Tag: strategy

Once upon a time, we saw progress, particularly technological and medical progress, as both miraculous and uniformly desired.  The romanticized meta-narrative of the the Twentieth Century was that it was the age of startling innovation and that indeed humanity might find its salvation in the latest invention to improve the human condition.  The most common utterance at the time to describe this phenomenon was what will they think of next?  The airplane and the automobile revolutionized travel and with it the spread of information and population dispersal.  Penicillin was considered a wonder drug upon its introduction and indeed many lives were saved when it began being used on a wholesale fashion to combat infectious disease.  The first pesticides were considered miraculous because they greatly increased the yield of crops, with the hopes that their introduction would increase the food supply and in time make widespread hunger a thing of the past.  It was believed that our own ingenuity would be our salvation and in time, there was no telling what long-standing problem would have a easy, understandable solution.

Later, however, we began to cast suspicion on any advance lauded in messianic or wildly optimistic terms.  To our horror we discovered that the drug which took away morning sickness also created tragic, hideous birth defects in babies born to women who took it.  Then we read that the pesticides that, though they meant to increase the food supply, actually created major problems in the ecosystem around them—problems that skewed the natural environmental balance quite unintentionally but quite undeniably.  In attempting to eradicate one pest, we often caused a huge increase in population of another organism, creating a brand new problem in the process.  The system of pest control as set up by Mother Nature then was seen as more desirable as the one shaped by human hands.  And this idea began to take shape in the minds of many to the degree that this belief has many adherents in this age.  Take a stroll down the aisles of your local Whole Foods if you need a visual demonstration.      

But I will say this.  Old ways of doing things are not necessarily better ways of doing things.  Though we may have swung the pendulum from one side to another in the course of half a century or so, we shouldn’t lose sight of the true balance of things.  Anyone who has walked down a street where automobiles are not available and where all traffic directed down a major thoroughfare is pulled by horses knows the filth and the stench that fills the air and collects on either side of the roadway.  It is for that reason, among others, that the horseless carriage was developed in the first place.  We must not ever assume that the motives of those who came before us were summarily evil or distasteful simply because they did not have the ability to measure what they did by the power of hindsight.  Any of us could look like geniuses if we had that in our favor.  We often look for an easy enemy when the true hard work is to work to reach the point where we recognize that there are no easy answers and no easy targets.  Demystifying the past does not imply that we ought to summarily scrap its lessons.  The mythology of past ages needs to be removed, but those who view past behaviors and past events without rosy gloss can find many helpful examples for contemplation, provided, one doesn’t heave it into the trash can in one go, assuming the whole bunch is rotten all the way through.        

The larger point I am making is that it is tempting these days to assume that the advances of the past are purely evil, based on their unforeseen and unintended consequences wrought by best intentions.  We have gotten to the point now that we are reluctant at times to modify the world around us even in the slightest, lest we upset the fragile balance of energy, life, and movement that defines existence as  any being currently alive.  While we are humans, we are also animals, too.  Our will dictates the shape and pace of the world around us, of course, but so also does our very existence.  Global Warming is the buzzword phrase of the moment and while I do believe that human decision making has modified the climate and weather patterns for the worst, I do also know that the environment has a way of being adaptive that we often do not grant it, nor fully understand.  We see things through such selfish, human terms at times, and even our best intentions do not disguise the fact that everything often relates back to us in the end.  We were created selfish.  Self-preservation is what consumes us above any other preoccupation.  Still, this is an impulse we must fight against if we ever wish to live in peace with each other.  We have more in common than we admit, but it’s often the very things we don’t like to admit even to ourselves.  There is a limit to our understanding, and in fifty years from now, perhaps we’ll set aside Global Warming for the latest theory that defines our guilt and gives us a rallying point that demands we be unselfish not towards each other, but towards all living creatures.      

Whether we are kings and queens of the beasts is a matter for debate, but we do have the benefit of higher brain function, and this is what makes us so much more influential than the average mammal.  We seem to confuse at times the fact that we are both animals and also beings beholden to reason, somehow simultaneously separate from the fray.  We exist in our own orbit and while it is wise to understand that the earth does not strictly belong to us, we do modify it by our very presence.  When a butterfly can create a ripple effect just by flapping its wings, imagine what the average person creates by stepping outside on his or her way to work on the morning.  I’m not saying that we ought not be aware of our carbon footprint and we ought not recognize that being less wasteful and more protective of nature is worthwhile, but that one can micromanage one’s degree of social consciousness to an extent that ending up miserable is the inevitable byproduct.    

In a broader context to that, I notice how we lament the slow progress of reform and regulation.  Our split loyalties are often to blame for this as well.  If we were able to reach a happy medium between the supreme authority of old ways and the supreme authority of new ways, then we might actually get something done in a timely fashion.  So much of Liberalism and Progressivism these days is conducted from a defensive posture, with the belief in the back of the mind that no matter what is set in play, it will inevitably blow up in the end and create more problems.  Well, with all due respect, this is merely part of being alive.  Any decision made will create future problems that no one could ever predict at the outset, but this shouldn’t paralyze our needed efforts, either.  

Again, reform is a constant process of refining, re-honing, and revision.  It’s foolish to expect that one bill, one policy statement, or one innovative strategy will come out perfect and never need to be updated to reflect changing times.  Rather than seeing this established fact as frustrating or limiting, we need to modify our expectations.  As President Obama said last week in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “…[W]e do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.  We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place.”  We are imperfect.  Our ideas, no matter how immaculately crafted at the time, are imperfect, and the passage of time will render them more imperfect.  

But there is a difference between expecting individual or communal perfection on a case-by-case basis and not striving to improve the lives of those around us.  A century from now, if there is a blogosphere, I’m sure many people will laugh at the nonsensical barbarism of a previous age where every citizen of the Earth did not have health care coverage from cradle to grave.  But in this hypothetical example, it would be easy for them to make this judgment if they made it based on a naive, cavalier understanding of our times.  If they viewed them purely through the lens of their times without understanding the events, beliefs, and myriad of factors which led us to undertake the great struggle before us, then their own perspectives could not be taken seriously.  Again, we might be wise to understand why we always seem to crave an enemy.  Voltaire mentioned that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary for humanity to invent Him.  Likewise, if enemies didn’t exist, it would be necessary for us to invent them.  That the very same people who speak of unity and can’t understand why we don’t have it are among the first to construct an antagonistic force and project all of their frustrations upon it is the deepest irony of all.  Our most powerful enemy is us.        

This, the sixty-eighth anniversary of the date which will live in infamy, is rarely circled in calendars or noted in any wholesale fashion as it once was.  Humans are finite beings with finite memories and as one generation marches to the grave, so too generations ahead of it do not and cannot keep alive the same memory in the same way.  We respect those who have borne the battle and for their widow and their orphan, as Lincoln put it, but struggle though we might, no matter how frequently we invoke the phrase “never again” as a means of supreme deterrent, “again” always manages to arrive once more.  Those who have taught history know the frustration of attempting to grab the attention of students whose impression of that which came before them often has the unfortunate caveat of a yawn attached.  It has been my own personal experience that making parallel examples to the current day is the best means of making the subject both real and current, so upon that framework I state my case.        

Much of the sting of that tragic day has subsided, as those who fought and died in World War II have become increasingly fewer with the progression of time.  Indeed, the very mention of “Pearl Harbor” no longer carries with it the gut-punch sting and the tragedy that it did to those who lived in those times.  Provided subsequent terrorist attacks on American soil are foiled, the phrase “September 11” will in another generation or so begin to lose its collective horror.  Much to the frustration of those that would teach the lessons of the past and those that would wish to be remembered beyond the immediate for reasons either noble, selfish, or some combination thereof it would be unnatural to expect otherwise.  Some of us wish to forget and some of us wish that those who would exploit tragedies for their own gain would disappear from the face of the earth, never to return.    

One hastens a bit to make the 11 September/Pearl Harbor comparison (aside from not wishing to embrace neo-con artist sales jobs) because in many ways they were very different, but in some ways they were not.  Pearl Harbor was the slow culmination of clandestine and backstage interference with Japanese affairs and war goals.  There was, believe it or not, once a time where this country produced a significant amount of crude oil for export, particularly a vast majority of the aviation gasoline and raw materials that then-President Roosevelt denied to the Empire of Japan as a punitive measure.  What is often not mentioned is that due to Japan’s invasion of Manchuria and Mainland China, the United States embargoed essential goods necessary for the island nation’s continued military success.  This fact has led to many to believe in a conspiracy theory, asserting that Pearl Harbor had been sniffed out weeks, if not months before, and was allowed to transpire as exactly planned to draw the U.S. into its second World War.  I personally don’t ascribe to this view, instead believing that any nation can be easily lulled into a false sense of security, particularly when it has been blessed with the ability to have two oceans separating it from foreign invasion and no immediate enemies within easy striking distance.            

What I do find compelling is that, according to one poll, we have been recently returning to our isolationist roots, increasingly reluctant to engage in foreign policy conflicts or exercises in imperialism.  In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, many a story is told of men who when informed of the attack went directly to the nearest recruiting station and volunteered immediately for service.  Likewise, there were many patriots eager to pick up a gun and vanquish the terrorist threat eight years ago.  Now, however, a majority of Americans are skeptical of continued involvement in Afghanistan and still uncertain of where we intend to end up by the end of our latest expanded containment exercise.  It was Pearl Harbor which set into play the strength and scope of our hand in world leadership.  In plainest irony, however, by the end of the war, it placed into motion the Post-War boom that, we know now was but an ephemeral, gauzy dream that obscured larger realities and subsequent challenges yet to arrive.    

A recent pro-Obama column in Newsweek written by Fareed Zakaria notes how the cowboy diplomacy and shoot-from-the-hip impulsiveness of the previous President has been replaced with a thoughtful wartime strategy.  

This first year of his presidency has been a window into Barack Obama’s world view. Most presidents, once they get hold of the bully pulpit, cannot resist the temptation to become Winston Churchill. They gravitate to grand rhetoric about freedom and tyranny, and embrace the moral drama of their role as leaders of the free world. Even the elder Bush, a pragmatist if there ever was one, lapsed into dreamy language about “a new world order” once he stood in front of the United Nations. Not Obama. He has been cool and calculating, whether dealing with Russia, Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan. A great orator, he has, in this arena, kept his eloquence in check. Obama is a realist, by temperament, learning, and instinct. More than any president since Richard Nixon, he has focused on defining American interests carefully, providing the resources to achieve them, and keeping his eyes on the prize.  

Franklin Roosevelt’s speech given the day after the ignominy of Pearl Harbor shows this same sort of cautious realism and resistance to forcibly implant sweeping drama deep into the historical record, where it presumably would never be overlooked in the future.

The wording of Roosevelt’s speech was intended to have a strong emotional impact, appealing to the anger felt by Americans at the nature of the Japanese attack…He deliberately avoided the Churchillian approach of an appeal to history. Indeed, the most famous line of the speech originally read “a date which will live in world history”; Roosevelt crossed out “world history” and replaced it with “infamy”, as seen in the annotated copy of the original typewritten speech from the National Archives.

In this address before a joint session of Congress which served as America’s formal entrance into World War II, Roosevelt sought a nuanced approach, careful not to seem too Wilsonian, a President whose attitude towards the first World War and American objectives was based around sweeping idealism and open-ended commitment.

Roosevelt consciously sought to avoid making the sort of more abstract appeal that had been issued by President Woodrow Wilson in his own speech to Congress[8] in April 1917, when the United States entered World War I. Wilson had laid out the strategic threat posed by Germany and stressed the idealistic goals behind America’s participation in the war. During the 1930s, however, American public opinion had turned strongly against such themes and was wary of-if not actively hostile to-idealistic visions of remaking the world through a “just war”. Roosevelt therefore chose to make an appeal aimed much more at the gut level-in effect, an appeal to patriotism rather than to idealism.

Returning to Zakaria’s synopsis,

Obama’s realism is sure to be caricatured as bloodless and indifferent to human rights, democracy, and other virtues. In fact, Obama probably understands the immense moral value of an engaged and effective superpower. As he said in his speech, “More than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades-a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.”

It is this approach that may be exactly what is needed to carry us forward.  Granted, this is not a strategy that lends itself easily to thundering applause and edge-of-your-seat thrills, but changing times require changing tactics.  With the end of World War II may have come the end of the nation/state war whereby one can easily identify the enemy by observing the flag it flies and by taking care to note the well-established boundaries, firmly drawn that separate it from others.  Whomever chose to denote terrorist groups as “cells” provided a very helpful metaphor to explain our current threat.  As cancer spreads from one part of the body to others as it metastasizes, so does our Al-Qaeda or The Taliban.  Members of terrorists groups are linked together by a belief in radical Islam, not by allegiance to country.  One cannot emphasize this fact enough because we are collectively having a very difficult time wrapping our brains around the true New World Order, a task which is further garbled by years of war movies and oversimplified fictionalized struggles between combatants who always manage to be either purely good or purely evil.          

Zakaria again asserts,

As for the broader problem of great-power support, the Taliban and Al Qaeda are largely isolated, with a massive international coalition arrayed against them. That does not mean that they cannot prevail in a local struggle over some parts of Afghanistan, but they will be hard pressed to achieve their ultimate goal of ruling Afghanistan. It might be difficult for the United States to “win” in Afghanistan, but it will be impossible for the Taliban to do so. And finally, America has not abandoned Iraq and will not abandon Afghanistan.

Resounding victory ending up in panicked retreat by our opponents is something we should cease to expect in our current conflict.  There will be no moment of triumph, no statue toppled in the city square, no flag hoisted over the land of the defeated enemy, no Mission Accomplished banner forming the backdrop of a photo-op disguised as a victory speech.  Nor will there be any V-E Day or V-J Day upon which to ring the church bells and observe the medals pinned to the chests of those who served, suffered, and sacrificed.  The only thing the least bit instantly emotional, powerful, and potent about war with extremist groups are in the massive attacks successfully launched by unseen cells which distressingly manage somehow to slide through the cracks.  The actual street-by-street, cave-by-cave, and village-by-village tactics employed by our forces and those of our allies are not especially grandiose nor easily included into the record of noble deeds accomplished by massive invasion with years of hype and build up to the act itself.

Pausing once more to reference Zakaria,

The history of great powers suggests that maintaining their position requires, most crucially, tending to the sources of their power: economic growth and technological innovation. It also means concentrating on the centers of global power, not the periphery…It’s important to remember that in the coming century it will be America’s dominant position in Asia-its role as the balancer in the Pacific-that will be pivotal to its role as a global superpower, not whatever happens in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Futurists and those who follow existing trends denote the Age of Terrorism as having a relatively short lifespan.  Thirty to forty years maximum is the number floated by any number of reputable scholars who make their living by of making educated guesses regarding events yet before us.  This is, of course, not to denigrate or refuse to grant 11 September 2001 its rightful place in the American house of horrors, but to say instead that inevitably and eventually some other national crisis will be superimposed on top of it and as it does, generational memory will grow shorter and shorter.  With the rise of Asia, particularly China, will come new challenges to the world and with them a new economic coalition with greatly conflicting interests.  That will be a struggle requiring the leadership dexterity of a seal balancing a ball on top of its nose.  As the Bible says,

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

One hopes that President Obama will strongly and clearly frame our mission in Afghanistan tonight, including the reason for our continued presence in a country that has known wave after wave of outside invaders fighting to advance their own ends.  We are but the latest army to set up shop and increase troop presence in pursuit of an elusive and often invisible enemy force.  The ultimate result is cloudy at this juncture, as was the previous President’s troop surge in Iraq when it was proposed.  I would hasten to call the latter decision an unequivocal success, but it did largely and surprisingly contain a low-grade Civil War.  It is with this fact in mind that many will choke down the prospect of another round of foreign entanglement, troop deployment, and media saturation coverage of major military skirmishes.      

One could, I suppose, reach for an obscure citation describing a similar conflict to which the United States committed troops.  In this situation, however, there are no easy parallels and no conventional warfare nor wisdom to cite.  The Soviet Union’s disastrous nine years in the country might be the best possible comparison under the circumstances, but the peculiarities of that conflict leave it more akin to Vietnam to our current endeavor.  The Soviet War in Afghanistan was an attempt to bolster the existing Communist party from collapsing against the Mujahideen.  We, of course, allocated weaponry and financial support to the Islamic insurgents as a means of undermining the Soviets.  

What has been forgotten in this day is that for nearly fifteen years, the Communist government ruled effectively and made great strides in developing a civilization rather than a backwards state beholden to constant conflict.  With the collapse of the USSR in 1991 came the decline of the Communist state and the rise of the Taliban, which single-handedly destroyed years of reform and plunged the country back into the Dark Ages.  The country deserves lasting stability if it is ever to move forward in time but until it ceases to be a designated battleground, it never will.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    They don’t just hope HE (President Obama) FAILS, they hope America fails, and they (The Republican party) are helping it happen by obstructing reform and fighting job growing legislation that will help America recover.

    They hope you lose your job and go broke so that you are pissed off and miserable, and they hope this lasts until 2010 and 2012 so you can take it out on the incumbents who are in office, and when we “throw the bums out” Republicans will finally get back the political power that they crave so much.

    The Republican party is sabotaging America’s recovery for political gain.

    This is the new meme that we as Democrats should push in order to expose the elected Republicans for what they are, fake patriots who put politics above the best interests of their own nation.

    More below the fold.

Politics is one part ballet, two parts theatrical performance, with the same players taking different roles as the latest situation requires.  It is a shifting sort of organic arrangement, whereby that who is one’s ally in the morning can be one’s enemy the next.  The most successful politicians know this instinctively and recognize that this degree of constant posturing and shape-shifting should be attributed to the profession itself, not to the practitioner.  We, however, do not live in such a world of allegiances that shift like tectonic plates.  We do not easily recognize that political pronouncements have a shelf life of roughly three hours time, upon which they are superseded by the latest changing of the wind, or, for that matter, changing of the guard.        

Still, we try to apply the code of conduct and rules of the game that exist in our world of resolute, lasting convictions to that of the politician. This is what leads us to great frustration.  This morning some are criticizing President Obama for not coming down more punitively on Joe Lieberman when he had the chance.  A week ago, Republicans were lashing out at Olympia Snowe for her duplicitous perfidy.  A week before that, Progressives were purple with rage at Senator Max Baucus.  A week from now, a new target will arise, align himself or herself with something we either support or oppose, and the game will begin again.  The process reminds one of nothing less than an endless round of musical chairs.  Those congressional leaders involved in an active tug of war will always reposition themselves on safer ground as need be, while the ones who stand firm are often likely to find themselves without a seat.

In this eternal game of chess,

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag –

It’s so elegant

So intelligent                                                        

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”

I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street

“With my hair down, so.  What shall we do to-morrow?

“What shall we ever do?”

– T.S. Eliot

Observe the ballet, though the steps may be a bit quicker, the pace may be sterner, and the tempo deliberately accelerated.  As regards politics, in which there is always something tangible to gain or to lose, I only believe in the last statement made by whomever utters it.  This would be considered exceptionally pessimistic in the real world, but makes complete sense within the realm of political discourse.  Lament it if you will, but even a charismatic figure elected to shake up Washington and a largely underwhelming speaker could not betwixt the two of them figure out how to drain the swamp.  It takes more than legislation to undo a complex, frequently befuddling system of strange allegiances and stranger bed fellows.  The skillful politician is a master of both slight of hand and cerebral dexterity.  He or she rarely gets caught in a lie or a half-truth, while the less skilled end up without a chair when the music ends.  The results when tabulated might be half chance, like everyone’s else’s, but they are always composed of calculated risk, with the hope of ultimate profit and gain.              

We may have a rough idea of the relative platform our Senator or Congressperson stands upon, but beyond that, one needs an actuarial table to correctly calculate where he or she might go from one moment to the next.  Risk assessment doesn’t just stop with insurance and rare is the incumbent who can count on an easy re-election campaign, year in and year out.  If we were all more or less the same in allegiance and conviction, then politicians could be reliably counted on to talk out of only one side of their mouth.  Until then, we are stuck with the system we have, which satisfies few and enrages many.    

To better explain my case, I sought to divine what was the historically highest possible Congressional approval rating ever recorded.  While I certainly was inundated with sources which told me what the lowest approval rating for the both chambers had been at many points in time, attaining its compliment, however, provided elusive.  In the data I did find, Congress never polled above 45%, which means that if it as a collective body ran for office, it would never win and probably never even trigger a runoff.  This fact also underscores what a convenient target the legislative branch is for many of us, but also proves that its overall popularity is pointedly meaningless unless it drops to single, or near single digit lows.  By contrast, even the least popular Presidents in modern memory still managed to poll slightly above 20% in their lowest periods and some scored nearly 80% in their times of highest popular favor.  As Americans, we favor personalities over collective bodies, perhaps because we can relate more to a individual rather than a frequently flummoxing deliberative entity whose ways are misunderstood even by the highly educated.    

Returning to the matter of effective analysis, the most skillful strategies for determining future courses of action might be found within the brains of those who think three and four moves ahead while recognizing that events are always subject to change.  This is not to imply that some method to the madness exists, either.  Best intentions are often preempted by breaking news and any schedule ought to be penciled in, rather than chiseled into granite.  Those public servants who are caught flat-footed or utterly unawares are always the easiest targets for ire and criticism.  They also tend to not survive.  That who we have in our cross-hairs today will often be our firmest unforeseen ally with time.  As for the present moment, which is all we are ever granted in politics, the once and future Health Care Reform proponent assumes a temporary position in our affections and our current antagonist draws boos and jeers.  The Public Option is dead, long live the Public Option.  This is, of course, until the funeral is called off and the coronation resumes, once more.

One-hundred and eighty-one years ago, this nation was engaged in similar debate over similar issues.  A recently elected Democratic president by the name of Andrew Jackson had won the office by vowing to uphold the rights of the people, not the small circle of well-connected and powerful brokers that had run Capitol Hill for close to a quarter of a century.  Had there been highways then, or, for that matter, cars, one might have dubbed these new money, self-proclaimed, unapologetic aristocrats the Beltway elites.  Jackson’s election was nothing less than an abomination to these sorts, since they placed no faith, nor any trust in what they considered to be the under-educated, ill-informed grumblings of the partisan rabble.  Government of the people, by the elites was their governing philosophy, and it had gone unchallenged since the beginning of the Republic.    

Though Old Hickory sought to carry the banner of the common person, this didn’t necessarily mean he supported progressive reform in all of its incarnations.  

…Jackson fretted about what were drily known as internal improvements–projected roads and canals that were to be funded by the federal government.  The issue was at the heart of a philosophical argument.  Was Washington’s role to be a limited one, leaving such matters to the states except in truly national cases, or was the federal government to be a catalyst in what was know as “the American System,” in which tariffs and the sales of public land funded federally sponsored internal improvements?  As President, Jackson favored the former, John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay the latter.  Related, in Jackson’s mind, was the issue of the national debt (the money owed by the federal government).  To him, debt was dangerous, for debt put money in the hands of creditors–and if money was in the hands of creditors, it could not be in the hands of the people, where Jackson believed it belonged. (Bold mine)

–American Lion:  Andrew Jackson in the White House by John Meachum

A true son of the South, Jackson was understandably squeamish to impose too much federal authority upon state government, even if it promised desperately needed infrastructure to industrialize and modernize a country which was still largely agrarian and rural.  However, his reluctance to take on debt for any purpose, no matter how worthy, is not the same sort cited by Republican politicians of our day.  Perhaps the question we ought to ask ourselves in age is “Who holds our debt and do they have our own best interest at heart?”  Jackson did not live in an age where globalization had complicated and expanded monetary policy to the degree that foreign investors were heavily involved in the process;  he did, however, hold an oversimplified point of view that saw money as belonging either to the moneychangers or the people with no overlap in between.  Today’s GOP eagerly sounds the warning regarding our spiraling national debt but certainly has no credible plan, nor plausible solution that would place it firmly in the hands of their primary constituents.  If such a thing were proposed by a Democrat, Republicans would surely claim that doing so would “spread the wealth around” in a radical redistribution scheme that, once enacted would destroy the country’s economic structure.    

Meanwhile, we have now commenced with hand-wringing in response to a less active electorate this time around.  The below passage disproves the idea that fickle and transitory voter participation is unique purely to our day.  

A Scottish visitor to Albany in the late 1820s noted an American love of what he called “the spirit of electioneering, which seems to enter as an essential ingredient into the composition of everything.”  But it was a highly personal kind of electioneering:  “The Americans, as it appears to me, are infinitely more occupied about bringing in a given candidate, than they are about the advancement of those measures of which he is conceived to be the supporter.” (Bold mine.)  

Ibid.  

We love the chase but then quickly lose interest with the implementation stage.  Media saturation, short attention spans, rock star politics, and all the other theories currently proposed that aim to explain why voter participation and interest is down from its height of this time last year might be simply explained as Americans acting like Americans.  To be sure, activists never lose their focus or their drive, but most of us are not activists.  Jackson was one of the first politicians to whittle down complex issues for the easy digestion of the average citizen.  Had there been television in his day, one might have called them sound bytes.  This, of course, oversimplified often contentious and complicated policy decisions, but Jackson’s belief was that the American worker had no time to devote from his busy day for in-depth political study and contemplation.  This assertion is one that frequently frustrates activists of our times—who demand larger participation but recognize too that the time and energy commitment needed to push reform is often more than many people are willing or able to devote.        

Regarding Presidential strategy, Jackson was cautious not to box himself in, even though this left him open to charges of playing politics when candor and taking a firm stand might seem to be a better strategy.  An immensely popular President upon taking office, he had a knack for strategic positioning and a marked refusal to provide his enemies an easy target, likely due in part to his years as a military man.  It was also a response to the well-known fact that the General had more than a few enemies in high places who coveted his office for themselves and would use any means necessary to achieve it.  

[Jackson’s] first inaugural…was purposely vague.  Gazing out on the admirers gathered at the foot of the Capitol steps, Jackson saw that he was the object of wide affection—but he was not yet certain of the depth of that affection.  The people hailed him today but might not tomorrow.  Better, then, to proceed with care, to be general rather than specific, universal rather than particular—for specificity and particularity would give his foes weapons to use against him.  Many leaders would have been seduced by the roar of that crowd, lulled into thinking themselves infallible, or omnipotent, or secure in the love of their followers.  

But Jackson knew that politics, like emotion, is not static.  There would be times where he would have to tell people what they did not want to hear, press a case they did not want to accept, point them in a direction they would prefer not to go.  Best, then, to preserve capital to spend on those speeches and those battles.

(Bold mine.)

Ibid.

President Obama is fortunate that the relative weakness of the Republican party and the still ample approval among those in his own party do not leave him vulnerable to direct challenges to his authority as Chief Executive.  Unlike Jackson, he does not relish making enemies and in so doing, challenging them to duels.  Some of us would prefer a President cut from that same cloth, though I do note that nothing unifies otherwise disparate elements only tangentially related to each other more than a common enemy.  This course of action does not make for theatrical governance or high drama, certainly, but perhaps the boring way is the best way.  Any President is compelled to occasionally be the bearer of bad tidings, the purveyor of necessary, but unpopular policy, and the leader pointing the way against a headwind of reluctance and even stubborn refusal.  The more change one pushes for, the more one must assume such mantles.  Many will feel short-changed, disregarded, and under-represented in the process.  Lament it, if you will, but be sure to acknowledge the substantial challenges that face those who attempt its removal.  This New American System combined with a still very New American President might not require as much patience as it does a fundamental understanding of the balancing act and slight-of-hand required of any politician.  Our response never changes, but what does change is how quickly we forget that these struggles are not exactly unique to our times.  

I admit I have been reluctant to write about the War in Afghanistan for each and every one of the reasons and reservations shared by most Progressives.  For starters, this is an inherited, hand-me-down conflict that is not Mr. Obama’s War and I am not motivated to hang an undeserved albatross around his neck.  While I understand the reasons why the President has committed troops, precious resources, and money we really don’t have to win this fight, I wonder if this is the best way to refute the long-held conservative myth that Democrats are unwilling to take up arms to defend our country.  Republicans love to invoke President Carter and in so doing, never let us forget the depressing sight of a downed helicopter, destroyed by impact—the final resting place of Marines deployed on a hastily conceived and poorly planned rescue mission to Iran to liberate hostages.  Obama should be given credit for seeking to counteract that conception, but Afghanistan might not be the best means to accomplish said objective.    

Some have tried to make a tentative contrast between this war and Vietnam, which is neither an accurate, nor a congruent comparison.  Many leftists, myself included, were understandably quick to draw parallels between the Iraq War and that horribly divisive protracted conflict, and indeed, some of those characterizations did hold water.  It also helped that the war was being waged quite incompetently and by our political opposition.  However, this struggle easily resembles nothing we have dealt with before and if I were forced to make any contrast with other wars in our nation’s history I might concede that it is more closely akin to the Korean conflict.  Both are sloppy, inexact, confusing, and contradictory affairs that are as confusing to those who lived, fought, and died as they are to scholars and pundits attempting to make sense of them.  When our Afghan struggle draws to a close, whenever that shall be, few concrete conclusions will be drawn and those attempting to point at evidence to support their assertions will have their work cut out for them.    

Afghanistan nor Korea have many clearly defined objectives, satisfying victories, nor demoralizing defeats, but what they do have are perplexing stalemates reluctantly adopted to avoid the very real fear of expanding the fight to nearby hostile regions or adjacent unfriendly nations.  The Korean War might very well have been the first instance in American history where we realized superior military force does not necessarily translate to resolute and inevitable victory because, in part, acting too aggressively threatens to draw in neighboring countries and, in so doing, transform proxy war into hot war.  Creating a wholesale conflagration between major players is as much bad policy and potentially catastrophic outcome then as it is now.  Nearly sixty years ago, the United States could not afford to start a declared war between itself and the Red Chinese, specifically since a war with the Communist Chinese always ran the risk of a shooting war with the Soviet Union.  Nowadays, particularly when one contemplates how much of our debt China holds, I can’t help but be grateful that cooler heads prevailed.  Though China may own us, their own developing economy is dependent upon our recovery, and if we fall, so do they.  

In Afghanistan, we are utilizing a strategy honed in Iraq which believes that the best way to combat terrorist groups and in so doing eliminate them is to use small, precise skirmishes in a highly strategic fashion.  The gloriously sweeping open field battles of yore may forever be a thing of the past.  What we are trying to avoid, of course, is expanding the fight into Pakistan in means other than the occasional specifically targeted bombing raid.  Even so, resentments have been created when we act in that fashion, particularly because Pakistan’s leaders believe we are threatening their sovereignty in launching raids, though it must also be added that they themselves have never firmly committed to eliminate Al-Qaeda from within their own borders.  Threatening the stability of the entire Middle East is the foremost omnipresent threat we must keep in mind and while a wholesale invasion of neighboring countries might be a temptation to some, it is hardly any solution.  Warfare in the Twenty-First century has proven to be a different kind of containment that puts out fires as they are discovered and faces a guerrilla enemy who recognizes full well that the only way to stay alive to fight another day is to resort to a strategy of hit and run.  In an older era, this was considered unsightly, cowardly, and against the unwritten rules of engagement.  The Taliban feels no shame, nor any compulsion to adhere to a antiquated standard that, if adhered to, would quickly lead to its demise.

In Korea, the one wholesale success of UN forces was General Douglas MacArthur’s amphibious Inchon landing, which succeeded in occupying almost all of the Korean peninsula.  In response, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong deployed a exceptionally large contingent of troops to combat the threat and reclaim lost territory.  These soldiers owed a large share of their funding and support to Soviet leader Josef Stalin, whose infamous paranoia might have worked in his own favor for once in this situation.  As such, UN forces were driven back past the 38th Parallel and into South Korea; it is at this juncture that the war reached an unsatisfying Mexican standoff which still is in place today.  The Korean War technically never ended.  A state of war still exists between North and South, though it has been superseded by an long-standing truce.  The effects of this can be seen today with the saber-rattling and manipulative posturing of the North Korean government, particularly with its desire to obtain a nuclear program or at least its desire to play cat-and-mouse with the rest of the world.

Though the United States may have the most formidable weaponry and military, this alone will not necessarily produce victory.  I often doubt whether war over terrorism will ever be firmly declared with any satisfaction, or whether the best we can ever hope for is a kind of mutually agreed upon ceasefire and even partition.  The only way one could really destroy every terrorist cell would be to either invade or bomb a garden variety of countries, most in the Middle East, which would inflame tensions around to the world to such a fevered pitch that World War III would certainly become a strong possibility.  Changing the mindset of those won over to a combination of radical Islam married to terrorist tactics might be a better option.  Proving how such attitudes are counter-productive, counter-intuitive, and ultimately futile would be needed strategies in accomplishing this task.  

A combination of skillful diplomacy and a policy of military containment would seem to be as plausible as any strategy yet attempted.  In saying this, I hasten to use the phrase “military containment” because it is beholden to another age where it served as frequent justification to stem the spread of Communism.  Perhaps we ought to redefine for our own age what containment really means, and in this regard, I don’t think it connotes long term occupation of any country.  I do not have the answers and do not advance a strategy, because I am as flummoxed as even those in charge seem to be.  Even those in the driver’s seat of this operation have little more than educated guesses themselves upon which to justify their decisions and my hope is, as always, that we will embrace the most sensible course of action and always be willing to learn from what came before, regardless of whether it is welcome or unwelcome.          

Thanks for the bump to the FP, Buhdy

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Frank Luntz, Republican Strategist:      It’s one of the most important points in this entire debate. If you call it a public option the American people are split. If you call it a Government Option than the public is overwhelmingly against it.  

Sean Hannity, RW Mouthpiece, Fox News Host:     You know, that’s a great point. From now on I am going to call it a Government option.

more Fail and Balanced strategery below the fold

This post may fall in the “teaching your grandmother to suck eggs” category, but today the Dog would like to talk about strategy vs. tactics. It is really important to know the difference, not just for your quest to take over the world (h/t Pinky and the Brain) but so that you don’t make yourself crazed in our expanding and information dense political discourse. One problem is that no one (with the exception of some of the Republicans that don’t understand that Twitter is really public) is going to tell you when they are acting tactically or strategically. Hopefully by the time the Dog is done pounding 1,000 words or so, you will be able to spot the difference.