collaboration

by

American Autumn

I remember laughing at this sign on a colleague’s desk when I began teaching in  1974:  “No Enemy Would Bomb this Place and End  this Confusion!”  It was hilarious, a sign that would have been at home on my desk, too. Today it seems less funny.

Bob Dole’s comments about today’s Republican Party remind us of a time when Congress was all business. There was plenty of politics and partisanship, but even during the Reagan Revolution there was a collegial effort to get things done. The Clinton administration managed to curtail Welfare and strengthen law enforcement, accomplishments that Republicans would take pride in. There were shared achievements despite the public invective about the President or the opposing party.

Today the federal government is so demonized in some parts of the country that Congress has devoted 37 votes to dismantling the Affordable Health Care Act just to please their angry constituents. The name of the President of the United States has been used to poison anything that right wing politicians want to denigrate. Appointments to Cabinet positions have been stalled for months, not even getting the courtesy of a vote on the Senate floor. Judge appointments languish for years of obstruction. In Senate investigations, Senators harass witnesses ruthlessly to show how tough they are.  There’s a sense that you can’t be too nasty when dealing within anyone who works for the federal government.

Most dismaying of all, the 2012 election did not change anything. The vote that affirmed President Obama and gained votes for the opposition party across the country also brought the most bitter and vituperative voices to Congress.  The stronger the mandate, the more savage the attack on government.

There are true political divides in Washington: you can’t expect Congress to agree on issues of principle, such as abortion, gun control, taxation or environmental regulation.  But even these issues have been managed through compromise, giving in order to get.  Even those who play hardball have to throw something into the strike zone eventually.  The new minority throw everything high inside or low outside. There is no game, only gamesmanship.

Richard Haas, a lifetime devotee of foreign service,  has recently pointed out that our greatest enemies are at home.  If we continue to turn fire on our own system, we will only destroy what others have fought and died for.  American voters need to send the message that government must operate in good faith and constructive purpose.

There is no virtue in dismantling a democracy, because it allows compromise in order to function. We have the sad example of the aborted Arab Spring to learn from.  We may be a more mature democracy, but we could also be a decaying democracy.  Voters should demand more collaboration from their representatives so we do not stagnate into the American Autumn.

 

 

 

by

A Resolution: To collaborate

I can clearly remember when American citizens of a pinkish cast were referred to as “sympathizers,” “collaborators,” and “fellow travelers,” because of some left-leaning beliefs, such as pacifism, unionization, or integration of the races.  Those were the years that gave “patriotism” and “loyalty” a vindictive connotation. We remember the 1950’s as a cautionary tale about tolerance and respect.

We should be cautioned about the  functioning of Congress in its current incarnation, before the weighty deliberations of 2013 begin, because there are those in positions of power who have made “collaboration” and “compromise” dirty words. Because they are a minority, they treat their coalitions as cult-like societies that vote in lockstep and pledge loyalty to higher causes. They should remember that even the high cause of “democracy” was corruptible in 1954.

But wait, it is not the whole Congress, but the House of Representatives that is trying to force the will of a minority of duly elected representatives on the majority.  And it is not a particular bill, but an ideology that allows no compromise, so pure are its values.  It is a small number of representatives who are dictating to the rest of the country and who are branding their colleagues as “sympathizers,” “collaborators,” or “fellow-travelers.”

Some will counter that I am branding one political persuasion, as the McCarthy hearings attempted to do sixty years ago. But it is not particular political views  that deserve scrutiny, but the intractable opinions of politicians of all persuasions that should be singled out.  Those who deliberately sabotage the legislative process for not yielding to their will come from both ends of the ideological spectrum.

Most of these ideologues are in the House, and we need only observe the voting on the first day of 2013 to identify them.  They will be the ones who vote against the economic package passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and designed to raise revenue and cut costs to avoid plunging into another recession.  There were only eight U.S. Senators who could not support this bi-partisan package, hammered out by intense, but good-faith negotiations on the last day of 2012.  Not because 89 heartily endorsed the bill, but because 89 put the interests of the whole country before their cherished biases.

In the House such “biases” are known as “principles,” and we know you can not be asked to violate your principles. And yet that is what Congress is asked to do every day they try to pass a bill, in a word— to compromise.  The failure to compromise is more deadly than the relinquishing of principles when it comes to passing legislation.  This failure should be addressed by next Congress.

By the grace of God perhaps the House will pass this tortured bill today, but with more discord and defiance than we witnessed in the Senate.  The dysfunction of government clearly lies in the House and the most broken cogs of the process will be identified in the afternoon vote. Many of those representatives have already made up their mind to vote “nay,”and those votes can be written off for the rest of their terms in Congress.

May these ideologues hold true to their principles, but may the majority from both sides of the aisle vote without their ideological blessing. May the ethos of collaboration and sympathy sweep through the House of Representatives converting it back to the deliberative body it was intended to be. May those who whimper at the silencing of their voices understand the price of purism.  May those who care deeply about all of the people of this country be the ones who govern it.

Amen.