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April 26, 2007

Frameshop: Debate Post-Game

The big question that we should all be asking after this first debate is this: Have we learned anything since 2004?

In other words, have Democrats figured out that winning debates is about framing principles, not bouncing facts?  At the end of the first official 90 minutes of the 2008 campaign, the answer is "sort of"--some yes, some no.

Unfortunately, the format was terrible ("20 second answers, please...") and many of the questions were ridiculous ("Name your favorite Supreme Court Justice.")  But despite that, a strong Democratic candidate who expects to get the nomination should have treated every question as a chance to move the debate to big principles that framed--not just individual answers--but the entire conception of government, foreign policy, health, and the public good.

Who was the best at that in tonight's debate?

John Edwards:  American Principle
For me, the decisive moment in the debate came about 60 minutes into the discussion when Edwards answered a question about foreign policy issues other than Iraq.  After a brief comment about Russia becoming "autocratic" under Putin, Edwards then lifted the discussion up to a broad frame about America's role in the world:

What we have to ask ourselves is: How does America change the underlying dynamic of what's happening in the world?  For us to be able to do that, the world has to see America as a force for good again.

After that comment, Edwards proposed a series of big initiatives that would demonstrate "America's commitment to humanity," such as: investment abroad in education, sanitation and economic development.   The point was profound and demonstrated, in just a few sentences, the fundamental difference between a progressive, Liberal worldview and an authoritarian, Conservative worldview.  In that broad logic provided by Edwards, we could feel what it would be like to finally breathe again--to be freed from the stranglehold of Bush's monstrous conception of a "global war on terror," through which America becomes a constant bully beating a one way path to global disdain and paranoid isolation. 

Given that the debate was largely about Iraq--that the election will be, largely, about Iraq--Edwards ability to articulate that vision set him apart.  No other candidate struck that fundamental progressive tone or asked a basic question about the underlying moral principles through which we make decisions, build power, and exercise authority. 

As such, Edwards was the only candidate who painted a picture of how the world would change if he became president.  All other candidate's answers seemed small by comparison, cautious, overly concerned with a context defined by political battles.

Chris Dodd:  Equality
The second decisive moment in the debate came almost at the end when Chris Dodd was answering a question about the difference between civil unions and the Republican talking point "gay marriage."  In a response that was astounding for its moral clarity, Dodd said:

I have two young daughters who may one day have a different sexual orientation than their parents.

When I heard that statement, I felt as if I had been snapped back through time--back to an era where Democrats did not equivocate about issues, but stood boldly in front of an audience and held the moral line.  Dodd's point?   Discrimination is wrong and he will not stand for it.  His experience as a father has reminded him that America is a country built on equality and that core principle defines not only in the Constitution, but our conception of the family.  For a President to make a decision that might someday exclude his own  children from the full promise of America is not only wrong, according to Dodd, it cuts against the essence of who we are as people.   Discrimination is not just immoral, it is bad for society, the fundamental building block of which is not "marriage," but the relationships between people--all people. 

Dodd's answer came too late in the debate to define the entire evening, but it was very far reaching and set the stage for a discussion that far surpasses authoritarian threats or progressive platitudes.   Equality is the principle on which this nation was founded, and the struggle to extend that principle to all members of our society is not only what defines or history and our government, but our kitchen tables as well.

Hilary Clinton: Government Protects
Although not a "Wow!" moment in the debate, the third key moment came right at the end when Hilary Clinton was answering what was probably Brian Williams best question:  Is WalMart good or bad for America?  Without hesitation, Clinton smiled and gave this answer:

Well, it's a mixed blessing.

She then went on to frame what is one of the most difficult issues for Democrats: a 21st Century perspective on the American economy.   WalMart, Clinton explained, was a good thing at first because it brought so many products and jobs to the country and in particular to small communities.  But it becomes a problem when government does not set "rules" by which it must operate.  This is a profoundly important frame that she made clearly and with an ease that was disarming.

Her point was that we do not live in a "free market" economy,  but an economy where we put our trust in good government to set rules for the game that are fair and sustainable.  America is best, she reminded the audience, "when Democrats are setting those rules."  How true that simple statement is.  The economy thrives in America when there is good regulation, not when regulation is dismantled through Republican corruption and fantasy claims about  "trickle down" economics in a marketplace with no rules.   That is a progressive liberal worldview.  We do not believe that the WalMarts of our country are purely bad, but that there must be sound regulations so that they strengthen, rather than undermine, our economy and our society.

Bill Richardson:  Bring People to the Table
Throughout the debate, Richardson was the most forceful.  He gave a very clear sense that he would be an impatient executive--in the positive sense of "impatient" meaning: wanting to get things done.    At one point, however, Richardson struck a different tone.  In answer to a question about a post-Castro Cuba, Richardson voiced an approach to leadership radically distinct from what this country has seen in the White House for some time, saying he would, "bring Cuban Americans into the dialog." 

What might have seemed like a minor point about community relations was in fact a broad frame that Richardson extends into his remarks with consistency and authenticity.  Problem solving, he implies, cannot be done by a "decider" simply making decisions, but by a strong leader who understands that true power is the ability to bring people to a common goal.  To express this point, Richardson talks often of convening "conferences" and "summits" and bringing people to the table for "dialogue."  And yet, Richardson is also a very strong executive. 

Richardson described a view of leadership based on a radical break from the current Republican view of power. Problems must be solved by strong leaders who bring people together, not by imposing will from the top through implements of finance and instruments of violence. 

Scorecard:  Edwards on Top,  Dodd and Richardson Make Gains, Clinton Holds Steady
The rest of the candidates performed well, but did not excel at framing any particular area of the debate. 

Obama was halting and not comfortable in the format.  Kucinich was forceful, but ultimately focused too much energy on accusation.  Biden had good points about foreign policy, but no broad vision on leadership.  Gravel landed moralistic jabs, but was unfocused.   These candidates did not lose ground in the debate. They simply did not grab hold of any distinct areas of the debate with bold framing.

In the end, then, it was Edwards who rose to the top by framing the restoration of American power in terms of a rededication to humanity.  Dodd and Richardson each made clear gains in the field with bold statements of principle and clear conceptions of leadership.  And Clinton held steady with a clear frame for a liberal economy.  All this results in a first debate scorecard looking something like this:

1. Edwards
2. Dodd/Richardson
3. Clinton
4. Obama
5. Biden
6. Kucinich
7. Gravel

Of course, framing analysis does not go hand in hand with polling--but what the heck.

If I had to guess how things will work out by the polling numbers over the next few days, I would say that Edwards will take a 3-5% points away from Obama, Dodd and Richardson will each gain 2-3% points  and Clinton will remain roughly where she is.  That prediction in terms of gains and losses in next weeks polls would looke something like this:

• Edwards: gain 3-5%
• Dodd/Richardson: gain 2-3%
• Clinton:  (no change)
• Obama: down 2-3%
• Biden: (no change)
• Kucinich/Gravel: down 1%

Not such a big deal statistically, I suspect,  but interesting enough to make for some weekend headlines. 

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 26, 2007 at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

FRAMESHOP: LIVE BLOGGING, 7PM EST

Although I could not make it down to Orangeburg, SC to watch the events in person, I will be live blogging the broadcast of the Democratic Party First-in-the-Nation 2008 Presidential Candidate Debate starting at 7pm EST.

Stop by to read along and contribute to the comment thread.

6:58pm
Everyone is on stage.  Brian Williams is kicking things off.  Eight candidates From my left:
- Richardson
- Dodd
- Edwards
- Biden
- Obama
- Clinton
- Kucinich
- Gravel

90 minutes, no commercials.  And we're off...

7:07pm
First questions is about Reid's statement ("...the war is lost...").  Goes to Clinton.  She is immediately referring to the accomplishments of the Senate and uses the phrase "The American people have spoken." 

Biden:  "This is not a game show."  Biden is saying we must "Change the fundamental premise" of the problem.  Talks about decentralization.

Obama:  Asked about having called the war "dumb."  Obama says he is "proud that he oposed the war fro the start." 

So far, the answers seem very small from the candidates. 

7:15pm
Edwards gives the first big answer the night:  "The next President must restore the trust bond."  Interesting and broad idea--and the first comment to set a bold vision on the floor.  Well done, Edwards.

Kucinich:  This is the first clear answer about the war.  Cut off the funding, end the war, bring the troops home.  It is clear from Kucinich's answer that all other positions on Iraq are nuanced.

Richardson follows Kucinich and is also very clear.  Richardson is laying out a real detailed diplomatic agenda.  Three "connferences."

Dodd:  The stakes have never been higher for us as a country.  We are more vulnerable.  Dodd and Edwards, so far, both sound like senior statesmen compared to the others.  Dodd's stock value is shooting up with this response.

Gravel:  War was lost the day Bush invaded Iraq.  Gravel says he is "embarrassed" by  Democrats in  Congress.  He's  giving  advice to the other Senators.  First voice of real anger about the war.

Last question on Iraq to Obama:  What would be mission complete in Iraq?

Obama's answer:  Talks about increasing size of  ground forces to ease strain on soldier's families.  Switches to talk about using the Senate bill to cut off funding.  (Has not answered the question)

Clinton agrees with Obama:  Bring together a political solution to end the war.  Clinton says, "We need Republican support to finish the job."  Curious thing for a Democratic candidate to say in the first debate.

7:23pm
Williams just asked a question about Edwards' haircut.  Brian Williams is a terrible moderator. Terrible.

Edwards gives a good answer:  I am blessed, but I remember where I came from.  Edwards is a master at setting the stage or his policy vision.  Telling a story about his childhood, not being able to afford a restaurant.

Williams again attacks Edwards--now for being lead council to a hedge fund. Brian Williams is a terrible moderator.  This is a stupid "gotcha" question.

"How is America a better place because of hedge funds."  Clinton gives a good response: we have a society that encourages people to take risks, and we regulate so things can be fair.  Need a Democratic president who will "set the rules."  Good answer from Clinton--Democrats who "set the rules" for a fair society.  Well done.

7:28pm
Williams just asked a question about Edwards' haircut.  Brian Williams is a terrible moderator. Terrible.

Richardson:  American people doesn't want "blow dried candidates with perfection."  That was a swipe at Edwards.  Opportunistic comment.  But, hey:  this is a fierce primary.

Williams just tried to label Dodd a Washington insider--a question that could have come right out of George W. Bush's mouth. 

Dodd again answers with poise--talks about campaign finance, economic growth, "we're ready for experience in this country."

Williams asks Kucinich why he doesn't have a larger following.  Kucinich deflects that stupid question and talks about the importance of talking about the war.  "Apologies aren't enough."

FRAME CHECK:
So far, the frame for the debate has been scattered due to William's constant "gotcha" questions.  Every question is a challenge to past problems of the candidates.  This is a hack job.

Biden gets back:  answers a stupid question with one word.  The audience roars with laughter. 

7:35pm
Gravel accuses the candidates of being arrogant and duplicitous--accuses them of wanting to use nuclear weapons. 

Williams asks why the majority of the American public has an unfavorable view of her.  Honest to god.  Williams has an agenda here.

Clinton responds well:  "I take it as a form of flattery." Switches to a "The country is ready for change" theme.  Clinton is good at pivoting bad questions.  "I am ready."

Edwards on late trimester procedures:  "There is much at stake in this election."  Edwards has great poise.  "I believe in a woman's right to choose, but this is an extraordinarily difficult issue for Americans."   We have to show respect for people's views.  Oy.  Edwards did not condemn the ruling.

Obama:  "A profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make this decision."  I trust women to make this decision.  The "broader issue" is about women having the right to make these choices.  Brings it around to "reducing teen pregnancy,"  issues where "we all agree."  That is Obama's stump speech refrain--things we can all agree on.  Obama seems nervous, tonight. 

Biden is very confident, calls the SCOTUS decision "extremely dishonest."  "That's the danger of this decision."  Good answer from Biden--pushed the discussion to the big issue of how the court's decision put down "the groundwork" for undoing Roe v. Wade.

Kucinich pulls out a big theme:  I will be a healer.  Kucinich is on his game, tonight.

7:43pm
Dodd criticizes Roberts for "walking away from women's health."  Dodd uses the phrase "Rare, safe and legal."  He just stole that thunder from Clinton--she has yet to speak on this. 

Each candidate now has to name a supreme court justice that is their ideal.  Everyone says Ginsberg.

The debate turns to Virginia Tech.  Did government fail those students in any way?  Clinton says "yes."  "We have to do more to keep guns out of the hands of the criminal and the mentally unstable.  "Limit access to people who should not have guns."   This is a huge issue and she has done a good job setting it up.  Protect rights, but keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

Richardson, apparently, is the NRA's favorite candidate.  Richardson is trying to spin the gun question to be about "mental health."

7:50pm
Biden returns to the assault weapons ban and the gun show loophole--old Clinton era frames.  Then he latches on to the "mental illness" frame.  I find this very troubling that our candidates are dumping on the mentally ill to avoid talking about gun control.

Health insurance. 

Edwards lays out his plan.  Obama gives his ideas, which sounds very much like Edwards.  Interesting that Obama is not doing well in this format. 

Clinton is making a direct pitch to the public.  'Politically we were not successful."  This is a recurrent theme of hers--politics is the key to progress.  Very interesting. 

Taxes to pay for health care?

Richardson: "As Democrats I hope we don't always think of new taxes to pay for new programs."  I would have the following principles:  No new bureaucracy.  Prevention.  Efficiency.

7:55pm
Question about the NAACP boycott of South Carolina as a result of the Confederate flag. 

Obama:  "I think the Confederate flag should be put in a museum.  That's where it belongs."   Obama is trying to move the conversation to a broad theme of "change."  Who is the best person to bring about change, etc.

Question about immigration.

Clinton frames the question aggressively:  bringing immigrants "out of the shadows," and giving them a chance to be citizens.  If my memory serves me, she just gave Bush's position on immigration.

8:00pm
Dodd gives a great answer about "respect and compassion" for people who may be suffering from addiction. 

Edwards just got out a great line:  "We ought to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war.  We ought to ask them to conserve."  Very good short answer.   

8:05pm
Obama on foreign policy:  He's giving details, but he has not given a big vision.  Follow up question on Israel from Williams:  Obama slaps down an attempt to paint him as anti-Israel.  The United States has to get engaged in that region.  First good answer from Obama. 

Biden is giving a good answer:  "Jettison this notion of pre-emption."  My goal would be to re-establish America's respect in the world. 

Gravel says "We have no important enemies. We need to deal with people in the world as equals."  Gravel is sounding like a conspiracy theorist, unfortunately.

Edwards called  Russia a "complete autocracy under Putin."  "How does America change the underlying dynamic of what's happening in the world?"  Great question.  For that to occur, the world has to see America as a force for good again.  Talks about education, sanitation, economic development--America demonstrating its commitment to humanity.

That was the first "Wow!" answer of the debate.  High-five to Edwards' team.

8:10pm
Question about Giuliani's remark that Dems don't understand national security.  (Williams quotes Giuliani in a Democratic primary debate?  Williams is a terrible moderator.)

Clinton talks about the world being "less stable."   Not entirely clear what she was trying to say there.

Dodd calls Giuliani remark a "myth."  Dodd is very forceful at taking down the idea that Dems are weak on defense and turning it on Republicans.  "Stateless terrorism is a multinational problem, it requires a multinational solution.  This administration has walked away from that."   Kapow! 

Dodd just gave the second "Wow!" answer of the evening.

8:15pm
Williams asks what Obama would do if the U.S. was hit with two simultaneous terrorist attacks.  This is a profoundly stupid question.

Edwards gets the same question:  What would you change about U.S. military stance overseas?  I do not understand this question.  "We have more tools available to us than bombs.  And American needs to use more tools."   Another great statement from Edwards.

Clinton gets the question next:  "A president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate."  Very circumspect answer. 

8:20pm
Dodd is a hero.  He just said, "I have two young daughters who may one day have a different sexual orientation than their parents."  Throw out your poll numbers, folks.  This is Chris Dodd's night.

8:25pm
Richardson is talking about Cuba--mentions the importance of "bringing Cuban Americans into the dialogue" on what to do when Castro dies.  We are seeing, tonight, for the first time how Richardson deals with issues.  Every issue is a balance between strong will from the top and conferences for interested parties to deliberate.  It's a very distinct approach from all the other candidates.

What have you done to make for a better environment?

Obama:  We organized 3000 volunteers to plant trees.  Williams corrects Obama!  Tells him to talk about light bulbs.

Brian Williams is a terrible moderator.

Kucinich: "We must move away from global warming and global warring."

8:30pm
Who is your "moral leader?"

Edwards:  Not any one person.  Lord, wife, father.  Very thoughtful answer.  Edwards has noticeable presence tonight.

Is Walmart a good thing or a bad thing for America?

Clinton:  It's a mixed blessing. 

I have to note, here, that Clinton has had a warm smile all night.  She is very comfortable in this setting and has a confident voice that sets her apart. 

Biden gets the last word:  The use of force is often justified.

That's the wrap up.  Overall a difficult debate to analyze as it went along, due largely to the short answers and the incredibly bad questions from Brian Williams.

I'll take a short break than start with the post-game wrap up in a new thread.

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 26, 2007 at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

April 25, 2007

Frameshop: Inhofe Calls For Mob Rule Against Reid

ThinkProgress reports that Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has called for mob rule against Harry Reid in response to the Senate Majority leader's criticism of failed Bush policy in Iraq. 

Inhofe joins disgraced and indicted ex-Congressman Tom Delay who recently accused Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid of treason.

These well-coordinated attacks, which also coincide with Vice President Cheney's attacks on Harry Reid during a Press Conference,  are all emphasizing the same frame:

[criticism of the President] is [a crime]

Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership cannot allow these irresponsible  charges from Republicans go unanswered for one minute.

Instead, they should immediately reframe the debate, stealing a page from Abraham Lincoln by asserting, not just their right to speak, but the purpose of the war.

 

"The President needs a history lesson," they should say. 

This war and the President's refusal to listen to the voice of the people is a betrayal of American principle.  Speaker Pelosi and Majority leader Reid must continue to stand up and hold their ground.

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 25, 2007 at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Frameshop: Delay Accuses Reid, Pelosi of Treason

As reported by a variety of sources,  Congressman-turned-indicted-criminal Tom Delay has accused the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Leader of the United States Senate of Treason. 

Ignoring the fact that Tom Delay resigned from the House of Representatives due to criminal charges against him, the idiocy of his remark is itself criminal.  When the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter who interviewed questioned Delay by saying, "Treason.  Now that's a pretty serious charge," Delay responded with this doozie:

I looked it up while we were driving over here, what the definition of treason is.  It's the betrayal of trust.  I  have never in my adult life,  nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous for political reasons."

Let's see here...are supposed to believe that Tom Delay keeps a dictionary in his car?  OK, that's possible.  Unlikely, but possible.   Delay could have sent a text message to Google Mobile from his cell phone, but he still would not have returned "betrayal of trust" as the definition." 

Try writing out this text message on your phone "define treason" and send it to 466453.  Wait ten seconds.  This is what you should get back:

Glossary:

* treason: a crime that undermines the offender's government 

Source: wordnet.princeton.edu/

That definition is from Princeton University's Wordnet, run by their Cognitive Science Laboratory.  They keep some pretty smart people in that laboratory.  And they don't seem to think "treason" means "betrayal of trust."

But the definition aside,  what was Delay trying to do with that comment?

Well, he was using a tried and true tactic of the Violent Right--pundits and politicians on the right who respond to criticisms of their politics with veiled threats of physical harm. 

To accuse Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi of "treason" is to accuse them of a crime against the United States government that is punishable by death.  And when we hear Tom Delay accuse the leaders of our government of "treason," we hear him saying  that their criticisms of President Bush's policies are a crime that carries the most severe of all punishments.

Sure, Tom Delay said that Reid and Pelosi were only "very, very close" to treason--but so what.  The effect is the same, and so is the appropriate response:  To call Tom Delay exactly what he is--the voice of the Violent Right.

And call him a disgraced, indicted criminal, too.

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 25, 2007 at 06:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Frameshop: A Corpse in a Cesspool

David Finkel has written a stunning article about Iraq for The Washington Post, telling the story of Army Maj. Brent Cummings' and a rotting corpse in a Kamaliya sewage pit.  It is a story that reveals, as Jessica Lynch would say, the true heroism of our soldiers when the hype is stripped away.

Finkel's description is a window onto a moment that damages a soul, a snapshot of the exact moment when President Bush's brutish policy grabs hold of an American soldier and ruins his life. 

Even stronger than that, Finkel's piece is the most respectful, honest and utterly devastating description I have read of the madness our soldiers face everyday in Iraq. 

Reminiscent of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Finkel tells the story of one Army officer trying to remove a corpse floating in a cesspool beneath an abandoned Iraqi factory--a task that needed to be completed so that the Army could turn the site into a U.S. military outpost.  Along the way, Cummings tries to find a balance between military objectives, local culture, human feelings and omnipresent deadly violence--between Muslim customs, the well-being of resident families, the mental health of U.S. soldiers, and the reality of a world where every object and every inch of land must be treated as an unexploded bomb.  And after all this balancing, all these difficult decisions, all the problem solving, all the good that a group of young soldiers can try to do for the world--it all turns out to have been in vain, useless, for naught.

Although Finkel never criticizes directly, the rotting stench of Bush's kingly intransigence seeps from every page of  Army Maj. Brent Cummings' story.

While the article relays the absolute humanity of our soldiers, it also turns a corpse in a cesspool into a metaphor for the entire Bush policy in Iraq.

Finkel opens with a description of the task at hand:

"We can't get anybody to get Bob out. No one wants to do it," Army Maj. Brent Cummings, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said with worry one recent morning as Bob's story began unfolding. Cummings was looking at an aerial photograph of an area in east Baghdad called Kamaliya, where there was an abandoned spaghetti factory with a hole in the courtyard, a hole in which some of his soldiers had discovered Bob.

Bob: It's shorthand for "bobbin' in the float," Cummings explained.

Float: It's shorthand for "two to three feet of raw sewage," he further explained.

Bobbin' in the float is shorthand, then, for yet another lesson in the comedy, absurdity and tragedy that is any moment in this war.

(full text here)

Absurdity and tragedy, indeed.  But the struggle between Cummings and "Bob" is more than just a portrait of the madness of war.  It is a description of a daily routine of unthinkable tasks that transpire in a setting that has--literally--been transformed into a seamless landscape of bombs--social, cultural, political and military bombs.

Altogether, each task carried out by our soldiers requires a level of managerial foresight and military understanding that would send most people over the edge before they even woke up the first morning.

Finkel describes this hell as faced by Cummings:

Bob was found as a result of the new strategy of trying to secure Baghdad by temporarily increasing the number of troops and moving them into neighborhood outposts. After the soldiers identified the spaghetti factory as the best place from which to secure poor, rough, dirty, insurgent-ridden Kamaliya, they began clearing the factory in order to move in.

One day, in one area, they found 16 rocket-propelled grenades, three antitank grenades, 11 hand grenades and 21 mortar shells. Another day, they found 14 more mortar shells. Another day, they found the makings of three roadside bombs. Another day, they found a square metal cover in the courtyard that they thought might be booby-trapped. Ever so carefully, they lifted it and found themselves peering down into the factory's septic tank at Bob.

The body, floating, was in a billowing, once-white shirt. The toes were gone. The fingers were gone. The head, separated and floating next to the body, had a gunshot hole in the face.

The body, it was quickly decided, would have to be removed before the 120 soldiers could move in. "It's a morale issue. Who wants to live over a dead body?" Cummings said. "And part of it is a moral issue, too. I mean he was somebody's son, and maybe husband, and for dignity's sake, well, it cheapens us to leave him there. I mean even calling him Bob is disrespectful. I don't know. It's the world we live in."

He paused.

"I'd like to put him in a final resting place," he said, "as opposed to a final floating place."

But how? That was the problem. No one wanted to touch Bob. Not the soldiers. Not the Iraqi police. No one.

(full text here)

This is not a situation anyone should face.  It is not a choice anyone should make.  To force someone to carry out this task--to even be faced with the responsibility of solving this problem is an experience that changes a person forever and not for the better. 

But even in this madness--amidst this decision that can only result in madness--one wonders how Cummings and the soldiers he commands have survived up to this point.  One wonders how they survive each ten minute period of the day living in a world where everything visible and invisible must be treated, and feared, as the very thing that will explode and kill everything in its path.

Finkel captures this horror through a description of Cummings' trip to see the corpse:

Days passed. The need for the soldiers in Kamaliya increased. Bob floated on. One day the skull sank from view. Another day a local Iraqi speculated that there might be more bodies in the septic tank, that Bob might simply be the one on top.

Finally, with no easy solution in sight, Cummings decided to go see Bob for himself.

How easy is anything in Iraq, such as a short drive to a spaghetti factory? A combat plan was drawn up, just in case. A convoy of five Humvees was assembled. Body armor was strapped on. Earplugs were pushed in. Protective eyeglasses were lowered into place. Off the convoy went, slowly, never exceeding 15 mph, because slow and steady is the best way to find a roadside bomb before it explodes, unless it is a bomb with a particular kind of trigger that is best defeated by flying pedal to metal. Yard by yard, decision by decision, the convoy advanced, past trash bags that might be hiding bombs, along dirt roads under which might be buried bombs, and now past something unseen that, just after the last Humvee in the convoy passed by, exploded.

No damage. No injuries. Just some noise and smoke in the air. The convoy kept going, now past a dead water buffalo, on its back, grossly swollen, one more thing in this part of Baghdad on the verge of exploding, and now the Humvees stopped against a high wall, on the other side of which was a yellowish building topped by a torn tin roof banging around in the wind.

(full text here)

No matter how cautious they are, no matter how alert, no matter how slowly they move or how quickly, whether they move forward or backwards or up or down or not at all--the bombs explode.  They.  Are.  Everywhere. 

And we as we read this description--we wonder in a way that makes us sick before we get to the next paragraph--if there is a bomb in the decaying water buffalo just as there is a bomb in the corpse floating in the cesspool.  We wonder if the effort by Cummings to make things right, to be respectful, to be a good person--will it just end with the very thing he seeks to help turning into the object that kills him.

In the end, it does not turn out that way.  Cummings makes the choice to pour lye and bleach into the cesspool.  Cummings assures local Iraqis in Kamaliya that the new American outpost is there to help them, not to displace them.  Cummings returns his men to the base, safely.

But that was only one day.  Despite it all, the next day crushes everything:

That was Monday.

And then came Tuesday, and a phone call in the morning from Jager, who had received a call from the factory owner's brother, who had received a call from someone who lived near the factory.

Cummings hung up.

"The spaghetti factory has been blown up," he said.

It was only a first report, he cautioned, but the report said that there were a dozen men, and they were armed, and they wore masks, and the explosion was huge.

"Gone."

(full text here)

A waste.  No point. No purpose.  Forced to deal with the most unspeakable horror, to brave the worst violence--to no end.  Nothing accomplished save for a fleeting moment of good will towards a local family blown up less than 24 hours later.

Bush's policy is indeed a corpse in a cesspool:  a corpse in a cesspool that our soldiers risk death each day to clean up, only to learn hours later that the entire block has been destroyed.   

And the next day it happens all over again.

Ultimately, many of my cinematic preconceptions of a failed and useless war sunk out of site as a result of reading this Finkel piece.   It is worth spending some time to read it all the way through and to circulate to friends, and family.

A corpse in a cesspool. 

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 25, 2007 at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 24, 2007

Frameshop: Truth More Heroic Than Hype

Former Army Private Jessica Lynch gave testimony, today, during the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings.

Beyond the raw, emotional power of her statement--Lynch teaches us a lesson that we generally forget:  that the bravado we see and hear about on TV too often obscures the truly heroic deeds of our enlisted men and women.

Lynch also teaches us that soldiers are better than the rest of us at talking in real terms about acts of incredible courage and, ironically, of experiences of unbelievable fear.  It is tough to imagine how the members of the committee could make it through Lynch's testimony without  crying.

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 24, 2007 at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 23, 2007

Frameshop: Something There is That Doesn't Love a Wall

Before President Bush goes any further with his secret plan to wall off a dozen Baghdad neighborhoods in concrete fences, he should first read a poem by Robert Frost, and a speech or two by Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.

If President Bush had learned any lessons from American history, he would understand that our job is to tear down walls, not to build them.

Mending Wall
For almost 100 years, Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" has been teaching Americans that fences do not make good neighbors and that the purpose of a life of liberty is to tear down walls, not to build them--to question them, not to accept them.   As the speaker of Frost's poem puts it:

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

There was a time in American education when young students were forced to memorize these lines, although that time is unfortunately behind us.  Certainly, President Bush was never forced to spend a snowy evening frantically preparing to recite "Mending Wall" from memory in front of his high school class.  As a result, he never earned the benefit of such an exercise: America doesn't love a wall.  We see them as the symbols of a loss of freedom, great monuments to the death of liberty.  Walls confine.  Walls divide.  In our collective imagination, Americans do not build walls, we tear them down.

One wonders why President Bush did not, as Frost would have him do, ask that simple question before he built his walls in Baghdad:  What was I walling in or walling out?  If he had asked that simple question, he surely would have seen that the walls in Baghdad will "wall in" far more human spirit in a giant urban prison, than "wall out" potential suicide bombers. 

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall."  And that something is the American public and the residents of Iraq.

Unlike President Bush, it seems that Major Hathem Faek Salman of the Iraqi army has read Robert Frost:

"This is not a good plan," Salman, 40, had said before the meeting. "If my region were closed by these barriers, I would hate the army, because I would feel like I was in a big jail. . . . If you want to make the area secure and safe, it is not with barriers. We have to win the trust of the people."

(full story here)

Who among us would not feel like we were in a big jail if, upon waking up tomorrow morning, we suddenly found our neighborhood surrounded by giant concrete fences?

Tear Down This Wall
What we find in Robert Frost and Major Hathem Faek Salman is the same basic frame of liberty:

[liberty] is [the absence of walls]

Of course, as Frost teaches us so well, fences are good for keeping in cows, but if there are no cows--fences trap us like cattle.

Speaking in West Berlin in 1987, Ronald Reagan channeled Frost in an effort bring Berlin in from the cold:

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same—still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state.

(full speech here) 

I suspect that Reagan been forced to read Frost, as I had been long after him.  "Behind me stands a wall," is a line Frost would have accepted as his own. 

What we see in Reagan's "wall" is a symbol that stands against freedom itself--a "vast system of barriers" that not only divides a continent, but divides human beings from themselves.  It was, for Reagan, a symbol of the will of a totalitarian state--a system that seeks to replace normal healthy human relations with a radical, atomistic form of oppression.  The Berlin wall, on the one hand, prevented  Berliners from fleeing the Soviet State, but on the other hand it divided all Berliners from each other.  The system of watchtowers and police methods built with the wall created a massive system for destroying the social fabric of human society and replacing it with the prying eye of the  authoritarian state.

The solution, as Reagan put it, was not only to ask, 'What I was walling in or walling out,' but to answer it definitively:  freedom itself has been walled out.  And so the wall had to come down:

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

(full speech here)

Some may take strong issue with other aspects of Reagan's worldview, but the logic in his 1987 speech is as American as Frost's poem.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner
Even more than Reagan, however, no American President articulated Frost's idea better than  John F. Kennedy.  No President, living or dead, seemed to understand better the idea that all too often fences make prisons, not neighbors. 

Speaking in Berlin in 1963, Kennedy spoke with Frost's principle flowing in his veins:

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of. the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

(full text here)

There are far fewer American school children forced to memorize this quote from Kennedy than Frost's "Mending Wall"--but they are the lucky few.

The lesson is the logical conclusion from Frost:  Despite the bad fences that some may build, the good neighbor in us survives.  And even if a fence divides people physically from one another, it can never separate people from the human spirit. 

Kennedy's idea was more powerful than any arms race, more universal than any economic ideology, and more effective than any wall ever built: walls may imprison us,  but in so doing they connect us to those who live their lives by the principle of liberty.  The Soviet wall trapped the residents of Berlin, but in so doing it made all of us Berliners.

The wall, according to Kennedy, was more than an implement for crushing liberty.  It was "the most obvious and vivid demonstration" of the failure of totalitarian Soviet policy. 

Kennedy's phrase is worth repeating in light of Bush's decision to build miles and miles of walls in Baghdad.  Such a policy is "the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures" of the Bush policy in Iraq--the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures.

That Wants It Down
Of course, poetry is not a solution to President Bush's failed policy in Iraq--even a poem as powerful and famous as "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost. 

But as we listen to Frost's poem echoing through through the words of Kennedy and Reagan, we cannot help but see how lost President Bush has become--cannot help but see how much President Bush's occupation of Iraq embodies the very threats to liberty that past Presidents dedicated their lives to dismantling.

The most obvious and vivid demonstration of that contradiction is the act of enclosing vast sections of the Iraqi population in concrete fences.

What is that "something" of Frost's that doesn't love a wall?

That something is Reagan.

That something is Kennedy.

That something is American character itself.

Indeed, if President Bush had learned any lessons in school--lessons that we all, as Americans, learned at one point or another--he should know that his job is to tear down walls in Baghdad, not to build them.   He should know that his job is to remind us, and the world, that America looks for ways to eliminate walls, not to purchase them in bulk from independent contractors. He should know--but he does not.

So it is worth repeating, now:

I am an Iraqi.

Mr. Bush, tear down this wall.

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 23, 2007 at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

Frameshop: U.S. Puts Walls Aroound Baghdad Neighborhoods

The Washington Post has a disturbing story about the latest U.S. tactic to control violence in Baghdad: build walls.  Lots of walls.

According to the article:

The U.S. military is walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents, creating what officers call "gated communities" in an attempt to carve out oases of safety in this war-ravaged city.

The plan drew widespread condemnation in Iraq this past week. On Sunday night, Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki told news services that he would work to halt construction of a wall around the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, which residents said would aggravate sectarian tensions by segregating them from Shiite neighbors. The U.S. military says the walls are meant to protect people, not further divide them in a city that is increasingly a patchwork of sectarian enclaves.

(full story here)

Here we see the U.S. army reverting to the logic that [security] is [a wall].  But are these new walls keeping the bad guys out or trapping good people in what amounts to a large prison?

What concerns people in Baghdad seems to be the radical constraint the new walls will place on their movement.  Moving a few hundred yards may become a day long affair.

I suspect these walls will quickly become a symbol of an American occupation gone horribly awry and cannot imagine very many Iraqis viewing these walls as anything but a U.S. act of domination and oppression.  Even if the goal of the military is noble--to find a way to stop the violence--the means will backfire, effectively turning Baghdad into an endless series of humiliating checkpoints. 

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 23, 2007 at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 19, 2007

Frameshop: The Tao of Gonzo

The testimony of Alberto Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee has demonstrated a new low in the Bush Administration.  Among other things, Gonzales' answers have made it clear that he is anything but the "CEO" of the DOJ, as he once tried to argue.  The only answer he has given that appears to be his own actual thought is that U.S. Federal Attorney's "serve at the pleasure of the President."  Whenever he says that, I believe he has actually had that thought on his own before.   Beyond that, every answer from Gonzales has sounded like an answer to an oral exam that he only just crammed for the previous night.

If I had to throw out one word to describe his performance, it would be:  stammering.

But within all this, I pulled out a few choice moments where his attempts to not get caught in his own lack of preparation have resulted in statements of accidental spiritual power. Behold!  The Tao of Gonzo.

THE TAO OF GONZO (a.k.a., The Spiritual Side of Twisting the Truth)

Verse 1:

"I now understand that there was a conversation between me and the President."   --Tao of Gonzo, Apr 19, 2007

Ah, yes.   Here we are introduced to a moment of deep spiritual contemplation.  There are times in our lives, he is saying, when we understand the experiences we have when we are having them.  I ate a sandwich, I  understand.  I drive to work,  I understand.  But there are other times when we have an experience, but we do not understand the experience as such at the time.  For argument's sake, we could call these "moments we are breaking the law."  For example, if we are having a conversation with the President and his advisers about illegally circumventing the authority of Congress, it may be difficult to understand that it is happening at the time.  One might say, I am having this conversation, but is this really me?  Is this really a conversation?  Is this really a law and if it is not a law, then can I be breaking this law in this conversation that may or may not be happening?  These are moments of spiritual drift, vagueness of identity.  Am I undermining the Constitution?  Hard to say.  Am I in violating the public trust?  Hard to say.  Am I in charge of my own actions?  Not clear.  They are moments of great spiritual questioning, wonderment, lack of understanding.

It is only when we revisit these moments of spiritual doubt under duress of, say, being convicted of perjury by a Senate committee--only in these moments does our spiritual fuzziness snap into sudden focus.  Ah, yes!  Like rings on the duck pond, the ambiguity recedes to the shores of self-doubt, leaving behind a moment of clarity.  Indeed it was a conversation. Indeed it was the President.  Indeed it was a conversation.  "I understand that there was a conversation between me and the President."  Which is to say, "Now,  unlike before, I am able to see.  I can understand that my own actions were indeed actions and that I did indeed experience them."  I understand, now.

Verse 2:

"Part of my goal here is to educate and inform the American public."  --Tao of Gonzo, Apr 19, 2007

To the unenlightened--those who judge only from surface appearances--the purpose of a testimony to a Senate committee may seem at first to be: the elicitation of facts.  But to a spiritual master, such as Gonzales, the purpose of a hearing is really about the enlightenment of others.  He has enlightenment.  The testimony is an opportunity to pass on that enlightenment to others.  But not just to some others--to all others.  In a sense, by listening to Gonzales, we are not just hearing answers, we are being given the opportunity to enter into the information that will also help us to achieve enlightenment--help us to become one with the truth as he sees it.  And what is that truth?  That there is no untruth,  only the appearance of untruth.  If we do not see this, it is not because we see a different truth than the truth presented, but because we are not yet educated and informed as to the one true truth. 

Verse 3:

"I recall making the decision.  I don't recall when the decision was made." --Tao of Gonzo, Apr 19, 2007

This is, perhaps, the most complex of the three aphorisms as it speaks to the difficult topic of memory and time. 

For those who are not masters of the Tao of Gonzo, memory references our own actions in time.   For those of us who have not achieved enlightenment, we are trapped in a linear sense of time where we remember--or do not remember--only our own events as they happened.  If we are asked, "Do you recall eating the apple?" we can only answer "Yes, I recall it" or "No, I do not recall it."

For the enlightened, however, there is a second order of experience that is outside of the individual experience of time--omniscience.  Hence, when the enlightened is asked, "Do you recall eating the apple?" he must answer two  questions:  one question about himself in time and another about himself outside the separation of people and things, looking back on the world as a landscape of different forms of existence. To the first question, the answer is the same, "I recall eating the apple" or "I do not recall eating the apple."  To the second question, the answer is of a different order and concerns not the state of the action, but of the apple itself. 

This second question would be something like, "Do you recall when the apple changed from being an apple that was not eaten to being an apple that was eaten?"    Hence, the enlightened answers, "I recall eating the apple, but I don't recall when the apple was eaten."  In other words, he does not recall exactly when the apple became an apple that was eaten.

Om mani padme hum.

More Tao of Gonzo soon...

© 2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 19, 2007 at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBack

April 18, 2007

Frameshop: Violence and Silence

In the face of great tragedy, what often distinguishes Americans from other national cultures is our incredible ability to talk about our pain in public as a way of healing. 

When horror strikes, we do not buckle over alone and stay silent, but walk into the public square, reach out to one another and chew our way through the pain.   It is in these moments that Americans--all too often self-absorbed with the day-to-day of making ends meet--find each other again, share the details of the people we have lost, and remember that we are not alone. 

As  I watched the public response to the tragic violence in Blacksburg, I was filled with sorrow in the face of all the death, but my sorrow quickly found a place with the outpouring of voices that has risen up in response.  Due to the tireless voices, I now know the names and faces of many of the people killed as their stories fan out across the media and take root in our hearts.

But in the midst of all the past 48 hours of talking, crying and slow healing, I have also been left--as have many--with a  question almost too painful to ask:  Why have we not been able, neither as a as a nation nor as individuals, to talk about the violence and pain suffered by Americans and by Iraqis?  Why does the violence in Blacksburg bring out the very best in our American character--our ability to join together and heal--while the recurring violence in Baghdad--experienced by Americans and Iraqis alike--has left us sitting alone?

Talk About Violence
In just 48 hours since the shootings in Blacksburg, we already know the names, faces and stories of many of the victims.

Consider, for example, this heart wrenching story published by a local news agency:

Harris County Remembers Va. Tech Massacre Victim

A Pine Mountain native was one of 32 people killed by a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech Monday morning.Jamie Bishop was a German language professor.  The gunman burst into his classroom in Norris Hall and immediately shot Bishop in the head.

Hundreds gathered at the First United Methodist Church of Pine Mountain Tuesday night, to honor Bishop.

One by one, family and friends made their way into the First United Methodist Church to remember Jamie Bishop for the man, teenager, and child they loved so dearly.

"He was a great student. He read more books, I had to go to the library to get more books for Jamie," said Jo Holladay, Bishop's teacher.

Each person, another story, another memory. Even those who hadn't seen Jamie Bishop in years came to reflect on who he was, and how much he meant to them.

"It seems like we were just sitting in Mrs. Palmer's class, whining about reading Canterbury Tales. We were all just happy and smiling," said former classmate Jennifer Wood.

"He was always a great guy. Last night, I looked at my yearbook, and read what he wrote," said Kelli Wommack, another classmate.

The candlelight service was more than just a vigil for Jamie. It was a reminder that 31 more families are going through the same heartache of losing a loved one.

(full story by Priya Aujla, WTVM)

When we read this story of Jamie Bishop's death, we feel our own hearts break in half.  And at the same time, we identify deeply with the outpouring of voices in Pine Mountain.  We know that voicing the memory of Jamie Bishop is just one example of a community of Americans coming together to talk, remember and recover. 

A story from the Associated Press describes a similar dynamic:

BLACKSBURG, Va. | Austin Cloyd, who attended high school in Illinois, was among 33 people killed at Virginia Tech in the deadliest college shooting in modern U.S. history.

The 18-year-old international studies major dreamed of someday working for the United Nations, her father said.

[...]

C. Bryan Cloyd and his wife Renee said they started searching local hospitals Monday when they didn't hear from their daughter.

"Austin was the most wonderful daughter in the world," her father said. "Austin's parents, brother and extended family and friends want everyone to know that the world has lost a very special person."

At least two other students from the Chicago area were affected by the shootings.

Garrett Evans, a Virginia Tech senior who grew up in Chicago, was wounded in the legs. The 30-year-old said he was in a classroom the gunman entered.

"I'm in pain," he said, "but my heart's in way more pain than my legs."

Jeffrey Dawley, of Naperville, Ill., is a senior at Virginia Tech. The 21-year-old said he knew six people who were killed in the massacre.

"It's just a very surreal experience," he said. "...It truly is mind-boggling."

(full story on nwi.com)

These stories of death and suffering in Virginia are not about the spectacle of violence, but about the American way of responding with our voices.

The response was similar after the attacks of September 11, 2001.  In the days and months that followed that tragic violence, Americans rallied together and talked about those they had lost, what had happened, and how they should go about healing.

But think of this: when was the last time any of us read a story like this about a tragic death in Iraq--either of an American soldier, a private contractor or an Iraqi?

In the first few years and first few hundred deaths of American soldiers,  there were some instances of trying to remember the names and faces of fallen soldiers.  Ted Koppel and Jim Lehrer used to read off the names of soldiers killed in Iraq.   But beyond the occasional documentary, I cannot recall stories about American soldiers being wounded or about Iraqis killed tragically.  Nor can I remember any story beyond the torture at Abu Ghraib that led us all to talk to each other about the violence in Iraq in the way that we have come together to talk about the violence that happened in Virginia.

We just do not do it.

Write About Violence
Obituaries for fallen soldiers are about the only place where this talk occurs, but these stories never seem to reach the level of national conversation.

This obituary, for example, recounts the death of a Colorado native serving in Iraq:

GREELEY, Colo. --  A soldier who was a Colorado native has died from small arms fire in Baghdad.

Military officials said 35-year-old Shane Becker died Tuesday.

Becker is from Alaska, but he was born in Denver and grew up in Greeley, Colo.
Click here to find out more!

Becker is a 1990 graduate of Greeley West High School. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based in Fort Richardson, Alaska.

He headed up a six-man sniper team, according to the Army, and was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Military officials said Becker died during a firefight Tuesday as he and his fellow soldiers looked for enemy mortars.

He had already signed up for a third tour of duty and planned to serve in Afghanistan in 2008.

Becker is survived by his wife, Crystal, and two daughters who live in Anchorage, Alaska. He is the stepson of Greeley firefighter Bob Jorgensen.

"I think what really defines Shane, in one word, is loyalty," Jorgensen said. "First he was an American, second he was a family man and third he was a soldier."

"I know there is a wall in the east with 58,000 names on it as a memorial," Jorgensen said. "But he said, 'What we want for a memorial is a stable government in the Middle East so we have security for our families."

According to the Greeley Tribune, on the night before he was killed, Becker talked online with his wife and daughters on a webcam the family had set up.

"Then he said goodnight to his family and went on duty," Jorgensen said. "The next morning he was dead."

"He had a daughter who only got to know him for 10 days," he added.

Becker's family will hold two memorials, one in Alaska and one in Greeley.

Becker was the second Greeley West grad to die in Iraq. On Nov. 2, 2005, Pfc. Tyler MacKenzie, 20, was killed in a roadside bomb explosion.

(full story from TheDenverChannel.com)

Shane Becker's death was a tragic loss for his family and for this nation.   And yet, the language of the obituary is not the same as the stories recounting the deaths in Virginia.  In those stories, the violence of the death and the real personal involvement of the mourners find a connection, but without sensationalism.  In the soldier's obituary, there is almost a shutting down of the American voice, a distancing and marginalization of the suffering of the family, and an absorption of the individual into the statistics of war.  "Becker was the second Greeley West grad to die in Iraq."  The obituary is a report, not a description of pain and healing.

Of course, obituaries are important and they are valuable,  but the contrast between the Virginia Tech stories and the obituaries for our soldiers in Iraq is striking.

We do not, as a whole, discuss the  obituaries around the water cooler at work or on the ride home or at the dinner table.  The obituaries do not trigger that all important American drive to talk about our collective pain in public.  They do not lead to any collective involvement in the healing.  The obituaries are more like a receipt for services rendered.  It is as if they are saying, "A soldier died.  He served his country.  Please make a note of it."

One of the lessons I have learned  from the VA Tech tragedy,  in other words, is how little we are affected collectively by the deaths of our soldiers.  Even less so by the horrific wounds they suffer on an hourly basis from exploding improvised devices that send molten metal shooting through their bodies.

These acts of violence against our soldiers, whether they result in injuries or deaths, simply do not lead us as a nation to cry, to find each other, to talk through the pain.

Silence About Soldiers and Iraqis
While we do not talk about the suffering and deaths of our soldiers, the obituaries at least show that we are not completely silent about them.  Despite the restrictions placed on information, we can find the writing about our soldiers if we choose to look for it--even if that writing is stripped of most references to the actual violence our soldiers experienced.

But the same cannot be said for the pain and suffering experienced by Iraqis.   Even if we want to find places where that pain and suffering is discussed, we come up short.

Writing on his personal blog Informed Comment, University of Michigan professor Juan Cole writes that there is the equivalent of "two Virginia techs" everyday in Iraq and then recalls one instance from February 26, 2007 where he tried to relay some information about a single violent tragedy in Iraq:
 

A suicide bomber with a bomb belt got into the lobby of the School of Administration and Economy of Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and managed to set it off despite being spotted at the last minute by university security guards. The blast killed 41 and wounded a similar number according to late reports, with body parts everywhere and big pools of blood in the foyer as students were shredded by the high explosives.

(from Juan Cole)

Indeed, the descriptions of the blood and the blast are resonant and important to the debate about whether or not the situation is getting better in Iraq or not (it's not).  And even while I commend Prof. Cole for his work at bringing these details to light, I cannot help noticing--as a result of having been watching the reactions to the VA Tech shootings--that even his descriptions are more like obituaries than the kind of reporting we have had about the Blacksburg victims.

As a nation, collectively, we simply do not know the stories of how Iraqis have suffered in the war that involves us so deeply.  We know the facts of our soldiers having been killed, but even those facts are largely missing when it comes to Iraqis.

We do not know their names or their faces or how they died or what their families said in response to learning that they died. 

We do not know how the members of their communities remembered them or where they held the ceremonies.

We have not heard any of this.  And as a result, none of the experience of suffering violence and loss by Iraqis has entered into our experience as Americans.  This world to which we are so connected on so many levels has had no impact on us.

Pain and Violence, Pain and Silence
For their part, it is difficult without having lived in Iraq to know how Iraqis deal with their own experiences of violence and suffering.  Do they come together and talk?  Do they separate off into families?  Do they have a chance to come together and start the healing process in the same way that the people of Blacksburg have had?

I hope so.  The people of Blacksburg--and all those who have stepped up to be there for them--are a wonderful example of an aspect of American culture that can help Iraqi families deal with the violence and pain they have suffered.  The people of Blacksburg will stand as an example both to our soldiers and to the people whose lives that have become so intertwined with our soldiers overseas.

Many will say at this point that the simple solution to this problem is just to get our soldiers out of Iraq--to bring them home.  But that is only part of the solution.  The other part is coming to terms with the great silence that has fallen over America about the violence in Iraq--silence about the suffering of our soldiers and Iraqis, and silence about how our soldiers and how Iraqis are dealing with their pain.

This means that those in the media not only have a responsibility to cover the war, but have an obligation to the American people to fill the void in the coverage of Iraq.

As a nation we not only deserve to read stories about how American soldiers and Iraqis have suffered and coped with the violence, but we want to read those stories.   Without those stories an important part of our national character remains dormant in the face of the war.

And once those stories enter the press, we as citizens have an obligation to take them into our lives--to talk about the pain of our soldiers and of Iraqis with the same passion and empathy as when we talked about the fallen students and professors in Blacksburg.

Ending the silence on the violence in Iraq is an obligation that we must all fulfill.

As horrible as it was, the Virginia Tech tragedy teaches all of us that violence met with silence will only lead to more tragedy, more pain, more suffering.

If that lesson can be applied to America's conversation about Iraq, then perhaps in some small way, the victims in Blacksburg will not have died completely in vain.

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

 
 

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 18, 2007 at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

April 15, 2007

Frameshop: What Should Offend People in the Media

Unfortunately, too many of the people who collectively make up the media in this American moment have not only forgotten how offensive it is to use racial and sexist slurs to insult private citizens on the air, but also how offensive it is when government officials abuse power and corrupt public institutions--how offensive it is when figures in the media routinely abrogate their responsibility to uphold a public trust and how offensive it is when the most powerful people in our political system perjure undermine, and degrade the very public trust they have sworn to uphold.

In her appearance on Meet the Press Gwen Ifill made a strong case against her colleagues for their silence amidst the Imus scandal--silence in the face of what David Brooks had, just minutes before, characterized as a "culture of meanness" in America.

There is no question that Ifill's comment was eloquent and powerful. I do not want to undermine that.  But I have absolutely no patience for Brooks' conclusion that--as a result of the Imus scandal--we should all ponder our complicity in a "culture of meanness."   That idea strikes me as a monumental dodge of responsibility by people in the media--a way of trying to make ordinary American citizens somehow complicit in sins of commission and omission of the most powerful people in the America.

What is at stake here is not, I would say, a "culture of meanness," but a media industry whose personnel have long since forgotten what is offensive and what is not.  That--in addition to the important topics of racism and sexism in America--is the kind of corporate "culture" the Imus affair should lead all of us to lament and discuss.

Imus has been an active agent in the creation of that culture of media that no longer understands what is and is not offensive in our culture--a media that begs for the privilege of playing along with the powerful and then, in its spare time, uses its broadcast reach to attack and demean the accomplishments of private citizens or worse--of young Americans like the Rutgers women's basketball team whose only offense was acting as role models.

Instead of having a conversation about why the media no longer understand what is offensive in their behavior and what is not--a media that has spent an entire news cycle obsessing over whether it was right or wrong to fire a man whose entire career has been built on saying outrageous things and whose value as media talent depends on how much play his name gets day to day. 

Imagine if that same media had spent the week wondering out loud as to why they can no longer distinguish between what is and is not offensive in American society. 

So I'm glad Ifill gave the answers she did, and how she did it.  There should be more media pundits who speak with the force Ifill showed today on Meet the Press.  But god forbid Tim Russert would have followed up by asking something like, "Where should we in the media be directing our strong language?" At which point someone around that table could have said: "We should always direct it at people who abuse their power and corrupt public institutions, never at private citizens simply going about their business.  Before we give America a lesson in civility, maybe we should remind ourselves of that basic lesson about our own professional responsibility--a lesson that we have long since forgotten."

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 15, 2007 at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 14, 2007

Frameshop: Imus Abused a Public Trust

I hate to say it, but...when it comes the case of Don Imus attacking the Rutgers women's basketball team, I think Ann Coulter got the first part of it correct.  Hold on a sec!  Don't throw your laptop out the window.  There's more to my argument.  Coulter didn't get the whole thing right--just one part of it. 

Coulter said, in so many words, that if Imus had called her a "ho" it would have been a very different story.  Beyond the insult of the racism and sexism in his comment, the real offense lies in the radical power inequality between Imus and the people he attacked.  If he had attacked Coulter, he'd have to answer for it, but not in the same way because she is his equal in the media.  So it was wrong for Imus to use sexist and racist language, but the real reason for his being dismissed for it is that he is a powerful,on air media figure who used his show to slur relatively powerless private citizens. 

This power inequality is what takes the Imus story out of the question of free speech and into an arena of care for a public trust.   That's the key phrase:  public trust.
 

In other words:  Imus is not just a man with a microphone, but a public figure charged with responsibility of upholding a public trust (e.g., FCC airwaves).  His language was distasteful, fair enough.  But that alone was not why he deserved to be fired.  Rather, Imus' "hanging offense" was his violation of the very public trust he is charged to uphold when he used the FCC regulated airwaves to attack private citizens. 

So when conservatives ask why Democrats criticize Imus, but do not attack rap music or other entertainers--the answer is easy:  because those are not the same issues.  If and how we choose to those other performers for the content of what they say--that is up to each as individuals.  But rap music is is aired on private stations and privately sold CDs. Those performers are not charged with upholding a public trust.

In other words, The right's red herring on this Imus issue will be to bring in all these other instances, to talk about other media figures not being fired, and ultimately to say that there is some kind of double standard because Imus got fired and others did not.

While those issues of language and decorum are interesting, I believe they are ultimately separate from the Imus affair.

If we want to talk about related cases, then we need to bring in other examples where someone charged with upholding a public trust violates that trust.

For example, consider the case of a ranger charged with upholding the public trust by being  hired to maintain a national park.  If we were to discover that the park ranger was growing opium in the forest to sell to a heroin ring--that would be a violation of a public trust.  Similarly, if a police officer were to be caught running a car jacking racket in an area he was charged to protect--that would be a violation of a public trust. 

Those are parallel examples to what Imus did.

So, if right-wing TV pundits start gibber-jabbering about "liberals being the real racists," (which they will say) or start jabber-gibbering about a "double standard" in the media (which they will say), progressives can respond by refocusing the debate on the real issue--by talking about the responsibility to uphold a public trust one is charged to maintain.  That framing of the issue might sound something like this:

You can scream at each other all you want--and we may get criticized the content of what you say,  but at the same time we'll fight for your right to do it.   But hijack the FCC airwaves to attack a private citizen--that's a violation of a responsibility you have to uphold a public trust.  And when you abuse that responsibility, you're gone.

Ultimately, Imus was hurtful and wrong for using such racist and sexist words to offend the Rutgers women's basketball champions.  But he did not get fired just for being mean.  He was fired for flagrantly shirking his responsibility to uphold a public trust--for using the FCC regulated airwaves to attack, rather than inform, private citizens.

Given all this, it should come as no surprise to anyone if Imus finds a new home, in short order, in an arena that avoids the public trust problem altogether--non FCC regulated media.

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 14, 2007 at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 13, 2007

Frameshop: Key to "Lost" Emails is "Who"

When a massive quantity of White House information is supposedly lost--four years and five million emails--the truth is that somebody made it happen, somebody wanted it all lost and did what was necessary to make it so.

In today's world, "lost" is what happens to socks in the washing machine, not what happens to political communication in the White House.

The question to ask in the case of the missing emails--four years and five million missing emails--is not, as the White House would have it, "Whose screw up resulted in the information being lost?" but the more accurate question, "Who gave the order to make it lost?"

We live in a world where a twelve-year-old with broadband and an iBook can find anything on the Internet in less time than it takes to microwave some mac and cheese. Ten minutes later, that same kid can download more pages onto the iPod jacked into their sweatshirt than in all the books in their school library.  Maybe forty years ago we lived in a "global village," but we're in a "Google village," now--and we get there on the Fios freeway.  This is not a world where "lost" and "information" are two concepts that make much sense. 

If my house catches fire and collapses on my laptop, I can take the molten mass that remains to a specialist who can retrieve all my information and tell me the the name of the last person who sent me an instant message.  "Lost" does not apply.

In this world of high-speed access, giga-downloads and cell-phone searches--for the White House to claim that they "screwed up" and lost four years and five million emails is to claim that they have transported the entire planet to the year 1971--back to a world where information is not something forever waiting to be found, recovered and reclaimed, but something dusty and yellow stacked in cardboard boxes. That was the world of "lost," not this world, not today.

In the world of 2007, information does not just vanish.  Either somebody makes it go away or it lingers on far longer than any of us want.  Either somebody decides they want information to disappear or that information sticks around like flypaper.  If information is no longer searchable, recoverable, discoverable or downloadable, it is not because someone  "screwed up,"  but because someone with power gave an order to someone with skills, "Make this information go away.  I don't want some twelve-year-old kid with broadband and an iBook finding it."

"Lost" is not what happens to White House information when someone "screwed up."  "Lost" is what happens when the orders of someone with power are carried out successfully, when the plan of someone with power is followed.  And when the information is "lost," that person with power does not say to him- or herself,"Oh, no.  I screwed up."  That person with power says, "Good job.  Thanks for taking care of that."

The question I want to hear asked over and over and over again is very simple:

Who gave the order to make the emails go away?

Not "Who lost them" or "What happened that they got lost" or "who messed up," but "Who gave the order?"  "Which person with power decided to make the emails--four years and five million emails--vanish, disappear, go away forever?"

Who was it?

Which person?

Who made the choice?

Who took the action?

Who picked up the phone?

Who held the meeting?

Who confirmed the order?

Who decided?

Who followed through?

Who made it so?

Who used their influence?

Who used their power?

Who made all this information "lost"?

By this time Monday morning, America will know the White House is controlling the frame on the missing email story--four years and five million emails--if the majority of news outlets in the country are talking about the lost or missing data more than they are talking about the person or people who made it so.

The key to this story is people. 

The offense in this story are potentially illegal acts.

The fact that information is missing is an outcome, a symptom.

The question America wants answered is "Who did it?"

©  2007 Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop

Posted by Jeffrey Feldman on April 13, 2007 at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 11, 2007

Frameshop: Snapshot of Dems FP Worldviews

Yesterday, MoveOn.org hosted a Virtual Town Hall Meeting on Iraq, bringing together 7 Democratic candidates for President in 2008 and leaving behind a transcript of every word spoken.  It is a fantastic opportunity to learn how--if at all--the foreign policy worldview of the current  Democratic field differs from what currently drives Bush--what I have characterized as a quasi-tyrannical monarchism manifest in a belief that the unilateral application of violence by the President can create and maintain power for the U.S. on the global stage (see here, here, and here).

In this post, I examine each candidates answers at the Town Hall Meeting on Iraq with the same questions in mind: Did this candidate articulate a foreign policy worldview as he or she discussed Iraq?  If yes, what was that worldview?  If not, what did they do instead? What key statement from each candidate best epitomized their worldview or approach?

My answers are presented in the order the candidates appeared in the event yesterday:

1. John Edwards
2. Joe Biden
3. Dennis Kucinich
4. Bill Richardson
5. Hilary Clinton
6. Chris Dodd
7. Barack Obama

John Edwards

• Foreign Policy Worldview:  None explicitly presented
• Presented instead: Views on the limits of Presidential authority
   

The first to present in the Town Hall, Edwards' comments are marked by a focus on two big concepts: Presidential authority and time.

Edwards stated clearly that he was not interested in discussion abstract ideas, but action right now.  This focus on action now--not later, but now--has been a recurrent frame invoked by the Edwards campaign.  Edwards approach was epitomized in this statement:

Every day this war drags on is worse for Iraq, worse for our troops, worse for our country. We don’t need more debate. We don’t need symbolic resolutions, we don’t need abstract goals. What we need are binding requirements, and we can’t wait until this President takes off in 2009. Here’s what I think ought to happen. Simply put, Congress should use its funding authority to force President Bush to end the war, and start immediately bringing American troops home from Iraq.

We can see in this statement that Edwards is presenting his vision that I would call "action now," in opposition to both a Congress that he sees as having passed "symbolic" bills and a President who has impeded action.  And while Edwards talked about the need to "directly engage the Iranians and the Syrians," he did not lay out a broad worldview for foreign policy in yesterday's forum.

Joe Biden

• Foreign Policy Worldview:  None explicitly presented
• Presented instead: Theory of peace in Iraq through federalism and oil revenue sharing
   

More than any other candidate, Biden's comments, yesterday, echoed the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group (a.k.a. the Baker Group), whose proposals for Iraq were given to President Bush--whereupon they were discarded.

Biden stated clearly that the problem in Iraq was "sectarian violence" and then articulated a four part plan for stopping that violence through (1) the establishment of separate Sunni and Shia entities in Iraq, (2) creation of a limited central government, (3) oil revenu sharing, and (4) increased reconstruction assistance.

Rather than present any broad foreign policy worldview, Biden presented something reminiscent of classical American federalism.  That view was epitomized by this statement from Biden:

Were I President, I would call for the permanent five of the Security Council along with Germany and the four largest Muslim nations in the world to call for an international conference on Iraq whereby they impose upon the regional powers, Iraq… I mean, excuse me: Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey… a political solution, a political solution based on a federal system of giving local control in order to maintain a unified Iraq. If we do this, we can, not even if we do this, we should consistent with this, begin to draw down American combat troops within the next three months

We can see from this statement that Biden sees regional engagement has the key to establishing a federal system that will provide enough stability in Iraq to allow for American troops to leave.  While not a foreign policy worldview, Biden's plan is rooted in references to classical political theory, which as become a characteristic distinct to his campaign.

Dennis Kucinich

• Foreign Policy Worldview:  Yes
• Description:  Peace through global interdependence
   

Kucinich was the first candidate in the Town Hall session to present a foreign policy worldview that clearly distinct from President Bush's violent monarchical approach.  The clear statement of foreign policy worldview, however, came after the most elaborate plan for Iraq.

According to Kucinich, the violent insurgency in Iraq is "fueled by the United States occupation."  He proposes, therefore, to end the U.S. occupation and replace it with a U.N. occupation.  Kucinich makes clear that the U.S. occupation is both military and corporate, but does not so much insist on an end to military and corporate presence in Iraq as the end to U.S. monopoly of that occupation.  Hence, while Kucinich proposes an end to the "U.S. occupation," he also proposes that the U.S. fund the U.N. multinational occupation that will take our place, plus--a key point--that the U.S. pay "reparations" to the Iraqi people.  All told, Kucinich's plan seems to increase the occupying force and U.S. expense, but change the worldview behind it.

That change in worldview was epitomized  by this statement from Kucinich:

My wife and I are both involved in the international community right now, and reaching out to people around the world. We need to have a President and his first lady, and in the case of Senator Clinton, if she happens to get elected, be in a position of embracing the world community, fearlessly and courageously, in an open-hearted way, that brings the best intentions and actions of the United States forward.  But it also means that we’re going to have to put away this approach of aggression.

Here we see Kucinich explicitly distinguishing his worldview from that of Bush--"embracing the world community" in opposition to "this approach of aggression."

Bill Richardson

• Foreign Policy Worldview:  National and Regional Reconciliation
• Description: Stability through regional diplomacy and national conferences

Richardson's proposals for Iraq bear the marks of a seasoned diplomat and were presented with clear logic and credible goals.  But they also introduced a language of national "reconciliation."  While not proposing an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, Richardson endorsed "timetables" that would result in the removal of any "residual" U.S. forces in the region.  To do this, Richardson proposes using the War Powers Act to "de-authorize" the war--a tactic that he calls "the most important step."  If contested, Richardson believes the authority of Congress to de-authorize the war through the War Powers Act should be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Questions of Congressional authority aside, Richardson's plan for Iraq rests on two proposed "conferences."  The first conference would divide Iraq into three factions (Sunni, Shia, Kurd) and then bring them to a reconciliation that resulted in a viable government.   The second conference  would be a U.S.-led "security" meeting with NATO and all nations in the region including Syria and Iran.

These two conferences take shape within Richardson's broader foreign policy worldview epitomized by this statement:

What does that mean? That means that we also invite Iran and Syria. We have to look at Iraq not in an isolated way, we have to look at the whole Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and you get Iran and Syria to invest in the stability of the region. This will be tough. This will be difficult but the full force of withdrawal, the full force of American diplomacy, and the full force of bringing other entities Europe, Muslim countries, and the region for a solution. We’ll give Iraq a chance.

For Richardson, the problem with our current foreign policy worldview is that it isolates Iraq--and ourselves--from a broader regional perspective.  The solution to Iraq requires that we change not just policy, but complete perspective.

Hilary Clinton

• Foreign Policy Worldview:  Yes
  
• Description: Protection through force and diplomacy
  

Although difficult at first glance to distinguish from President Bush's foreign policy worldview,  Clinton did explicitly state a distinct perspective--while at the same time acknowledging that some MoveOn members may not be satisfied with what they hear.  To set up her perspective, Clinton first distinguished between "two really different ways of thinking about" the problem of getting out of Iraq:  (1) what she believes should be done while President Bush is still in office and (2) what she would do if elected President.   The first way of thinking, as Clinton put it, begins with "facing up to the reality" that the situation on the ground is getting worse not better, "capping" the President's ability to increase troop numbers, limited redeployment of troops, benchmarks for the Iraqis, and greater diplomatic engagement in the region.

As President, Clinton describes a plan that affords continuing protection to the Kurds as reward for having "fulfilled their end of the bargain," eliminating permanent bases, but maintaining a "residual force" in the region to protect against terrorism and instability. 

Clinton's subsequent statement about the purpose of this "residual force" epitomized her distinct foreign policy worldview:

I am absolutely clear: we do not plan a permanent occupation or permanent bases, but in line with all of the legislation that has been passed by the Democratic majority, or passed when we were in the minority, going all the way back to 2005, we have tried