Saner Heads Have Thwarted Pro-Dark Agers

Employment reports that come out this week are going to place this number somewhere near 10%. It will be higher in states such as mine, Michigan, where the destabilization of industry itself has sent shockwaves through employment environments.

What is important to note in all of this, I think, is that despite these numbers, and despite a still sluggish housing market—and home foreclosures that seem to be nowhere near abating yet—there are palpable signs of recovery both domestically and internationally. For the naysayers who were leading campaigns denouncing government bailout plans and all but predicting the apocalypse to descend any day now were clearly way off. The same can be said for those who have been demonizing the health reform legislation in Washington. While there will certainly be challenges ahead for both these areas, saner heads have prevailed and both the economy and health care are moving to amicable resolutions.

What is most clear now is that there are zealous political forces pushing a lot of these naysayers in to the front lines of the public dialogue and, truth be known, these naysayers are not very credible. All this talk of the country turning in to some socialist regime is ridiculous; if anything, the forces of entrepreneurship are awakening everywhere throughout the U.S. these days—and much of it being driven by absolute necessity. Such forces will ultimately shape the larger debates about the economy and health care reform, I believe, and those forces want conditions to emerge that will make for a more dynamic and creative free market system, not some intracetable highly politicized debate that insults people’s intelligence by not being very well thought through. It isn’t socialism we should be afraid of; rather it is following these non-free thinkers into an era of a new Dark Ages.

Yikes!

Social Networking is Valuable, On and Offline

Today, the company that makes Facebook, the online social networking environment, reported it is edging closer to profitability. While this is certainly good news for our otherwise struggling economy (and employability being very much needed in the computer business, and everywhere else for that matter), this is also further confirmation that social networking is the “next level” of intra-communication in our society.

But least we get too carried away, there is also the very real and basic fact that social networking has been around long before the makers of Facebook were even born. And social networking today occurs just as much off-line as online. Specifically I am referring to that magical thing that happens at the end of most church (and other types of places of worship) services once the formal service ends. Almost immediately the previously controlled crowd breaks in to a multitude of subcultures, all containing individuals who are laughing, smiling, and shaking hands, discussing business opportunities, politics, sharing information for education purposes, and a number of other related issues and topics. Spiritual leaders know that no matter how effective the sermon for that day might have been, nothing can take the place of taking time afterward to shake a few hands and listen to someone’s comments, or share further insight with a small group or with individuals about the message that was delivered.

And this has been the case for as long as people have been coming together for common purposes—whether for religious reasons or just for collective interest in social or community conditions. Social networking is first and foremost about people connecting with people—period. Those who understand this intrinsic truth can make a ton of things happen for themselves in a good way.

'Liberal' Label Oversimplifies Senator Kennedy's Extraordinary Legacy

During observances of the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy, I was reminded of a great truth learned while working as a staff person in the Michigan Legislature: only the news media and the public care about partisanship.

This statement comes from the fact that if one were to dig deeper into Senator Kennedy’s lengthy career as a public servant, discovered would be some remarkable influences he had on policies that were far from the liberal label he’d been successfully saddled with over the years by his enemies from the right. The senator was actually one of the chief architects of deregulation that set the stage for the Reagan revolution which then ushered in the digital communications age and more choices and efficiency in the airline industry. Whether this was an unintended consequence is not something I’m privy to, but I do know that such “blurring” of partisan lines is not uncommon. Some of my friends in Detroit would be surprised to learn that the late Coleman A. Young, the legendary mayor of the Motor City for nearly two decades, started out as a Republican. He switched to the Democrat side after being exposed to—and being a victim of—the worst of the extreme right during the McCarthy era.

Partisanship matters most to special interest groups and news media and popular culture operations that need to find a way to make politics fit in to a nice neat three dimensional story for marketing purposes. The truth is, politics and public policy is very much a fifth dimensional reality and both contain deep nuances. Nothing is as a clear cut as we’d like it to be.

When I worked in the legislature I became very accoustomed to attending and facilitating meetings between Democratic and Republican lawmakers on a variety of issues. And some Democrats were more conservative than some Republicans—it depended on what part of the state the lawmaker came from and even what historical connections were prevalent in that region.

And this brings us back to Senator Kennedy.

While certainly he was a champion of issues that tend to be traditionally embraced by Democrats, he was no dummy by any means. The respect that he received from long time right wing leaders such as Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah spoke volumes about Senator Kennedy’s ability to build coalitions. I would add further that it is likely he imparted to President Obama some of this good, conciliatory, sense to him in the months leading to his death, preparing the country’s first African American president for ushering through (using such methods) the first real health care reform legislation. Despite the vehement resistance to moving forward with this, it is not likely the Republicans have the will (or the political death wish) to be complete obstructionists in this instance.

In fact, if there is really to be a legacy for Senator Kennedy, it will be his posthumus presence on this legislation—an inevitability if Washington is really serious about stabilizing the economy for the next generation.