Reality's A Bitch

This isn't just about hypocrisy, or death panels, or Jan Brewer, but that's where the discussion has to start:

“How many people have to die before you are prepared to reverse your decision on the transplant operations?” seemed like the obvious question.

She said she thought that was unfair and started to explain how dire the state’s financial situation is. If people are so worried about the transplant patients then they should ask the federal government in Washington to send us more money, she said.But she would not explain to me, or to any Democrats in the state capitol, what she has done with the nearly $200 million she was already given in ‘stimulus funds’ to spend on anything she liked.

Cut federal government spending/give us more federal money. Repeal health care/give us the money in the health care bill. End Obamacare because it's rationing/ration medical care to save money.

Sure, it's hypocrisy of the first order. Of course, it's completely dishonest and untenable. That much goes without saying. Or, rather, it's what I, along with everyone else with more than two neurons to rub together, have been saying: teabaggerism (ie, Reaganomics) simply doesn't work; can't work. Has never worked.

The larger point, though, is how tough it really is. The times are tough, the solutions -- if any -- are tough. It's easy to laugh (and I do) or cry (and I do) at people like Jan Brewer; but the fact is she's fighting the same battle as everyone else. She -- like the teabaggers of which she's a prime example -- simply has an empty quiver.

But she is a real-world example of what happens when you apply too-easy answers to too-hard problems. Naive, she may be. Crazy. In over her head. But she's just doing what a hell of a lot of people do when the going gets tough. Go into tilt mode. Resort to magical thinking. Sadly, it's human.

Probably because we weren't intelligently designed.

There's just no way to get from here (badness) to there (wonderfulness) without doing some really hard, really unpleasant things, really controversial things. Things that will require compromise, facing facts, admitting that there's no magic; in short, things that seem as far from teabagging Republicanism (as opposed to the kind that was around a generation ago: thoughtful, in a word) as Glenn Beck is from planet Earth.

Nor are Democrats above criticism: the idea of "belt-tightening," as in correlating social programs with need, raises screams from the extremes. As opposed to the Rs, however, they do recognize the needs we face and that they'll have to be paid for. That tax cuts aren't magic mushrooms.

So Jan Brewer is a microcosm. Sadly, she represents far too many of us -- enough that, looking below the surface of folly, it seems literally impossible that we're any longer equipped as a nation to do what needs doing. And pardon me for saying so, but I see it as of a piece with our (Foxoreillian cries of anti-christianism notwithstanding) ever-increasing national religiosity. Religious thinking (ie, relying on the unprovable, the not reality-based, believing whatever it takes to feel safe in a dangerous world) is fine when confronting the unknowable, like death. There, other than being the basis for wars and mass killings, for discrimination and hatred, it works well. But when the problems are in the now, and require workable solutions in real time, before the end times, it lacks a certain, well, functionality.

Teabaggerism is not just like religion. It is religion. The problem is that, with religion, whether one is right or wrong won't be determined in this world. With teabaggerism, with Reaganomics, it's already known. And Jan Brewer's dilemma shows it, as clearly as a mushroom cloud.

Saddest of all, when confronted with the impossibility, the response is to dig in deeper.

And this kind of crap hardly suggests any impending breakthroughs.

Genius

My aunt, who, among other things, was a gifted musician, told me that when she was a little girl she liked to read classical piano sheet music at bedtime, and when she woke up she could play it all, from memory.

I was talking with my nephew this weekend about the wonders of the human brain. He'd seen a piece about an autistic savant who could hear the most complex jazz music once, and play it back perfectly. I like thinking about that.

The other night, I heard a lecture by Jonathan Franzen, who is, in my opinion, an exceptionally gifted writer. He is also, by some accounts, a bit of an asshole whose social skills don't match those of his wordsmanship. (In fact, he'd obviously devoted a lot of thought to the lecture, and was almost painfully honest and self-revelatory; he took questions, pausing and thinking hard before giving very personal and nuanced answers. Answers that respected the questions. He was entertaining, thought-provoking, and charming. The LA Times recently ran a very snarky opinion column about him. The careful reader of it might find a familiar in the comment thread.)

Is genius a disorder? In the conversation with my nephew, we discussed the fact that in the same piece he'd seen, a mathematical savant was also featured. Studies of his brain in action, while mathturbating, showed he was using parts of it for calculation that other people typically devote to physical dexterity. It's as if genius is some sort of anatomic accident. Maybe individuals with exceptional gifts, whether they be of music, math, writing, painting -- even, perhaps, of legislating wisely -- are like people with Asberger's. Maybe to be really gifted you must have a brain whose wiring devotes more of itself to your gifts than to, say, being nice. It's said of many of the greats that they were hard to live with.

When I read really good writing, view a particularly resonant painting, hear great jazz, it adds enjoyment to know something about the artist; I like having some context. Simply, it's interesting. But it doesn't affect my pleasure in experiencing the art if I discover the artist was a jerk. From observation, in fact, it seems genius has a high correlation with some sort of personal dysfunction. We need genius, so who cares?

Seen another way, it's being "normal" that is a disability. Normal is nice, of course, but we can't get along if all we have is normal people. Being charitable to them, teabaggers are normal. Normal people can draw pictures, play happy birthday on the piano, write sentences that fit on signs (and they're certainly not gifted at spelling). Normal people like Thomas Kinkade. They can start with a world-view and sift data to fit it. They can make their own reality. Genii can't. They see the world, the reality of it, they can't help it. And although that sort of clarity of vision tends to drive them crazy (or maybe it's the other way around), it fuels them. Seeing and knowing, they create, they stimulate, they add to our understanding of the world, even as they rob us of comfort. Without such people, we stagnate, we are blind, we fail to learn new things, to find cures, to recognize each other. The price to the seers, or maybe the entry fee, is to live in pain, to not fit in easily.

There's the reality of Sarah Palin and what's-her-name O'Donnell, in which the earth is six thousand years old, Barack Obama is a terrorist, tax cuts pay for themselves and your next car, we'll have roads and health care and limitless energy in a climate-stable world without changing a thing, same-sex marriage will end it for everyone else, and God will take care of us. In this reality, everything is simple and easy; it contains no self-doubts, no existential angst, it's black and white, there is no discordance, only certainty. All truth is in a single book, all solutions fit on placards. In their reality, there's no place, no need, for genius.

And then there's reality.

No Exit

Of the disasters George Bush left to us, the worst is the so-called "war on terror." Couple dozen guys with box-cutters have, it turns out, brought us to our knees. Three trillion dollars, exhausted military, failing economy, inability properly to react to the real threats, stuck in two interminable wars. The word "overreaction" has been redefined for all time.

I'm mindful of two things: first, there is a real threat from terrorists, mainly of the radical Islamic type (give or take a few home-grown crazies like Timothy McVey and Eric Rudolph.) Second, having recklessly invaded Iraq and abandoning Afghanistan at a time when keeping up the pressure likely would have seen a finished job by now, we have to address our obligations there. Which is why what Bush did is so awful: he's left a problem with no obvious solution. Like the economy, but with more death.

Invading countries was never going to wipe out terrorism or terrorists. The Afghanistan war, however, had other justifications, not the least of which was retribution. Iraq, not so much. Whatever the reason for that one -- and I still have no idea what it was -- fighting terrorism was never even remotely credible. Terrorism isn't a place or an army. The invasion was, to put it as kindly as possible, woefully ill-conceived as a response to terrorism.

So what do we do?

The main arguments for staying in Iraq are that if we leave, it will get worse. It will have been for nothing. It will become a haven for terrorists. There will be slaughter. All, really, say pretty much the same thing. But what's the end-point? Is there one? Must we continue the literal and figurative bleeding because of already spilt blood? As much as I agree that having broken the country we have an obligation to repair it, I think it's obvious by now that we've done all we can and more, that our presence is only prolonging the inevitable, whatever the inevitable is. Under Saddam, they had no choice in their future. Now they do. It's time to leave their future to them. It will be what it was always going to be, the minute we invaded. They can choose to cooperate among themselves, or kill each other off. As cold as that seems, the time and blood and treasure we've spent there hasn't altered the need for Iraqis (who never were a natural fit with one another, in a country that was imposed on rather than created by them) finally to figure it out for themselves, whatever "it" is.

If Afghanistan is a different country -- with ancient borders and perpetual tribalism and wars -- the gist is the same: we can't ultimately expect to alter their future, which, in their case, means prevent terrorists from encamping in that region. Contrary to mythology, it was Afghanistan, not Ronald Reagan, that brought down the Soviet Union. Which is why I think Barack Obama is making a mistake sending more troops there.

In the end, it's about protecting ourselves, and whereas there's only a few things over which we have complete control, they are critically important. George Bush got it entirely backwards. And I think it's time for Barack Obama to be as truthful about that as he has been about the economic wreckage.

"War on Terror" was and is a misnomer, a blatant misunderstanding of what we face and what we can do. Terrorism is not an army, and it can't be ended with war. Given what a handful of zealots did on 9/11, and given the catastrophically wrong response which has done more damage by a factor of a billion, it should be obvious. Invading where, fighting whom, could prevent another 9/11? If it were possible -- and the opposite is true, as we've seen -- to eliminate 99% of terrorists with the methods employed by George Bush, we'd still be at roughly equal risk as we were on 9/10/01. The greatest need, then, is not to send in armies; it's to shore up our defenses at home, an approach almost entirely neglected in response to 9/11, except for airport security. Which, it is to be recalled, was royally botched at first as Bush insisted on privatizing it, while resisting the idea of a department of homeland security (which, to my ear, sounds a little too much like "fatherland") and fighting the idea of a 9/11 commission.

Protecting ourselves against terrorism requires a much greater effort at security, of ports, plants, dams. And it requires intelligence gathering. It is, as John Kerry said while the Republicans scoffed, a law enforcement issue. The successes we've had (questionable as they've turned out to be, in many cases) have come from police work. Which is why I happen to have no problem at all with various forms of electronic surveillance; but I see no reason why it can't be done legally. Is our Constitution really that flawed?

Equally important is seeking and getting cooperation from the rest of the world, the likelihood of which increases in proportion to the esteem in which we're held around the world. You're less likely to help someone you hate than someone you respect, whom you see as sharing your goals. Which is perhaps the most devastatingly negative consequence of the Cheney/Bush approach.

So what is there to do? Admit reality. Make the case that we've done it wrong up until now. Keep enough troops in Iraq as is necessary to continue training theirs and to protect ours. In Afghanistan, offer as much humanitarian assistance as is wanted and provide the protection it requires. Continue diplomatic efforts in the region, encourage help from the rest of the world. But recognize that the only people who can stop the Taliban are the Afghans and Pakistanis themselves. Keep up surveillance, fire off a predator missile prn, and fall the hell back. Because it will never end by force; not our force, anyway.

With a tenth of the money spent on the wars, and without the loss of life, we could have beefed up our ability to protect ourselves and be much safer. It's a tragedy that that wasn't our approach from the beginning, but that's not a reason to keep compounding the error.

Speaking that kind of truth would make the response from the right to his economic realism look like a love-fest. And it would take a literal willingness on Obama's part to die for it; because the veiled threats we've seen for months would become overt, and there'd be thousands willing to carry it out. If I have no certainty of the right approach to the impossible problems we've inherited, of that I have no doubt.

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