AN ESSAY
When I practiced law, I learned the real meaning of the word “unhappiness.” I have garbled memories about my months in practice. Impressions flitter back to me without warning. No matter how they reappear, they put a bitter taste in my mouth. They confirm to me that I made the right decision to abandon the legal profession. They remind me just how awful I felt every day in a law office.
Before I practiced law, I never thought much about the concepts “happiness” and “unhappiness.” In my young mind, happiness was uncomplicated; it simply meant that you generally “felt good” in your circumstances and that “nothing was wrong.” Applying that definition, “unhappiness,” too, was easy to understand. It was just the “opposite of feeling good.” “Unhappiness” depended on “happiness.” If I knew one, I could abstractly imagine the other. I never considered that “unhappiness” could have an independent meaning.
It does. The mere fact that the word “unhappiness” contains the word “happiness” does not mean that “unhappiness” depends on “happiness.” To the contrary, “unhappiness” is a unique, pervasive, all-consuming feeling of malaise that darkens your entire outlook on life. It is not merely the absence of happiness; it is much more. It is a poisonous, enervating, hopeless mental condition. When you are unhappy, life appears bleak and pointless. Days pass slowly, even torturously. You just want to lie down and go to sleep. You expect bad news at every turn. When you are unhappy, you do not think to yourself: “I am not happy.” You think: “I am unhappy; and unhappiness has nothing to do with happiness.”
Practicing law made me unhappy. I could not bear to get up in the morning. I would lie in bed and pray that the minutes on the clock would not pass. From the moment I walked into the office, difficulties arose. My supervisor would yell at me for failing to make a phone call or fax something. She would reject my explanations with vague advice, such as: “You need to do better, remember more and move faster.” Of course, she never told me how to make people answer the phone or return calls. Nor could she tell me how to make the U.S. Mail move more quickly. Whenever I mustered the effort to fulfill her requests, she had a fresh rebuke for me. She called me names and told me she would dock my pay if I kept “fucking things up.” I tried to emphasize that no one had trained me. She told me to train myself by reading a 900-page “best practices manual.”
I felt disillusioned. I entered law practice after a very successful law school career. I thought my academic success would carry over into practice. It did not. Whenever I talked about legal theory, I was told to be quiet and do “case management” instead. That meant making phone calls and setting up appointments with doctors and engineers. Law had nothing to do with my practice. It was an elaborate horse-trading game that happened to revolve around a courthouse. All the while, intimidating people besieged me from all sides. My own supervisor told me I was incompetent. My adversaries called our lawsuits “baseless, stupid and worthy of sanction.” I even made judges angry because my supervisor instructed me to file idiotic motions in court. In short, I was castigated for following orders as often I was for failing to follow them. It was classic Catch-22 material.
My life degenerated into pure negativity. Nothing ever felt right. No matter what I did, I expected to be insulted, censured or criticized. I never received even one encouraging word from anyone. I remember losing interest in everything, even things I really liked. My libido vanished. Lawyers in my firm sympathized with me. But they, too, endured the same hardships I did; they had little time to worry about me.
And I could not escape. I stayed in the office for 11 hours or more for six days a week. I had no vacation time. I received cell phone calls before and after I left the office. The bad news and mean-spirited criticism never ended. Six months into my law practice experience, goodness seemed to have evaporated from my existence. It had become one grim, emasculating failure after another with no end in sight. My boss even reneged on a promise to increase my salary after six months, explaining: “You haven’t earned it yet.”
That’s when I learned what “unhappiness” really meant. I quit. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Since then, life has dealt me more tough cards. But at least I do not face ridicule, scorn and criticism every hour. I happier now than I was when I practiced law. In any event, I know I am not “unhappy” anymore.
Could anyone be happy in such circumstances? I remember something my supervisor said to me one Friday evening. It was about 6 PM. I was working on something that had to be done on Monday; there was still a long way to go. I knew I was going to be back in the office on Saturday, but I wanted to knock some work out before the weekend. Everyone else had gone home except my supervisor. She wanted to leave, too. So she came into my office and said: “Would you wrap it up? You’re cutting into my drinking time.”
I will never forget that. It made me seriously think about life, careers, happiness and success. Here was a successful law firm manager who divided life between “work time,” namely, Monday morning through Friday afternoon, and “drinking time,” namely, Friday afternoon through Sunday evening. When she said “I was cutting into her drinking time,” she implied that she drank at any moment she wasn’t working. For her, life was binary: Working and drinking. She must have liked drinking, because she did not like the fact that I was keeping her at work during her drinking time. If she had liked working, she would not have minded staying at work for a few more hours. But she was upset because I was encroaching on “her time,” and in “her time,” she liked drinking.
I am sure this is a common sentiment. But what does it really say about happiness and success in America? People are so proud of their jobs, especially people—like my supervisor—who achieve prominence and wealth. Yet despite this pride, they always yearn for days off so they can go get drunk. People say they love their work. But if they would prefer drinking to work, are they really being honest with themselves? Sigmund Freud wrote that intoxication is the “purest, most effective method” by which to ward off unhappiness. Civilization and its Discontents, S. 44 (Fischer Verlag, 10th Ed. 2007). Drinking “drowns cares.” If my supervisor loved drinking, she must have had “cares” she wanted to “drown.” This showed me that, beneath the collected exterior, she was somehow unhappy, too. She may not have been abjectly unhappy, but she must have been unhappy enough to want to drink as soon as she got home on Friday night. My unhappiness sprang both from my ill treatment and my disillusionment with a profession that cared nothing for the principles I struggled so long to master. My supervisor’s unhappiness came from some other source. I do not know what made her unhappy. She was powerful and had much more money than I did. She commanded people around the office and owned three apartments. Yet she was upset with me because I delayed her weekly rendezvous with the bottle.
Can we ever really find happiness in employment? It seems that every working person “lives for the weekend.” I know I do whenever I work a “traditional job.” I do not delude myself by saying “I love my job.” I do not like being a servant. I do not like sacrificing my time for a few dollars. Sure, in many cases it is necessary to sacrifice time for money. But that does not mean I like it. That is why I meticulously count the days toward Friday. During the week, a part of my mind always resents the idea that I am stuck doing someone else’s bidding for a shekel or two. Friday, however, represents a liberation from service. Working people divide their mental lives between weekdays and weekends. Weekdays are boring, stressful and unsatisfying. Weekends are exciting, free and fun-filled. The human brain does not like stress, obligation and constraint. Yet it loves freedom and fun. If it came between weekdays and weekends—and if money were not an issue—everyone would choose the weekend: Who would willingly face stress and obligation if there were no compensation for the pain? That is just the way our minds work. It is easier to be happy when you do not face stress, ridicule and failure. Even if you do not face extreme pressure at work, you still have to show up and sit in one place for over eight hours a day. Your brain would much rather be doing other things during that time, like drinking, sunbathing, shopping or surfing. That’s just the way we are, no matter how much guilt-ridden social programming we’ve absorbed to the contrary. We are trained to say “we love to work at traditional jobs.” But this is self-delusion.
Ironically, traditional jobs tend strongly to induce unhappiness. They consume time, leaving only limited opportunities for personal satisfactions. The fact that so many people—even wildly successful people—yearn to drink on Friday night is compelling evidence that people would “rather not be working” if they had the choice. More to the point, the persistent mental distinction between “workday drab” and “weekend fun” vibrantly illustrates that employment makes people unhappy. Workdays are “unhappy time” and weekends are “happy time.” It is childishly simple, yet accurate. “Weekend fun” makes us “happy.” “Weekday drab” runs us down, then thirst for “fun.” Without sufficient “fun” in our lives, we are not “happy.” We may not be truly “unhappy,” but we set ourselves up for unhappiness.
All this makes me wonder whether our entire social program even cares whether people achieve happiness. We learn to work at traditional jobs. We hear rhetoric about it all the time. It is “good” to have a stable job. It is “good” to know your place in the workplace hierarchy. It is “good” to spend your best years serving some company’s economic interests. And it is “good” to make money in the process. We hear that it is important to “be happy.” But how can we be happy if we spend 72% of our lives (ie, 5 days from every 7) wishing it were the weekend? Is it “good” to be happy only 28% of the time? Against this background, it almost seems revolutionary to want happiness 100% of the time. No offense to office workers, but if you say you are “100% happy” at your job copying papers, answering phones, staring at spreadsheets, delivering coffee and cataloging documents, I don’t believe you. I know that every Wednesday morning you secretly say to yourself: “Only two more days to go….only two more days to go.”
Happiness should not be a revolutionary sentiment. I made it my goal in life. I have experienced unhappiness. It is deeply unsettling. It makes you doubt life altogether. It makes you just want to give up. Still, avoiding unhappiness is more difficult than it seems. In our society, we learn to serve. We learn to spend our time to benefit others in order to win some monetary reward. Only a few have the freedom to spend their time as they please. But happiness lies in the power to say: “I will do what I want to do.” On weekends, working people say: “I will do what I want to do,” and they do what they want. On weekdays, they say: “I must” and they do not do what they want to do.
This is not a good recipe for happiness. Yet this is the program we’ve received from day one. When we sit in an office dreaming about the weekend, we understand just how little time we have to be happy in this world. Freud put it best when he said: “Our chances for happiness are already limited by our constitution as living organisms. But it is much less difficult to experience unhappiness.” Civilization and its Discontents, S. 43 (my translation) (Fischer Verlag, 10th ed. 2007).
When we divide our time between “work days” and “drinking days,” we obviously don’t like the work days as much as the drinking days. Yet we work much more often than we drink. Where does that leave us? Or do we drink because we work? If we do, what does that say about work? Should we defend it so proudly?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
MORALITY FIRST : MALE HOMOSEXUALITY IS DISGUSTING AND MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS
By : Dr. G. Strong Wacker, M.D., M.P.H.; Commissioner, The National Board for Family Health (1998-present); Physician (Urological Reconstruction & Urethral Science); Member, The Morality First League for Equal Protection Under Law (1993-present); Theater-Goer; Amateur Florist & Gardener; Senior Coordinator, Zac Efron Fan Club (San Francisco Branch)(2006-present).
In 2004, President George W. Bush made a concerted effort to ban gay marriage. Although Congress did not amend the Constitution to forever prohibit men from marrying men, he made his point. In fact, Americans cared so much about the marriage issue that they reelected him President that very year. Put simply, Americans know that male homosexuality is morally wrong. Bush won reelection because he publicly declared that no male would ever make vows to another male.
But stopping gay marriage did not end the debate. George W. Bush may have saved the country from gay marriage, but he did not save the country from male homosexuality. We believe that we must prohibit all male homosexuality, not just homosexual marriage. It is not enough to stop two men from combining their finances to cheat the Internal Revenue Service. Nor is it enough to stop two men from exchanging rings and swearing fidelity to each other. No, we must go further. As a society, we must say what we all feel: “Male homosexuality is disgusting and must be stopped at all costs, no matter who dies.”
As a society, we have a right to stop disgusting behavior. Our deepest moral impulses empower us to outlaw disgusting things, including public defecation, slovenliness and grime. When behavior arouses our disgust, we have a right to suppress it. When behavior smells bad, we must punish it. After all, it is disgusting. It makes us pinch our noses, recoil and cry out: “Yuck!” No one deserves to live around foul odors and disgusting behaviors. Indeed, bad smells and immorality form the basis for all our criminal law. Male homosexuality, like public defecation, slovenliness, fraud and theft, is both disgusting and immoral. We just don’t like it. We must remove its stink from our midst, just as our earliest ancestors removed decaying carcasses from their settlements.
We don’t like male homosexuality for many reasons. First, the idea of two men groping and fondling each other makes us uncomfortable. It is just not right. It looks disgusting, too. If it appeals to you, there is something very, very badly wrong with you. Second, male homosexuality presents a public health hazard. Homosexuals are disease-ridden, promiscuous, dissolute, lustful infiltrators who spread pestilence and death through our communities. Third, male homosexuals defraud our society by wasting their reproductive capacity on furtive pleasures. Rather than commit themselves to fatherhood and childrearing, they abandon themselves to aesthetic preening, perverted flirtation and “fun.” This costs our community live births and future citizens. Fourth, male homosexuality harms children. Homosexuals ritually rape children every day; if we care about our children, we must act to stop the homosexual menace. Fifth, homosexuals have untold political influence. According to United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “[Those] who engage in homosexual conduct tend to…have high disposable income [and] they possess political power much greater than their numbers, both locally and statewide.” Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 645-646 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
Put simply, homosexuals are devious, dangerous, disgusting, harmful to children, insolent, irresponsible, wasteful and seditious. We must act now, before it is too late. Our children and our sensibilities demand swift action.
Tradition justifies our effort to stamp out homosexuality. Justice Scalia is a brilliant jurist. We take heart in his legal pronouncements concerning the homosexual menace. He has written at length about government’s traditional right not only to criminalize homosexuality, but also about society’s basic right to hate homosexuals as part of our “moral heritage:” “[] I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals—and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct.” Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 644 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Justice Scalia correctly equates homosexuality with murder, polygamy and cruelty. He knows what he is talking about; he went to Harvard Law School and he has served on the United States Supreme Court since 1986. According to Justice Scalia, homosexuality is just as morally wrong as killing your neighbor or torturing a dog. As a society, we have a right to condemn such abominable outrages. We have always had a right to condemn murder, just as we have always had a right to condemn male homosexuality.
In many ways, male homosexuality is more despicable than murder. After all, some murders offend us less than others. For example, we do not condemn a man who kills his wife’s lover in a jealous rage as much as we condemn a man who carefully plots his wife’s death with equanimous efficiency. Murder does not always arouse our deepest disgust; sometimes we even look with sympathy on the killer. Male homosexuality, on the other hand, is irretrievably disgusting. Nothing mitigates anal sex between two men; it is categorically disgusting. It is so revolting that no reasonable person could ever forgive it or look upon it with sympathy. The mere idea of two naked men kissing is simply nauseating. Murder does not always arouse such deep, rancid disgust. In that light, male homosexuality deserves our strongest condemnation.
Female homosexuality, on the other hand, presents a different question. Lesbians are beautiful to behold. I feel no disgust whatsoever when I think about two naked women caressing one another. In fact, I would very much like to join in any amorous adventures between two beautiful women. Unlike male homosexuals, lesbians pose no public health hazard. They do not spread pestilence and death. They do not rape children, nor do they have unlimited resources with which to overthrow the government. They do not waste their reproductive potential; lesbians can always get pregnant at some later date.
Put simply, lesbians are neither immoral nor disgusting. On the contrary, they are beautiful, especially when they allow men like me to join them in erotic contact. I speak for every American when I say that lesbian sex is neither dangerous nor unhealthy, provided that the lesbians in question are good-looking and would allow me to join in. I would not mind looking at two hot lesbians having sex; indeed, thinking about it arouses me to some extent. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not immoral.
I am certain that Justice Scalia would agree with me about lesbians. There is nothing in our moral tradition that recoils from lesbian sex. Our moral tradition recoils from ugly penises and anuses, not appealing breasts and vaginas. Males smell. Females do not. I would not mind looking at lesbian sex. For that reason, lesbianism presents no danger to society or our children. Lesbianism is not immoral.
Only male homosexuality is immoral. It is both dangerous and unhealthy. I would not want to look at it. We have a traditional right to hate it. For these reasons, we must stand fast against male homosexuals. We must heed Justice Scalia’s advice. We must defend against their disproportionate political influence. If we relax our stance toward male homosexuals for even a moment, they will take over Congress and legalize child rape. If we relax our stance toward male homosexuals for just one moment, they could infect our entire society with venereal diseases, canker sores, rickets, scabies, herpes, cooties and parasites. If we care about morality, health and reproduction, we must sound the alarm on male homosexuality. Stopping gay marriage is not enough. That is why we, the Morality First League for Equal Protection Under Law, are committed to stopping all homosexual immorality, no matter who dies. Tradition supports us. Justice Scalia supports us. Male homosexuals are no better than murderers, polygamists and animal torturers. Plus they smell and I would not want to watch them have sex.
We cannot be tolerant when so much is at stake. It may be 2009, but male homosexuals are just as immoral and dangerous today as they were in 1500. In 1500, governments burned male homosexuals because they honestly recognized how dangerous they were. We must not allow “progressivism” to blind us to those dangers. We must merely remember that male homosexuality is disgusting. No matter how fashionable it may be to “understand” male homosexuals, we cannot forget that they engage in smelly, abominable conduct that we have a right to hate. And by “understanding” male homosexuals we play directly into their hands. As Justice Scalia pointed out, they are politically powerful. As soon as we ease the pressure on them, they will overthrow the government and institute Federal policies subsidizing child rape and debauched all-male nude beach parties. Put simply, we must stand firm against this menace. We cannot afford to be tolerant with immoral deviants, especially when—as Justice Scalia told us—they have high disposable income and disproportionate political influence.
In sum, we have a political, moral and medical duty to stamp out male homosexuality because it is disgusting. Thinking about it makes me uncomfortable and nauseous. I would probably vomit if I stumbled across two men having sex. We must implement laws that correspond to our basic moral feelings. We must outlaw male homosexuality because it arouses my disgust, just as public defecation does. Like public defecation, male homosexuality smells and presents noxious public health hazards. If we care about health, morality and our children, we must take every measure necessary to suppress male homosexuality. Tradition demands no less. Our children expect no less. We must act now before homosexual conspirators topple the government and transform the United States into a vast disco Empire led by shirtless go-go dancers.
Yet we must spare lesbians. There is nothing immoral about them. I really like to look at them. I even think about them quite a lot in my spare time.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
DANGEROUS RHETORIC ON HEALTH CARE : OBAMA IS NOT HITLER
AN ESSAY
Public rhetoric about health care reform is getting quite belligerent these days. It seems I can’t read the newspaper without noticing a story about some outraged maniac who disrupts a town hall meeting about health care. Interestingly, these outbursts do not break down along party lines. Both Republicans and Democrats publicly freak out as soon as anyone mentions health care. No one really seems to know all the facts. Misinformation is rampant. Everyone is worried. People think they either will lose their health care or pay away their entire salary in taxes. Seniors think the Federal government will take away their prescription drugs and repeal Medicare. Insurance companies have launched campaigns intended to make Americans reflexively recoil from the words “socialist medicine” and “single-payer system.”
But amid all this confusion, no one knows what will happen. This leaves a lot of room for propaganda, deception, manipulation and even violent rhetoric. So the Nation just blusters along: Shouting, screaming and accusing imaginary enemies of imaginary conspiracies. It is a dangerous climate. When large numbers become desperate and irrational like this, really bad things can happen.
Before Obama won the election last year, I wrote a piece about hatred in the United States. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2008/10/prediction.html. I openly worried that Obama could well face assassination in a country with such a profound legacy of intolerance, hatred and political violence, especially involving racial questions. During Obama’s first few months in office, he seemed to transcend those worries. The Nation was entranced; it could not really believe it just elected a black President. For a few fleeting weeks, Obama’s hopeful rhetoric seemed to have triumphed. In such a confident atmosphere, no one could think to assassinate this man.
But times are changing. Health care is Obama’s first major confrontation with deeply entrenched power structures in American society. To reform health care, hopeful rhetoric is not enough. Rather, reforming health care takes gritty, exhausting political pragmatism. It takes courage and clear vision. At the same time, it takes a fighting spirit. After all, there are too many vested interests with too many profits at stake in the current system. Insurance companies and drug barons will not just roll over and allow reform. Shouting “Yes we can” will not transform a free market bastion into a socialist utopia. In a word, genuine health care reform requires immense social changes. And vested interests resist immense social changes by any means necessary, including subversion, misinformation, propaganda, intimidation and murder.
This is not paranoia. This is history. When reforming Presidents and social leaders genuinely “threaten immense change” in American life, they put themselves in mortal danger. Abraham Lincoln dared to abolish slavery, a vital component in American life up to his time. That effort upset vested interests; he was murdered. John F. Kennedy dared to deconstruct America’s military industrial complex; he was murdered. Robert Kennedy promised to bring “social justice” to American life through civil rights legislation and “big government” spending; he was murdered. Martin Luther King, Jr. dared to propose racial harmony and to condemn inequality in the United States; he was murdered, too. President Obama—a black man, no less—now dares to dismantle private control over health care in the United States. Health care is a multi-trillion dollar business. Powerful people really like the way it is now, unjust or not. His effort has already ruffled vested interests. He is inviting danger.
You can sense the danger simply by following the rhetoric. Just last week, for instance, I saw pictures from a Republican rally somewhere in the Midwest. According to the news source, they were complaining about Democratic efforts to “socialize” medicine and prevent them from seeing doctors they wanted to see. But their complaints were less troubling than their banners. In one picture, a young man carried a placard with Obama’s face on it. The caption: “Hitler gave great speeches, too.”
If this were just another election battle, I might have dismissed this comment as mere imbecility. Whenever anyone doesn’t like a political opponent in the United States, the natural—and stupid—tendency is to label him “Hitler.” Anti-Bush protesters routinely compared Bush to Hitler. But this time the tables are strangely turned. Bush never pledged to reform health care in the United States. Opponents facetiously compared him to Hitler because he expanded government power against the individual, dismantled civil liberties and embarked on foreign war adventures. Bush defended vested interests; he did not threaten them. Those were vaguely “Hitler-like” interventions. Still, Bush was no Hitler—not even close. I think even the most fanatical anti-Bush protesters realized that. Bush may have disrespected the Constitution and trampled a few liberties here and there. But he never systematically exterminated people he considered racially inferior.
Obama, by contrast, represents the “little man” against massive private interests. And he is even less “Hitler-like” than Bush. Obama swore to defend constitutional liberty and to curtail American military adventures abroad. He has also pledged to resolve domestic “injustices,” including the health care conundrum. Moreover, Obama is a black man; he is a member of a race that Hitler wanted to exterminate. In that light, it is nonsensical to compare Obama to Hitler. It is almost like calling a Jew a Nazi. If anything, Obama represents everything Hitler was not: Tolerant, liberal, compassionate, hopeful, educated. True, both Hitler and Obama could deliver rousing speeches. But oratory alone does not render an American politician “Hitler.” Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were great orators, too, but no one compared them to Hitler for their speechmaking skill. On the other hand, if great oratory makes you Hitler, I suppose that saves Bush from Hitler comparisons.
Still, the Hitler comments vex me. It really does not matter whether the Hitler analogy is historically accurate. Instead, when Americans call an opponent “Hitler,” it simply means they really detest the person. For Americans, “Hitler” means “evil incarnate.” It is impossible to imagine a “worse man” than Hitler. That is the sense in which Americans use the name “Hitler.” When they call Obama “Hitler,” they are not making a historical analogy. They are simply saying: “We absolutely hate this man because he is evil and must be stopped.” And in such a confused, emotionally charged atmosphere as the health care debate, calling an opponent “Hitler” is no small matter. It indicates a self-righteous willingness to do anything to stop the allegedly “evil man” from realizing his plans. In America, “anything” really means “anything.”
This rhetoric should bother everyone. As I wrote in my earlier essay, America does not have a strong track record on radical reform, especially when it intertwines with vested interests and race. All too often, when reform clashes with vested interests and race, people die. In Obama’s case, all these factors come into play. Health care reform touches deeply on vested interests and it emanates from the Nation’s first black President. In 1993, we saw vehement resistance to health care reform under President Clinton. There was no racial element in those days, yet the public hysteria was so intense that it derailed reform efforts even before they got underway. Against this discouraging background, President Obama has vowed to reform health care “no matter what.” He knows that people get irrational when they talk about health care. In short, he must confront the same public hysteria that broke out in 1993, but now he must contend with smoldering racial resentment, too. He knows that vested interests pulled out all the stops to win in 1993. He knows they lied, deceived, circulated misinformation, bribed and intimidated anyone who got in their way. He probably knows that he is risking his life in this crusade. The fact that intolerant white conservative Republicans sincerely label a tolerant black liberal Democrat Hitler defies rational explanation. He likely already knows there are people ready to pull the trigger on him.
Yet this is the danger all true reformers confront in America. We must wait to see whether Obama will truly follow through on health care. Will he insist on genuine reform? Will he abandon the effort altogether, as Clinton did? Or will he settle, compromise, negotiate, dilute and concede? No matter what happens, we should all ask ourselves whether it is healthy to hate our opponents so much as to label them “Hitler,” even when the label is completely nonsensical. When public rhetoric heats up this much, it threatens to cast the entire Nation into bitter lawlessness. It is just a matter of time before bullets start flying.
Reform tests democracy. Democracy cannot survive when minority opponents cannot abide majority decisions. America has lasted since 1787 precisely because Democrats do not revolt when Republicans win policy fights, and Republicans do not revolt when Democrats win policy fights. In most cases, the losing faction respects constitutional processes and allows the winning faction to pursue its policies, even if they disagree with them. Yet there have been cases in American history in which the losers can’t bear to lose, so they kill the winners. Health care just might be the next example.
Let’s hope it isn’t. But given America’s sad history on reform and race, I am deeply worried. When hopeful-sounding politicians courageously step forward against entrenched injustices, vested interests always neutralize the “problem.” Obama is quintessentially a “hopeful politician” who ran on reform. Those factors alone paint a target on him. The fact that he is black exposes him to even more danger. If he persists in his call for genuine reform against opponents who can call him “Hitler” with a straight face, he is putting his life on the line. Anyone with the twisted intellectual capacity to call Obama Hitler probably also has the misguided capacity to “save America” by killing him. After all, Hitler must be stopped, right?
These are dangerous times. We must merely follow the rhetoric to see where they will lead us. The rhetoric is militant. There is much at stake. Powerful institutions stand to lose. People are calling a liberal Democrat a Nazi. Something is definitely wrong here; and it is not rational. In this muddled, volatile atmosphere, anything can happen.
On the other hand, maybe Obama will just give in, abandon the effort and just leave the insurance companies alone. That would save his skin. In this country, there’s no better way to save your own life than to give insurance companies what they want.
Public rhetoric about health care reform is getting quite belligerent these days. It seems I can’t read the newspaper without noticing a story about some outraged maniac who disrupts a town hall meeting about health care. Interestingly, these outbursts do not break down along party lines. Both Republicans and Democrats publicly freak out as soon as anyone mentions health care. No one really seems to know all the facts. Misinformation is rampant. Everyone is worried. People think they either will lose their health care or pay away their entire salary in taxes. Seniors think the Federal government will take away their prescription drugs and repeal Medicare. Insurance companies have launched campaigns intended to make Americans reflexively recoil from the words “socialist medicine” and “single-payer system.”
But amid all this confusion, no one knows what will happen. This leaves a lot of room for propaganda, deception, manipulation and even violent rhetoric. So the Nation just blusters along: Shouting, screaming and accusing imaginary enemies of imaginary conspiracies. It is a dangerous climate. When large numbers become desperate and irrational like this, really bad things can happen.
Before Obama won the election last year, I wrote a piece about hatred in the United States. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2008/10/prediction.html. I openly worried that Obama could well face assassination in a country with such a profound legacy of intolerance, hatred and political violence, especially involving racial questions. During Obama’s first few months in office, he seemed to transcend those worries. The Nation was entranced; it could not really believe it just elected a black President. For a few fleeting weeks, Obama’s hopeful rhetoric seemed to have triumphed. In such a confident atmosphere, no one could think to assassinate this man.
But times are changing. Health care is Obama’s first major confrontation with deeply entrenched power structures in American society. To reform health care, hopeful rhetoric is not enough. Rather, reforming health care takes gritty, exhausting political pragmatism. It takes courage and clear vision. At the same time, it takes a fighting spirit. After all, there are too many vested interests with too many profits at stake in the current system. Insurance companies and drug barons will not just roll over and allow reform. Shouting “Yes we can” will not transform a free market bastion into a socialist utopia. In a word, genuine health care reform requires immense social changes. And vested interests resist immense social changes by any means necessary, including subversion, misinformation, propaganda, intimidation and murder.
This is not paranoia. This is history. When reforming Presidents and social leaders genuinely “threaten immense change” in American life, they put themselves in mortal danger. Abraham Lincoln dared to abolish slavery, a vital component in American life up to his time. That effort upset vested interests; he was murdered. John F. Kennedy dared to deconstruct America’s military industrial complex; he was murdered. Robert Kennedy promised to bring “social justice” to American life through civil rights legislation and “big government” spending; he was murdered. Martin Luther King, Jr. dared to propose racial harmony and to condemn inequality in the United States; he was murdered, too. President Obama—a black man, no less—now dares to dismantle private control over health care in the United States. Health care is a multi-trillion dollar business. Powerful people really like the way it is now, unjust or not. His effort has already ruffled vested interests. He is inviting danger.
You can sense the danger simply by following the rhetoric. Just last week, for instance, I saw pictures from a Republican rally somewhere in the Midwest. According to the news source, they were complaining about Democratic efforts to “socialize” medicine and prevent them from seeing doctors they wanted to see. But their complaints were less troubling than their banners. In one picture, a young man carried a placard with Obama’s face on it. The caption: “Hitler gave great speeches, too.”
If this were just another election battle, I might have dismissed this comment as mere imbecility. Whenever anyone doesn’t like a political opponent in the United States, the natural—and stupid—tendency is to label him “Hitler.” Anti-Bush protesters routinely compared Bush to Hitler. But this time the tables are strangely turned. Bush never pledged to reform health care in the United States. Opponents facetiously compared him to Hitler because he expanded government power against the individual, dismantled civil liberties and embarked on foreign war adventures. Bush defended vested interests; he did not threaten them. Those were vaguely “Hitler-like” interventions. Still, Bush was no Hitler—not even close. I think even the most fanatical anti-Bush protesters realized that. Bush may have disrespected the Constitution and trampled a few liberties here and there. But he never systematically exterminated people he considered racially inferior.
Obama, by contrast, represents the “little man” against massive private interests. And he is even less “Hitler-like” than Bush. Obama swore to defend constitutional liberty and to curtail American military adventures abroad. He has also pledged to resolve domestic “injustices,” including the health care conundrum. Moreover, Obama is a black man; he is a member of a race that Hitler wanted to exterminate. In that light, it is nonsensical to compare Obama to Hitler. It is almost like calling a Jew a Nazi. If anything, Obama represents everything Hitler was not: Tolerant, liberal, compassionate, hopeful, educated. True, both Hitler and Obama could deliver rousing speeches. But oratory alone does not render an American politician “Hitler.” Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were great orators, too, but no one compared them to Hitler for their speechmaking skill. On the other hand, if great oratory makes you Hitler, I suppose that saves Bush from Hitler comparisons.
Still, the Hitler comments vex me. It really does not matter whether the Hitler analogy is historically accurate. Instead, when Americans call an opponent “Hitler,” it simply means they really detest the person. For Americans, “Hitler” means “evil incarnate.” It is impossible to imagine a “worse man” than Hitler. That is the sense in which Americans use the name “Hitler.” When they call Obama “Hitler,” they are not making a historical analogy. They are simply saying: “We absolutely hate this man because he is evil and must be stopped.” And in such a confused, emotionally charged atmosphere as the health care debate, calling an opponent “Hitler” is no small matter. It indicates a self-righteous willingness to do anything to stop the allegedly “evil man” from realizing his plans. In America, “anything” really means “anything.”
This rhetoric should bother everyone. As I wrote in my earlier essay, America does not have a strong track record on radical reform, especially when it intertwines with vested interests and race. All too often, when reform clashes with vested interests and race, people die. In Obama’s case, all these factors come into play. Health care reform touches deeply on vested interests and it emanates from the Nation’s first black President. In 1993, we saw vehement resistance to health care reform under President Clinton. There was no racial element in those days, yet the public hysteria was so intense that it derailed reform efforts even before they got underway. Against this discouraging background, President Obama has vowed to reform health care “no matter what.” He knows that people get irrational when they talk about health care. In short, he must confront the same public hysteria that broke out in 1993, but now he must contend with smoldering racial resentment, too. He knows that vested interests pulled out all the stops to win in 1993. He knows they lied, deceived, circulated misinformation, bribed and intimidated anyone who got in their way. He probably knows that he is risking his life in this crusade. The fact that intolerant white conservative Republicans sincerely label a tolerant black liberal Democrat Hitler defies rational explanation. He likely already knows there are people ready to pull the trigger on him.
Yet this is the danger all true reformers confront in America. We must wait to see whether Obama will truly follow through on health care. Will he insist on genuine reform? Will he abandon the effort altogether, as Clinton did? Or will he settle, compromise, negotiate, dilute and concede? No matter what happens, we should all ask ourselves whether it is healthy to hate our opponents so much as to label them “Hitler,” even when the label is completely nonsensical. When public rhetoric heats up this much, it threatens to cast the entire Nation into bitter lawlessness. It is just a matter of time before bullets start flying.
Reform tests democracy. Democracy cannot survive when minority opponents cannot abide majority decisions. America has lasted since 1787 precisely because Democrats do not revolt when Republicans win policy fights, and Republicans do not revolt when Democrats win policy fights. In most cases, the losing faction respects constitutional processes and allows the winning faction to pursue its policies, even if they disagree with them. Yet there have been cases in American history in which the losers can’t bear to lose, so they kill the winners. Health care just might be the next example.
Let’s hope it isn’t. But given America’s sad history on reform and race, I am deeply worried. When hopeful-sounding politicians courageously step forward against entrenched injustices, vested interests always neutralize the “problem.” Obama is quintessentially a “hopeful politician” who ran on reform. Those factors alone paint a target on him. The fact that he is black exposes him to even more danger. If he persists in his call for genuine reform against opponents who can call him “Hitler” with a straight face, he is putting his life on the line. Anyone with the twisted intellectual capacity to call Obama Hitler probably also has the misguided capacity to “save America” by killing him. After all, Hitler must be stopped, right?
These are dangerous times. We must merely follow the rhetoric to see where they will lead us. The rhetoric is militant. There is much at stake. Powerful institutions stand to lose. People are calling a liberal Democrat a Nazi. Something is definitely wrong here; and it is not rational. In this muddled, volatile atmosphere, anything can happen.
On the other hand, maybe Obama will just give in, abandon the effort and just leave the insurance companies alone. That would save his skin. In this country, there’s no better way to save your own life than to give insurance companies what they want.
Monday, August 10, 2009
DINKINS FOR MAYOR : VOTE FOR THE NEW YORK YOU REMEMBER AND LOVE
MAYOR'S MINUTEBy : Mr. David N. Dinkins, Former Mayor of New York City (1990-1993); Professor, Columbia University (1998- present); Democrat; Urban Planner.
Since 1994, many people say that New York City has changed for the better. New skyscrapers dot the skyline. Tourists flock from all over the country and the world to watch Broadway shows and visit art museums. Despite a perceived downturn after 9/11, the real estate market is booming. Investment in the city is at an all-time high. Money is everywhere; there are more banks than grocery stores. Police are everywhere; people feel safe. Thanks to two successive Republican administrations in New York, even folks from Kansas feel right at home in Manhattan.
This all may sound great. But try renting an apartment these days. You need $15,000 in ready cash, plus sterling credit and 10 character references. Try getting a job these days. You need to have four advanced degrees, plus 10 years’ specialized work experience in the securities industry. Try finding a local market. You’ll probably wind up at a K-Mart.
What happened to the New York you remember and love? It’s all gone. It’s all just a bunch of banks, Starbucks coffee houses, luxury development high-rises, high-end souvenir shops and ritzy boutique pet grooming salons. No more urine-drenched subways, graffiti-smeared trains or litter-strewn empty lots. If you go to the East Village these days, you won’t see heroin needles, crack vials or hoboes huddling around blazing garbage cans. No, you’ll see rich white hipsters in sunglasses sipping latte and licking 10-dollar ice cream cones. If you’re an artist, you can’t even rent a roach-infested dump on Avenue A anymore. You need millionaire parents, a guarantor and a savings account to even get near a crappy tenement studio.
Put simply, you’ve been priced out. You can’t afford to live in this New York.
As a lifelong New Yorker, I am committed to reversing this trend. New York used to be scary, and so did New Yorkers. We didn’t used to wear $1000 outfits and walk small dogs on safe streets. No, when I was mayor, we used to dodge bullets and yell across the street: “What the fuck you lookin’ at?” Hey, we might have contended with criminal youth gangs on the corner and stepped over human excrement at the Port Authority Bus Terminal back in 1991, but at least we could afford our apartments. We might have had to fight off bottle-wielding crack addicts every day in 1991, but at least we could get a regular job without five character references.
Sure, the city might have been scary back in the old days. But boy was it more fun. You can’t even get fast sex in Grand Central Terminal anymore without some snoopy Republican city health inspector writing you a summons. You can’t jump turnstiles in the subway anymore; the police can actually track your Metro Card. You can’t smoke marijuana in Washington Square Park anymore; they deployed about 500 cops to make sure “everyone behaves.” Put simply, New York used to be unique, dangerous, smelly, irrepressible, uncompromising, mean, defiant and just plain exciting. Now it’s just populated with boring trust fund beneficiaries who made it no different than Columbus, Ohio. Have you looked at the subways lately? People actually feel safe underground these days. The train cars are clean and modern-looking. There aren’t any urine puddles on the seats, garbage mounds in the stations or muttering mental patients running though the trains anymore. Commuters actually feel safe going to work. They no longer fear roving hoodlums armed with bats, pistols and chains. They just go to the bank, work, get bonuses at Christmas and pay $5,500 a month in rent for a lousy cookie-cutter two-bedroom on 76th Street.
I have a word for all these Johnny-come-latelys: Safe, schmafe. You boring-ass commuters priced everyone out. You transformed New York from an electric, progressive, semi-criminal showcase into a sleepy bourgeois enclave. I have only one thing to say: It’s time to bring back the real New York: The New York you remember and love.
I can’t bear to see the city prosper like this. If prosperity means $10,000 a month for an apartment, you can stick your prosperity where the sun don’t shine. If prosperity means evicting Sal’s Old-Time Italian Pizzeria so a bank can move in I say: “Hell no.” I stand for better times. I stand for the old New York. I stand for low rents and litter. I stand for public sex and urination. I stand for crack, heroin and crystal meth. I stand for 2500 murders a year, not this weak 600 a year shit. And I stand for a New York where anyone can get an apartment in Manhattan, not just British noblemen, bank presidents and frumpy heiresses from South Carolina with impeccable credit. Put simply, I will give New York back to the real New Yorkers. If you love New York, you will vote for me in 2009.
I have a real plan to save New York from its descent into mediocrity and boredom. If elected, I promise to make New York look, sound and smell like it did in 1991. That means eliminating all these boring luxury high-rise developments. New York must be New York for everyone again, not just yuppies with six-figure incomes and big Christmas bonuses. I promise to forbid builders from constructing these overpriced, inaccessible faux-brick condos with nice lobbies and doormen. When I’m mayor, I promise to build only flophouses and broken-down tenements. I promise to build scary-looking brick project buildings and gray government offices. To combat prosperity, I promise to raze sanitized new constructions and transform them into vacant lots. I further promise to release petty criminals and mental patients onto the street. I will allow them to live in those lots. Last, I promise to fill every vacant lot with garbage, broken bottles, empty beer cans, dead animals, brick piles and sharp metal objects. Additionally, I promise to permit delinquents to graffiti every bare wall adjacent to the lots. In short, I promise to make New York accessible to all New Yorkers again.
New York smells too good these days. It is time to save money by cutting public sanitation and garbage collection. In my day as mayor, you couldn’t walk down the street without whiffing stale urine, rotting garbage and generally horrible scents wafting from every alley and trash heap. That odor gave New York character. I am committed to making New York smell like New York again. By cutting trash collection in half, I am confident that we can save Manhattan from smelling like a perfume parlor. Rather, we can make it smell like 1991 again: Like an oppressive, overpowering mixture of urine, human waste, discarded old food and decomposing, wet garbage. Needless to say, these measures will also boost rat and cockroach reproduction. When I was mayor, New York was open to everyone, including roaches and rats. It’s time to make New York accessible to everyone again, including our scurrying mammalian and six-legged friends. The time for economic, sanitary and social discrimination is over. If that means some folks from rural Pennsylvania won’t charter a bus to come see Phantom of the Opera this summer, I respond with an old New York saying: “Who gives a fuck!”
It’s also time to stop discriminating against the homeless. For the last 15 years, Republican mayors have engaged in a deliberate program to push the homeless from public view in Manhattan. They thought that homeless people made tourists, commuters and foreign travelers uncomfortable, so they forced them from Manhattan. This was unjust. In my New York, we do not imply that anyone is “better” than another person, homeless, mad, smelly, bizarre or otherwise.
I pledge to make New York accessible to everyone. That includes shit-stained bag ladies and maniacal cross-dressing mental patients who expose themselves to teenage tourists on Broadway. It is no excuse to say that “homeless people embarrass visitors.” Homeless people are people, too. They have a right to get drunk on sidewalks and lay down outside theaters like everyone else. They might not live like commuters and tourists. But that does not give government a right to treat them like the trash they sleep in. Put simply, I promise to treat all New Yorkers equally, and I promise to reverse the Republican policy favoring tourists and commuters over the homeless. In my New York, beggars, Italian tourists, black guys from Brooklyn white kids from Idaho and CEOs are all the same. No one gets special protection when I’m in charge. And no one gets forced to move simply because they are “different” from everyone else. No one gets forced to move because they “embarrass” visitors. I don’t care if beggars smell like slime and wear capes made of garbage bags. They are New Yorkers. They are vital members of our urban community.
We must also combat growing cleanliness and moral propriety in New York. For years now, Republican mayors have waged war on graffiti, porn shops, dirty bookstores, dance halls and nude dancing clubs. They harshly punished graffiti artists and used zoning laws to eject certain “immoral” businesses from neighborhoods. This, in turn, made neighborhoods more “desirable,” allowing greedy landlords to inflate already high rents to dizzying levels.
This is unacceptable. In my New York, I promise to bring dirt, grime and smut back to the streets. Who wants another bank branch? Who wants another Gap or Banana Republic outlet? And who the hell wants another Red Lobster, Outback Steakhouse or Disney-themed restaurant on 42nd Street? When I’m mayor, I will drive these overpriced shops from our neighborhoods. I will allow graffiti artists to befoul and stain every front door and bare wall all over the city. I will allow litter. And I will allow sex shops, dirty movie theaters and nude dancing clubs to open back up for business in prime Manhattan locations. I don’t care if they do business within 400 feet of a school. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the moral fortitude of commuters’ children. When I’m mayor, life will be dangerous, disgusting and exciting again. If that means there is a nasty bookshop right next door to a school, so be it. If that means suburban weekenders have to dodge pimps, hustlers and tramps on 42nd Street rather than clowns advertising a Mickey Mouse show, so be it. This is New York, after all, not Orlando. It ain’t all fun and games.
New York has become too safe. When I was mayor, people were afraid to leave their homes. Juvenile gangs, junkies, hired killers and insane people prowled the streets and the subway. We used to have ten murders a day. People didn’t want to move here. Visitors steered clear. Those brave enough to visit avoided the subway like the plague. When I was mayor, the subway system was run-down, dark, soiled, dangerous and antiquated. It smelled so bad you almost needed to wear a mask. Thugs and panhandlers rampaged through the trains, bothering commuters and harassing visitors.
Yet today, people are not afraid to leave their homes. Visitors think it’s “cool” to come to New York because they have nothing to worry about. There are no more roving gangs. It no longer smells like urine and people ride a first-rate subway system with brand new cars. Even Finnish people carrying cameras and maps feel safe enough to ride the “3” train uptown these days.
Some say that safety has helped New York. I say it has ruined New York. What good is to be safe when safety makes you spend $5,000 a month in rent for a shitty apartment? What good is a safe, clean, friendly subway system when it costs $2.25 a ride? In my view, safety made New York boring and expensive. Now that people think “New York is safe,” every last rich trust funder wants to be here and gets Dad to lay out $25,000 for a security deposit.
I promise to end this disgrace. The only real way to make New York New York again is to end safety. To do this, I promise to cut the NYPD in half. That will give roving gangs, street hustlers and bat-wielding nuts the breathing room they need to start terrifying visitors and trust fund kids again. It will also give vagrants, vagabonds and vandals the breathing room they need to destroy property, steal fixtures, break windows and scatter garbage all over the streets and subways. Additionally, I promise to command the NYPD to cease investigating “quality-of-life” offenses. From now on, officers will not issue summonses for failing to pick up dog droppings, urinating on the sidewalk or engaging in lewd acts in public parks. From now on, officers will not pursue underage drinking or turnstile jumping. I promise to make life in New York an exciting “free-for-all” bursting with crime, alcohol, art, homelessness, odor and threatening real-life drama on every corner. Before long, visitors will be scared to even step into Central Park in broad daylight.
In short, I promise not only to make New York dangerous again, but also to encourage a carnival atmosphere in which “anything goes.” There was a time when it was dangerously fun to walk the Manhattan streets. After 15 years under Republicans, however, New York scarcely feels like New York anymore.
It is time to turn back the clock. Let us join together to bring back the New York we remember and love. Let us make New York accessible to everyone again. Let us bring back the smells, the crime, the graffiti, the litter, the porn shops, the insane beggars, the murders, the drugs, the sleazy dance halls, the dive bars, the sex shops, the low rents, the local diners and the mom-and-pop stores. Together, we can wake New York from its boring slumber to drive out the chain stores and banks. Together, we can make the city dangerous, frightening, intimidating and disgusting again.
If we work together, we can once again proudly scare the shit out of every tourist and make every commuter flee in panic every afternoon.
I love New York. How about you?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
REUNITED WITH AN OLD FRIEND : FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
A REFLECTION
I was waiting for a friend in an office two days ago. Unlike most waiting rooms, this one actually had a bookcase with some good books, not just a table stacked with magazines about celebrity sightings. I looked over the titles. I saw familiar names: Kafka, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Bronte, Tolstoy, Woolf.
When I was younger, I loved literature. I dove into books, even did not fully understand them. I really thought literature would make me a better person; I thought it was good to read books. I even took pride in it. I went to school at Columbia in New York. They force you to read “classic literature” there. It’s called the “Core Curriculum.” Many of my classmates resented the compulsion to read so much. I actually enjoyed it; I disregarded the compulsion. I read for myself. I didn’t care what my teachers said; most of them were just graduate students anyway who had to teach the course to get their own degrees. I just conversed with the authors. I even read more over the summer because I liked the themes and ideas I encountered. I wanted to develop them in my head. I didn’t turn off my brain when the school year ended.
All these old impressions came back to me as I looked at that bookcase. A comforting feeling came over me, especially when I saw the name Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was my favorite author from my first year at Columbia. I dedicated the rest of my college days to reading just about everything he wrote. I read all his classic novels: Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Demons, The Idiot. I also read most of his short stories, like Notes from Underground, The Double and The Gambler. Taken together, these books profoundly influenced me. I even used Dostoevsky’s ideas to measure every other philosopher and writer I encountered. Not surprisingly, I liked philosophers and writers who echoed Dostoevsky, like Nietzsche, Kafka and Foucault. By contrast, I reviled philosophers and writers whose ideas stood in contrast to Dostoevsky, like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Dante and St. Augustine.
Dostoevsky was my heroic standard. But then I graduated from college and he faded from my mind. Forced to contend with commerce, I had no time to read Dostoevsky, or anyone else for that matter. My concerns simplified: Work, make money, go home, try to make more money next year. There was no need to think or to be creative. You just needed to put in time. I went to law school in an effort to boost my earning potential and finally get over the commercial hump. Of course, that didn’t happen; twentysomethings dream big but do not have life experience to know that nothing ever pans out as anticipated. True, I might know more now than I did when I was 22. I’m just knee-deep in debt for it.
During law school, I read more than I have ever read in my life. But I did not read any Dostoevsky. In fact, I read books that Dostoevsky would have detested. I read books and judicial opinions that posited “truth” and “objective standards,” two things Dostoevsky routinely criticized in his works. At the time, I did not reflect on the dissonance between the doctrines I was learning and the ideas I absorbed earlier in my life. Not until recently did I uncover that dissonance. It took heartbreak, suffering, reversal, humiliation, rediscovery and self-evaluation to recognize the foolishness in seeking “truth,” “objective standards” and “commercial success.” In short, it took life experience to bring my intellectual focus full circle. Law school doesn’t teach that. And in college, you are too young to amass it. Yet after law school, I contended with personal trauma after personal trauma. The ideas I absorbed in college started to make a lot more sense than they did before I had experience. By the same token, life experience made me deeply question the law and its orderly, well-polished claims to truth. Contrary to every statute, case and order, there really were no objective standards in life. Life was mysterious and unpredictable, not codified and discernable. No legal test could measure it or even judge it. Right and wrong were not juridical concepts; they were nebulous power judgments.
I slowly recognized that my “radical” college ideas were not so far-fetched. Satire became my stock in trade. Satire helped me reconcile my old learning with the absurdity I saw all around me. Satire helped me dethrone the law simply by referring to life. In short, satire helped me “get back to Dostoevsky.”
All these things swarmed my mind as I looked at that bookcase. I picked up a book: “Dostoevsky’s Short Works.” For the first time in almost ten years, I was opening a Dostoevsky book. I perused the contents: Notes from Underground and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. I had always wanted to read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man when I was in college. I never got around to it. I was 21 then. Now, at 31, here was my chance. I began reading. Within seconds, I was transported to another world, a familiar one.
I was ready to read Dostoevsky again. At first, I was somewhat embarrassed when I noticed how much he had influenced my own writing over the years. I recognized at once that I had unwittingly become a Dostoevsky imitator. His sentence structures and ruthlessly satirical attacks on “powerful people” obviously made a deep impression on me. His style won me over when I was young and I internalized it over many years. It has become so engrained that I can’t avoid sounding like Dostoevsky, at least in some ways. I can think of many things I have written in this blog that directly appropriate Dostoevsky’s style. For that reason, as I read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, I eerily felt as if I was reading something I had written. After that passed, I simply felt content. I was just reading my mentor’s words. I felt as if I had been reunited with a dear friend. It was a wonderful feeling after such a long absence. On the other hand, it made me feel good to know that I had been carrying Dostoevsky’s banner on my blog all along, even if I hadn’t known it.
What is it exactly about Dostoevsky that influenced me so much? There are several key ways. For one, he is darkly satirical. He exaggerates details to mock “powerful people”—especially those with ranks and “high standing” in society. At the same time, he calls his heroes “ridiculous” when in fact they are quite noble. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for instance, Dostoevsky calls the protagonist “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “a madman,” "laughable" and “reclusive.” He is poor, lives in a one-room, partitioned apartment and has hundred-year-old furniture. Everyone laughs at him. But later on, we learn that this “ridiculous man” simply wants to treat others as he would like to be treated. For that, society calls him a blathering fool. That is dark satire—this is a man who has noble sentiments. He is not really ridiculous at all; he is only “ridiculous” in the judgment of a broken society. Society is ridiculous, not the good man it calls ridiculous. Dostoevsky knows irony. His sarcastic misanthropy definitely left a solid mark on me.
Second, Dostoevsky deeply understood that “truth” is an elusive—and judgmental—concept. He was one of the first authors to dig deeply into his characters’ conscious thought patterns. His narration, too, recurrently suggests that “things are not what they seem.” He stresses subjective impression and individual reaction to sense, not objective truth. He uses phrases such as “as if,” “even,” “somehow,” “in a way” and “some kind of” when describing people, events, feelings and recollections. This creates an overall impression that there is no “truth,” but rather only fleeting impressions in the minds of those who “were there” to sense something. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man abounds with these “uncertain recollections.” In fact, the reader consciously feels that everything is dark, muddled and indeterminate. When the protagonist recounts his dream, for instance, we have no idea what “actually happened.” In short, Dostoevsky understood that “truth” is in “the eye of the beholder.” Nietzsche picked up on this, too, when he argued that “there are no facts or truths, only interpretations.” In Dostoevsky’s works, every detail is an interpretation. Dostoevsky leaves it to the reader to put the pieces together—and that, too, is an “interpretation.”
Finally, Dostoevsky always tempered his sarcasm and satire with hope. This, too, influenced my writing. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for example, the protagonist—who once gave up on life because “nothing mattered to him anymore”—ultimately declares: “I will not and cannot believe that evil is the natural condition of people.” He goes on to say: “’Knowledge is higher than feelings…[t]he consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness’—that is what must be fought!” The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans., Bantam 2008) at pp. 338, 342. In short, Dostoevsky takes a stand against “juridical, rule-based” approaches to existence. “Feelings” are better than “knowledge,” and “happiness” is better than “the rules of happiness” because “feelings” and “happiness” intuitively flow from within the individual. By contrast, “knowledge” and “rules” must be “learned according to an extrinsic system.” They are “objective standards.” Yet the protagonist is “ridiculous” for making these discoveries. He is “ridiculous” for daring to oppose “the rules of happiness” and deciding simply to be happy. This is the ultimate satire: It is “ridiculous” to be happy and to savor individual intuitions.
These last ideas struck a familiar chord with me. They seem to mirror my entire opposition to juridical thinking and the objective standards that the law attempts to foist on human beings. How true that we live our lives attempting to mold our behavior to “the rules of happiness” rather than allowing ourselves to simply feel happiness in our own way. Rather than “feeling,” we seek always to “know” some extrinsic rule. In so doing, we forget our own emotions and subject ourselves to an “objective standard.” Someone else laid down the “rules of happiness;” we struggle to learn them. When we fail to reach them, we feel bad. In conforming to those rules, we steadily lose our capacity to form our own impressions about happiness. That is tragic.
Yet Dostoevsky’s message is not entirely pessimistic. After all, the “ridiculous man” does not mind being called “ridiculous.” He resolves to fight the “rules of happiness.” In essence, Dostoevsky holds out hope for those strong enough to fight against objective thinking. He offers support to all the “ridiculous people” who think and feel for themselves in a world that discourages individual approaches to happiness and meaning.
That is a beautiful message. After all, I am a “ridiculous man,” too. I actually consider it a compliment, not an insult. Ridiculous people survive though the ages, not those who merely follow the “rules of happiness.” In fact, ridiculous people might even find their own happiness somewhere along life’s way. The important thing is not to mind being labeled ridiculous. Ridiculous people are special, even if they are not “successful.” Dostoevsky knew that, and that’s one big reason he influenced me so much.
I was waiting for a friend in an office two days ago. Unlike most waiting rooms, this one actually had a bookcase with some good books, not just a table stacked with magazines about celebrity sightings. I looked over the titles. I saw familiar names: Kafka, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Bronte, Tolstoy, Woolf.
When I was younger, I loved literature. I dove into books, even did not fully understand them. I really thought literature would make me a better person; I thought it was good to read books. I even took pride in it. I went to school at Columbia in New York. They force you to read “classic literature” there. It’s called the “Core Curriculum.” Many of my classmates resented the compulsion to read so much. I actually enjoyed it; I disregarded the compulsion. I read for myself. I didn’t care what my teachers said; most of them were just graduate students anyway who had to teach the course to get their own degrees. I just conversed with the authors. I even read more over the summer because I liked the themes and ideas I encountered. I wanted to develop them in my head. I didn’t turn off my brain when the school year ended.
All these old impressions came back to me as I looked at that bookcase. A comforting feeling came over me, especially when I saw the name Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was my favorite author from my first year at Columbia. I dedicated the rest of my college days to reading just about everything he wrote. I read all his classic novels: Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Demons, The Idiot. I also read most of his short stories, like Notes from Underground, The Double and The Gambler. Taken together, these books profoundly influenced me. I even used Dostoevsky’s ideas to measure every other philosopher and writer I encountered. Not surprisingly, I liked philosophers and writers who echoed Dostoevsky, like Nietzsche, Kafka and Foucault. By contrast, I reviled philosophers and writers whose ideas stood in contrast to Dostoevsky, like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Dante and St. Augustine.
Dostoevsky was my heroic standard. But then I graduated from college and he faded from my mind. Forced to contend with commerce, I had no time to read Dostoevsky, or anyone else for that matter. My concerns simplified: Work, make money, go home, try to make more money next year. There was no need to think or to be creative. You just needed to put in time. I went to law school in an effort to boost my earning potential and finally get over the commercial hump. Of course, that didn’t happen; twentysomethings dream big but do not have life experience to know that nothing ever pans out as anticipated. True, I might know more now than I did when I was 22. I’m just knee-deep in debt for it.
During law school, I read more than I have ever read in my life. But I did not read any Dostoevsky. In fact, I read books that Dostoevsky would have detested. I read books and judicial opinions that posited “truth” and “objective standards,” two things Dostoevsky routinely criticized in his works. At the time, I did not reflect on the dissonance between the doctrines I was learning and the ideas I absorbed earlier in my life. Not until recently did I uncover that dissonance. It took heartbreak, suffering, reversal, humiliation, rediscovery and self-evaluation to recognize the foolishness in seeking “truth,” “objective standards” and “commercial success.” In short, it took life experience to bring my intellectual focus full circle. Law school doesn’t teach that. And in college, you are too young to amass it. Yet after law school, I contended with personal trauma after personal trauma. The ideas I absorbed in college started to make a lot more sense than they did before I had experience. By the same token, life experience made me deeply question the law and its orderly, well-polished claims to truth. Contrary to every statute, case and order, there really were no objective standards in life. Life was mysterious and unpredictable, not codified and discernable. No legal test could measure it or even judge it. Right and wrong were not juridical concepts; they were nebulous power judgments.
I slowly recognized that my “radical” college ideas were not so far-fetched. Satire became my stock in trade. Satire helped me reconcile my old learning with the absurdity I saw all around me. Satire helped me dethrone the law simply by referring to life. In short, satire helped me “get back to Dostoevsky.”
All these things swarmed my mind as I looked at that bookcase. I picked up a book: “Dostoevsky’s Short Works.” For the first time in almost ten years, I was opening a Dostoevsky book. I perused the contents: Notes from Underground and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. I had always wanted to read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man when I was in college. I never got around to it. I was 21 then. Now, at 31, here was my chance. I began reading. Within seconds, I was transported to another world, a familiar one.
I was ready to read Dostoevsky again. At first, I was somewhat embarrassed when I noticed how much he had influenced my own writing over the years. I recognized at once that I had unwittingly become a Dostoevsky imitator. His sentence structures and ruthlessly satirical attacks on “powerful people” obviously made a deep impression on me. His style won me over when I was young and I internalized it over many years. It has become so engrained that I can’t avoid sounding like Dostoevsky, at least in some ways. I can think of many things I have written in this blog that directly appropriate Dostoevsky’s style. For that reason, as I read The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, I eerily felt as if I was reading something I had written. After that passed, I simply felt content. I was just reading my mentor’s words. I felt as if I had been reunited with a dear friend. It was a wonderful feeling after such a long absence. On the other hand, it made me feel good to know that I had been carrying Dostoevsky’s banner on my blog all along, even if I hadn’t known it.
What is it exactly about Dostoevsky that influenced me so much? There are several key ways. For one, he is darkly satirical. He exaggerates details to mock “powerful people”—especially those with ranks and “high standing” in society. At the same time, he calls his heroes “ridiculous” when in fact they are quite noble. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for instance, Dostoevsky calls the protagonist “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “a madman,” "laughable" and “reclusive.” He is poor, lives in a one-room, partitioned apartment and has hundred-year-old furniture. Everyone laughs at him. But later on, we learn that this “ridiculous man” simply wants to treat others as he would like to be treated. For that, society calls him a blathering fool. That is dark satire—this is a man who has noble sentiments. He is not really ridiculous at all; he is only “ridiculous” in the judgment of a broken society. Society is ridiculous, not the good man it calls ridiculous. Dostoevsky knows irony. His sarcastic misanthropy definitely left a solid mark on me.
Second, Dostoevsky deeply understood that “truth” is an elusive—and judgmental—concept. He was one of the first authors to dig deeply into his characters’ conscious thought patterns. His narration, too, recurrently suggests that “things are not what they seem.” He stresses subjective impression and individual reaction to sense, not objective truth. He uses phrases such as “as if,” “even,” “somehow,” “in a way” and “some kind of” when describing people, events, feelings and recollections. This creates an overall impression that there is no “truth,” but rather only fleeting impressions in the minds of those who “were there” to sense something. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man abounds with these “uncertain recollections.” In fact, the reader consciously feels that everything is dark, muddled and indeterminate. When the protagonist recounts his dream, for instance, we have no idea what “actually happened.” In short, Dostoevsky understood that “truth” is in “the eye of the beholder.” Nietzsche picked up on this, too, when he argued that “there are no facts or truths, only interpretations.” In Dostoevsky’s works, every detail is an interpretation. Dostoevsky leaves it to the reader to put the pieces together—and that, too, is an “interpretation.”
Finally, Dostoevsky always tempered his sarcasm and satire with hope. This, too, influenced my writing. In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, for example, the protagonist—who once gave up on life because “nothing mattered to him anymore”—ultimately declares: “I will not and cannot believe that evil is the natural condition of people.” He goes on to say: “’Knowledge is higher than feelings…[t]he consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness’—that is what must be fought!” The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans., Bantam 2008) at pp. 338, 342. In short, Dostoevsky takes a stand against “juridical, rule-based” approaches to existence. “Feelings” are better than “knowledge,” and “happiness” is better than “the rules of happiness” because “feelings” and “happiness” intuitively flow from within the individual. By contrast, “knowledge” and “rules” must be “learned according to an extrinsic system.” They are “objective standards.” Yet the protagonist is “ridiculous” for making these discoveries. He is “ridiculous” for daring to oppose “the rules of happiness” and deciding simply to be happy. This is the ultimate satire: It is “ridiculous” to be happy and to savor individual intuitions.
These last ideas struck a familiar chord with me. They seem to mirror my entire opposition to juridical thinking and the objective standards that the law attempts to foist on human beings. How true that we live our lives attempting to mold our behavior to “the rules of happiness” rather than allowing ourselves to simply feel happiness in our own way. Rather than “feeling,” we seek always to “know” some extrinsic rule. In so doing, we forget our own emotions and subject ourselves to an “objective standard.” Someone else laid down the “rules of happiness;” we struggle to learn them. When we fail to reach them, we feel bad. In conforming to those rules, we steadily lose our capacity to form our own impressions about happiness. That is tragic.
Yet Dostoevsky’s message is not entirely pessimistic. After all, the “ridiculous man” does not mind being called “ridiculous.” He resolves to fight the “rules of happiness.” In essence, Dostoevsky holds out hope for those strong enough to fight against objective thinking. He offers support to all the “ridiculous people” who think and feel for themselves in a world that discourages individual approaches to happiness and meaning.
That is a beautiful message. After all, I am a “ridiculous man,” too. I actually consider it a compliment, not an insult. Ridiculous people survive though the ages, not those who merely follow the “rules of happiness.” In fact, ridiculous people might even find their own happiness somewhere along life’s way. The important thing is not to mind being labeled ridiculous. Ridiculous people are special, even if they are not “successful.” Dostoevsky knew that, and that’s one big reason he influenced me so much.
Friday, August 7, 2009
THE DISAGREEABLE ASSHOLES' LEAGUE FOR TOTAL STRESS, PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS AND, BY THE WAY, FUCK YOU, TOO
By : Ms. D. Samantha Crabtree-Farkingbeech, Esq., Partner, Cunting, Snidewell, Screech & Dourpott, LLP, a Fortune 250 Law Firm Specializing in Client Service to the Software Industry; J.D., Harvard Law School summa cum laude (1990); Author, “Work is the First Word in Work-Life Balance,” (an American Bar Association Publication)(2008); Voted Best Litigator, Atlanta, Georgia Bar Association; Married; Mother of two.
God fucking damn it. What the hell do you want? Can’t you see I’m in a hurry? I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. Do you think I have time to sit down and talk to you about this? Maybe you didn’t notice, but it is a weekday; I’ve got deadlines. If I don’t call Dick Henry back in five minutes we could lose four fucking million in fees. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen. Not on my watch. Shit, now my phone is ringing again. Who the fuck is it?
I didn’t make partner in this law firm being nice. If you want to succeed here, “being nice” is not an option. I didn’t bill 4100 hours last year and set a revenue record kissing ass or being polite to people. Sure, maybe a smile here and there for a judge or a client is OK. But once you start working cases, you’d better hang up your nice hat and start acting like a winner. Winners don’t ask; they tell. When opposing counsel asks for a delay because their witness is running late, you tell them: “Fuck no. We had an agreement. You signed it.” Then you make phone calls and yell at people for costing you time. Basically, you’ve got to put some gravel in your voice, break out your BlackBerry® and start telling some junior associate that they have their head up their ass because time is ticking.
Yeah, I’m stressed. Yeah, I take Tums. It’s stressful trying to win cases for software companies, especially when they have all kinds of dirty laundry to hide. Do you know how difficult it is to sift through 40 million pages looking for some damning admission some low-level programmer made in 1993? Do you know how difficult it is explaining to a judge how you’re going to catalogue 700,000 boxes of documents on some custom-made computer program? You spend more time defending your dumb-ass IT staff than talking about the case. At least you don’t have to talk about the law. The law doesn’t win cases. Management does. And management is stressful. Do you know what it’s like to take 230 phone calls every 16 hours? Do you know what it’s like trying to keep everyone’s name straight? Have you ever been so busy that you can’t even squeeze in time to take a shit? Welcome to my life.
But I don’t regret anything. I came a long way to get where I am now. I’m proud of myself. Not everyone can be a partner at this law firm. You need to take hits for the team in order to make it here. You need to handle stress every day. You need to juggle 14 different tasks at once, yet somehow still bring in new clients, win existing cases and cover up negative information about old clients. That takes serious talent. It’s not easy to remember every single fax and email you sent in May 2007. They all sort of blend together after a while. But that’s what separates the women from the girls: Women remember every piece of paper that ever crossed their desks; girls forget phone conversations two minutes after they end. You can’t pull anything over my eyes. If I see something once, I remember it. If I hear you say something, don’t try to lie to me later, because I remember everything. I can even remember if you used the word “of” in 2004. That’s what makes me a killer lawyer: I remember what people say. Yeah, it’s stressful. But it sure pays off.
I started the Disagreeable Assholes’ League for Total Stress, Professional Success and, By the Way, Fuck You Too in 2005. I started the party because successful people like me need a real political voice. We don’t have time to sit around and debate political topics. We have copies to make, depositions to take and phone calls to return. We don’t even have time to screw our husbands on Sunday afternoons, let alone talk about health care, environmental protection or voting rights. Yet we deserve to be heard because we are successful Americans. Just because we spend every day working our asses off at high-end law firms doesn’t mean we don’t exist.
We exist, all right. And we’re damn important, too. We believe it’s time for people to know just how important Disagreeable Assholes are in this country. We believe all Americans should know what it takes to achieve professional success. We believe all Americans should understand what it means to be a winning professional. We are determined to dispel the myth of slacker success. No one gets anywhere in this country being nice. No one sets billing records or revenue standards with smiles and apologies. In this law firm—and in every other respectable business enterprise—only winners survive. Winners are not just assholes—they are disagreeable assholes. Anyone can be an asshole. But not everyone can be sufficiently disagreeable to achieve professional success. Assholes complain, whine and make things difficult on everyone around them. Disagreeable assholes do all that plus cite legal rules, refuse to show mercy, reject appeals and never experience joy. Most importantly, disagreeable assholes enjoy arguing, fighting, resisting and contesting anyone who stands in their way.
For us, being “disagreeable” is a way of life. We do not feel good about anything. We fight everybody and everything, all the time. We don’t stop until we’ve been paid. We are always anxious, stressed, angry, pissy, vengeful, uncompromising, unforgiving, devious, nefarious and mean. We do not agree on anything; that’s what makes us disagreeable. We disagree on where to go to lunch, what to do on Thanksgiving and how best to copy 40,000 documents. We disagree on how much to leave as a tip, how best to get to the airport and how to greet colleagues. And we especially disagree with any suggestions made by our opponents. If our opponents suggest holding a meeting in the Sheraton because it is close to our offices, we will disagree and insist that we hold the meeting somewhere further away. If our opponents suggest that we split phone costs on a case, we will disagree and threaten to obtain a court order imposing full liability on them. We disagree for disagreement’s sake. In this business, being an asshole is not enough; one must also be disagreeable.
People say that “disagreeable” is a negative word. They even say that “assholes” are not pleasant. We disagree with both assessments. In our view, our critics fail to understand that professional success depends on assholes; more particularly, it depends on disagreeable assholes. No one achieves fantastic financial success in the United States without bitterly fighting over everything. Professional success means merciless combat every day until either financial victory or heart failure. In professional life, competition abounds. Everyone is out to take your money. Everyone plots ways to steal your business. Everyone is conspiring, eavesdropping and conniving—even supposed friends. Cowards and nice folks don’t stand a chance. Cowards and nice folks let opponents walk all over them. But disagreeable assholes sniff out treachery at every turn. They suspect everybody and everything. They scream, yell and threaten until the problem subsides. We are problem solvers.
We say to our critics: How is that negative? Wouldn’t you protect your business with all your strength? Our critics can complain all they want that we are “hard to get along with” because we are “disagreeable assholes.” But frankly we don’t give a shit. We’re the top revenue producers. We’re the partners. We won. They didn’t. They can go ahead and be nice. Who’s living in the villa, and who’s renting the crappy studio in Queens? Let our critics complain. In our book, being labeled a disagreeable asshole is a compliment, not a pejorative.
Our critics also say that stress is bad. They say that professional success is important, but not when it imposes excessive stress. We disagree. Disagreeable assholes like us know that stress is a badge of honor. We work for a living. We don’t screw around or wait for 5 o’clock. No, we stay in the office all night and beyond. We sacrifice everything to win, even our health. We don’t worry about the husband and kids. They can take care of themselves. When it comes to professional success, winning is more important than family and health. True, winning is difficult. Competing for victory raises emotions and causes anxiety. But so what? To be a winner you need to compete like a winner. That means relishing stress, not complaining about it. We have high blood pressure. We get ulcers. We sigh all the time. We shout. We snap at people. We throw things. We castigate and insult. We stamp our feet and tremble. We break out in sweats and guzzle coffee at midnight. We lose our hair at 30. We get hemorrhoids. We eat fast food. We worry constantly whether we’ll make deadlines. And we are fabulously successful.
This is just how we roll. It pays off, too. Winners don’t relax; they stress out. Stressing out wins cases and makes money. What is so bad about that? When all is said and done, people remember the disagreeable asshole who screamed and threw binders around at 4 AM before the big filing, not the chilled-out copy boy who went home at 4:45 PM the day before. Put simply, relaxation and tranquility do not yield professional success. In that light, we are proud to be stressed. I might have ulcers and hemorrhoids. You don’t; but who’s the partner with the $1,400,000 annual salary? I’d rather be a disagreeable, stressed-out asshole with a seven-figure salary than some relaxed nice guy who struggles to pay cell phone bills and travels by bus.
We are the Disagreeable Assholes’ League for Total Stress and Professional Success—and by the way, fuck you, too. We include that final phrase because we really don’t care what anyone says about us. We are in charge. We are more successful and richer than our critics. Our critics do not want to adopt our lifestyle, so they just resent us. We have a word for them: If you cared about your career, you would act like us. We didn’t tell you to be polite and friendly. You made a choice to be agreeable. We made a choice to be disagreeable. Our choice brought us stress and success. Your choice brought you relaxation and poverty. We employ you; you work for us. So you can criticize our lifestyle all you want. It won’t change who’s in charge. Disagreeable assholes rule this world. Nice guys like you just follow along and try not to get run over.
But you don’t have to stay polite and poor. If you really want to make a difference in this world, you can stop being nice and start acting like a disagreeable asshole. You can be a winner, too. Stop insisting on “work-life balance.” Start competing. Start mistrusting and exploiting. Start swearing and sighing. Get your calendar straight through 2011. Start yelling at people. Stop tolerating incompetence and tardiness. Make people afraid when you walk into a room. Get some stress in your life. You can do it. You need to stop thinking that stress is bad. Stress makes fortunes, and fortunes yield success. The choice is yours.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
THE PRO BONO FARCE : ANOTHER SHAM IN LAW PRACTICE
AN ESSAY
I do not reserve many kind words for the legal profession. In essay after essay, I have criticized “modern lawyering” for its relentless fixation on commercial gain over principle. At the same time, I have written ruthless satires involving “modern lawyering” because “successful lawyers” lend themselves to hypocrisy on many levels. Satire works best when it targets powerful people who claim to advance principle, yet betray it whenever it is profitable. Law practice provides endless opportunities to do exactly that. While the law may enshrine good principles, those who practice it have many incentives to betray those principles. Perhaps this is the necessary result of a legal system that makes both sides “adversaries.” Or perhaps it is just because law is just another business; and all businesses are the same. No matter what the reason, my cynical powers come into sharp focus when analyzing “lawyers’ follies.”
Sometimes I think I will exhaust the rhetorical well when it comes to law practice. But just when I think the well is dry, I stumble upon some new aspect that revives the flow. In short, lawyers are a satirist’s dream. They just keep on giving. True, there are some lawyers out there who truly want to make a difference in society. I do not want to pillory them. Of course, they earn my respect because they actually want to vindicate larger principles, not merely enrich a private law firm. Their motivation differs from the average private attorney. These “public interest” lawyers do not work to get rich; they work to do justice. Private lawyers, by contrast, work to get rich; and they seek justice only to the extent that it appeases their clients’ financial appetites. Yet this is the great tension between law and justice. Justice transcends. It exists without regard to private interest or “advocacy.” It cannot be warped, tailored or obscured to reward one party over another. Private lawyers, however, warp, tailor and obscure for a living. Their chief duty runs to their client, not to justice. They do not want abstract justice; they want to win for their clients, whether or not the result is abstractly “just.”
Still, if you walk into a law firm’s office, you might actually think that lawyers care about justice. Law firms care about winning and making a profit. But they know that doesn’t sound very noble. To attract new business, they can’t honestly tell prospective clients: “Well, we’re in this to win for you and bill the shit out of you in the process.” No, that is too blunt. In America, you can’t just volunteer your motivations like that, even if people really know what they are. Rather, you need to construct a public “veneer,” then let others whisper about “what you’re really after.” In discourse, lawyers want to project a lofty, cerebral image, not a cash-grubbing one. Even if everyone knows that lawyers are cash-grubbers, lawyers never publicly admit to it. Instead, lawyers take refuge in a fog of “elevated professional detachment.” They want outside observers to say: “These are intelligent, well-groomed, well-educated, skilled, successful men and women who understand the law and will work hard to secure justice for me.” That is the impression lawyers want to make when you step into a law firm.
Last week, I stepped into a well-respected law firm. “Well-respected” means that it ranks within the top 250 revenue producers in the United States as reported by a professional magazine called “The American Lawyer.” “Well-respected” is not some muddy, subjective appraisal related to integrity, honor or dedication to principle. No, according to the “American Lawyer” you only make the “well-respected” list if your firm brings in a certain dollar amount every year. You might deliver all the justice in the world, but if you can’t make the dollar cut, you don’t make the “well-respected list.” It was a beautiful lobby: Nice new furniture, immaculate marble floors, a brand new telephone system, glass doors, ice water pitchers everywhere, expensive-looking art on the beige stone walls, gorgeous flower arrangements in sleek purple vases. To the uninitiated visitor, it would seem that these lawyers did very well by advancing justice. After all, lawyers represent the law, and the law is good, right?
What would make an uninitiated visitor think that? This “well-respected” law firm did more than merely tastefully decorate its lobby. It also selectively placed two magazines in the waiting area. One magazine discussed the “Law Firm Charitable Giving Foundation.” The other discussed the firm’s “Commitment to Pro Bono Representation.” Each magazine opened with a statement from the firm’s partners, claiming that the firm does not give money to charity or volunteer its services to indigents for “public relations” purposes. Rather, according to these statements, the firm gives money to charity and renders free legal services to the poor because it “wants to give back to the community” and “advance justice.”
Yet “giving back to the community” and “advancing justice for the poor” would not have decorated the lobby. Nor would it have paid the rent in the massive Manhattan office tower.
Did these lawyers expect me to believe that they care about “the community” and “justice?” What unabashed hypocrisy. Pro bono legal work is a wonderful thing. But major law firms don’t do it because they “care” about justice. They do it for precisely the reason they say they don’t: Public relations. Viewed logically, why would they plaster magazines trumpeting their pro bono work all over the visitors’ area? Judged objectively, it appears the firm wants people to know about its pro bono “commitment.” In turn, it likely expects them to say: “What a compassionate firm,” then send them paying business. In short, major law firms undertake pro bono cases for public relations and advertising reasons. Pro bono is not really “free legal work.” It is an investment calculated to seduce paying clients later. It conveys a false impression that lawyers deeply care about “abstract justice,” when in fact they merely want more paying clients to come their way. In brief, lawyers use pro bono as a marketing ploy, not to “placate their conscience,” “serve the community” or “do justice.”
At this point, someone will object: “You are too cynical. Maybe some private lawyers really want to help others.” I counter this objection with personal experience. I interviewed with several large law firms in Chicago several years ago. During those interviews, I repeatedly asked about the firms’ commitment to pro bono work because I actually did care about justice. I wanted to handle cases involving substantial social issues, not just royalties, supply contracts, fees and lost business. My questions made my interviewers uncomfortable. They mentioned that their firms had a “pro bono benchmark” every year, but quickly changed the subject. They did not seem very enthused by my desire to “waste firm time” on cases that did not yield a profit. I did not get jobs at these firms. In hindsight, I’m grateful I didn’t.
Pro bono work reflects lawyers’ calculated efforts to project an “image” at odds with their commercial nature. Despite all explanations to the contrary, private lawyers do not practice law to secure justice or to “make society a better place.” Rather, private lawyers have one goal in mind: To make more money this year than last year. In law practice, lawyers make money by winning legal disputes, or at least perpetuating them for as long as possible. While legal disputes involve supposedly neutral legal rules and doctrines, the business-minded lawyer sets about manipulating those rules in order to “secure favorable results” for his client. Those “results” generally involve two things: Either (1) Winning a monetary sum; or (2) Saving a monetary sum. “Doing justice” may serve those goals. But often it doesn’t. If it comes between “securing favorable results” and “doing justice,” virtually every lawyer in America will opt for the former—provided, of course, he does not risk his own liberty or professional standing as measured by technical rules.
Against this background, pro bono work offers no direct pathway to commercial success. At best, it provides an indirect one: Business-minded lawyers can trumpet their “pro bono commitment” to draw in paying clients with self-serving tales of “their battles for justice.” Yet no matter how they spin it, their motivation is the same: Commercial success. If projecting an image that the lawyer is “committed to justice” leads to greater commercial success, then the lawyer will take a few pro bono cases for “public relations” purposes. And they have the gall to say they do not do pro bono for that reason.
Any other explanation for lawyers’ pro bono work is facetious. If lawyers started taking cases for “justice only,” legal practices nationwide would collapse. For better or worse, lawyers must adapt their behavior—and their motivations—to commercial reality. Commercial reality in a free market system means “staying afloat.” Staying afloat means making enough money to pay all expenses, then making a decent profit. Pro bono brings in no money. You can’t pay expenses or make a profit without money. In this sense, lawyers have a compelling disincentive to handle pro bono work. Every minute representing an indigent beggar is a minute lost billing an aggrieved pharmaceutical company at $500 an hour. And every $500 lost is $500 that cannot be used to pay expenses or contribute to the partners’ fund. While representing the beggar may result in justice, it is not commercially prudent. Representing the pharmaceutical company, by contrast, is not just prudent; it is the economically reasonable thing to do. In that light, commercial reality dissuades lawyers from pro bono work. Justice is all well and good. But paying rent and salaries is better. Money gets you on the “American Lawyer” Top 500 list, not justice.
Yet what is law all about? Society creates law for some beneficial purpose, not merely to secure money for private interests. But lawyers use law to do exactly that. What happens to the beneficial purposes? I understand that lawyers want to make money. Commerce forces everyone in society to think about how to cope with unending financial obligations. I think a life dedicated to money is unsavory and unrewarding. But I reserve my harshest criticism for lawyers because they pursue financial success by applying rules that should stand for something beyond private commercial gain. Lawyers want people to believe they use law to “fight for justice,” when in fact they use law to win, no matter where justice really lies.
In this sense, lawyers are no different from any other hawker or hustler on the street. They merely use bigger words and reference inscrutable books to sell their wares. They know that the public associates the law with “good” and “justice.” They actively cultivate an image calculated to convince the public that they, too, care about “good” and “justice.” Yet in our commercial world, “good” and “justice” are not profitable courses. On the other hand, appearances are more important than reality in many situations. If the appearance of “good” and “justice” brings in more business, then lawyers will adopt it. Lawyers’ “commitment to pro bono”—along with their advertising about it—is all part of a calculated effort to generate a convincing “appearance.”
Who needs to “be” just when it is sufficient to simply “seem” just? No one can afford to “be” just, can they?
I do not reserve many kind words for the legal profession. In essay after essay, I have criticized “modern lawyering” for its relentless fixation on commercial gain over principle. At the same time, I have written ruthless satires involving “modern lawyering” because “successful lawyers” lend themselves to hypocrisy on many levels. Satire works best when it targets powerful people who claim to advance principle, yet betray it whenever it is profitable. Law practice provides endless opportunities to do exactly that. While the law may enshrine good principles, those who practice it have many incentives to betray those principles. Perhaps this is the necessary result of a legal system that makes both sides “adversaries.” Or perhaps it is just because law is just another business; and all businesses are the same. No matter what the reason, my cynical powers come into sharp focus when analyzing “lawyers’ follies.”
Sometimes I think I will exhaust the rhetorical well when it comes to law practice. But just when I think the well is dry, I stumble upon some new aspect that revives the flow. In short, lawyers are a satirist’s dream. They just keep on giving. True, there are some lawyers out there who truly want to make a difference in society. I do not want to pillory them. Of course, they earn my respect because they actually want to vindicate larger principles, not merely enrich a private law firm. Their motivation differs from the average private attorney. These “public interest” lawyers do not work to get rich; they work to do justice. Private lawyers, by contrast, work to get rich; and they seek justice only to the extent that it appeases their clients’ financial appetites. Yet this is the great tension between law and justice. Justice transcends. It exists without regard to private interest or “advocacy.” It cannot be warped, tailored or obscured to reward one party over another. Private lawyers, however, warp, tailor and obscure for a living. Their chief duty runs to their client, not to justice. They do not want abstract justice; they want to win for their clients, whether or not the result is abstractly “just.”
Still, if you walk into a law firm’s office, you might actually think that lawyers care about justice. Law firms care about winning and making a profit. But they know that doesn’t sound very noble. To attract new business, they can’t honestly tell prospective clients: “Well, we’re in this to win for you and bill the shit out of you in the process.” No, that is too blunt. In America, you can’t just volunteer your motivations like that, even if people really know what they are. Rather, you need to construct a public “veneer,” then let others whisper about “what you’re really after.” In discourse, lawyers want to project a lofty, cerebral image, not a cash-grubbing one. Even if everyone knows that lawyers are cash-grubbers, lawyers never publicly admit to it. Instead, lawyers take refuge in a fog of “elevated professional detachment.” They want outside observers to say: “These are intelligent, well-groomed, well-educated, skilled, successful men and women who understand the law and will work hard to secure justice for me.” That is the impression lawyers want to make when you step into a law firm.
Last week, I stepped into a well-respected law firm. “Well-respected” means that it ranks within the top 250 revenue producers in the United States as reported by a professional magazine called “The American Lawyer.” “Well-respected” is not some muddy, subjective appraisal related to integrity, honor or dedication to principle. No, according to the “American Lawyer” you only make the “well-respected” list if your firm brings in a certain dollar amount every year. You might deliver all the justice in the world, but if you can’t make the dollar cut, you don’t make the “well-respected list.” It was a beautiful lobby: Nice new furniture, immaculate marble floors, a brand new telephone system, glass doors, ice water pitchers everywhere, expensive-looking art on the beige stone walls, gorgeous flower arrangements in sleek purple vases. To the uninitiated visitor, it would seem that these lawyers did very well by advancing justice. After all, lawyers represent the law, and the law is good, right?
What would make an uninitiated visitor think that? This “well-respected” law firm did more than merely tastefully decorate its lobby. It also selectively placed two magazines in the waiting area. One magazine discussed the “Law Firm Charitable Giving Foundation.” The other discussed the firm’s “Commitment to Pro Bono Representation.” Each magazine opened with a statement from the firm’s partners, claiming that the firm does not give money to charity or volunteer its services to indigents for “public relations” purposes. Rather, according to these statements, the firm gives money to charity and renders free legal services to the poor because it “wants to give back to the community” and “advance justice.”
Yet “giving back to the community” and “advancing justice for the poor” would not have decorated the lobby. Nor would it have paid the rent in the massive Manhattan office tower.
Did these lawyers expect me to believe that they care about “the community” and “justice?” What unabashed hypocrisy. Pro bono legal work is a wonderful thing. But major law firms don’t do it because they “care” about justice. They do it for precisely the reason they say they don’t: Public relations. Viewed logically, why would they plaster magazines trumpeting their pro bono work all over the visitors’ area? Judged objectively, it appears the firm wants people to know about its pro bono “commitment.” In turn, it likely expects them to say: “What a compassionate firm,” then send them paying business. In short, major law firms undertake pro bono cases for public relations and advertising reasons. Pro bono is not really “free legal work.” It is an investment calculated to seduce paying clients later. It conveys a false impression that lawyers deeply care about “abstract justice,” when in fact they merely want more paying clients to come their way. In brief, lawyers use pro bono as a marketing ploy, not to “placate their conscience,” “serve the community” or “do justice.”
At this point, someone will object: “You are too cynical. Maybe some private lawyers really want to help others.” I counter this objection with personal experience. I interviewed with several large law firms in Chicago several years ago. During those interviews, I repeatedly asked about the firms’ commitment to pro bono work because I actually did care about justice. I wanted to handle cases involving substantial social issues, not just royalties, supply contracts, fees and lost business. My questions made my interviewers uncomfortable. They mentioned that their firms had a “pro bono benchmark” every year, but quickly changed the subject. They did not seem very enthused by my desire to “waste firm time” on cases that did not yield a profit. I did not get jobs at these firms. In hindsight, I’m grateful I didn’t.
Pro bono work reflects lawyers’ calculated efforts to project an “image” at odds with their commercial nature. Despite all explanations to the contrary, private lawyers do not practice law to secure justice or to “make society a better place.” Rather, private lawyers have one goal in mind: To make more money this year than last year. In law practice, lawyers make money by winning legal disputes, or at least perpetuating them for as long as possible. While legal disputes involve supposedly neutral legal rules and doctrines, the business-minded lawyer sets about manipulating those rules in order to “secure favorable results” for his client. Those “results” generally involve two things: Either (1) Winning a monetary sum; or (2) Saving a monetary sum. “Doing justice” may serve those goals. But often it doesn’t. If it comes between “securing favorable results” and “doing justice,” virtually every lawyer in America will opt for the former—provided, of course, he does not risk his own liberty or professional standing as measured by technical rules.
Against this background, pro bono work offers no direct pathway to commercial success. At best, it provides an indirect one: Business-minded lawyers can trumpet their “pro bono commitment” to draw in paying clients with self-serving tales of “their battles for justice.” Yet no matter how they spin it, their motivation is the same: Commercial success. If projecting an image that the lawyer is “committed to justice” leads to greater commercial success, then the lawyer will take a few pro bono cases for “public relations” purposes. And they have the gall to say they do not do pro bono for that reason.
Any other explanation for lawyers’ pro bono work is facetious. If lawyers started taking cases for “justice only,” legal practices nationwide would collapse. For better or worse, lawyers must adapt their behavior—and their motivations—to commercial reality. Commercial reality in a free market system means “staying afloat.” Staying afloat means making enough money to pay all expenses, then making a decent profit. Pro bono brings in no money. You can’t pay expenses or make a profit without money. In this sense, lawyers have a compelling disincentive to handle pro bono work. Every minute representing an indigent beggar is a minute lost billing an aggrieved pharmaceutical company at $500 an hour. And every $500 lost is $500 that cannot be used to pay expenses or contribute to the partners’ fund. While representing the beggar may result in justice, it is not commercially prudent. Representing the pharmaceutical company, by contrast, is not just prudent; it is the economically reasonable thing to do. In that light, commercial reality dissuades lawyers from pro bono work. Justice is all well and good. But paying rent and salaries is better. Money gets you on the “American Lawyer” Top 500 list, not justice.
Yet what is law all about? Society creates law for some beneficial purpose, not merely to secure money for private interests. But lawyers use law to do exactly that. What happens to the beneficial purposes? I understand that lawyers want to make money. Commerce forces everyone in society to think about how to cope with unending financial obligations. I think a life dedicated to money is unsavory and unrewarding. But I reserve my harshest criticism for lawyers because they pursue financial success by applying rules that should stand for something beyond private commercial gain. Lawyers want people to believe they use law to “fight for justice,” when in fact they use law to win, no matter where justice really lies.
In this sense, lawyers are no different from any other hawker or hustler on the street. They merely use bigger words and reference inscrutable books to sell their wares. They know that the public associates the law with “good” and “justice.” They actively cultivate an image calculated to convince the public that they, too, care about “good” and “justice.” Yet in our commercial world, “good” and “justice” are not profitable courses. On the other hand, appearances are more important than reality in many situations. If the appearance of “good” and “justice” brings in more business, then lawyers will adopt it. Lawyers’ “commitment to pro bono”—along with their advertising about it—is all part of a calculated effort to generate a convincing “appearance.”
Who needs to “be” just when it is sufficient to simply “seem” just? No one can afford to “be” just, can they?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
OFF FOR TWO DAYS
I finally had to surrender some prime writing time to make some money. For the last year, I have managed to stay afloat without having to seek "traditional employment." Over that time, I had free rein to indulge my creative interests. Yet my cash supply has been running dangerously low for a while now, and today I am off to do a little consulting job to pay the rent this month. Thankfully it pays pretty well and it only lasts two days. I apologize for not posting during this time. Until I get a steady patron--or some wealthy financier buys my catalogue--I will periodically have to suspend the blog to make a few extra dollars here and there. Believe me, this is not my will. This is cruel commercial necessity.
It is nice to have money. It lets you spend time the way you want and elude the legal vengeance of spurned creditors. Working provides some cash. But you sacrifice so much to get it, leaving virtually no time to enjoy the freedom it can offer. For the last few years, I have learned that balance is everything. I need money just as much as the next guy, yet I refuse to unbalance my mind in order to get it. I only want as much as I need. If I thirsted for more, I would find myself at a law firm or some other God awful place from morning to night. This I refuse to do. This is not laziness; it is conscience. I always "work." I just avoid "employment." There is an enormous difference.
I hope this message finds you all well. As always, I am grateful for everyone who stops in to read my posts. Even after writing without pause for a year, I still feel inspired. I still have a long list of issues I want to discuss. In that light, how can I surrender my time to mundane commercial pursuits when there is so much Reason, Commerce, Justice & Free Beer to be had?
Here's to financial independence, spiritual independence, self-definition and a life of purer motivations.
Oesterhoudt
It is nice to have money. It lets you spend time the way you want and elude the legal vengeance of spurned creditors. Working provides some cash. But you sacrifice so much to get it, leaving virtually no time to enjoy the freedom it can offer. For the last few years, I have learned that balance is everything. I need money just as much as the next guy, yet I refuse to unbalance my mind in order to get it. I only want as much as I need. If I thirsted for more, I would find myself at a law firm or some other God awful place from morning to night. This I refuse to do. This is not laziness; it is conscience. I always "work." I just avoid "employment." There is an enormous difference.
I hope this message finds you all well. As always, I am grateful for everyone who stops in to read my posts. Even after writing without pause for a year, I still feel inspired. I still have a long list of issues I want to discuss. In that light, how can I surrender my time to mundane commercial pursuits when there is so much Reason, Commerce, Justice & Free Beer to be had?
Here's to financial independence, spiritual independence, self-definition and a life of purer motivations.
Oesterhoudt
Monday, August 3, 2009
I DISAPPROVE OF OBAMA BECAUSE HE HASN'T MADE ME A MILLIONAIRE YET
By : Franklin B. “Frankie Pepsi Cola” Carboni, Senior Parking Attendant, Frankie’s Hot Used Car Lot, Newark, N.J.; High School Graduate, Fresh Kills Academy; Special Certificate, Joy-Z Parking Systems 12-Hour Parking Technology Program, Paramus, N.J.; Democrat.
Like most Americans last year, I voted for Barack Obama. I wanted change. I wanted to make more money for my wife and two kids. I wanted affordable health insurance and lower taxes. I wanted smarter foreign policy. I wanted to see our boys home from Iraq. Basically, our country was in a tough spot in 2008. I voted for Obama because I trusted him to fix the economy and make America strong again. During his first days in office, I was among the millions who gave Obama strong approval ratings. After all, it looked like he could really get the job done.
But it’s been seven months now and the economy is still awful. Unemployment has never been higher. Obama has had plenty of time to overhaul health care, withdraw our troops from Iraq and save the economy. He hasn’t gotten anything done. No, he just barnstorms around the country mouthing slogans and asking for more time. Well guess what? This is America, buddy. You’ve got to put up results fast or shut up. We voted for you because we wanted results fast. You haven’t delivered. That’s why I join the millions of disappointed voters who now disapprove of Barack Obama. In my business, I park cars fast. Obama should be just as fast in his business.
I disapprove of Obama for a simple reason: He hasn’t made me a millionaire yet. He promised to restore strength to the economy. He promised that we would all be rich and prosperous if we voted for him. Last November, I happily went to the polls because I thought Obama would make my life better. Back then, I was making $26,000 a year as a Senior Parker at Tommy “Tommy Corned Beef” Fagiole’s Hot Used Car Lot in Newark. I lost that job in February because no one needed their car parked in this economy. Today, I am making only $24,000 at Frankie’s Hot Used Car Lot. I’m lucky to have a car parking job at all. My question to Obama is this: “Where’s my fuckin’ money?”
I expected Obama to make me a millionaire within six weeks. Every American expected the same thing. I wanted to go from parking Bentleys to owning them. I wanted to go from renting a smelly flat in Paramus to owning three condos in Short Hills. I wanted to buy my wife a Cartier and send my kids to that really nice private school in West New York. But it hasn’t happened. I’m still making a lousy $24,000 and my wife still serves coffee at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop out in Elizabeth. Obama has had seven months to make me a millionaire. Yet here I am parallel parking 1996 Chevies for bum tips in Newark. I disapprove. Obama lied. He’s just another Washington politician who wrote a check he couldn’t cash.
Obama promised to fix health care, too. He hasn’t. Seven months into his term, I pay more for health insurance than I did under Bush. Seven months after promising “change we can believe in,” he can’t even push healthcare reform through a Democratic Congress. So I’m still paying 25% of my income to an insurance company that doesn’t cover cancer treatment, heart ailments, health problems involving the human body or medications beginning with a vowel.
This is bullshit. Obama promised results. He hasn’t delivered on health care. He told us he would change everything. But from my stoop, it all looks the same, if not worse. Last I checked, I still can’t get free health care in this country. What is the freakin’ holdup? Maybe Obama should spend some more time on health care rather than flying off to Egypt to apologize for stuff he never did. We want results, not talk. Hey, I’m just being fair. At my job, if I didn’t park a sedan that rolled into the car lot in January until August, I would have been fired a long time ago. Well Obama hasn’t parked the sedan yet. He hasn’t even shown up for work. And I’m still not a millionaire.
I’m not going to say Obama is doing a good job until my annual income surpasses $1,000,000. I don’t want excuses. I don’t want one of these Harvard stooges getting on TV telling me “I need to be patient” because this is the “worst economic downturn since 1930.” What do I care? I voted for Obama because he promised quick results. From where I’m standing, things have actually gotten worse. He has had more than enough time to give me a job that pays over a million a year. I should have been buying my wife diamonds by now. Instead, I take shit from my boss at Frankie’s Hot Car Lot for a lousy $400 a week. This ain’t change I can believe in. Where’s the GDP growth? Where’s the stock market money? Where’s the bailout cash? How come I don’t have $1,000,000 yet? Come on, I don’t have all day. I need to feed my kids, buy a new house and buy gas.
What about the boys in Iraq? Obama promised to end our involvement over there immediately. But we’re still there. It’s been seven months. It looks like Obama bullshitted me on that one, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he puts up some State Department clod to explain that “reducing military operations in foreign countries takes time” and that I can’t “expect results overnight.” Fuck that; yes I can. You told us: “Yes we can” when you said we could get our troops out of there. Well, where are they? When you say you’re going to end a war, get it done. Shit, when I say I can park a car in five minutes, it’s done in three. You said you could end a war in January. It’s August now and you still haven’t done it. I don’t buy excuses because excuses don’t fly in the parking business. And they shouldn’t fly for Presidents, either.
President Obama needs to work harder if he wants to get his approval back from me. I am not the only American who has lost confidence in his ability. We all thought we’d be rich by now, but lo and behold, we’re all still making shitty wages. Many Americans have even lost their jobs since he took office. We wouldn’t have voted for Obama if we didn’t think we’d get something from the deal. We wanted to get rich quick. Obama promised he would bring prosperity to America. He promised that we’d all have high-paying jobs. He told us that America would be a better place once he took office. But it’s all the same so far. In fact, the economy is way worse than it was on January 20. I don’t give my approval to Presidents who don’t make me rich.
This is about accountability. This is about trust. This is about promises. This is about results we can believe in. Obama has done nothing he promised. That makes him dishonest. Not only has he not made me a millionaire yet; he lied to me, too. I mean, where are the goddamned electric cars? Obama promised that he would replace gas-powered cars with “green” cars to reduce reliance on foreign oil. Last time I looked out my window, though, everyone is still driving 5-mile-per-gallon Excursions and Expeditions. Electric cars, my ass. Obama said he would completely reconfigure the auto industry for electric cars. Well, it’s been seven months and no change. We still rely on foreign oil. Just another promise Obama hasn’t kept.
Obama promised that we would have a moon colony, too. Guess what? It’s been seven months and no moon colony. How can I trust a guy who promises to make me a millionaire and found a moon colony, yet can’t get either one done in seven whole months? Do you know how many cars I can park in seven months? Obama is just flat-out lazy. It doesn’t take seven months to set up a moon colony. I should be kicking back gravity-free with a lunar margarita by now, for Christ’s sakes.
I had simple expectations when I voted for President Obama. I expected him to make me and my children millionaires by February 1, 2009, I expected him to have top-quality universal health care in place by March 1, 2009, I expected him to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by January 21, 2009, I expected him to eliminate racism by February 2, 2009, I expected him to establish a moon colony by March 15, 2009 and I expected him to cure cancer and AIDS by April 1, 2009. It is now August 3, 2009. He has accomplished none of these things. If he were in the private sector, he would have lost his job months ago. I mean, how difficult is it to cure AIDS? He said “Yes we can.” Well, I guess he can’t. If I were evaluating President Obama’s job performance today, I would say: “Piss poor.” With results like these, I wouldn’t even hire him as a Junior Parking Attendant at Frankie’s.
I will continue to disapprove President Obama’s job performance until he starts delivering results. And I will never approve his job performance until I have $1,000,000 in my bank account. Mr. President, you promised me a better economy and a better future. Well, it’s been seven months, and my future looks pretty grim. I speak for the millions of Americans to whom you promised a better life. We want to be millionaires. Make us millionaires. Otherwise, you can forget about being re-elected in 2012. Look, we’re not saying you’re a bad guy. You’re just not getting the job done. We have simple expectations. We just want to be millionaires. We have a right to expect quick results, just as our bosses do at our jobs.
We are the American people. We put you in the White House. We are your employers. You haven’t delivered. You had better put up fast or we will send you packing. We want million-dollar salaries, not excuses. Quite frankly, it is shocking that you haven’t saved the economy, rescued health care, eliminated racism, established a moon colony, reconfigured the auto industry, brought peace to the Middle East, cured Parkinson’s Disease or made me a millionaire after seven whole months. You are just incompetent, plain and simple.
You are not doing a good job. You get a solid F from me.
Until I’m a millionaire, I have only one thing to say: I disapprove.
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