Eight years ago, I wrote in this space that I possessed one of the few non-photo driver’s licenses left in America.  I finally submitted to the tyranny of the camera when I renewed my license in 2009.  Between frequent flying and DC bar-hopping it was just too much of a hassle to remember to always bring my passport.

Later, Charlie and I talked about how reflexive and normal the reach for ID has become.  It used to irritate me (as many things do) and tempted as I was to engage pointless, philosophical discussions with bouncers (“Really?  What’s the likelihood I’m under 21?”) I knew they were trying to hang onto not-very-remunerative jobs in a tough economy (and they were, after all, bouncers).

Here in Vermont, electric utilities are installing smart meters on houses – a good thing for efficient use of electricity and a necessary tool in the fight to slow global warming – but the state chapter of the ACLU has very real concerns about privacy and wants law enforcement to be required to obtain a search warrant before gaining access to someone’s smart meter data.

Well, what’s a little more personal data out there anyway?  Since September 2001, governments at all levels, the private corporations that work fore them, and many that don’t, have collected an enormous amount of information about us all.  George W. Bush led the initial assault on our civil liberties; Barack Obama promised to rein it in, but has actually accelerated it in some ways.

Well, what’s the problem with a middle-aged guy having to show his photo ID before entering a bar or letting cops peep at his electrons?  I neither drink nor grow pot in my basement (or anywhere else, for that matter).  The problem is we are all getting too used to being good sheep, showing IDs, taking off our shoes at airports, surrendering our data to anyone who asks.  (Or doesn’t ask.  See any facebook page.)

This week the Center for Constitutional Rights is suing New York City over the police department’s “stop and frisk” program.  Initiated under Rudy Guiliani in the ‘90s, the program has exploded under Michael Bloomberg and Police Chief Ray Kelly (who is said to have mayoral aspirations).  This year, the program is on track to harass 750,000 citizens, 85 percent of who will be black or Latino, even though those groups comprise only half the city’s population.

Isn’t it a small price to pay for safer streets?  No, it’s not.  In the first place, there’s no evidence that turning the NYPD into a thug squad has done anything to bring down the crime rate, since NYC’s crime rate has risen and fallen along the same lines as cities that don’t grab people on the sidewalk (or in the halls of the buildings where they live) and shake them down.

More important, it’s better to fear criminals than cops.  Even if stop and frisk made streets safer, it wouldn’t be worth it.  Singapore’s safe, but I don’t want to live there, not Riyadh, Pyongyang nor Tehran.  It was safe to walk the streets of Munich in 1938, unless you were Jewish, Roma or a member of other discriminated groups.  Is that an unfair comparison?  I don’t think so.  Just like New York today, members of demographic minorities were targeted for the majority of police harassment. What began with aggressive policing ended in a much uglier place.  If we don’t draw a line here, then where?  When? And if we don’t draw a line now, will be still have the capacity to do so later?

The same week the NYC gets sued for profiling racial minorities, the census bureau announces white babies now make up a minority of US births.  Do you think there’s a connection?  Does it seem to you that the white folks might be getting nervous?  It does to me.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

While I have not conducted systematic research, I feel safe in saying Mr. Scully’s is one of the few statements on marriage in today’s news that is not a reaction to President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage yesterday.

Mr. Obama’s outing (so to speak) on this issue was forced by Vice President Joe Biden’s remark Sunday that he feels comfortable with same sex marriage.  Some people called it another Joe Biden gaffe, some said it was a tactical move, who knows?  Who cares?  The point is that it’s long overdue for the president to stand up and say the right thing.

Civil unions were legalized in Vermont in 2000.  It was forced on the legislature by the Vermont Supreme Court; there was huge hue and cry, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry showed up in a full-length fur cot and predicted the end of civilization.  Then- Governor Howard Dean signed the bill into law behind closed doors and allowed no photos to be taken of the historic event.  Bet he’s screaming at himself now.

Then: Nothing bad happened.  Many good things happened.  Vermont society did not fall apart, people’s marriages did not fall apart.  Children did not turn to lives of crime (at least, not in any greater numbers than usual).

Like Vin Scully, I have overwhelming respect for the sanctity of marriage.  It’s a sacred institution and I hope those engaged in it treat it with the reverence it deserves.  I don’t see where gender enters into all this.  Adrienne and I are still married; our marriage is better than ever, we’ve been to same sex weddings, those people are all still married.  (It is not easier to buy wedding presents for same sex couples than different sex couples.  Nor is it harder.)

Look, I’m divorced.  Adrienne is divorced.  Our first marriages didn’t work out.  (George W. Bush would probably say, “When they were young and foolish, they behaved in ways that were young and foolish.”)  Getting divorced from the wrong person and finding the right person was the best thing we could have done for the institution of marriage.  Our exes have remarried and I hope everyone is happier than ever.  None of this took place during the time period when men could marry men and women could marry women, so don’t blame them.

Mitt Romney calls Mr. Obama a flip flopper on same sex marriage.  He’s absolutely right.  Mr. Obama was in favor of it when he ran for the US Senate in ’96, then we was against it when he ran for president and now he’s for it again.  This time, I think it will stick.

Tuesday, voters in North Carolina voted – by a clear margin – to adopt an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman.  This will not last long.  For one thing, it’s unconstitutional (14th amendment).  I know, I know, the Supreme Court as it is now constituted will not find the North Carolina amendment unconstitutional, as a majority of that court is incapable of finding a light switch in a dark room, but they are old men and soon will pass from the Earth.  I think that long before the North Carolina amendment can be litigated up the chain of courts, the voters themselves will remove it.

Easy for me to say and hard to bear for those of my fellow citizens in most states in this country who, nearly 236 years after our Declaration of Independence, are still waiting to be treated as equals.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

That’s a half million dollars Americans had to give the government whether they wanted to or not (or at least working and middle class Americans, rich folks seem to have an “or not” clause in the tax code).  That’s the reason for all the indignation.  I think of myself as a cheerful taxpayer; I’m happy to chip in for all those things that we need to share in common.  My own vacations are pretty modest and I don’t want to be forced to send the people who work for me to resorts I can’t afford to visit myself.

At the same time, I don’t need to see a bunch of hearings with Congressmen (who are themselves overpaid and coddled) bloviating at GSA bureaucrats.  That doesn’t make me feel better.  Getting the money back, that’s what’ll make me feel better.  Accountability. Take the top ten people at GSA and charge them $523,000, divide it up however you like.

Can’t do it?  Why not?  You’re Congress or the White House or both.  Write a regulation, put it in the civil service manual, take ‘em to court.  Spending another two million on hearings so politicians with bad comb-overs can posture about excess spending doesn’t help at all.

If Barack Obama or Mitt Romney want a plank to run on, accountability is a good place to start.  Hey, Secret Service agents and Special Forces personnel – you wanna party with whores in Colombia?  You now owe the American people your plane fare, food and lodging expenses and any other additional costs to replace your sorry asses on the mission you just bungled so horribly.  Oh, and please pay your prostitute.  And you’re fired.  What is this “allowed to retire” crap, anyhow?  Allowed to retire on a government pension and then go work for corporate America at twice the salary (and twice the whores) as before?  That’s not accountability we can believe in.

(Let me just say as an aside that I have dealt with the Secret Service, both uniform and plain clothes, active duty and retired and I can say without fear of contradiction that it is entirely in character for them to be the kind of guys to a) solicit prostitutes for sex, b) take them back to a hotel riddled with – d’oh! -security cameras and c) try to cheap out on the price the next morning.  Clint Eastwood, these guys ain’t.)

But I digress. The point is accountability and it should cover the federal (and state and local) government like the dew on a spring morning.  In Afghanistan, we’re apologizing (again) because our troops took frat house photos with body parts.  This after we apologized for burning Korans and that followed the apology for videos of troops pissing on dead people.  Combine stuff like that with kicking in doors in the middle of the night and somehow people will just not want you in their country.

Two years ago tomorrow, the biggest oil spill in US history erupted in the Gulf of Mexico, just weeks after President Obama gave a speech saying those things don’t happen anymore.  Yesterday, that same president’s blue-ribbon commission on the spill blasted Congress for failing to pass laws that might prevent a repeat, while at the same time the administration has granted permission for another giant oil company to drill in the Arctic Ocean, where the Coast Guard says it has no way of responding to, much less cleaning, an oil spill.

This is all from one week.  Four serious incidents, all stemming from the fact that our federal government consistently fails to hold anyone accountable.  No wonder we’re frustrated.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

I’ll give you an example.  The other day, remembering my youth, I realized synagogues – Temple Beth David and Temple Emanu-El – stood on two of the four corners of an intersection a few blocks from my house.  This is neither remarkable nor ironic, unless you know that the intersection at which these houses of worship stood is of Titus Avenue and St. Paul Boulevard.

To me, a Catholic, this meant nothing for 50 years.  Had I been raised Jewish, I would have learned early that Titus was the Roman general (later emperor) who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, slaughtered thousands of Jews and dispersed the nation of Israel.  There are few villains in Jewish history more cruel than Titus.

St. Paul, on the other hand, was Jewish, but he was also the person who converted Christianity from a Jewish sect to one open to – and quickly dominated by – Gentiles, who then turned the church into an agency of anti-Semitism.

How must an observant Jew have felt in those years, coming to Sabbath services, standing at the corner of Titus and St. Paul, waiting for the light to change?  I hope she or he felt like the presence of the synagogues – Beth David conservative, Emanu-El reformed – at that particular intersection was a triumph of faith over oppression.  That’s what I hope; it’s more likely my fellow citizens just sighed, thinking that not only were they insulted by the Gentiles’ choice of street names, the Gentiles were not even aware enough to understand they were being insulting.

Eventually, Temple Beth David moved a few blocks north to a new facility and the old building sat vacant for several years.  In June of 1972, under the cover of Hurricane Agnes, I broke in with a few older boys.  We were motivated by curiosity rather than criminal intent.  We made several forays into the building over the course of a few weeks, wandered around, listened to the echoes of our voices in the vacant sanctuary, looked at the maps of Israel on the walls of the classrooms.  (They were probably left behind because the temple moved around the time of the 1967 war.)  We startled pigeons that roosted in the upper floor and had gained access through a roof door that no longer closed.  (The pigeons startled us too, initially causing us to flee down a stairwell until we realized what that loud flapping noise was.)  We stood on the roof and peeked over the edge at traffic in that intersection, the significance of whose names would remain meaningless to me for another 40 years.

This train of thought was inspired by a comment I heard on the radio: Trayvon Martin was shot because he “fit the profile.”  He was young and black and wore a hoodie (in the rain, no less – why would he not pull his hood up?).  Young black men who fit the profile in America are halfway to trouble as soon as they step outside.

I was only 11 when I was breaking and entering (let’s call it what it was) at the abandoned synagogue.  Through the remainder of the 1970s, I too fit a profile: a young white man who was simultaneously up to no good and up to no evil, either.  Not a bad kid, but pushing limits and seeing what I could get away with.  Just a teenaged knucklehead, but because I was white, I was halfway exonerated as soon as I stepped outside.

The police never busted us for the Beth David caper, but there were times when my friends and I were accosted by local law enforcement.  The cops told us to knock it off, behave, go home, stop acting like jerks.  In that time and place, if a white police officer wanted to send a white kid a message, he took your name and wrote it on the inside cover of his notebook.  Legally meaningless, it meant, “I’m keeping my eye on you.”  I don’t know what he did to send a message to a black kid, but it probably wasn’t the same.

Sure, they were cops and we took pains to act respectfully and did not mess with them, but at the same time, we knew police did not present serious trouble or danger. One of the cops was, after all, a customer on my newspaper route.  It was closer to Officer Krupke than George Zimmerman, because we were all – wink, wink – white.

Thing is, we didn’t know we were white or we assumed our experience was universal or we just didn’t care if we got off easy and black kids got hassled for no reason.  Our clan was OK and that’s as far as our concern carried us.  Just as it did not occur to me for decades that Titus and St. Paul is an ironic intersection for two synagogues, it often does not occur to many members of white society that young black men with hoodies are usually just teenagers, going to the store for a bag of candy for their little brother.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

The first concerns two life sentences assigned to Deryl Dedmon, a slight, blue-eyed, blond-haired lad of 19, who last year took part in the random and vicious beating of James Craig Anderson in Jackson Mississippi, then deliberately ran Mr. Anderson over with a truck, killing him.  Then he got on his cell phone and called his friends to laugh and brag about what he’d done.  You can see the murder on video, if you have the stomach for it.

The family of Mr. Anderson – by all accounts a kind man and pillar of his community – asked the judge in the case to spare Dedmon from a death sentence and asked the community to pray for reconciliation.

CNN reports that Dedmon’s attorney, in a bail hearing last year, “told the court he saw nothing to back up the ‘racial allegations.’”  There are none so blind as those who will not see, as reporters easily found any number of people who described as Dedmon as a racist thug for years before the incident.

Dedmon – of course – found religion prior to his sentencing hearing and made much of his conversion for the judge.  The judge was unimpressed and called Dedmon’s act a “stain” on the state of Mississippi that will take years to fade.  An understatement, if anything.  Now Dedmon will spend his life in prison, likely consorting with racists, in part to protect his skinny, pretty self and in part because they will laud him for his hate crime.

Another CNN report quotes the assistant police chief in Dedmon’s hometown saying the whole incident was blown out of proportion by the media. The dumbass, racist Southern cop is as much of an inaccurate stereotype as the hateful images Deryl Dedmon carried in his head, but Assistant Chief Chris Butts isn’t helping things.  He’s not even smart enough to shut up.

The police department in Sanford, Florida isn’t helping its own case, either.  As you ought to know – unless you too are trapped in a stereotype – this is the department that has yet to arrest self-appointed vigilante George Zimmerman after he gunned down 17-year-old candy purchaser Trayvon Martin almost a month ago.  Zimmerman is white; Trayvon was black.  Do I need to mention that or did you guess from the last sentence but one?

According to a letter penned Sanford’s City Manager Norton Bonaparte, Police Chief Bill Lee could not arrest Zimmerman.  “Mr. Zimmerman provided a statement claiming he acted in self defense which at the time was supported by physical evidence and testimony,” Bonaparte wrote.  “By Florida Statute, law enforcement was PROHIBITED from making an arrest based on the facts and circumstances they had at the time.”

Thanks for the capital letters, Norton.  Makes it easier to read.  Next time I kill someone in Florida, I’ll know what to say.  I guess cops believe anything from the mouth of a white guy holding a still-smoking pistol.

What do you think that bit about “at the time” means?  They know better now?  Guess not, as Zimmerman has yet to be arrested or charged.  Here are some other things the Sanford police don’t know.  They don’t know if Zimmerman was drunk or high on drugs when he took Trayvon Martin’s life.  They tested Trayvon’s body for drugs and alcohol (it was clean) but not the man who killed him.  Funny that.  They also didn’t bother to check to see that Trayvon was on his cell phone just before he died.  A good cop – even a piss-poor cop – might want to find out whom Trayvon was talking to when he was killed and see what that person had to say.  The media reports that Trayvon was speaking with a young woman who said he was scared for his life from Zimmerman.

Witnesses to the shooting said they heard Trayvon call for help, only to have Sanford cops “correct” them and say it was Zimmerman calling for help.  Who you gonna believe, your lying ears or Sanford’s finest?

Oh, and the Sanford PD seems to have missed Zimmerman using a racial slur when he called 911 to report Trayvon as a suspicious person.  To his credit, the dispatcher who took the call told Zimmerman to stop following Trayvon, an order he ignored and proceeded to shoot the youth.  What do you think happens to black men in Florida who disobey direct orders from the police?  Do you think police are PROHIBITED from arresting them?

Wow, that’s five basic things the Sanford PD failed to do.  I say fire ‘em all, including Mr. Bonaparte, who should be sent to an island in the South Atlantic.  And take Chris Butts with you.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

* Although it now seems trivial, I promised last week to let you know how I’m doing in the NCAA tournament.  I’m 28 for 48 and it doesn’t seem trivial.  It is trivial.

In the modern world, a stalking horse is a metaphor for some third party that tries out an idea or technique for someone else, to see how it goes over, without exposing the ulterior party to the negative side effects of failure.

The stalking horse is the way to go in the 21st century.  This week’s famous stalking horse is the Heartland Institute of Chicago, Illinois.  Isn’t that such a nice name, the Heartland Institute?  What pleasant folks they must be!

Actually, not.  The Heartland Institute is a right-wing think tank for hire.  If you’ve got cash and a libertarian idea, they’ll be happy to cook up some bogus nonsense to promote it and hide your identity.  There’s the “Free to Choose Medicine” which opposes the Food and Drug Administration’s “extreme tunnel focus on safety,” you know, making sure drugs that are supposed to cure you don’t kill you instead.  How could Big Pharma not like (and contribute to) that?

There’s “Operation Angry Badger,” (no, I’m not making this up) which seeks to save Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker from a recall election prompted by his attack on the state’s public employees last year.  Heartland says, “Successful recalls would be a major setback to the national effort to rein in public sector compensation and union power.”

Heartland, all other looniness aside, is best known as a home for global warming deniers looking for a facade (Hello, Koch brothers!).  This week, an anonymous do-gooder sent a trove of Heartland’s internal documents to DeSmogblog, a web site devoted to pointing out the hunters behind the deniers’ stalking horses.

Among other things, Heartland has been planning to pay a Department of Energy consultant – David Wojick – $75,000 to develop a K-12 curriculum on global warming.  (Things get complex here, so pay close attention.)

A document entitled “2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” says Dr. Wojick’s work “will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.”

Heartland denied this is its document.  A document it does not disown, however, says Dr. Wojick will be paid $75,000 for a K-12 global warming curriculum; it just doesn’t have the inflammatory language about dissuading the teaching of science.

(To be clear, while Heartland did not disown the other documents, it didn’t verify them, either.  A spokesoid said Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast, was traveling and couldn’t verify the other documents.  Which raises the question: if he wasn’t around to verify most of the documents as true, how was he around to verify one as false?  Oh, and another question: if he was traveling and unavailable for verification duty, how did he manage to write the rather lengthy fundraising letter about the leak that went out over his signature the same day the story broke?)

Here’s what caught my eye: “the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain” and “dissuading teachers from teaching science.”  Reminds me of the “intelligent design” nonsense we’ve seen, and still see, across the country.

Was that another stalking horse?  The “creation science” debate was and is preposterous (“teach all the theories”) but it’s been a handy tool for keeping evangelical Christians firmly in the Republican Party, even as their wages erode, their life savings are wiped out by health care costs and their homes are lost to unscrupulous banks.  (Republican operatives refer to these poor folks as “useful idiots.”)

Beyond that, maybe it was a test run for the bogus global warming debate in the schools.  Pick a useful issue, but one not crucial to your primary agenda and conduct your test run, see how well you can manage to undermine real science.  Get the bugs worked out, optimize performance, then apply the lessons learned to something you really care about.

Makes sense to me.  No one ever said these guys were dumb.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

That said, Mr. Santorum meets the qualifications to run for president of the United States.  He’s a native-born American over the age of 35.  His candidacy should succeed or fail based on the number of voters who think he’s best fit to serve in the Oval Office and only on that basis.

That, however, is not what happened in Iowa.  This morning, the Des Moines Register broke the news that rather than losing the Iowa caucuses by eight votes to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Mr. Santorum actually won them by at least 34 votes.

I have to write “at least” because the Iowa Republican Party claims the votes from eight precincts have been irretrievably lost.  Due to this, the official word on the caucuses is that it was a “tie” between Messrs. Santorum and Romney.  It wasn’t a tie on Caucus night; it was a “win” for Mr. Romney.  How is an eight-vote margin a “win” and a 34-vote (at least) margin a tie?  (Hint: It’s a “tie” when you’re trying to throw the election to Mr. Romney.)

A few days ago, pundits were saying that having won in Iowa and New Hampshire and heading into the South Carolina primary with a double-digit lead in the polls, Mr. Romney would be the first Republican to win the first three contests and had the GOP presidential nomination all but locked up.   How quickly things change.  Now the Iowa “victory” is in sincere doubt and Newt Gingrich is leading the South Carolina polls.  (We’ll see how that stands up after ABC airs an interview with Marianne Gingrich – wife number two – in which she details Mr. Gingrich’s infidelity.)

For anyone who’s confused about where all this is going, let me be clear: the Republican Party has long been the purveyor of crooked politics in this country and it’s gotten to the point where they’ve turned their nasty deeds on each other.

George W. Bush stole the 2000 election with the help of his brother Jeb, Katherine Harris and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.  In 2004, the GOP pulled numerous dirty tricks around the country, particularly Ohio and likely stole a second national election.  I worked on that election in Marion County, Florida and saw plenty of them.

Rick Santorum made Iowa his focus.  He visited every county, moved his family there for several weeks before the caucuses and staked all his hopes on coming out strong and building momentum.  He has, however, no chance of winning a general election and Republican politicos know this, so they apparently have done everything they can to sabotage his campaign and get him out of the race.

Given the way the Iowa Republicans have treated Mr. Santorum, I wouldn’t blame any GOP candidate for passing the state by in 2016.  It’s also worth noting that Republicans – first on a federal level during the recent Bush II administration and then at the state level – have been trying to restrict the voting rights of poor people and people of color, key democratic constituencies, with the unsubstantiated excuse of “preventing voter fraud” (even though they can’t point to any cases of voter fraud).

I’ve said in this space that since 2004, I’ve been pessimistic about the survival of American democracy.  We have now reached a point where the Republicans are willing to purge even candidates who swear fealty to every NRA and Grover Norquist litmus-test pledge, no matter how stupid.  Now they disenfranchise Mr. Santorum’s Iowa supporters with the “eight lost precincts,” a ruse so flimsy it would make Lyndon Johnson blush.

I don’t agree with Republicans, but this kind of Republican infighting does not fill me with glee.  It scares me, because if these people get any more power than they already have, this nation will be a very ugly place.  John Donne was right, no one is an island and the loss of anyone’s civil rights, even (especially!) someone with whom I disagree, diminishes mine.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

As I watched the video of the last trucks crossing the Kuwait border, all I could see were the black hulls of the Greek ships sailing away, gray smoke still hanging in the ruined walls of Troy.

Not that Iraq is currently in ruins, but the Trojan war has been on my mind for the last decade, since George W. Bush, like Agamemnon before him, began gathering reluctant allies for a headstrong military adventure that brought grief to nearly everyone associated with it.

To appease the gods for sending a military force to make war on a society in a war in which non-combatants on only one side would be at risk, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia.  (His wife would later kill him for having done that.)  Mr. Bush made no such sacrifice, nor did he ask the majority of his countrymen to make any sacrifice on behalf of the soldiers he commanded.

Popular political psychology has it that one of Mr. Bush, fils authentic motivations for the Iraq invasion was revenge on an enemy of his father’s (or perhaps to show himself stronger than his father).  Both roles are reflected in the character of Neoptolemus, Achilles’s son, whom avenges his father’s death before the walls of Troy, by killing King Priam as the city is sacked.  This “revenge” is the punitive act of a bully, putting the sword into an old man who can no longer defend himself.

As Achilles dishonored Hector’s body, dragging it through the dust of the Dardanian Plain, so the residents of Falluja desecrated the bodies of four Blackwater contractors in 2004, so American troops desecrated the bodies of living and dead Iraqis for “trophy photos,” so – bizarrely – did our military of our nation desecrate the bodies of our own troops by disposing of them in landfills.

“Troy falls at last after ten years of futile, indecisive, noble, mean, tricky, bitter, jealous and only occasionally heroic battle,” writes Barbara Tuchman.  As for the Greeks’ Trojan Horse ploy, she said it exemplifies, “policy pursued contrary to self-interest – in the face or urgent warning and a feasible alternative.  Occurring in this earliest chronicle of Western man, it suggests that such pursuit is an old and inherent human habit.”

(So, wait, am I comparing the US to the Greeks or the Trojans?  Both, actually.  It would seek a foolish consistency to only learn from one side and somehow we have maniacally managed to repeat the worst mistakes of each.)

A more recent and equally depressing analog in the history of arms is the nine-plus years the Soviets spent trying to bring a friendly government to Afghanistan.  That invasion/war/occupation began on a Christmas Eve in 1979 and ended with the trucks and tanks rolling over the border for the cameras on a winter day in 1989.  Like us, the Soviets didn’t try to portray their withdrawal as a victory march, but like us; there was a feeling of relief that comes from setting down a heavy load.  For Islamic militants, the Soviet withdrawal was seen as a tiny force, blessed by Allah driving our a superpower.  How will they see the US withdrawal from Iraq?

I don’t know how things went for the Soviet soldiers, but Western literature says those who fought at Troy brought their war home with them in ways eerily familiar.  Odysseus famously wandered for a decade, as did Aeneas of Troy and his followers.  Neoptolemus was killed by Agamemnon’s son Orestes (who also killed his mother Clytemnestra, who killed Agamemnon).  Our troops return to a devastated economy years of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I suppose it’s appropriate the end of this long, foolish war comes at the end of a year, the end of the 9/11 decade.  Here’s to hoping we can all feel as though we are putting a burden down and prepare to take up new and better burdens in the year ahead.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

His column was on the European money crisis and the gist of his argument is this: it makes economic sense for Germany (Europe’s economic powerhouse) to bail out Greece (Europe’s irresponsible brother-in-law).

The Greeks have gotten themselves – and are dragging the Euro and the Eurozone nations – into this mess with too little austerity and too many early retirements.  It’s the hardworking ants of the Baltic versus the sun-drenched grasshoppers of the Mediterranean.  It’s in Germany’s self-interest to save the Greeks, because if Europe returns to a patchwork of currencies, then those low-value drachmas and lire and pesetas will buy fewer German products.

The Germans, however, resist this logic not for economic, but moral reasons.  “If we bail you out, how will you learn your lesson?” the Germans ask, “Why would you not repeat your mistakes?”  It’s like the parent, about to punish the child, saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” and in this case it might be true.

Here’s where Joe Nocera wouldn’t go: why doesn’t Germany just shut up and bail out the Greeks?  Thank you, my cousins, for shifting the terms of the debate from economics to morals.  Now that we’re in that territory, let me remind you that not so long ago, Germany invaded and occupied Greece, killing thousands of its citizens and sending tens of thousands more off to death camps.  (The people with whom I share half my ethnicity hate it when I bring these things up, as if I’m the one who breached decorum.)

In 1945, the Allied nations agreed that forcing Germany to pay reparations for its crimes did not make economic or political sense.  The heavy burden of reparation imposed on Germany after World War I helped aid the rise of the Nazis.  That was a good call and helped get a ravaged Europe back on its feet, but somehow, it insidiously evolved into a dysfunctional denial of history, as if it’s impolite to mention the bombs and bullets.  Forgetting serves no good purpose.

So here’s my proposal: Greece gets a one-time bailout from Germany.  Does that mean that slate is clean?  No, that slate can’t be cleaned.  It just means no further bailouts or reparations or whatever you want to call it from Germany to Greece.

Am I uselessly holding onto the past, onto grudges that serve no one?  I don’t think so.  True reconciliation requires remorse, forgiveness and atonement.  I have faith in German remorse and the forgiveness of Europe.  In more than half a century, there have been no opportunities for real atonement.  Now one presents itself; Germany should take advantage of it.

So, should Spain get a bailout, because the Nazis warmed up for WWII by using Spanish Republicans for Lutwaffe target practice?  What about Poland, France, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and on and on?  If Germany shores up Greece, we hope those nations won’t need German relief.  What about Italy, now also teetering on the brink?  Does Germany owe Italy?  Morally, no, economically perhaps.  This is the danger when one shifts the philosophical grounds of debate.  (Hey Germany, you started it; I’m just taking the moral debate to a logical conclusion.)

Once this moral/economic argument is engaged, things quickly get complicated.  For instance, if Germany should bail out Greece, does that mean the U.S. should pay reparations to African Americans for centuries of slavery?

Yes, I think it does.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Burlington will hold a mayoral election the first Tuesday of March, town meeting day.  Four candidates put themselves forward for the Democratic nomination.  Vermont caucuses and primaries are open to all registered voters in a given jurisdiction, which sometimes leads to mischief, but usually results in a pure form of democracy.

“You’re going to be voting soon, you need to see how this works,” I said.
“That’s twooo yeeears awaaay,” she replied.  A lifetime for teens.  She brought her phone, so she could distract herself by texting friends.

The streets around Memorial Auditorium were filled with citizens, discussing the merits (and demerits) of the various candidates.  The afternoon was pleasantly warm.  Occupy Burlington protesters formed a brass band and marched to the auditorium’s steps, politely moving out of the way so people could enter.

Inside, the atmosphere was chaotic, as Democratic Party events always and everywhere seem to be, but the mood was upbeat and the left-of-center urban Vermonters milled in the aisles, many sporting stickers or signs proclaiming their choice, but everyone cordial.

After a glitch-ridden registration period and brief speeches by nominators and candidates, thirteen hundred and nine voters participated in the first round.  State Rep. Jason Lorber, the low vote-getter despite an endorsement from the Burlington Free Press, graciously bowed out.

By now, the teenager was hooked.  She no longer rolled her eyes when I identified friends or politicians in the crowd.  “Senator Hinda Miller?  She’s the jog-bra lady!  I remember her from fifth grade!”  (For the record, the teen will deny she was ever interested.  She’s lying, but needs to maintain her side of the generation gap.  I respect this.)

A cookie from the snack bar helped maintain her mood (and blood sugar) but after four hours, I had only just dropped my round two ballot.  Back home, a neighborhood potato roast (as mentioned last week) was about to get started and since ballot counting was taking about an hour, we left.

Walking out, she said, “Remember how big the snowbanks here were last winter?”  I do remember.  I remember sitting beside them in the car, waiting to pick her up from basketball practice, listening to radio reports of anti-government protests in Tunisia following the self-immolation suicide/protest of Mohamed Bouazizi.

I walked the teen home, checked on the potato preparations (as ever, I contributed little to the feast), grabbed my bike and got back to the caucus just in time to hear that City Councilor Bram Kranichfeld had been eliminated in the second round.  He too, was gracious in defeat.

I made out my third-round ballot, dropped it in the box and headed home.  Down to two candidates, why stick around?  Most of the crowd agreed and the street corners were thick with small-town punditry as I pedaled away.

A few blocks south, Jarred and Caitlin, who still vote in New Hampshire, pulled up beside me and we cruised along updating the day’s events.  “This is what democracy feels like,” I thought.

Back yard punditry around the fire as we ate wild mushroom soup and waited for the potatoes to roast.  My cell phone rang; it was my friend Chris, still at the auditorium.  “Can you come back for another round?  It looks like neither candidate has a majority.  They’re tied.”

Tied they were – and are.  Remaining candidates Miro Weinberger and Tim Ashe agreed it was senseless to try and bring voters back Sunday night, so the caucus will continue as soon as the city Democrats figure out when, where and how.  Only those who registered Sunday will participate.

In New York and Oakland, police shut the Occupy camps.  The camp in Burlington was shut down as well, after a man tragically committed suicide in one of the tents.  Although these developments are unwelcome, they have been peaceful.

We need change in this country, change for the better.  The year which began with radio reports of a nascent Arab spring has seen governments toppled with varying degrees of violence while some undemocratic leaders violently hang on.  There have been bitter protests and riots in European cities from Athens to London.  Here in American we cling, however tenaciously, to peaceful processes of democratic change.  Let’s hope we can continue this; let’s hope our leaders recognize this and respond in kind.

© Mark Floegel, 2011