Jay's Soapbox
You Can’t Go Home Again... But You Can Visit For The Weekend
If you’re expecting a political rant this week, I’ve decided to take a break. Not for lack of topics, mind you, but because it is not politics that is on my mind. I’ve been thinking about college.
This past weekend, I took advantage of Labor Day to jet off to Vermont. It’s not the easiest trip to make, even by plane, from Texas, but more than worth it. I graduated from Middlebury College and had only managed to make it back a few times since I left in 1994. Even better, it was an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen in a decade. It had all the advantages of a college reunion, without the tedium of pretending to remember people you’d long forgotten.
I did my share of partying in college, but more often than not on a weekend night I was to be found in Munroe Hall, room 407, pretending to be someone else, on some sort of mad mission. I was one of
those. A role-player. A Dungeons & Dragons devotee. I make no apologies, and will admit that I still play, even if not every weekend. The people I was getting together with last weekend were my fellow crazies.
There is always a danger to these kinds of reunions. To state the obvious, people change over a decade. A lot. I took it for granted that my friends would not be the same people that I knew in the early ‘90s, but would they have changed so much that I wouldn’t like them anymore? Not likely, but a risk, to be sure. We had scattered from one end of the country to the other, from Zsolt, who stayed in Middlebury, to Jon, who came from Lake Tahoe, and we had taken jobs ranging from I.T. to leading a synagogue. We had become husbands, fathers. Would rolling dice and slaying monsters until the wee hours of the morning be as fun as it used to?
On that count, I needn’t have worried. It was amazing to me how quickly we fell back into old, familiar roles. And that was comforting. It was if no time had passed at all, really. We had changed—hell, even the rules of Dungeons & Dragons had changed—but the things that made me want to fly halfway across the country to spend time with these people hadn’t changed: the jokes, the shorthand, the alliances, the rivalries.
It was not the people that disappointed me, but rather my alma mater. A group of us took advantage of a sunny, pleasant Vermont summer day to walk around the campus of Middlebury College. I was surprised, not necessarily pleasantly, by all the changes on campus since I had last been there in 2000.
My wife and I recently had a debate about the most beautiful college campus. My wife, who lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for a year argued heavily for UNC-Chapel Hill. For me, it will always be Middlebury College, but the building boom of the last few years have not added to its beauty. For me, the best thing was to wake up and be able to see the Green Mountains from my dorm room, or anywhere on campus. Unfortunately, those sight lines have been spoiled and the campus is beginning to have a cramped and “busy” feel.
Ah well. Life moves on and people, and institutions, have to continue to change and grow. You can’t go home again. But sometimes you can visit for the weekend.
First, some house-keeping: if you would like to discuss the issues raised in this or any of the Soapbox columns, past and future, I have started a discussion thread over at Delphi Forums. Delphi Forums members can go to the forum titled “Liberal Oasis” and the folder in that forum titled “Liberal/Conservative Debate.” I have started a thread called “Jay’s Soapbox.” Hope to see you there.
If you are not a member of Delphi Forums, go to
www.delphiforums.com and join. It’s easy and their basic membership level is free. There are thousands of forums covering all opinions, topics, and interests. And now, to business:
A Peace Doctrine for the New Millenium?
I had the dubious pleasure a couple of weeks ago of listening to an interview with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on NPR. Aside from the predictable platitudes about how the occupation of Iraq is going just fine, thanks, Rummy was taking great pride in formulating a new war doctrine and forcing the Pentagon to think outside the Cold War-era box. If the man patted himself on the back any harder, they’d have to put his arm in a sling.
As I look at the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan (Afghanistan? We’re still there? That is
so last year!), it is hard for me to escape the feeling that it’s not our war doctrine that needs reforming. Rather, we need to take a long, hard look at how we wage peace after achieving military victory. It is a skill we seem to have lost as a nation in the last quarter century or so.
When did this change? In foreign policy terms, it seems that our policy toward war is to go to battle reluctantly, but when we have to intervene militarily we do so fully and with a resolve to bring a positive result to the aftermath. No longer. The “nation-building” efforts of Democratic presidents of Jimmy Carter and especially Bill Clinton are widely derided in the conservative establishment, but if the alternative is a Rumsfeld Doctrine of “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” I’ll take the former.
If we are going to take upon ourselves the responsibility of overthrowing corrupt regimes—for whatever reason—then we cannot escape the responsibility of rebuilding countries and governments in order to give them a reasonable opportunity to grow into prosperous, peaceful nations.
The U.S. presidents of the early 20th century who were forced to wage war understood this. Though Woodrow Wilson’s vision for a new world order after World War I came to a frustrating end, he had the right idea. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and George Marshall understood that after World War II enede, we had to build nations with our money and sweat to prevent the specter of totalitarian regimes threatening peace and stability for a third time in a century that was barely half over. Germany, Japan, and later South Korea were nurtured into vibrant industrial democracies to the betterment not only of their own citizens but to us as well.
I supported our military action in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s sheltering Osama bin Laden and their refusal to allow him to be brought to account could not go unanswered. But in an essay I wrote shortly after 9/11 for The Smirking Chimp, I called for President Bush to commit us to winning the peace in Afghanistan as well as prevailing militarily. We have failed to do that, as we were reminded again this week when military action was necessary against elements of the Taliban believed to be regrouping in southern Afghanistan.
Our failure to do much more than make the rubble bounce in Afghanistan was one of the reasons, perhaps even the major reason, I so vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq. On an even bigger stage, the Bush administration is losing the peace. The price this time has been the lives of American soldiers and our good relations with close allies, not to mention the toll this war has taken on Iraqis. And as the political cost begins to rise and Bush begins to truly feel the pressure to bring American troops home from the desert, I wonder how strong the White House’s resolve will be to see this through the end.
So you will pardon me if I don’t get too excited about the new tactics of the leaner, meaner United States armed forces. In his haste to discard the tactics of the World War II era, Secretary Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative allies have discarded the peace doctrine that has made a conflict on that scale unthinkable. We must re-commit, as a nation, to the principle of committing to rebuilding nations when we are forced to tear them down. In 1945 we created a peace that turned two enemies into allies, and in so doing permanently ended significant military threats. Unless we do, we will ensure that countries like Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to be problems, for its own citizens and for the whole world.
It’s Time To Get Serious About Energy
There’s nothing like tens of millions of pissed off voters to focus the minds of politicians. In the wake of the northeast blackout last week, politicos at all levels were coming out with all the predictable rhetoric.
Let’s start with President Bush. He called last week for two admirable measures: energy conservation and investing in an improved power grid. It would have been too much to hope for specifics, especially since President Bush’s tax cuts and his military adventure in Iraq have plunged the national budget deeply into the red. In Congress, the G.O.P. pointed fingers at the Democrats for stalling the energy bill; the Democrats pointed right back, and it all disintegrated into the same partisan bickering that has paralyzed Washington since at least 1992.
Energy policy isn’t one of those sexy issues that gets voters to the polls, but it is imperative that we as concerned citizens that we start to take an interest in it, and send a message to our elected leaders that this is a priority.
Saying that “9/11 changed everything” is fast becoming a cliché, but for me, on this issue, it did. Alternative fuels and energy independence became more than an issue for granola-heads stuck in a ‘60s time warp; it became a matter of national security. We prop up corrupt and weak regimes, especially in the Middle East, in return for a steady supply of cheap crude.
The government of Saudi Arabia has been much in the news with the release of the 9/11, yet no one in Washington, least of all the Bush administration, really wants to recognize the fact that wealthy Saudis are bankrolling radical Islam all around the world, with the tacit approval of a government that is only too happy to stave off revolution by exporting it to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
That strategy may not work much longer, as radical Islamists are beginning to strike inside Saudi Arabia itself. The House of Saud is living on borrowed time and only a fool would believe that an Iran-style revolution in Saudi Arabia would not bring with it a huge disruption of the Saudis’ oil output. I am just old enough to remember the economic damage when Iran’s oil stopped flowing to U.S. consumers; this would be many orders of magnitude worse. The Saudis control a quarter of the world’s oil supply and have single-handedly kept oil prices stable.
Are we prepared to pay $5 a gallon for gas? That is the reality we’re looking at. The time has come for something the current crop of political leaders—in both parties—seem to lack: boldness.
We need President Bush to declare that within ten years, American innovation will render the internal combustion engine obsolete because we will have made fuel cell technology a reality for consumers. We need Congress to make this declaration a reality, because we cannot afford to have our economy so vulnerable, and we cannot achieve the moral leadership the United States aspires to so long as we depend on a steady supply of oil supplied by corrupt, repressive governments.
Whether or not one supports the provisions of the president’s energy bill, it is clear that it will not help us become less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and the Democrats have yet to offer a clear alternative. An Apollo-style program with the goal of energy independence can only benefit us all, along with the rest of the world. It will bring benefits of technology and security, not to mention the environmental benefits. All it will take is will and leadership. From someone.
Anyone.
Allow Myself to Introduce...Myself
My name is Jay and this is my soapbox. Thanks to the good folks at blogspot.com, I now have a place to spout off about politics, social issues, pop culture, or just whatever is bothering me this week.
My model for this will be Harlan Ellison’s “Glass Teat” columns, which he wrote for the Los Angeles Free Press in the early ‘70s. If you are unfamiliar with Harlan and his body of work, do yourself a favor and start reading. He is a rare writer who will never stop challenging and surprising you.
What’s on my mind this week? Nothing less than the ground-breaking confirmation of Eugene Robinson as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. It is groundbreaking because it will mark the first time an openly gay man has been elected to such a high position in a mainline Christian denomination.
As an Episcopalian in the Diocese of Texas, this affects me personally. And I think the decision to confirm Rev. Robinson’s election was the correct one. What’s more, I think it should be a model for Congress as conservatives looks to score points with their base by “defending” marriage and “defining it.”
The Republican Party likes to present itself as the party of personal responsibility, individuality, and do-it-yourself-ism. Yet on issue after issue – and gay unions is just the latest one – the GOP has no reservations about extending government authority into the most private of spheres. Apparently lying about financial matters is okay if you’re a conservative, and sleeping with a member of the same sex is not.
Congress should take a good hard look at what the House of Bishops did at the Episcopal National Convention two weeks ago. They had a heated debate, but when all was said and done the bishops respected a choice made by the people of New Hampshire. They knew Rev. Robinson, they knew his sexual orientation, and they deemed him worthy to be their spiritual leader. And somehow, the sky has not fallen, and the Earth has continued to spin on its axis. Life has gone on.
Congress should emulate the Episcopal House of Bishops, but it will not, and it is because Congress and its Republican leaders do not respect the American people and the choices they have made. From the President on down, they have made this painfully clear. It’s the main reason I’m much more proud to be an Episcopalian than an American these days.
Until next week...
