The Buie Knife

What Should Black Voters Do?

"Dwight Eisenhower, the incumbent in 1956, won nearly 40 percent of the black vote. Four years later, Richard Nixon netted 32 percent of the black vote in a losing cause. But the numbers have continued to go down. Bush got 11 percent of the African-American turnout on Nov. 2, but this was just a 2 percent uptick from his 2000 showing." -- Jabari Asim, Washington Post online columnist.

Taken for granted by the Democratic Party, ignored (or worse) by the Republicans, Asim asks what should black voters do -- create or join a third party, or work on solving problems and building new coalitions at the grassroots?

Skeet Shootin' and Huntin'

Some relatives in Southern Maryland invited us out for some skeet-shooting on Saturday. My seven-year-old, under strict supervision, did mighty fine -- hit four out of twelve clay pigeons. He was thrilled. He's got excellent eye-hand coordination.

For the past 20 years, I've lived in one of the bluest of the blue spots on earth,  Takoma Park, MD. Here, it's probably not cool to speak with great enthusiasm about using firearms, especially in allowing children to fire them, even if strictly supervised. But believe it or not, I do know some quite enlightened members of our fair community, even PhDs, who love to go hunting on the weekends.

My son's great pleasure and pride made me think I'd like to take him on a hunting trip some time. I've never been much of a hunter, but I do remember with fondness the few hunting trips I went on as a kid growing up in the rural South, once I overcame my guilt at trying to blow Bambi's brains out and clip Big Bird's wings. In truth, many animals would starve to death if hunters didn't kill them, so in ways hunting is quite humane and helps restore balance in the ecosystem.

My mother was passionately against guns, and my father never took much pleasure in hunting, so neither did I.

I'd like to give my son the experience, so at least he can decide for himself whether he likes it or not.

Accumulating Great Wealth: A Sign of Virtue, Righteousness, Godliness

The merger of religious tradition with commercial interests at this time of year got me thinking about the history of capitalism and how it shapes the conscious and unconscious values of Americans.

"Why...did the institutions of modern capitalism come into being in a particular region (northern Europe) at a particular time (the seventeenth century) even though “the auri sacra fames,” ...the greed for gold—“is as old as the history of man?” asked Max Weber, in his classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, as recounted in this week's New Yorker.

Is it purely coincidental that the growth of capitalism paralleled the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, and that they fed on each other? Weber thought not. He observed that the wealthiest men in the world were all Protestants, specifically Calvanists and often Puritans -- that is, they believed that work is a calling from God. By working hard, no matter whether the job is digging ditches or building a business, by engaging in self-discipline, sacrifice and obedience, by depriving yourself of indulgent pleasures, by enduring hardship, by saving what you make, and reinvesting profits to increase wealth, you are acting virtuously, righteously, Godly. Hard, honest work is good for the soul, Calvinists believed and believe. It leads to spiritual improvements, and a sense of righteousness.

The way to atone for one's sins or inadequacies was to work hard, Calvinism taught, according to a review of Weber's book on Amazon.com. Hard work was and is a duty. Calvinists quoted 2nd Theselonians: "He who does not work, does not eat." Hard work, making money and accumulating wealth was a sign of virtue, a means to eternal salvation, and the guarantee of an afterlife in Paradise.

Calvinism was in marked contrast to Catholicism of the time, which taught that humans are saved by God's mysterious, amazing GRACE and mercy. Contemplation, communing with nature, striving for balance in life, belief in the mystical and even magical, not worrying about money, acquisitions and material success, enjoying the lillies of the field, not looking for financial rewards in service to others -- these were the values of many Catholics.

In essence, according to The New Yorker, Donald Trump would be the spiritual heir to Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Richard Cohen: Thanks, for Life, and Freedom

"...Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust center, [has] a new database, which contains the names of some 3 million Jews murdered by the Nazis....I scanned the list of Kohns and Koens and Cohens and Kohens...and it was 1939 or '40 or maybe later, and all of them were rousted from their homes and marched out of town and murdered on the road to Warsaw.... Thanksgiving is the sweetest American holiday. There's nothing boastful about it or proud or bombastic, and it has not yet been corrupted by merchandisers. It is a day for a special kind of humility. I stand in awe of America. I think most of us do. "We dig a grave in the breezes," Paul Celan, a Holocaust survivor, wrote in his poem "Death Fugue." Now, somehow, the grave is also in the ether of the Internet, an interment of 3 million names -- a second 3 million to follow -- and I can search it from America where, for the holiday, I join my mother, who was born in Ostroleka almost 94 years ago, and be thankful that my grandparents sailed to America -- latter-day Pilgrims, running, as it turned out, for their very lives. Happy Thanksgiving." -- Richard Cohen, Washington Post column, November 25, 2004.

Ukrainian Revolution Will Be Blogged

I visited the Ukraine once many years ago, and I have a special empathy for those wonderful people. My son Matthew had a fantastic visit there a couple of years ago visiting the family of his friend Oxana, as the pictures on his blog attest. He just IM'ed me that Oxana is in Kiev, demonstrating with her sister Olesia and tens of thousands of other citizens (latest estimate, 100,000) out in the freezing cold -- demonstrating for their country's freedom, independence, for democracy, and for honest elections. He's trying to ping her cell phone with IM, from the cruise ship he is working on in the Caribbean. Ain't technology incredible?

Our thoughts and prayers remain with Oxana, her family, and other Ukrainians. May freedom and democracy win out against totalitarianism!

For an on-the-ground report from a Ukranian blogger, click. "The Revolution Will Be Blogged." For insightful analysis of the situation, read Daniel Rezner's blog.

Americans As Adolescents on the World Stage

Americans were "born free" of the burdens history placed on other countries, wrote the Frenchman, Alexis De Tocqueville in 1831, and in my foreign travels, I could see what he meant even in the way we Americans put one foot in front of the other....

There is something truly adolescent about the way Americans view themselves and citizens of other countries. 

Is it that we are only interested in other countries as they relate to us? Foreigners are shocked when they spend time in the States and try to tune into international news. They find American news media's coverage of the world entirely inadequate.  In that respect, the American media are giving the American people what they want -- news from America, almost exclusively. Historically, we Americans just haven't cared much about what is happening beyond our shores, across the big pond or Down Under, except as it is relevant to us and our interests. We think we "have it all" here -- why be so curious about "less advanced" countries? "Advanced" of course defined by how much like us they are.

We are optimists, sometimes cock-eyed optimists, who believe we have an inherent right to pursue happiness. The historian C. Vann Woodward observed that Americans have probably experienced fewer frustrations, defeats and humiliations than any other people on Earth.

"Americans have an inadequate view of suffering," the German theologian Helmut Thielieke observed. This observation hit me most vividly on visits to the battlefields and war memorials of Europe and the former Soviet Union.  Not that individual Americans haven't suffered personal tragedies on as wide a scale as the people of Europe or Russia. But until the 3,000 were killed on 9/11/01, except for the 2,403 Americans killed at Pearl Harbor, there hadn't been any mass deaths of Americans on U.S. soil in nearly 150 years -- since the civil war. And even then, the lives lost were at the hands of other Americans. -- Excerpt and slightly revised from a piece I wrote years ago for the Charlotte (NC) Observer.

Related:

• To Understand What It Means to be American, Travel

 

Education Spending Rose 58% in Bush's First Term

"Funding for the Department of Education rose 58% during Bush's first three years, a bigger increase than during the previous eight years under Clinton. But many say even that increase is not enough, considering the demands the No Child Left Behind Act imposes on schools. Funding is still $7 billion a year under what was envisioned in the authorizing legislation for the law, according to the National Education Association." -- Factcheck.org.

Before Invading Iraq, Why Didn't Bush Study Clinton's Approach to Bosnia?

On Thursday, President Bush praised President Clinton's Bosnia policy. Ron Moore posted to this blog, disagreeing with both presidents, claiming that the peace-keeping mission in Bosnia was a failure because Clinton didn't provide all Bosnians with firearms to defend themselves.

It's not surprising that a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association thinks that arming citizens is the answer to many social problems. How arming Bosnians would have eliminated the violence, he hasn't adequately explained. More likely, the violence would have been perpetuated indefinitely.

Major General James Darden, the officer responsible for drawing down the U.S. mission in Bosnia, recently told the Christian Science Monitor: "If we could do it over again, I don't know how we could do it better. It could be considered a model or a template for future international peacekeeping missions." Read the fascinating comparison between Bosnia and Iraq here.

The contrast between the two countries is stark. Not a single soldier was killed in Bosnia. No one complained that the 60,000 troops deployed was inadequate. With soldiers on nearly every corner, anarchy ceased. Control was quickly brought over former combatants. Now the Bosnians live in peace.

Does Ron wish to wager on whether Iraq, six years from now, will be a peaceful, self-governing democracy, a model for future international peacekeeping operations?

To Understand What It Means to Be An American, Travel

Excerpt from column I wrote for USA Today:.

The closest I've come to encountering what it really means to be an American is when I've traveled abroad.

On my first two trips, to England, France, Germany and Switzerland as part of a group of high school students, I was startled to see how easily I could recognize other Americans on a crowded sidewalk. It wasn't just our clothes and our fashions. U.S. teenagers walked differently from British, French, German or Swiss teenagers -- easier, more relaxed, almost happy-go-lucky by comparison. To them, I'm sure we seemed callow, irresponsible and almost spoiled.

We talked louder, were much quicker to voice our likes and dislikes. The eagerness with which we offered opinions sometimes struck our hosts as rude. But I believe the way we made our preferences known was evidence of our brand of democracy, our lack of aristocracy (no rigid roles, no formal class structure) and our idea of what it means to be a truly free and open society.

If I had been born in another country, chances are I would have spent most of my life in the town I grew up in. Foreigners don't pick up and move the way Americans do. Our habit of moving when opportunity beckons goes hand in hand with our belief that we should be able to out-succeed our parents. And if we don't try hard enough, we ought not to be able to rest on our ancestors' laurels. Qualifications mean more than breeding.

Not until I got to know Europeans did I comprehend the ambition and optimism of Americans. European youngsters seemed like they would be perfectly satisfied if they achieved the same level of success as their parents. Most of us in America fully expect to achieve more than our parents.

If you or I had been born in the former Soviet Union, chances are we would have lost a grandparent or a close relative in World War II. Or someone very close to us would have seen their world view come to an end -- whether it was a belief in the Soviet system, or after the fall of communism, that American-style democracy would come to Russia. The Russian people have suffered in ways we Americans cannot imagine.

If you really want to know what it means to be an American, travel. "He who doesn't travel thinks his mother's soup is the best," some sage said. By looking at the world, we can understand ourselves.

More:

• Americans As Adolescents on the World Stage

Whither the Environment?

"The world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically and more vulnerable to disruption than the world in 1980." -- "The Global 2000 Report" to President Carter, 1980.

Going through my file cabinet, I found a yellowed article I wrote in 1983 for The Dallas Morning News about environmentalists' concern that the Reagan Administration wasn't doing enough to prevent dire consequences to the world's environment, as predicted for Year 2000 by a 1980 Carter Administration report.

Did the Global 2000 report's predictions come true?

Gerald O. Barney, the report's study director, says yes. Now president of the Millennium Institute, he wrote an op-ed declaring that the report's conclusions have "stood the test of time. As World Bank data show, in the last two decades the world's rich have steadily become richer, and the poor more numerous."

Humans are "wiping out more species faster than at any time since" the dinosaurs and other species were wiped out 65 million years ago, he says.

Heck no. The "Global 2000" report was written by a bunch of anti-capitalist doomsayers who didn't understand the magic of the free market, wrote Stephen Moore for the Virginia Institute. "Chicken Little was wrong. The sky isn't falling,"

Global 2000 "managed to miss the mark on about everything," wrote William Anderson, an instructor of economics at North Greenville College in South Carolina. "The world is less polluted than it was in 1980, and the economies of many nations have improved substantially from their levels of two decades ago. The mass starvation, economic chaos, poverty, and environmental catastrophes predicted so confidently by the 'experts' have failed to come about in the way they said they would."

These additional links place my 1983 piece in more perspective.

• An abstract from the National Library of Medicine summarizes the 1983 Global 2000 conference I reported on.
• Russell Peterson, former Republican governor of Delaware, who is so critical of the Reagan Administration in the article, is now a Democrat. He wrote a book in 1999 called "Patriots Stand Up," about his outrage over the Republican Party's abandonment of the environment. He served Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter on environmental issues.
• "A Look Back at Reagan's Environmental Record," an article by Amanda Griscom, assesses Reagan's environmental record with a bit more balance and historical perspective than my 1983 article, though it's still largely critical of the Reagan record. 

"As bad as the Reagan administration was," Greg Wetstone of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) told Girscom, "it looks positively quaint in comparison to what's happening today."

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