The Culture War

So, as I said in my first post, sometimes I'll write about things not directly related to current events. This is one of those times. I'm not claiming to be expounding the great truths in the proceeding paragraphs. Just putting some thoughts onto this convenient, digital paper.

I just got finished reading an excellent book by the great historian Barbara Tuchman called The March of Folly. The general theme of it is that one of the great constants in human life is folly, the making of decisions contrary to one's self-interest despite evidence showing the foolishness of those decisions. Examples of folly in government are rife throughout mythology and history: the Trojans and their acceptance of the fatal Horse; the Renaissance popes and their willful ignorance of the coming Reformation; the British and their ham-fisted response to the restless American colonies; the American government and the grave it dug for itself in Vietnam. In the end, she prescribes no solution for this deep-seated tendency in human behavior, except to be prepared for its inevitable occurrence.

It was a minor, well-known point made in the final section on Vietnam that got my gears turning: the draft was biased against the less-privileged. Tuchman wrote, "Everyone who could took advantage of the draft extension allowed during the pursuit of higher education, while the less advantaged classes entered uniform. The inequitable draft, first sin of the Vietnam war on the home front, and intended to reduce cause for disaffection in the social sector, dug a cleavage in American society in addition to the cleavage in opinion."

Tuchman wrote those words in 1983. While she was referring to a row plowed at the end of the 1960s, I think that like a stretch of land that has borne the same rows of tobacco for season upon season, the furrows lasted in American society long after the breaking of the soil ceased. The rich continued their education, and enjoyed a survival rate that one might expect from the treacherous halls of the ivory tower. The poor got to go see how their odds were in a war zone. Some of the poor got to come back intact, and they were (in some cases literally) spit upon. Needless to say, some degree of bitterness ensued.

Twenty to thirty years later, the resentment had not yet abated, and had joined forces with a litany of other angers (anger at the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, anger at the widening income gap, anger at the North for Reconstruction) to become fodder for the Republican party to exploit with a false, cynical populism ginned up against the effete, free-trading, welfare-stating, South-hating, Volvo-driving, latte-sipping hippy liberal Democrats. John Kerry, a legitimate war hero (among many), is shown windsurfing and is bashed by other Vietnam Veterans who question everything he did in the war. Max Cleland, a triple amputee and Bronze and Silver Star recipient, gets defeated by a Republican who got an educational deferment from the war based on the idea that Cleland's identity as a Democrat means he must be unpatriotic and soft on terrorists. The Republicans' ability to keep the trenches of resentment clear of obstacles (like, say, common sense) is still impressive, and our politics remain bitterly divisive.

As these thoughts were occurring to me (in a much less organized manner, if that's imaginable), my mind strayed to the great national efforts that preceded Vietnam, in Korea and of course, World War Two. What was different then? Well, many returning veterans from Korea found that as the years past, they quickly integrated back into society and their struggle became known as the "forgotten war." But it was also a smaller war, less present in the mind and on the television screens of the public than Vietnam.

The Second World War, on the other hand, was an enormous undertaking of our society, unlike anything that came before it or has come since. Virtually everybody served, at home or abroad. Joseph Kennedy and Prescott Bush sent their sons off to war, and so did the nameless butchers and bakers on the other side of the tracks. Every man risked his life as much as the other, and the bombs and bullets did their jobs without prejudice. The broadest possible slice of (male) American society saw the world, and those that came home did so with a different outlook on foreign and domestic affairs. What resulted was a politics of consensus, a meadow unbroken until Ms. Tuchman's plows of folly arrived to unearth the political climate we all know and loathe.

So there you have it, a sort of mental open thread that will undoubtedly reprise itself as I keep writing this thing. You might disagree with me now, and I might disagree with myself later. But I hope it's at least been thought-provoking.

The first real post

So now I've finished with the introductions, and it's time to write something real. I've been chewing on this one for a while now.

The past couple of weeks have been interesting ones nationally and locally in the area of political expression. From the halls of Congress to our classrooms to the machinery of our state's Democratic Party, discussions have abounded about what things should be said, what things should never be said, and who can say what, when.

I think that's a good thing. Without realizing it, our nation has fallen into a long discussion about the nature of political discourse. I'll avoid talking about how "meta" that is. But I don't think such discussions can do anything but strengthen our political culture.

Some folks have criticized the editor of the new edition of Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn for removing all instances of the N-word. Others have criticized Tennessee Democratic Party chairman Chip Forrester for suggesting that members of the executive committee were out of their depth in choosing to vote for one of his opponents. Others have condemned Sarah Palin for helping set the tone nationally that may or may not have led to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of several others. And others criticized the House Republicans for selectively editing the Constitution when they read it aloud in the early days of the new Congress.

For the purposes of this little essay, who's right on these issues and who is in error is irrelevant. What's made me proud has been the way in which everybody from my grocery clerk to my grandmother to my President has taken the opportunity afforded by these events to discuss the way we speak to one another as a nation.

In a nation whose discourse is largely dictated by a few media companies, such democratization of punditry is a healthy thing. Of course, in the case of most of the aforementioned news items, they were indeed fed to us by the national media. But what I've heard from the people I run into on a daily basis is not just a rehashing of tired MSNBC or Fox News talking points. The talking heads were just a catalyst for a great national dialog still taking place and sustaining itself without relying on a live CNN feed to stoke interest. This poll shows that the public did not take the word of those on TV for gospel when the elected and unelected opinionmakers of the left claimed that harsh rhetoric led directly to the Arizona shootings. Instead, Americans have formed their own opinions in the refreshing quiet of their own souls and in concert with their friends and family.

So talking about how we speak to one another seems to have brought about a truer, broader exercise of our right to free speech than I can recall experiencing in some time. Inevitably, the old media will try to rein in the untrustworthy masses, and young Zuckerberg will find another way to channel our thoughts in the guise of providing greater outlet for self-expression for the masses. But little spurts of independent thought like we've experienced in the past fortnight will continue to keep our democracy fresh.

Well, Well, Well

I guess I've started a blog. The thing I said I'd never do.

So I guess I'll say a few basic things about myself and what I intend this little journal to be.

I was born and raised in Gallatin, Tennessee, just about 30 miles northeast of Nashville, and that's the place that I'll always consider to be home (no matter how Republican it may get). I'm a proud product of public school primary and secondary education, having graduated from Gallatin High School in 2004. Both sides of my family have roots going back for generations in Middle Tennessee, and I feel that about as strongly as I feel the wind on my face or the ground underneath my feet. I'll probably talk a lot about Tennessee's past and my family's past as I continue with this exercise, so be prepared.

Since 2006, I've been actively involved in Democratic politics in this state. I fell more or less randomly into a position as a field intern on Harold Ford, Jr.'s campaign for US Senate in the fall of that year, and quickly realized that it was a path I wanted to pursue further. The next year, in the summer between my junior and senior years at Vanderbilt, I was a field staffer on Karl Dean's mayoral campaign here in Nashville. After graduating, I worked briefly for Mike Padgett's primary campaign for US Senate before moving to the Tennessee Democratic Party's coordinated campaign, doing field work for 4 state House and Senate races in Middle Tennessee. After that, I helped get the campaign to defeat the English Only ballot initiative in Nashville started, before moving to DC early in January 2009. I spent a year there at George Washington University's Graduate School for Political Management, and while there (after a lovely spell of unemployment) I worked at the Change to Win labor federation. After helping them figure out that they couldn't afford to pay me anymore, I moved baczk to Tennessee last February, and in April, began my job with the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus as its Deputy Political Director, where I served through the 2010 elections. Now, I work for the Southeast Laborers District Council, where I'm focused on helping the locals in our District develop their political programs, among other things.

My other great interests are history and music. I majored in History at Vanderbilt, and while my degree says I concentrated in European History, my focus shifted while I was there to American History. I wrote my Senior Honors thesis on the breakup of the Democratic Party and the rise of the Republicans in Tennessee between 1948 and 1970. I'll probably talk about that a lot, too, as well as Generational Theory, which I think is the best interpretation of American History out there. As far as music goes, I love listening to it, and I love playing it. My mom is a piano teacher (let me know if you're interested in lessons), so I started playing piano at the age of 4. Since high school, I've taken up guitar, as I've found it to be a little bit more portable. I'll probably talk a little bit about music, too, but maybe not as much as other stuff.

Anyway, there you have some bullet points about me. As far as this blog goes, one item I guess should be clear about is that I know the only thing I will be right about almost 100% of the time is that my opinions are correctly represented here. I won't claim to be the absolute arbiter of truth in media, and if you read this and think I'm getting too big for my britches, let me know, civilly.

I also will not be endorsing any candidates here. I'm a Democrat, and have given Democrats my blood, sweat and tears. But while I might occasionally criticize or praise individual politicians, pundits and parties, such talk should not be construed as a recommendation that you or anybody else vote one way or another.

As I get more familiar with this, I'll probably set some other guidelines for myself. But for now, this will suffice.

Welcome.