By the time Lincoln was back on the train returning to Washington, he was down with a high fever from Small Pox. I’m thinking the illness did not grip the president the second he stepped on the train. Already distraught over Mary falling off a horse-carriage, his son Tad taken grievously ill, and the old, tired war, the president was almost certainly already stricken when he delivered the address and perhaps even when he wrote it the day and evening before. I suspect that the Gettysburg Address would not have been only 272 words long had Lincoln been well. I make it point of getting a flu shot every year now. Contracting the illness was particularly costly academically when I was in graduate school. Typically, I would ration any accumulated energy to going to class. Back in bed, I found writing to be quite arduous, and sustained reading to be almost as exhaustive. In terms of writing, editing particular words or sentences was easiest, for it takes far less energy to think than to write on and on. I suspect that Lincoln wrote such a short speech because thinking up just the right word or phrase was easier than writing a lot. Small Pox is much more serious than the common cold. Lincoln was likely already exhausted and feeling bad on the train to Gettysburg and in the bedroom that night before the day of the address. Lincoln’s emphasis on diction rather than length was likely a function of the illness rather than political calculus.
Lincoln's address was so short that the photographer only caught the president as he was returning to his seat. In the photo, Lincoln's head (below the leafless tree, just above the crowd-level, and facing the camera) is down, perhaps because he was already not feeling well. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.
By the end of the twentieth century and into the next decades at least, U.S. presidents typically relied on a speech-writing staff to write many speeches, the vast majority of which being long. One effect of this trend is the shift in presidential leadership from broad principles to incremental legislative reform. In this context of technician presidents, the attendant speech-inflation resists any feasible restraint. Strangely, presidents overlook Lincoln’s short address as a precedent and act more like the famous orator who spoke for two hours just before Lincoln. In spite of the obvious lesson from Gettysburg, the notion that a very short speech can be more powerful than a long one has been lost on the American political elite. The explanation may lie in Lincoln’s address being a function of him being ill rather than any political calculus. Even so, a discovery is a discovery, even if it comes about by accident. That the subsequent political success of the Gettysburg Address did not give rise to an ongoing practice in political rhetoric suggests that such a short, extremely thought-out speech runs against the current of politics at the moment and even out a year or two. Stature achieved by hard-thought reputational management literally by intensely investing in word choice, or diction, is of value nevertheless even within the space of a four-year term, especially if the incumbent has courageously taken on a few vested interests by moving society off a “sacred cow” or two. Even if neither statesmanship nor politics accounts for the severe brevity of Lincoln’s address, I contend that much political gold is waiting for the leader—whether in the public or private sector—who radically alters his or her rhetorical style and preparation.
We humans are so used to living in our subjectivity that we hardly notice it or the effect it has on us. In particular, we are hardly able to detect or observe the delimiting consequences of the assumptions we hold on an ongoing basis. That is to say, we have no idea (keine Anung) of the extent to which we take as unalterable matters that are actually quite subject to our whims individually or as a society (i.e., shared assumptions). In this essay, I use the American holiday of Thanksgiving, specifically its set date on the last Thursday of November, to illustrate the following points.
First, our habitual failure to question our own or society’s assumptions (i.e., not thinking critically enough) leaves us vulnerable to assuming that the status quo is binding when in fact it is not. All too often, we adopt a herd-animal mentality that unthinkingly “stays the course” even when doing so is, well, dumb. In being too cognitively lazy to question internally or in discourse basic, operative assumptions that we hold individually and/or collectively, we unnecessarily endure hardships that we could easily undo. Yet we rarely do. This is quite strange.
Second, we tend to take for granted that today’s familial and societal traditions must have been so “from the beginning.” This assumption dutifully serves as the grounding rationale behind our tacit judgment that things are as they are for a reason and, moreover, lie beyond our rightful authority to alter. We are surprised when we hear that some practice we had taken as foundational actually came about by accident or just decades ago.
For example, modern-day Christians might be surprised to learn that one of the Roman emperor Constantine’s scribes (i.e., lawyers) came up with the “fully divine and fully human,” or one ousia, two hypostates, Christological compromise at the Nicene Council in 325 CE. Constantine’s motive was political: cease the divisions between the bishops with the objective being to further imperial unity rather than enhance theological understanding.[1] Although a Christian theologian would point out that the Holy Spirit works through rather than around human nature, lay Christians might find themselves wondering aloud whether the Christological doctrine is really so fixed and thus incapable of being altered or joined by equally legitimate alternative interpretations (e.g., the Ebionist and Gnostic views).
Let’s apply the same reasoning to Thanksgiving Day in the United States. On September 28, 1789, the first Federal Congress passed a resolution asking that the President set a day of thanksgiving. After an improbable win against a mighty empire, the new union had reason to give thanks. A few days later, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a "Day of Publick Thanksgivin."[2] As subsequent presidents issued their own Thanksgiving proclamations, the dates and even months of Thanksgiving varied until President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Proclamation that Thanksgiving was to be commemorated each year on the last Thursday of November. Here, the attentive reader would be inclined to jettison the “it’s always been this way” assumption and mentality as though opening windows on the first warm day of spring. The fresh air of thawing ground restores smell to the outdoors from the long winter hibernation and ushers in a burst of freedom among nature, including man. Realizing that Thanksgiving does not hinge on its current date unfetters the mind even if just to consider the possibility of alternative dates. Adaptability can obviate hardships discovered to be dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary.[3]
The arbitrariness in Lincoln’s proclaimed date was not lost on Franklin Roosevelt (FDR). Concerned that the last Thursday in November 1939, which fell on the last day of the month, would weaken the economic recovery on account of the shortened Christmas shopping season, he moved Thanksgiving to the penultimate (second to last) Thursday of November. He defended the change by emphasizing "that the day of Thanksgiving was not a national holiday and that there was nothing sacred about the date, as it was only since the Civil War that the last Thursday of November was chosen for observance.”[4] Transcending the common assumption that the then-current “last Thursday of November” attribute of Thanksgiving was a salient—even sacred, as though solemnly passed down from the Founders by some ceremonial laying on of hands—in the very non-holiday’s very nature, FDR had freed his mind to reason that an economic downside need not be necessary; he could fix a better date without depriving Thanksgiving of being Thanksgiving.
To be sure, coaches and football fans worried that even a week’s difference could interrupt the game’s season. In a column in The Wall Street Journal in 2009, Melanie Kirkpatrick points out that "by 1939 Thanksgiving football had become a national tradition. . . . In Democratic Arkansas, the football coach of Little Ouachita College threatened: 'We'll vote the Republican ticket if he interferes with our football.'"[5] Should Christmas have been moved to April so not to interfere with college basketball? Sadly, the sheer weight being attached to the “it’s always been this way” assumption could give virtually any particular inconvenience an effective veto-power even over a change for the better, generally (i.e., in the public interest).
Unfortunately, most Americans had fallen into the stupor wherein Thanksgiving just had to be on the last Thursday of November. “The American Institute of Public Opinion, led by Dr. George Gallup, released a survey in August showing 62 percent of voters opposed Roosevelt's plan. Political ideology was a determining factor, with 52 percent of Democrats approving of Roosevelt's move and 79 percent of Republicans disapproving.”[6] Even though the significance of the overall percentage dwarfs the partisan numbers in demonstrating how pervasive the false-assumption was at the time among the general population, the political dimension was strong enough to reverberate in unforeseen ways.
With some governors refusing to recognize the earlier date, only 32 states went along with Roosevelt.[7] As a result, for two years Thanksgiving was celebrated on two different days within the United States. In his book, Roger Chapman observes that pundits began dubbing "the competing dates 'Democratic Thanksgiving' and 'Republican Thanksgiving.'"[8] Sen. Styles Bridges (R-N.H) wondered whether Roosevelt would extend his powers to reconfigure the entire calendar, rather than just Thanksgiving. "I wish Mr. Roosevelt would abolish Winter," Bridges lamented.[9] Edward Stout, editor of The Warm Springs Mirror in Georgia -- where the president traveled frequently, including for Thanksgiving -- said that while he was at it, Roosevelt should move his birthday "up a few months until June, maybe" so that he could celebrate it in a warmer month. "I don't believe it would be any more trouble than the Thanksgiving shift."[10] Although both Bridges and Stout were rolling as though drunk in the mud of foolish category mistakes for rhetorical effect, moving up a holiday that has at least some of its roots in the old harvest festivals to actually coincide with harvests rather than winter in many states could itself be harvested once the “it’s always been this way” assumption is discredited. Just as a week’s difference would not dislodge college football from its monetary perch, so too would the third week in November make a dent in easing the hardship even just in travelling and bringing the holiday anywhere close to harvest time in many of the American republics. As one of my theology professor at Yale once said, “Sin boldly!” If you’re going to do it, for God’s sake don’t be a wimp about it. Nietzsche would undoubtedly second that motion.
Why not join with Canada in having Thanksgiving on October 12th? Besides having access to fresh vegetables and even the outdoors for the feast, the problematic weather-related travel would be obviated and Americans would not come to New Year’s Day with holiday fatigue. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to complain about the retailors pushing Christmas over Thanksgiving in line with the almighty dollar, but amid the better feasts and perhaps colorful leaves we might actually allow ourselves to relish (or maybe even give thanks!) amid natures splendors rather than continue striving and complaining.
To be sure, resetting Thanksgiving to autumn in several of the states would translate into summer rather than harvest time in several others. Still other states are warm even in the last week of November, and harvest time might be December or March. Perhaps instead of carving the bird along partisan lines, Thanksgiving might be in October (or even the more temperate September!) in the “Northern” states and later in the “Southern” states, given the huge difference in climates. Remaining impotent in an antiquated assumption that lives only to forestall positive change while retailors continue to enable Christmas to encroach on Thanksgiving reeks of utter weakness.
Giving serious consideration to the notion different states celebrating Thanksgiving at different times might strengthen rather than weaken the American union. Put another way, invigorating the holiday as a day of thanksgiving amid nature’s non-canned bounty might recharge the jaded American spirit enough to mitigate partisan divides because more diversity has been given room to breathe. For the “one size fits all” assumption does not bode well at all in a large empire of diverse climes. Indeed, the American framers crafted an updated version of federalism that could accommodate a national federal government as well as the diverse conditions of the republics constituting the Union. Are the states to be completely deboned as though dead fish on the way to the market at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial? Is it so vitally important that everyone does Thanksgiving on the same day when “by state” enjoys a precedent?
Engulfed in the mythic assumption that the “last Thursday in November” is a necessary and proper fit for everyone and everywhere, Americans silently endure as if out of necessity all the compromises we have been making with respect to the holiday? Perhaps changing the date or returning the decision back to the states would free up enough space for the crowded-in and thus nearly relegated holiday that people might once again feel comfortable enough to say “Happy Thanksgiving” in public, rather than continuing to mouth the utterly vacuous “Happy Holidays” that is so often foisted on a beguiled public.
Like Christmas and New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving is indeed now an official U.S. holiday. This would also be true were the states to establish the holiday as their respective residents see fit. As push-back against FDR’s misguided attempt to help out the retailors and the economy, Congress finally stepped in almost two months to a day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii (whose harvest time escapes me). The U.S. House passed a resolution declaring the last Thursday in November to be a legal holiday known as Thanksgiving Day. The U.S. Senate modified the resolution to the fourth Thursday so the holiday would not fall on a fifth Thursday in November lest the Christmas shopping season be unduly hampered as it rides roughshod over Thanksgiving. Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, the day after Christmas, finally making Thanksgiving a legal holiday alongside Christmas and New Year’s Day.[11] Interestingly, the U.S. Commerce department had found that moving Thanksgiving back a week had had no impact on Christmas sales.[12] In fact, small retailors actually lamented the change because they had flourished under the “last Thursday” Thanksgiving rubric; customers fed up with the big-named department stores like Macy’s being so overcrowded during a truncated “Christmas season” would frequent the lesser-known stores in relative peace and quiet. Charles Arnold, proprietor of a menswear shop, expressed his disappointment in an August letter to the president. "The small storekeeper would prefer leaving Thanksgiving Day where it belongs," Arnold wrote. "If the large department stores are over-crowded during the shorter shopping period before Christmas, the overflow will come, naturally, to the neighborhood store."[13] This raise the question of whether a major legal holiday is best treated as whatever results from the tussle of business forces oriented to comparative strategic advantage as well as overall sales revenue.
Lest the vast, silent majority of Americans continue to stand idly by, beguiled by the tyranny of the status quo as if it were based in the permafrost of “first things,” things are not always as they appear or have been assumed to be. We are not so frozen as we tend to suppose with respect to being able to obviate problems or downsides that are in truth dispensable rather than ingrained in the social reality.
1.Jarslav
Pelikan, Imperial Unity and Christian Division, Seminar, Yale University.
3. The other meaning
of dogmatic is “partial” in the sense of partisan or ideological more
generally. Given the extent to which a person can shift ideologically through
decades of living, might it be that partisan positions are not only partial,
but also arbitrary?
11. The solely
religious holidays in November and December are private rather than legal
holidays. As Congress cannot establish a religion on constitutional grounds,
Christmas is a legal holiday in its secular sense only. Therefore, treating
Christmas as
a legal holiday as akin to the private religious holidays (including
Christmas as celebrated in churches!) is a logical and legal error, or category
mistake. Ironically, Thanksgiving, in having been proclaimed by Lincoln as a
day to give thanks (implying “to God”), is the most explicitly religious of all
the legal
holidays in the United States.
Sen. Nikema Williams (D-Atlanta) of the Georgia Senate “was
arrested along with more than a dozen other protesters” at the Georgia Capitol
on November 14, 2018.[1]
The demonstration asked Georgia’s government to count every vote in the
gubernatorial election. As a civil rights advocate, Williams had organized
domestic workers for Stacy Abrams when she was running for Governor. Protesters
shouted, “Let her go!” as the Capitol police handcuffed Sen. Williams and led
her from the rotunda. No sitting legislatures in Wisconsin had been arrested
(as far as I know) when huge constituent protests erupted in the Wisconsin
rotunda against Gov. Scott Walker’s successful effort to remove
collective-bargaining from powers of public sector unions there. As odd it may be
for the police of a Capitol building to arrest a sitting senator, the
observations of another senator, who witnessed the arrest, are even more
chilling concerning an ominous trend then well underway in American cities.
Rep. David Dreyer (D-Atlanta) of the General Assembly, which
was in session at the time, later said he had gone down to the rotunda about
the same time as Williams, “but for some reason, Sen. Williams was treated
differently than I was treated.”[2]
He was insinuating the presence of racism in the Capitol police. “Because of
our system, because of the bias and the way that our laws are enforced, just
like I went down with Sen. Williams to try to de-escalate the situation, Sen.
Williams was taken away,” he said. “We understand she’s been left in a van for
a very long time on a cold and rainy day.”[3]
Was there political pressure on the police to teach the senator a lesson? The
gubernatorial election had been called for Brian Kemp, before which he had lost
several court cases over “his attempts to block voters of color from the polls.”[4]
In other words, as secretary of state, the Republican had not only exploited a
giant yet virtually ignored conflict of interest in being the head of elections
in Georgia even as he was a candidate for the highest office. It is thus
conceivable that he pressured the Capitol police to arrest his former rival for
the governorship—maybe even to punish her for having stood up to him in
contesting his conflict of interest.
Yet beyond race and garden-variety partisanship, what more Rep.
Dreyer had to say is even more critical in terms of Americans’ daily lives. “For
some reason,” he continued, “I saw Capitol police lined up three abreast, row
after row after row, looking like they were trying to stop a riot, when we were
standing up for people’s right to vote. So this is not democracy; this looks a
lot more like an authoritarian government. And it seems like that’s happening a
lot these days, doesn’t it.”[5]
Yes, it does.
In the Phoenix metropolitan area, especially in the city of
Phoenix, local residents with sufficient longevity were noticing an increased
police presence. Armed police standing outside certain stores and banks as a
matter of routine, four or five police vehicles showing up to issue minor
traffic tickets, police standing next to security guards just inside many
grocery stores—police even going aisle to aisle as a routine rather than in
responding to an incident or theft—police and security guards stationed in
light-rail cars (sans incidents) and on the platforms, and generally very rude
police; all these data-points are indications that an authoritarian government—at
least in terms of political culture—was already well ensconced in Arizona.
I lived in the Phoenix metro area at the time. Coming from
California and major cities in the Midwest, I was stunned by not only the
number of police cars I saw on a daily basis, but also the number of security
guards stationed on a light-rail car (sometimes up to six) as a matter of
policy rather than incidents.
Three guards, two of whom are just on the other side of the small passageway.
Four guards: two at the outer edges of this picture, and two others at the middle of picture (standing at one of the back doors.
Four or five guards: one perhaps watching me take the picture. The other three or four (two visible) are in the car on the other side of the passageway.
In none of these pictures has an incident induced the coverage. Rather, it had become all too common. On several occasions while I was standing near the door, I would look up only to see three uniformed guards standing "point blank," side by side, staring at me behind dark sunglasses. They were apparently just fine with their combative, over-the-top stance. Talking with a security manager at the city's light-rail company about the excessiveness on the trains, I learned that the company (or the subcontracted guard company) believed that so many guards are necessary for the guards to feel safe because one had been hit. I suggested that two might do, hence enabling the company to cover more trains at a time. The manager saw the efficiency in this, but the manager did not understand why people would feel uncomfortable or even intimidated being watched by several guards at close range. The normal reaction of regular folks to being watched combatively by so many guards at close range was something the manager just couldn't grasp, which in itself was a red flag. In such an unconscious state of denial, a police-state can grow unimpeded, without internal checks. Interestingly, in spite of the presence of four to six guards at times in a car, none of the ticket-checkers ever gave out a citation! The guards were more interested in intimidating a car of passengers than devoting the surplus manpower to writing citations, especially to the people who were fraudulently using low-income passes.
In fact, only twice while on the light-rail did I see citations being written, and this was done not on the trains but by pulling a few passengers off onto one of the platforms. On the first occasion, I saw 14 police
and security guards suddenly enter the car I was in while only two of the guards checked
tickets. The other passengers and I were very uncomfortable. It felt as if a raid were in progress, but it was actually only about giving citations! I had been on a train in which 20 police and their dogs ran into the car because the smell of weed had been reported. At the time, pot was legal in several U.S. states, but to Arizona law-enforcement, you would think the stuff could blow up cities. The sheer excessiveness, the (passive) aggression, and the reputation of the Phoenix police for rudeness even to ordinary citizens (i.e., not suspects) all came together for me while watching the bizarre scene unfold on the train.
On the two sweeps by a massive showing of police and security guards to issue citations--always after commuting hours, interestingly enough--three or so passengers without passes or tickets (one of which was merely without the transit ID to show with a low-income pass!) were taken off the respective trains and told to sit on seats at the platforms (see the picture above). Four or five police and guards would then surround each person, as if he or she were to be arrested for assault or worse! To conflate writing out a citation and arresting someone for a violent crime suggests the presence of a serious psychological issue that might be widespread in police departments. Besides those two sweeps, I had never witnessed (over four months) a guard give out a citation; a guard would merely ask a person without a ticket or pass to leave the train at the next platform, which had a very mild punitive effect even as the company claimed that 43% of its ridership were using low-income passes. At no time on a train did I witness a security guard ask to seek the transit ID that was in theory at least necessary for the low-income pass. The passengers obviously had the impression that no such ID was needed during the actual travel. Yet I only heard this request on the first time I witnessed 14 security people running into a car for the
writing of three citations. The second time I witnessed the same event from across the street. I never saw 14 police surround a vehicle in order to write a traffic ticket. I suspected that the police's overkill was connected to a bias against poor people. The deplorable conditions facing the legions of homeless in Phoenix supported my sense that the powers there didn't care about the poor, and even were prejudiced.
Another way that Phoenix stood out as a whole as being a proto-police state lied in vague sense of always being watched, not only in public outside, but also while entering stores.I and other people, I would discover, stopped going to a grocery store chain (Fry's) in the Phoenix metro area because in
walking into a store, a customer had to pass not only a security guard, but also
a policeman wearing a bullet-proof vest! The police would even walk from aisle to aisle! Imagine a young mother shopping
with her daughter in an aisle only to look up and see an uptight man wearing a bullet-proof vest labeled "POLICE" at
the end of the aisle staring. While at waiting at the deli once, I asked the assistant store manager about this. His reply revealed that he did not perceive the excessiveness. "We want our customers to feel safe," he stated. At what cost to the customers? I wondered. The lack of balancing safety with the uncomfortability of being aggressively watched plays a major role in an authoritative police state getting worse and worse.
To catch the light-rail, I used to walk down a sidewalk with a 1st Bank on one side. I noticed one day that the security guard was not only stationed outside the bank, but that he wore a bullet-proof vest. I thought all this was too much, even given the so-so neighborhood. Worst still, he would walk around the side of the building to watch people getting off the bus cross the intersection to the light-rail platform (which is in the middle of one of the streets). On another occasion, I saw the guard follow me as I crossed the street and walked up to the platform. Utterly excessive! On a Friday morning while I was speaking with two Jehovah's Witnesses who were sitting in chairs on the sidewalk (i.e., not on the bank's property), I looked up to see the creeper-guard staring at me. That he had a bullet-proof vest on, and was standing "point blank" (i.e., combatively) facing me was enough of a red flag. This was confirmed when the two religious women told me that the bank's guard had told them he would protect them as well as police the area. The women, enjoying the convenience of such protection, were not bothered by the fact that the guard was not keeping to his job-tasks by going beyond the bank's property on a regular basis. Visibly, the two woman did not need protection from me, yet the guard stared at me anyway, though when I took his picture, he turned his head as if he had not been starring. The placement of his feet, however, revealed exactly where he had been looking! I called the bank's centralized customer service twice, asking that only a district manager or a customer service manager contact me if needed. Not the branch manager and certainly not the guard. Yet both of them left messages on my phone! I called customer service a third time and finally talked with a supervisor, who promised he would get to the bottom of why my requests had been ignored. I even emailed him the picture below to support my initial claim regarding the creeper guard, for I worried that the lack of accountability at 1st Bank could enable the guard to turn the tables on me. In the message he left me, he practically ordered me to call him back. Or else? I thought. This is another way in which authoritarian police-states can grow--by protecting their sense of entitlement by threatening people who object. This may be partly why the Georgia Capitol police arrested Sen. Williams. Back in Phoenix, an authoritarian police state was well underway, with at least two Christian women just fine with it. Moreover, enough of the safety-obsessed people of the city were just fine with it too. In fact, the political culture there could be labeled as at least sporting values that enable a proto-fascist police state that takes liberties from and with respect to "civilians." The police and security guards even assume that anyone even just noticing the excessiveness is thereby a threat.
Going into a Goodwill store once, I was astonished to see an
armed policeman standing outside the door. Thinking that an incident might be
going on, I made my way around him, and turned to check him just as I was
walking in. “Trying to sneak a picture of me?” he said dismissively. I did turn on my phone's video by mistake once I had entered the store (hence no sneaking around). He entered the store after me, while I was complaining to a cashier about the police employee's rudeness. Incredibly, the policeman stood near the cashier and me; we both ignored his presence--this too I took to be overkill on the policeman's part, for no reason for suspicion existed--only the human urge to eves-drop with impunity. In this video, the policeman coming in and standing near the cashier and I can be seen. I had no doubt that the motive concerned me even though it is hardly illegal to complain to a store employee or manager about the security guard, even if he is (strangely) an on-duty police employee.
I went on to tell the store manager about the policeman's rudeness, but the manager merely replied that he didn’t mind if the local police were being rude to his customers because the strip-mall’s property management
arranges for the presence of the on-duty police. There was also a security guard inside the store. Only in Arizona had I seen both a policeman and a security guard standing at the front of a store to monitor things (i.e., sans incident).
Incredibly, some Arizonans told me that such a police
presence was necessary for safety. I would inevitably reply, so two security
guards are not enough on a train car? Incredibly, many native Arizonans relied,
“Yes.” I realized that the political culture in that republic was very
different—even enabling of the encroaching police state.
If a security guard or police employee are to add
to their routine measures stemming from each incident so it is not repeated,
then the status quo on the streets and in businesses will become increasingly
strangling for a people. Put another way, if a city’s police department is to
increasingly rely on shows of intimidation (i.e., when no incident is
occurring), then people will feel less comfortable, distrust will increase in
the public square, and the passive-aggressive tyranny will have dimmed the
natural flame of liberty. The relative comfort of the home will increasingly
paint “being out in public” in increasingly stressful colors. An authoritarian
police-state was already well in place at least in two major American cities
when Sen. Williams was arrested amid rows of Capitol police in riot gear; such
gear itself heightens the smell of aggression in the air. Mayors and heads of
police departments must have at the very least enabled to trend to continue; I
suspect the sheer lack of awareness of the excess and especially how people react psychologically to it on a
daily basis—an indifference to how citizens could be affected—is rife
throughout many police departments in the U.S. Given the extremely rude
comments I heard from police employees when I lived in Phoenix, I also suspect
that the low-level (or low class) police employees
let the power go to their heads, even in
just being rude. Such an entitlement is a symptom of an authoritative
police state, which the American people have allowed to grow as if the changes
were invisible or inevitable. One effect societally may be increasing levels of accumulated passive-aggression--a sort of psychological carbon that also heats the atmosphere. The problem is thus societal in nature. On conflicts of interest such as the one exploited by Georgia's Secretary of State, see Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon.
Is ending the filibuster on appointments to executive-branch offices as well as judicial appointments below the U.S. Supreme Court really “the nuclear option”? Is this expression simply rhetoric gone horribly over the top? Journalists would undoubtedly demur, at least publically, yet without feeling an ounce of shame. On November 22, 2013, a leading story on the front page of USA Today immediately snagged my fleeting attention with the headline, “’Nuclear’ volleys across aisle signal a Cold War in Congress.”[1] The 52-48 vote in the U.S. Senate on the previous day was neither a “nuclear volley” nor the beginning of a “cold war.” Rather, the reform was yet another legislative device having to do with reducing the gridlock within the chamber and perhaps for a party to gain more control therein. The political tussles between the two major parties had already been going on, so the latest reform could not have been the start of a war, cold or hot. To be sure, editors look for headlines to be attention-grabbers, and thus sensationalistic—yet even if the claim is false or even misleading? Signaling a cold war flies in the face of the prior existence of such a “war,” as during the U.S. Government’s partial shutdown when raising the government’s debt-ceiling was in jeopardy. Moreover, the reporter continues the sensationalism within the article. For example, the reporter invokes “the superpower theory of Mutually Assured Destruction—that is, if you use the most powerful weapon against your enemy, your enemy will use it against you—neither side had ever deployed it.”[2] Does not this “theory” apply more to shutting down the government or refusing to raise the debt-limit? The fact that Americans waked up on November 22nd with a functional federal government belies the journalist’s application of the theory to whether the U.S. Senate would confirm more appellate and district judges. Nevertheless, the reporter “reports” that “Democrats voted for detonation.”[3]I didn’t hear any sort of blast, or for that matter, see any damage the next day. As for any realistic (i.e., still incremental rather than radical) consequences, the reporter provides merely a quote at the end of the article. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said, “The silver lining is that there will come a day when the roles are reversed. When that happens, our side will likely nominate and confirm lower court and Supreme Court nominees with 51 votes.”[4] As if as an afterthought, the reporter tacked on this quote, which says basically that the Senate would continue to delimit the filibuster’s domain. Crucially, incrementalism is not radicalism. Hence, the war rhetoric is misleading at best, and it displaces reportage on the real significance of the vote.
1. Susan Page, ““’Nuclear’ volleys across aisle signal a Cold War in Congress,” USA Today, November 22, 2013.
A lawsuit filed in a Florida district-court in 2013 alleged that JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and the London Metal Exchange (LME) artificially inflated aluminum prices. The plaintiffs accused the companies of anti-trust practices and racketeering, including the “manipulation of the aluminum market through supply price fixing.”[1] This sounds like what had led to the forced break-up of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, though in that case exactly a century before, the restraint of trade had to do with the company’s main line of business (i.e., oil). In the case of the banks, however, owning commodity assets such as storage facilities and trading in raw materials do not constitute banking. This point triggers a larger question involving the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act.
Should we allow banks to expand even beyond these functions to owning commodities and related real-estate? What does this do to the banks' systemic risk? Image Source: salisburyareafoundation.org.
Under Glass-Steagal, commercial banks were not permitted to engage in investment-banking activities, such as proprietary trading and market-making. The law’s repeal in the late 1990's is ironic, for in just a decade the notion of systemic risk would flash into the public’s consciousness under the label of banks being “too big to fail.” Rather than confront systemic risk directly, U.S. lawmakers and regulators have consistently preferred focusing on incremental change in particular areas. For example, when the lawsuit was filed in Florida, regulators were “scrutinizing ownership of commodity storage facilities by major U.S. banks.”[2] Unfortunately, the scrutiny was limited to price-fixing and racketeering, and those regulators probably were not talking to regulators at the SEC who were still promulgating regulations as part of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which was ostensibly geared to reducing systemic risk through providing for the “orderly liquidation” of banks and other financial institutions too big to fail. Were the various government regulators to compare notes, they might ask each other whether branching off into trading commodities and owning storage facilities increase the banks’ systemic risk. By taking on market risk (i.e., of commodity and commercial real-estate markets) that is higher than the risks in commercial banking, the banks increase their systemic risk. Factor in the legal and reputational liabilities associated with price-fixing and racketeering and the systemic risk increases even more. Therefore, beyond the question of collusion and restraint of trade in a side business, it can and should be asked whether banks should go into side businesses at all, given the matter of systemic risk. Focusing narrowly on whether lines formed at warehouses, and, moreover, debating secondary issues more generally, are at the very least distractions from the fundamental matter of systemic risk. To the extent that Dodd-Frank fails to curb such risk, we as a society put the economy and financial system at a higher risk of collapsing if we follow the government and the media in focusing too narrowly on just the possible wrong-doing of the bankers. Ironically, sustaining such a focus may be in the banks’ own financial interest.
What is that nebulous thing called politics? Might it be that the practice is essentially exploiting or creating what are known as principal-agent costs? That is, might politics boil down to a skill in the agent (elected representative) in putting his political or economic interests ahead of doing the bidding of his principal(s) (i.e., his constituent body). In the U.S. Senate bill in early 2013 to obviate the “fiscal cliff,” for example, the Democrats may have agreed to benefits for the Republican lawmakers’ campaign backers in exchange for going along with a more progressive federal income tax system. Among the added provisions were special expensing rules for certain film and television productions—no doubt those made by particular campaign contributors. The provision for tax-exempt financing for the New York Liberty Zone around the former World Trade Center may also have been a favor to a particular someone. Lest it is wondered what an extension of the American Samoa economic development credit was doing in an expedited measure to obviate the “fiscal cliff,” the answer may have had to do with a particular Republican lawmaker’s relationship with someone having an interest in American Samoa. I can only speculate here, as I was not privy to the actual relationships and negotiations. However, the sheer strangeness of such provisions in such a bill suggests that the particular political or economic interests of particular Republican lawmakers may have been the culprit.
Is money the language of politics? citizen.org
Such interests need not stem from particular relationships. To get the Republicans to “move on principle” regarding progressive taxation, the Democrat negotiators may have agreed to give on particulars on another law—in this case, Obamacare. The bill also contained a provision to remove the Community Living Assistance Services and Support program, or CLASS, which was proposed to enable millions of elderly and disabled people to stay in their homes rather than be placed in institutional care.
Generally
speaking, the pattern involves essentially “buying off” particular lawmakers so they will “shift over” on a larger principle—in this case,
progressive taxation. Give a bit on Obamacare and include a provision
financially beneficial to a particular Republican lawmaker or one of his or her
financial contributors or patrons—anything satisfying a particular interest
of a particular lawmaker—so
he or she will move from the preference of his or her constituents. The agency cost is the
difference that a lawmaker (agent) skirts for his own political or economic interest from doing the bidding of his or her official constituents
(principals).
If the skill called politics involves a politician’s particular interests at the expense of one of his or her principles or official duties (i.e., to constituents), then negotiation cannot be expected to be confined to compromising on the merits of the bill itself. Rather than merely going back and forth on numbers for the upper income subject to the Bush tax cuts, a Republican negotiator might propose an unrelated provision benefiting one of his or her friends, business associates, or campaign contributors. Granted the provision, the negotiator would then give on the numbers. One might ask whether the inclusion of particular exogenous interests is necessary to negotiation on a given policy. Wouldn’t the final product in terms of the policy be better were the unrelated benefits kept out of the mix? That is to say, is their incorporation a decadent or inferior form of politics, or an essential element that cannot be removed? Perhaps the answer lies in whether negotiation on a given policy, such as deficit reduction, can be done without the negotiators bringing up their particular interests (as a means of shirking their principles or duty). Perhaps ethical leadership in politics involves refusing to enable (or exploit) another’s “agency costs” by incorporating the unrelated provisions, in which case politics itself could find higher ground and the resulting policy would more closely match the preference of the body politic.
As the U.S.
economy slogged through a recession following the credit crisis in 2008 and the
E.U. was weighed down by the ballast of austerity in the most indebted states,
developing economies, including those of China and India, kept the world
economy afloat. As a group, those economies grew 7.4% in 2010, 6.2% in 2011,
and 5.5% in 2012. In keeping with this trend, the Global Economic Outlook of
the Conference Board predicted 4.7% for 2013. Fortunately, the Board also
predicted a pick-up in consumer demand in the U.S. to pick up the slack. “The
only really short-term positive impact that we can have is that we can see a
faster return of demand, particularly in the U.S.,” the Board’s chief economist
said. As of 2012, such a return was not necessarily “in the cards.” The
pessimism can be seen in the projected world economic growth of 3 percent,
which is lower than the 3.2% expected in 2012 and the 3.8% achieved in 2011.
That the projected growth rate of only 1.8% for the U.S. in 2013 is less than
the projected 2.1% for 2012 indicates that increased demand in the U.S. was not
expected to fully pick up the slack for the slowing-down of the developing
economies. Here I want to point to a major factor in the U.S.: the possibly
impending “fiscal cliff” of cuts in the federal budget and the end of the Bush
tax breaks that were scheduled to begin on January 1, 2013 unless
Congress and the White House could come to a legislative agreement beforehand
on an alternative way of holding down the deficits. Presumably that way would
have a less recessionary effect.
In doing
political risk analysis, one might be tempted to weigh in on predictions of a
grand deal. I submit that predicting whether one comes together, as well as its
differential economic impact would be, is not merely difficult, but also nearly
impossible—unless one has “inside information” from the key players in
Washington. Political risk analysis is not a sort of crystal-ball operation.
Predicting the future is notoriously difficult for us mere mortals. However, we
can assess how the prospect of a possible event, such as the “fiscal cliff,” is
being played out in real-time. In other words, it is possible to determine
whether the “fear-mongers” are exaggerating the probably economic impact (and
why!). Assessing the severity of the worst-case scenario can thus be
recalibrated, with implications for strategic planning.
Should the
automatic cuts in the U.S. federal budget and end of the Bush tax cuts begin on
January 1, 2013—a combined hit of over $500 million in that year alone—a
“recessionary toll” was generally held to be the result. That is to say, the
domestic demand made possible by increasing discretionary spending would be
reduced as government spending decreases and federal income taxes increase. The
Global Economic Outlook pointed to the prospect of Congressional and White
House negotiations potentially obviating the sequestration as bearing on the
global economic growth. Even though Congressional leaders could be counted on
to rise to the occasion in delivering on sufficient dramatics at the last
minute, the general public could not be sure that the denouement would involve
a quick swerve away from “fiscal cliff” as though in some 1940s film noir.
Just by the
numbers—around $500 million in 2013—the Conference Board may have been
overstating the recessionary impact of the sequestration in an economy whose
GDP was over $16 trillion. For one thing, the momentum in 2012 was in the
direction of increasing demand. Also, corporate planning may have already “hedged
their bets” so “going over the cliff” would not actually involve much change,
at least initially, on their part.
I must add
here the caveat that I not an economist. Hence, I do not have the
quantitative expertise necessary to "run the numbers"
on how much GNP would decline from the sequestration. However, I have run
economic regressions, so I have some sense that the actual variables in a political economy
are not as formulaic as those in a regression equation. The inherrent
uncertainty in the political dimension in particular renders suspect the
“empirical social science” approach of modern economics as determinative in
political economy. Put another way, the political-risk-analysis dimension of an
economic growth projection introduces considerable uncertainty in an otherwise
quantitative economic numbers game, which might itself be overly deterministic
or "exact." Even if we could untangle the myriad political
factors going into political negotiations beforehand, we would still have to
accept the uncertainty that is inherent in predicting the future, especially where
human decisions are in the mix. That is to say, the future cannot be known
for certain, given the respective natures of time and human beings.
I suspect the
differential economic impact between a possible deal and sequestration was
being exaggerated, particularly by the media but also by officials in
government and CEOs—all of whom had subterranean reasons for doing so. The
media’s “fiscal cliff” label alone illustrates the proclivity to exaggerate. It
is not as though a deal would have absolutely no drag on the economy, even if
significantly less than that of sequestration. However, in distinguishing
between “some” and “more” in terms of a drag on consumer demand in the U.S.,
the impact on the overall global economic
output may be less than the “fiscal cliff” rhetoric implies because the world
is much more than the American union. In other words, if the “differential” in
terms of economic impact between a deal to cut the deficit and sequestration
turns out to be less than portrayed in 2012, the resulting impact on the larger global
economy would also be less.
In terms of a
prognosis for 2013 from the vantage-point of late 2012, my best guess was
that it would be largely similar to 2012 globally—the U.S. and E.U. continuing
to climb out of deep recessions while struggling to inflict austerity on
themselves for their own good, and the developing economies continuing to
cooling their heels from growth rates that were probably unsustainable anyway.
In terms of international business prospects, “continued languid” rather than
“fiscal cliff” would be my headline.
Source:
Matthew Walter, “U.S.
Seen Propelling Growth of Global Economy in 2013,” The Wall Street
Journal, November 13, 2012.
