English speaking people have been struggling with how to govern
themselves for hundreds of years. Developing a democratic form of government is
not easy because there is not a simple structure to keep the majority
satisfied.
By comparison, autocratic governance is relatively easy. One
person, be he or she, a sovereign or sultan or Tsar or a dictator holds
absolute power until he or she doesn’t. War, assassination, disease or royal
intrigue leave the people outside the decision-making process of a society. Serfs
can riot or rebel at paying taxes but in the end, the autocratic government
prevails. If it doesn’t prevail another autocrat may assume power or you may
have a revolution where the power goes into the hands of the people. Louis XVI prophesied,
“Apres Moi, Le deluge.”
Le Deluge(the Flood)
is a chaotic time in any society. There
are always those, who pine for the King and his strong leadership, but the
masses are in search of their own governance. Government of the people, by the people and
for the people is their goal. In American history we scarcely ever talk about
the era of the Articles of Confederation which was our first stab at self-governance.
We brush over that period quickly to get to the myth that the Constitution was
written by God and handed down to a group of landed white men in a secret
meeting. It is reminiscent of Moses and
the ten Commandments.
There is a story of
Benjamin Franklin meeting a woman on the street in Philadelphia as he was
coming out of the Constitutional Convention. Her question to Mr Franklin was, “What
kind of government do we have?” He replied, “A republic, if we can keep it.” In
retrospect it was as prescient as Louis XVI.
Before the creation of parliaments and other legislative
bodies, political discussion took place in the streets, taverns, churches and
homes. Getting the political discussion focused in the parliament made daily
living easier. One was not constantly
confronting mobs of angry citizens. Political problems were expected to be
resolved by the representative bodies.
What defines a representative body? Is it only landed white
men or is it all white men or is it all white people or is it white people and
their former slaves? Should we included the indigenous people who were here
before God gave the North American continent to white people?
We have been refining that question for almost 250 years. In its evolution the Congress became a place
where the problems of a civil society could be hotly debated and then, by a majority
vote, a decision could be reached about a solution to a problem that was based on the common good as it was understood
at the time.
The concept of separate powers for 3 branches of government
was specifically designed to protect against ever having an autocratic
government. One King George was enough for us. We wanted no more taxation
without representation. We did not want
a government dominated or controlled by the military. There were lots of things to be against but
the question remained: what are those things that are in the common good which
we want for all citizens.
The concept of the common good hasn’t changed much. Food,
housing, clothing to protect against the weather, ample education for all the
children, peace with our enemies, care when there is illness or injury and the
hope for a peaceful period of aging. As time has passed and we have gotten more
knowledge, we have added to the list. Clean air, clean water, protection from
the ravages of the free enterprise system and the natural world and a longer,
more satisfying life through advances in medical care. As time has passed the
problems have become more complex and solutions more difficult to achieve.
In the midst of this ever-changing political world, the
Congress had evolved into a two-party system.
One party or the other had control for long periods but as new problems
emerged, loose unofficial coalitions emerged as a way of keeping the decision
making on track.
When I got to Congress in 1989 the Democrats had been in
charge for 52 of the preceding 56 years. Informal arrangements allowed business
to get done. For example, on the Appropriations
Committee the world was divided into 14 spheres of influence: Education and Labor, Military, Agriculture
etc. Each chairman of one of these areas was called a Cardinal(reminiscent of
the days when church and state were one and the same). Each Cardinal received
his allocation of the general fund and he decided who got what. The senior Republican,
who was called the ranking member, got 30+% of the money and the Cardinal kept
the rest to distribute to the Democrats on the committee. Each Democratic
member had a certain allocation to spread among the members from his or her
region. Norm Dicks was my Cardinal.
Individual members had to present a list of wishes/recommendations
to your Cardinal on the Committee. Everyone dealt with this process differently. My office had requests from local and state
government, transportation requests, social and health service requests,
natural resource requests and art and cultural museums. We struggled to prioritize
them and then published our list on the internet so all the world could see and
comment. And they did. “Why am I not
higher than someone else?” was the usual question from the public.
This was the process by which members brought home the
“Bacon”. If you got more than your share, people wondered how you did it or If
you didn’t bring an acceptable amount, you were, considered to be delinquent,
in your duties. As the government grew and grew, taking on more
responsibilities that local governments couldn’t seem to handle, the Conservative
movement in the United States became fearful that Congress would become like
European socialist governments that took care of people from cradle to grave. They
were so fearful after the election of Lyndon Johnson and his efforts to create
a Great Society that they commissioned a Wall Street lawyer named Lewis Powell
to write a plan to stop the spread and indeed to roll back, of the advancing
Socialist agenda. It should be required reading for
all the incoming members of Congress in the class of 2017. If they did this, they would have some framework to understand
where they were in time.
Lewis Powell did a
masterful job in setting out a plan in 1972. Electing local conservative
officials, developing conservative think-tanks(American Heritage, Manhattan,
Cato and host of others} and making inroads into the press and courts were just
a few of his prescriptions. He was
applauded and awarded a seat on the Supreme Court.
The groundwork for the present was begun in 1972 by Lewis
Powell but a Field Marshal was a necessity.
There had to be a ruthless, intellectually dishonest and intuitive genius
to weld together conspiracy, ersatz populism, racism and class warfare to form
a winning effort in the Congress.
Congress had been a
place where, for more than two centuries, people from every direction had come
together to compromise to make America
keep moving toward the goals of the common good. This new leader had to be
vicious, aggressive and untruthful and willing to make or infer any sort of
accusation. He had to be willing to sacrifice some Republicans as well as taken
on Democrats. Moderate Republicans could no longer exist. There was no place
for them because the party didn’t want them.
In 1974 a soldier for this war on Socialism applied for a
commission. He was rejected twice. In 1978 he was elected to Congress.
And so, the Newt Gingrich era began. Before the advent of Gingrich
revolution the Congress was a legislative body that dealt with an economic depression, fought
two world wars, put a man on the Moon, built a national Highway system, created
the Human genome project, coped with the AIDS epidemic and created the most
powerful Military/industrial complex known to man. Simultaneously we have
created the medical industrial complex using 1/6 of the GDP of the country.
Newt immediately began attacking everyone in power. Vicious unfounded accusations were unleashed.
The goal was to destroy the people’s faith in the Congress’s ability to solve
problems for the people because they were too old or corrupt. His propaganda
machine was very successful. He defeated the Speaker in his own district in Washington
state and won the Majority.
After the election of 1994, Newt systematically began to
dismantle the functioning Congress. He
was using the template of Lewis Powell’s Memo of 1972 which laid out the way to
stem the tide of progressive government.
He destroyed the human infrastructure of the Congress in dozens of ways.
Today’s the Republicans are little more than a collection of
power mad people seeking to hold onto their office. Raising money from rich
donors and pandering to the worst instincts of the larger constituency is the
spectacle we see before us. Recently the 60th member announce he or
she would not return.
The mayhem in our schools is the latest and worst example of
the failure of the Congress. Dozens of
children have died since the Sandy Hook massacre occurred. Congress stands and
bows its head in the morning at the
beginning of session to commemorate some poor souls whose lives have been
destroyed. But really they are afraid the NRA will run someone against them in
a primary or a general election. Truly, they are bowing their heads in
shame.
I was there in 1992 when a massacre occurred in California
and Pete Stark and others began to push for an assault rifle ban. It took 2 years to get it passed and the NRA
demanded a 10 year sunset clause. In 2005, even with a woman in the Congress
who lost her son and husband to the assault rifle madness, we failed to
continue the ban. This is only one
example of the internal and external wreckage wrought by Newt. People who voted for the assault weapon ban were attacked in the election of 1994. Tom Foley and Jay Inslee in Washington state voted
for it and paid the price at the polls.
They lost but Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world and lose his own soul.? Or what shall he give in exchange for his
soul?”
The Congress has lost the ability to do anything. Name one constructive thing that has happened
under Newt and his followers. War on Terror to keep us safe, stopping domestic
terrorism, easing the insecurity of millions because of health care fears,
Scared school children and parents who worry every morning when the kids go to
school. This the product of the Gingrich
Revolution. Oh, I forgot the 2007
collapse of the financial system, and the burgeoning debt we face as we age into
a society without pensions or assurance of health care.
This Congress can act with lightning speed when greed is the
driver. Tax cuts, which hobble our ability to do anything creative as a society,
are passed at the speed of light. The
whole place has been turned over to 1% of the people(oligarchs) who have no
sense of the common good. No one even
raises this issue anymore. Compromise has been erased from the vocabulary of
Congress. Newt takes pride in disrupting the system
William Butler Yeats, who was a member of the Irish Senate,
foresaw this and wrote the SECOND COMING:
….the blood-dimmed tides loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of
innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The Congress is struggling to regain its role as an
institution that relates and responds to
the needs of the Common Good. Without COMPROMISE it is
not possible. Newt broke the spirit of comity and collegiality deliberately so
that the whole game would be decided by Republicans. What he delivered was an
emasculated legislative body that cannot function. The Duma or the Polish or
Hungarian Parliaments are not functioning and are trending back to the authoritarian
governments prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. They seem like Washington DC.
The prospects were so bright when the Wall fell in 1989. In
1995 the Good Friday Accords were signed in Ireland. Today, with Brexit
rumbling along, we are approaching a resurrection of the border between the
Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. It
took 600 years to take down the wall and 24 years later, they are considering
how to bring it back. Nobody will benefit from that, much as no one benefits
from a gridlocked Congress.
I have some ideas that may help.
I’ll write it in a second piece.
