revolution and that its main spokesperson doesn't have a clue that Lexington Green is where the shot rang out in 1775?  Most of us would say the man in the bookstore was mentally ill or delusional.  But why?  He believed what he was saying was true.  Doesn't Mr. Camping and Michele Bachmann also believe in what they are saying? Does the truth even matter anymore? What is one to do?  
 
So here is my prediction:  I, and about 7 billion of you will be left here on this blue planet tomorrow. We will still be surrounded with war, poverty, famine, earthquakes, floods, global warming, opportunists, the naive and gullible, naysayers, scientists, skeptics, dictators, followers, con artists, peacemakers, the pure in heart, dreamers, optimists, philosophers, the weak, the afflicted, the powerful, the haves and the have nots, etc., etc., etc.  
 
So what are we to do then? Here is a thought:  Pretend God is coming and let's clean up the place so she enjoys her visit. If God doesn't show up at least your children and grandchildren will be happy you left something for them that you cared about, respected and didn't waste. Another thought:  What if we showed God, the universe, or your big toe that this creation didn't all have to go to hell and that we decided just to have heaven on earth?  Seems more logical to me in the long run.  
 
 

Henry Vane and Gene Sharp Welcome You To Boston

I decided to spend the day with my son Stuart, who is attending Berklee College of Music, at the Boston Public Library. The Boston Public Library opened its doors in 1848 and was the first large library opened to the public in the United States, and the first to allow people to borrow books and other materials and take them home to read and use. With over 30 million different books and A/V materials, that is a great deal of trust put into the public.

When you walk through the giant doors of the library off of Copley Square you first walk into a smaller corridor. To the left is a bronze statue of a Puritan looking man. I have visited this library a few times before but never had I stopped to read the the name on the inscription of the bronze statue. This time as I walked in, I was stopped by a young middle-eastern man who had a small digital camera who wanted his picture taken standing next to the bronze statue. After a brief moment, the picture was taken and he was on his way. I walked over to the statue and read that it was that Sir Henry Vane (Harry Vane) (born 1613– beheaded in 1662), an English statesman, who was also briefly present in North America, serving as a one term Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I went upstairs to the great hall where all of the oak desks and green lamps are found and began to research Henry Vane. I learned he also helped create Roger Williams' Rhode Island Colony and Harvard College. But more importantly, he was a tremendous proponent of religious tolerance, and the inherent rights of man. After a prolific career as a statesman who spoke without hesitation regarding freedom, he was ultimately beheaded by Charles II for treason. The King didn't like his politics as it undermined his power.

Here are some of the words of Henry Vane:

"The power which is directive, and states and ascertains the morality of the rule of obedience, is in the hand of God; but the original, from whence all just power arises, which is magistratical and co-ercitive, is from the will or free gift of the people, who may either keep the power in themselves or give up their subjection and will in the hand of another." King and people were bound by "the fundamental constitution or compact", which if the king violated, the people might return to their original right and freedom.

Sean Gabb, a British libertarian, notes that Vane was in the vanguard on issues of religious freedom. Although he was "among a small and easily defeated minority", his successors 150 years later "were responsible for the clearest and most solid safeguards of civil and religious freedom ever adopted into a constitution."

James Kendall Hosmer, editing Winthrop's Journal in 1908, wrote of Vane that "...his heroic life and death, his services to Anglo-Saxon freedom, which make him a significant figure even to the present moment, may well be regarded as the most illustrious character who touches early New England history. While his personal contact with America was only for a brief space, his life became a strenuous upholding of American ideas: if government of, by, and for the people is the principle which English-speaking men feel especially bound to maintain, the life and death of Vane contributed powerfully to cause this idea to prevail."

The last several years have brought much change to the world. Technology has provided tools that can connect me instantaneously to someone thousands of miles away. Information is powerful. A power that even a King or a dictator cannot always fully control try as they may. Information creates a leveling effect.

I received an email from Dorit Cypis. A great woman who is the head of the Middle East Initiative for Mediators Beyond Borders to which I belong. At the very moment I was immersing myself in Henry Vane at the Boston Public Library she had sent me an email concerning Gene Sharp that she entitled "Dictatorship to Revolution--the text behind the current social uprisings." What was attached to Dorit's email was one of Gene Sharp's 90 page booklets entitled "From Dictatorship to Democracy--A Conceptual Framework for Liberation" I had recently heard of a Gene Sharp from and article written in the New York Times. It described him as being a shy, thoughtful, elderly man who was one of the primary information providers to the recent populist uprisings, not only in Egypt, but in other countries as well. He has been writing his thoughts for several decades. Amazingly, he is not a big user of the internet nor social media. But when thoughts are as powerful as his, they have a way of of finding and flowing into the river of change. His contribution, like that of Vane has too been a strenuous upholding of democratic ideas: that government of, by, and for the people is the principle which men feel especially bound to maintain. His life has contributed powerfully to cause this idea to prevail all over the world. He lives and writes in Boston.

After the recent events in Egypt that we all watched unfold on CNN one might expect that we could all just simply move onto the next world event as if a box had been checked and Egypt had completed its' revolutionary to do list task. Gene Sharp, in his writings is quick to warn that, "Nor should this analysis be interpreted to mean that when a specific dictatorship is ended, all other problems will also disappear. The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic, and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression. It is my hope that this brief examination of how a dictatorship can be disintegrated may be found useful wherever people live under domination and desire to be free."

So now comes the hard work and long efforts. Revolution is not an event but a process, a process that if done correctly continues on and on in the hearts and minds of those who see a better way. May Henry Vane and Gene Sharp welcome you to Boston and to the idea that all people are inherently free and that government exists of, by, and for the people.