John McCain's NO

John McCain’s NO!

By Dan McDonald

 

Photograph by Oliver Contreras which appeared originally in the Washington Post

 

            I suspect that John McCain sensed this was his hour to make a statement. If one couples his “no” vote on the Republican “slim repeal measure” with his speech following his “yes” vote on debate, McCain saw this as his opportunity to send an emphatic message. He returned to the Senate a few days ago, aware he had life-threatening cancer. He was aware that his Senate colleagues would especially be listening to him as he addressed the Senate knowing he might be literally forming his last chapter in life. He gave a speech that might well be the one speech remembered in future generations. You can see it here.

            At the time of his giving the speech, many believed he was just being a politician. He voted in approval of debating a measure he said he could not support as it was being presented. Many took that as, “there will be some small change and voila I will come around and support the bill.” I was one of those who figured that was how it would work out. I was wrong. What I missed and many others also missed was how he was highlighting matters that seemed to him to be more worrisome than whether this important measure on national health care passed or not. He spoke in honor of the Senate as what has been called “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” He lamented that today the Senate did not resemble the greatest deliberative body. The Senate is today characterized by political partisanship and tribalism. He expressed his desire to see the Senate return to being a place of messy debate with collaboration and compromise involving the parties sitting on each side of the aisle. He also expressed how the Senate was not subservient or subordinate to the presidency. I fully suspect that John McCain thought his “no” vote was a “yes” vote to the sort of Senate he desired. I would not be surprised if he could have lived with either a “yes” or “no” outcome on the measure itself. I rather think his “no” vote was all about his decision to resist certain aspects of how politics is being carried out in our day. We can see that as we listen to his speech to the Senate from a few days ago, and his no vote last night.

            He spoke against the tendency to rewrite Senate deliberation rules to enable single party triumphs. His “no” vote with Senator McConnell standing near highlighted his words against government by single party.

            In lauding the Senate as a deliberative body that was not subordinate to that of the presidency he upheld the recognition of each member’s responsibility to represent their state and to treat each issue with the respect of their reason and conscience. He urged his colleagues to not listen to the talk show hosts with their agendas. He gave space for a Senator to break with their party and their president. This is essential if the Senate is to be the deliberative body envisioned by the Constitution’s framers. Beyond the radio talk show hosts, there was the president tweeting against all acts that supposedly failed to be loyal to the president. Loyalty is an essential element in the way an oligarch conducts business, but not for a representative government or a deliberative body like the United States Senate. Loyalty as a Senator ought to be to one’s reason, conscience, and the people they represent.

            A few days ago when McCain had given his speech and voted “yes” for debate I tweeted something describing the difference between the 1950’s and today. In the 1950’s Eisenhower was president and McCarthy was a Senator. I had grown tired of seeing the president’s abusive manipulative tweets. He was seeking to divide Americans, and seeking to make people in government loyal to him. It was frightening to see that instead of McCarthy being a Senator, Trump was president; and I wondered what senator could answer to Trump. Last night, John McCain rose to the occasion. I don’t necessarily agree with McCain on every issue, but McCain’s “no” vote last night and his speech from a few days ago will hopefully be remembered as when Trump’s ability to manipulate and divide met the resistance needed to encourage every other person in government and the public.

            Perhaps Senator McCain’s “no” vote was more essential in its support of Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins than what it had to say about health insurance. The talk show bullies, the Presidential bully manipulations, and the party loyalty oaths of allegiance reminiscent of a much darker form of political history were resisted by a Senator who seems to have sensed it was his moment. It is right and proper that Senators Murkowski and Collins should have to answer questions regarding how they voted. All Senators should have to answer for how they vote. It is not proper that a Senator face a loyalty test from their president, or their party. I suspect that the Conservative McCain had ambivalent thoughts about the health care debate, but he did not have any ambivalent sense about whether or not a Senator should have a sense of freedom to vote their consciences in representing the people of their state.

            Last night those of us who support the messy work of building a consensus among representatives of all parties, and supporting the work of deliberation over the influence of manipulation won a victory. In my perspective this was one of John McCain’s finest hours.

Wonder Woman thoughts

Wonder Woman

Thoughts on the Movie

By the Panhandling Philosopher

 

            If you are looking for action in a movie Wonder Woman won’t disappoint. This Wonder Woman trailer readies you to see a movie with wonderfully choreographed action scenes sometimes packed with intensity.

            It is a reality in life that one who has become accustomed to the old will often be disappointed with the new. When Roger Moore died, the generation x movie goers often lamented the loss of their favorite Bond, while those of us who were boomers more often favored Sean Connery as Bond. No story is ever told the same way twice. A different actor saying the same words from the same script breathes a different attitude into the words. The Wonder Woman shown in this 2017 version is told uniquely as compared to comic book and television versions. I enjoyed the uniqueness of this newest version of the story. Writers Zach Snyder and Allan Heinberg along with director Patty Jenkins have turned a comic book story of a woman with superpowers into the multi-dimensional truly human character of Diana Prince, Wonder Woman, presented by Israeli actress Gal Gadot. For me I will always be fond of this movie version because this is a superhero striving to understand exactly how she fits into this world that was so different from the isolated island paradise she grew up in. This Wonder Woman can be seen as the story of a gifted but culturally isolated child who grows up and finds herself in a world very different than she expected. It is also a world where she is called upon to do important things and make the ultimate difference. This is a Wonder Woman who is strong and decisive, and this is treated as a positive. Wonder Woman’s strength and decisiveness are not treated unrealistically (as long as you buy into someone with special powers). Gal Gadot presents a woman who makes her dive head first into the world acting on immense ideals, strength, and decisiveness. The world into which she dives is different from the world she expected. She imagines saving the world by defeating one embodiment of evil and then perhaps returning home to her paradise island or perhaps spending a lifetime with her friend and comrade Steve Trevor presented by Chris Pine. That hoped for recipe proves naïve. Director Patty Jenkins commented somewhere that the goal of movie making is to present beauty. There are different forms of beauty. The beauty of Wonder Woman is the testing of a living being who heads into the world with beauty, intelligence, ideals, strength, and purpose. We realize watching this movie that even if one had that entire package that we live in a world which tests everything about us. It tests using other persons and forces pressing against us; and we are furthermore constantly tested by our inner responses to the pressures and temptations we face. The pressures and temptations we face are often neither as large or scary as we might imagine but if we can stand firm against monsters, how are we with deceptive bureaucrats willing to give us a piece of the pie for our allegiance? Wonder Woman will need more than a swift sword and her battlefield skills to prevail.

            One of the interesting changes made in this version of the Wonder Woman story is how Wonder Woman’s entrance into the wars of humankind begins in the First World War. In the original Marston comic book beginnings Wonder Woman is drawn away from her island paradise to fight Hitler and his Nazi legions. The story from the beginning had feminist overtones. But in this movie version, Wonder Woman leaves her paradise island in the First instead of the Second World War.

            My suspicion is that the film-maker saw the story of Wonder Woman as a metaphor of someone leaving an imagined paradise like isolation to go to a battlefield somewhere beyond the ocean, to a place “over there.” America’s involvement in World War I began one hundred years ago this year. It was a pivotal movement in both American and global history. The war had become at best a bloody stalemate, and as the Russians began to look for an exit from the war, French and British forces faced the real possibility of German victory. The sinking of the Lusitania, the Zimmerman note which was possibly fraudulent along with Allied stories of German atrocities against citizens of France and Belgium became the basis for America’s entrance into the First World War. We went over there to make the world safe for democracy. We were enticed away from our island of neutrality. We were standing for Liberty, who as a woman stood her ground as a beleaguered soul came to us for help against the one who threatened freedom throughout the world.

             I imagined this film’s makers to have understood that in some ways Wonder Woman can be viewed as if a metaphor to the American experience. We left our isolated island of neutrality against the advice from some of the older generation that once we left this island it wasn’t necessarily possible to return. If Wonder Woman had to navigate the world with less naiveté, because her ideals, intellect and strength were not enough to keep her soul intact, isn’t that the sort of struggle a nation which left its island paradise of neutrality has also struggled with beginning in 1917? We have learned that the world can’t be saved just because you destroy the one who seems to personify it. We have learned that friend as well as foe has issues of injustice. If in Wonder Woman there was a true innocence, in our American history seemed to suggest that we were once innocent even if the truth was that we traded for slaves and that we ruled over both indigenous peoples and the darker races as if they were not really our equals. Perhaps it ruins the wonderful myth of Wonder Woman with our own imagined hero status as America. Perhaps we are, if less ideal, less strong, less intelligent, less beautiful, and less everything than this Wonder Woman at the movies, perhaps we too have left our island and will take a long time before we really understand our place in this world we thought we could save.