Vol. 5 No. 11 (May 2007)

Uncommon Denominator

The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/

“My definition of a free society is a society where is safe to be unpopular.”
– Adlai Stevenson

CONTENTS

Happenings: CI’s new Executive Director
Talking Points: The Chinese connection
Wit and Wisdom: On the presidential candidates
From the Blogs: “Third Way Is the Wrong Way”
Quoted: Jerry Falwell on his fellow man
Check It Out: Oral histories of the Iraq War
Featured Article: “Voyeurismo”
Endorsements: Jim Hightower
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor

HAPPENINGS

The Commonweal Institute is proud to announce the appointment of a new Executive Director, Barry Kendall, who joins us at an exciting time in our history. Dr. Kendall quickly rose to the top of an impressive field of candidates for the position, which opened up following the decision of Laurie Spivak to return to serving as a CI Fellow (for family reasons). Everyone at Commonweal thanks Ms. Spivak for her dedication, creativity, and excellent work during her tenure.

As the Executive Director, Barry Kendall will provide leadership, vision, and intellectual guidance to the organization, while serving as its principal spokesperson, fundraiser, and community representative. He brings to the Institute significant experience in non-profit management, along with a deep understanding of the role of religion in American culture and a history of engagement with progressive political causes.

An Arkansas native, Mr. Kendall began his career working in the Atlanta arts community, including three seasons as Managing Director of 7 Stages, a professional theatre that builds partnerships with international artists and engages audiences in pressing social issues. During his tenure, he restored the organization to financial health and managed program expansion into China, France, and Mexico. He also worked for the Olympic Arts Festival, Alliance Theatre Company, and Emory University. He has worked in a variety of political roles, including field work for Bill Bradley 2000 and directing media and events for the 2006 Democratic campaign in San Mateo County, California.

Dr. Kendall’s academic background includes a B.A. from Emory University, where he was a Bobby Jones Scholar and studied in Scotland, a Masters degree in religion from Yale University, and a doctorate in drama at Stanford University, where he focused on theatrical modes of persuasion in modern Protestant movements and cultures. His doctoral thesis, “Changing American Minds: Performances of Evangelism in the Early Republic,” examines the historical roots of the American evangelical movement and its contributions to persistent values in our culture. He has lectured on his innovative scholarship at conferences and in classrooms around the country and abroad. Dr. Kendall is also an accomplished stage actor and director, and a coach in public speaking and presentation techniques.

Again, the Commonweal Institute is delighted to have Dr. Kendall’s talent and experience. As we continue to grow, and to plot our course at a time when the prospects are excellent for progressive politics, it’s exciting to have him at the helm.

TALKING POINTS

In the latest outrageous example of malfeasance by China, this one tacitly abetted by the Bush administration, the Washington Post has reported that Chinese firms have been flooding the U.S. food market for years with unregulated and/or unsafe products unfit for human consumption. How delightful.

Beyond just the well-known contamination of pet food linked to China, the list includes a variety of foods that ordinary Americans eat: “dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical, frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics, scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria, and mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides,” among other comestibles. In the last month alone, according to the Post, the FDA detained 107 food shipments from China, along with “more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.”

But this represents just a fraction of the total food imports the FDA is able to inspect, and in any case the rejected shipments routinely show up a second or even a third time. Moreover, the Bush administration has made the FDA’s job harder by systematically underfunding the agency, ignoring the warnings of FDA employees, and refusing to approve even modest tightening of the regulatory framework.

It is this attitude by the administration that led Paul Krugman, in the May 21 New York Times, to lay the blame primarily at the feet of the laissez-faire economic principles of Milton Friedman, who inspired “an ideology that says business should never be regulated, no matter what.” Certainly this problem is central to the whole appalling story, and certainly it’s scary to think that the administration is unwilling to do everything in its power to protect the public from an obvious health threat. But the public good has never ranked very high on the priority list of the far right.

Another part of the story, however, is that the U.S. is not just unwilling but unable to confront China over the contaminated food products because we have so weakened ourselves economically. Given our crippling trade deficit with China, and given the exceedingly low value of the dollar, which is propped up primarily because of Chinese investment, all China has to do is yank the chain to get America’s attention and acquiescence. Our leverage over China has all but disappeared, thanks to the fact that they virtually own us, and they know it.

Which brings us to the side of the story that Krugman does not really address. Consistently, and with increasing brazenness, China has been seeking to weaken the United States both internally and internationally. Americans should make no mistake: China is an adversary of the United States, and its actions pose a direct threat to individual Americans. The growing scandal over unsafe food products is the most visible affront, but it represents just the tip of the iceberg. The Chinese government pursues a range of policies, both fiscal and international, all tending toward the same object: the successful fusion of capitalism and tyranny. Their model of commercial totalitarianism would confound two centuries of conventional wisdom in the West, which has held that political and economic freedoms go hand in hand, and that with increasing prosperity, with a growing middle-class, comes agitation for political reform. The United States represents an obstacle to this ambition, and therefore China has tried to thwart or stymie us geopolitically, or simply to outmaneuver us, all the while professing no ill will.

One thing about American conservatives is that, whatever else they’ve done wrong, you used to be able to rely on them to stand up against the country’s adversaries. But where are they now? Have they so prostituted themselves to corporate interests, here and abroad, that they are unwilling to take on China (or Russia, for that matter, which is emulating its new buddy’s odious combination of political repression and economic greed)? And what about the American left? Liberals and progressives generally don’t like to think in terms of “enemies,” and they have a tendency to avoid tough fights (lending a certain credence to the “soft on communism” or “soft on terrorism” charges). But the time has come to stand up because what is at stake in the tainted food crisis is the health of the American people. Protecting the nation’s food supply against the deliberate and/or negligent actions of foreign and private interests represents precisely the kind of responsibility we expect of our government.

Congress must step up, call this flagrant violation of our national interest for what it is, and move to stop it. There must be veto-proof legislation directing the creation of a branch of the FDA charged solely with the monitoring and regulation of the nation’s food and drug imports. In an age of globalization, it is simply not enough to rely on the safety of other nations’ factories and slaughterhouses – particularly China’s – and not enough to interdict the occasional bad shipment. Americans need to demand that our government protect us.

In the meantime, each one of us can begin to apply pressure against the companies where we buy our food: Safeway, Kroger, Albertson’s, Costco, WalMart, and so forth. They need to know that their customers take this issue seriously and want straight answers about where their food is coming from.

To that end, we offer the following template for a letter you might want to send to the grocery stores you frequent. Their customer services addresses are available online. Although they may only reply with boilerplate, if enough people write in, they may begin to get the idea. That’s democracy.

“I am a loyal [Safeway] shoppers and was alarmed when I saw a recent article on contaminated foods from China entering the U.S. market. (See link below). These foods are not limited just to deep-discount stores, but have apparently been infiltrating grocery venues throughout the U.S. for some time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051901273.html?referrer=emailarticle

“As a conscientious consumer, I want to know that the savings that [Safeway] passes on to its customers do not come at the high price of jeopardizing the health of our families. How can we find out where the food [Safeway] procures for its warehouses originates? Can you guarantee that the foods you sell are not contaminated?”

WIT AND WISDOM

“But with months until the primaries, there’s only so much dirt you can dig up on these people. We already know that Barack Obama went to a radical madrassa and that Dennis Kucinich’s paternal grandfather was the Lorax.” — Stephen Colbert

“During last night’s Republican debate, Mike Huckabee got a big laugh when he said that Congress has been spending money like John Edwards at a beauty salon. Then Huckabee got an even bigger laugh when he said he’s running for president.” — Conan O’Brien

FROM THE BLOGS

Here’s the beginning of Guy Saperstein's "Third Way Is the Wrong Way," from the Commonweal Institute Blog, May 18:

“An organization has emerged in Washington, D.C., Third Way, which claims to be both centrist and progressive and which has gained a foothold of influence with some Democratic lawmakers. It is important to assess if Third Way’s political strategy makes sense, and to examine whether Third Way is undermining progressives' efforts.

“Third Way’s seminal political philosophy is set forth in the ‘The Politics of Polarization,’ written by Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, which informs Third Way's perspective and direction. ‘The Politics of Polarization,’ which Third Way rolled out under the banner, ‘Third Way Releases Groundbreaking Report,’ is a long document, but it is predicated on one core premise — a premise that I think is not only utterly fallacious, but one which attempts to lead Democrats in the wrong political direction. The core premise of ‘The Politics of Polarization’ is that more people self-identify as ‘conservatives’ (32%) than ‘liberals’ (20%), so polarizing the electorate favors Republicans, not Democrats. Thus, Democrats must trend toward the center and/or conservative positions to attract the ‘moderates,’ and avoid supporting clear, but polarizing, ‘liberal’ positions.”

Read the rest of Guy Saperstein’s post at www.commonwealinstitute.org/CIBlog/2007/05/third_way_is_the_wrong_way_1.html

QUOTED!

“If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America! If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children . . . and our nation will pay a terrible price!” — The late Rev. Jerry Falwell, in a 1997 address

CHECK IT OUT

For all the country’s information overload and for all its many sources of media, one suspects that most Americans actually know precious little about the direct personal experiences of the soldiers in the Iraq War. We see the short death notices: Two soldiers killed by roadside bomb. We learn the big-picture issues: Another failed reconstruction project, another missed opportunity for political reconciliation. We read about the agonies of Iraqi civilians: dying, fleeing, grieving. But rarely do we see things from the perspectives of American servicemen and servicewomen, who too often can seem anonymous, fungible, powerless. Even the short newspaper obits, while helping give a sense of their personalities, do not really convey what the war is like to those who live, hopefully, through it.

Two remarkable books – with others surely on the way – have begun to meet the need. These are What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It (Little, Brown, and Company, 2006) and In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive (Polipoint Press, 2006). These are not anti-war books, but neither are they pro-war books. Rather, they simply record the first-person accounts of dozens of soldiers representing a variety of social backgrounds, war experiences, and political sympathies. In these accounts we get a ground-level view – sensory, textured, immediate – of everything from hand-to-hand combat to the Iraqi people to the geopolitics of the war. It quickly becomes clear that the soldiers cannot be pigeon-holed into familiar categories and that their responses to war are unpredictable: at times profound and at others callous; highly intellectual as well as deeply emotional; and altogether hard to imagine for anyone who has not faced the same.

The impact of the accounts is cumulative, so it’s hard to convey in brief excerpts, but here’s Jason Neely, a gunner with the 7^th Cavalry Regiment, describing the aftermath of an early battle outside Najaf:

“Afterwards, I jumped off the track for like the second time since I was in Iraq, and I went and I laid down in this grassy field, and there were fucking buttercups all around me, and I could smell buttercups. And I was like, Jesus, this is just so weird. I remember writing to my mom about it, ‘cause I always took an opportunity to experience the situation and reflect upon humanity and stuff while I was over there, because we were doing pretty inhuman things, you know, and so it was interesting for me to sit there and think, God, buttercups. And then fucking load a bunch of ammo and start lighting shit up.”

Or here’s Dominick King, a Marine who fought in the battle for Falluja, describing what it’s like to back in the States:

“People are support of the troops as long as it doesn’t take any sacrifice from them, and I just get so furious with people sometimes that I ... that I just have to leave the room. And I have a long, long list of people who are on my shit list. When we got back from Iraq, me and my friend Tabor were in the car driving to Dunkin’ Donuts or something in the morning, and we were at the stop sign with a car in front us saying, ‘Freedom Is Not Free,’ and he just looks at me. He goes, ‘Can you believe this? “Freedom’s not free,” what has he paid’?”

These two books should be mandatory reading for anybody with an opinion about the Iraq War. Check ‘em out.

FEATURED ARTICLE

The following is an excerpt from Roger Sandall’s “Voyeurismo” which appears in the current issue of The Culture Cult:

“You’ve spent 10,000 years getting there. It’s not pretty but it’s yours — the swamp, the forest, the tree house where you live. Bigger and stronger tribes drove you down from the better land higher up the slopes, so you retreated to a godforsaken place thick with reptiles, insects, and malarial encephalitis. Southern Papua’s rain forests are hell; but at least you feel safe and alone.

“Then Zurück in die Steinzeit comes along — a party of Germans looking for tourism’s outer edge, an unknown and uncontacted tribe, a forest fastness to outfast any other. They have their cameras ready and this is what they’ve come for (Zurück in die Steinzeit means Back to the Stone Age) — stark naked little guys with bows and arrows and funny-looking penis sheaths and living in trees. They’re up there on a kind of platform gesticulating: even at $8000 a seat this show is worth the price.

“It seems that everywhere today people spend lots of time staring at other people. In some Third World villages they do it because time hangs heavy on their hands. In First World cities they do it because time hangs heavier — the rich, who read less and play more and suffer a surfeit of channels as well as food, are often bored out of their minds. So the bolder of them go on tour to the ends of the earth where ‘extreme ethno-tourism’ can be enjoyed by venturing into the last strongholds of tribal man.”

Read the whole article at http://www.culturecult.com/notes/voyeurismo.htm.

ENDORSEMENTS

“It’s always good to put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion. The folks at the Commonweal Institute do the heavy mental lifting so agitators like me can arm ourselves on the front lines of the ideological battles taking place every day in America. For too long progressives have walked fearful of their shadows, whimpering and whining about what's wrong and fighting amongst themselves over crumbs. With the help of the Commonweal Institute, that time is over.” — Jim Hightower, national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and it’s Time to Take it Back

GET INVOLVED

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