LINCOLN-DOUGLAS: SEQUEL
Friends & Colleagues
It is the duty of a good citizen to take seriously voting in public elections. Voting is the singular act that embodies the principle of popular sovereignty in a constitutional democracy. It demands more than simply pulling a lever or pressing a button. Responsible voting requires keeping abreast of events and the conduct of public officials. When it comes to selecting among candidates, one should be familiar with their record, their allegiances, their philosophy of government and their position on major issues.
Those implied obligations, though, have become increasingly difficult to meet. This despite the trend toward longer and longer campaign seasons – now stretching to 20 months for Presidential elections. The spate of verbiage does little to enlighten us as to who the candidates are and what they might do in office. What we get are sound bites, platitudes, deception and outright lies. For the most part, they go uncorrected by the media who in principle should act as protectors of the process’ integrity. Altogether, the public is offered an unceasing festival of showmanship and celebrity – not a display of crucial information. The multiple shortcomings of our political institutions and culture are impediments to good citizenship.
Debates are put forth as the one great compensatory aspect of those campaigns. They are as frequent as the candidates are numerous – among aspirants before the formal nomination of candidates and then between those chosen. In practice, they are woefully inadequate. They are not debates at all but parallel press conferences; the questions posed by journalists reveling in their own celebrity gig rarely cut to the bone; and the stilted, scripted responses offer few clues as who and what the participants really are. Insurance against anything of consequence is taken by the absurdly shot time allowed for those responses. That has the dual effect of 1) avoiding an awkward pause when a candidate has run out of any drivel to add; and 2) foreclosing the dread prospect – a remote risk - that a candidate might probe deeply into an issue – thereby, quickly exhausting the post-debate pundits’ thin inventory of their cliches. Hence, most of these happenings have been so dreary as to serve as a sure-fire cure for insomnia. Who can recall a single memorable line from the thousands of hours of broadcast rhetoric over the past decades? The only one that has registered on the public consciousness was Lloyd Benson telling a callow Dan Quayle: ”I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend if mine – you’re no Jack Kennedy!” Only with the arrival of Donald Trump has boredom been broken with the substitution of terror and trauma for tedium.
Personally, I have watched not a one of these pseudo-events since Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford sat side-by-side staring blankly into space speechless for 25 minutes when the lights went out. I guess that truancy makes me a bad citizen. However, I did write one Presidential debate review for the Huffington Post in 2012. I’m not sure that it counts, though, since I composed it BEFORE the debate actually happened. It was the second debate which followed the notorious debacle in the first one where Obama unwittingly showed his true political colors by meekly agreeing with everything Mitt Romney said. My ploy worked. I did follow the debate via a transcript that ran continuously with a 5-second delay somewhere on the Web. That prompted a few word changes, the insertion of a couple of sentences, and a 50-word concluding paragraph. Thus, my account of that forgettable event, which ended at 9:30, was up on the Huffington website at 9:50. Nothing to be proud of – just a commentary on our political times. We all have ways of amusing ourselves.
In recompense for that prank, I offer here a set of questions that, I believe, could make the upcoming debates something other than either a dreary drain on mind and spirit or a trailer for the next segment of neo-Fascism with American characteristics.
cheers
Michael Brenner
TWELVE QUESTIONS
1. The United States has been providing aid and comfort to al-Qaeda in Syria over the past decade: supplying arms indirectly, political support, diplomatic backing – and, on one occasion, bombed Syrian government troops in combat with ISIS. Are you in favor of this policy? What lessons about American foreign interventions do you draw from your reading of the experience?
2. In early 2002, President Bush organized and led a cabal of high officials who gave the green light to mass surveillance of American citizens that they recognized was illegal and unconstitutional. Leaders of both parties in Congress were involved as was Chief Justice Rehnquist. That program has expanded and become more intrusive subsequently under the three successor Presidents. Were you aware of this and what is your thinking about it?
3. There is much talk about reducing Social Security and Medicare in light of the mounting national debt and budget deficits. Yet, there is little mention of these facts: a) neither program has contributed a dollar to those conditions since they are financed through independent trust funds to which workers make automatic payroll contributions; b) those funds suffered a shortfall of contributions when President Obama reduced the withholding rate while declaring to the public that he was increasing their take-home income – more today, less when you reach 65; c) some years down the road claims on those funds will exceed inflow – a condition that could easily be met by raising the income ceiling on which the withholdings are levied and other small adjustments. Your spokesman has hinted that these programs might ‘be in play’ were you elected. How do you justify doing so?
4. We have committed ourselves to a trillion-dollar+ program to modernize and upgrade the nation’s strategic nuclear delivery systems and warheads. Since deterrence of any hostile nuclear power is credible in the presence of existing land based and SLBMs missiles (the latter totally invulnerable to any preemptive strike), what is the reason for going ahead with this prohibitively expensive plan? Does it make strategic sense or is it a matter of keeping up with the Jones (Putins)?
5. In April of 2022, the White House said that the use of cluster bombs was a potential war crime. Yet, we are now supplying them to Ukraine in abundance? What would be your position on this issue if elected?
6. Child labor is becoming widespread under various guises, many clearly illegal. Our government has ignored the problem. What would you do about it?
7a. 7a.What is your view on the policy of dealing with immigration at he Mexican border by kidnapping children from their parents, warehousing them in camps across the country, and placing some of them in the custody of private contractors from which hundreds have been ‘lost” ?
7b. Currently, undocumented immigrants are being FEDXed around the country by assorted governors and mayors. Are you prepared to use the powers of the federal government to bring an end to this crass practice?
8. Do you support the concept of a unionized workforce? If so, what concrete steps would you take to remove obstacles to, and to facilitate organizing efforts?
9. Inequality in America – like the weather – is much talked about but nothing is done to alleviate it. Could tell us concretely what you would do to change that?
10. The IT sphere is American society clearly is out of control – in regard to invasions of privacy, censorship, monopoly abuses and shaping of the public mind. What are your thoughts about this matter? How are any serious moves to be reconciled with your dependence on campaign donations from the Silicon Valley barons?
11. It has become standard practice for Washington departments and agencies to rely on private businesses and consulting outfits to perform public functions which used to be the responsibility of government civil servants. For example: during the Covid crisis, Blackstone was contracted to distribute various forms of special aid to households and small enterprises – usually through the intermediary of banks. It has been suggested that is one reason why informed estimates are that less than 50% of the allocated funds actually reached qualified recipients in appropriate amounts. Do you see this as necessitating a serious rethink of outsourcing the work of the federal government?
12. Were the White House switch board to awaken you with a 3 A.M. phone call, would your first instinct be a) pass the phone to your spouse; b) contact the Vice-President; C) contact the National Security Adviser; d) summon the official Russian or Chinese interpreter; or e) reply that you contributed at the office and hang up?
We wish to thank the candidates, the audience in the hall and all those who helped to bring this democratic forum to the American people. God bless you all – and God bless the United States of America