Justin Amash and the travail of choices

I discovered that Justin Amash was seriously considering a presidential run as a Libertarian when I read the board this morning. The person who posted the story immediately attacked Amash for potentially threatening Biden's victory by providing conservatives that dislike Trump with another option. The first response to his post was a dismissal akin to "Egotistical politicians all think they're the savior that America needs.", which was also an expression of dismay that someone else other than the two anointed ones might get involved in the race. I found both reactions to be an interesting display of both a failure to see beyond one's own window and an assumption that almost all politicians, by their very existence, are bad people. Both are also implicitly expressions of American monotheism in politics.

First off, it's ridiculous to deny the presence of ego in politics. Most people who run for office have a fair share of it in order to stand up in front of people and say either "I have new ideas" or "I'm the voice for your ideas", if not both. Most politicians are fond of their own opinion. That's why they're politicians. The question of the presence of egotism is a bit murkier and certainly the speculation that all politicians have a messiah complex is just part of that "Politicians are bad people" trope. There are a number of reasons that most people choose to run for office. John Conyers used to talk about civic duty. When he started, there weren't a lot of people willing to stand up and talk about what was happening in that part of Detroit, because it was mostly Black. (I once joked with him, on a live mic, that he'd be better off joining the Greens, since his outlook was closer to ours. He suggested that we should talk later.) Similarly, a lot of minor party or impossible-to-win-in-this-red/blue-district races are run because there's no one speaking for the people in that locale who don't agree with the dominant viewpoint. And some people just think they can do things better than the person already there. Look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example.

In this case, the latter motivation is likely what's moving Amash. The guy already left the GOP because of how insane it's become, despite continuing to spout off regular conservative viewpoints as an independent. How many times have we seen Republicans (Never Trumpers, etc.) talk about how repelled they are by what their party has become and, yet, Amash's run somehow has to be all about Amash? But they're all corrupt! They're all in on it! They're all fatuous egotists! Both sides! All sides! But if you can't believe anyone who wants to run for office might do at least OK in that office, then what's the point of any of this? The old homily that the "best person to run for president is the person who doesn't want the job" is moronic. What's the best example? The current idiot in the White House. He didn't want the job. He just wanted the attention, narcissist that he is. That's why he's spent half his time in office playing golf. Being president is kinda difficult. It's a lot of work. Who wants that? Well, really driven people who think they have good ideas. That old James Lipton questionnaire that he always asked of guests on Inside the Actors Studio had a "What job would you never want to do?" question. The nearly universal answer was "Politics."

There are few more ego-driven people in the world than actors. They have to be. That's part of their craft. And, yet, none of them want to take the role of society's presumed egotists. Why? The simple answer is that none of them want to be "bad people." The more reasonable answer is that all of them realize that it's a difficult job trying to respond to the wants and needs of a variety of people in whatever district, municipality, or nation that they happen to oversee. It's often a thankless job, whereas at least as an actor you get applause and sometimes awards. And it's also a job that brings such an intense level of warped scrutiny from media sources and the public that even those people already under intense scrutiny, as actors, are probably not interested in subjecting themselves to it. You can't please everyone or, often, even anyone when compromise (that thing that existed pre-1994) is the order of the day.

Which brings us to our second response: the idea that Amash is somehow threatening Biden's chances in November and should, therefore, be condemned for it. This is the opposite of the typical perspective; that Democrats are threatened by Greens and those to the left, while Republicans are threatened by Libertarians and those to the right. In this case, the initial poster determined that there are a lot of non-Trump conservatives out there, just like Amash, who would otherwise be voting for Biden. This is a much more difficult question (and assertion) and there's really no way to state anything about the situation as a fact. As we've all seen, repeatedly, in recent elections, there's basically no way to determine who someone will vote for given alternative choices. The popular theory on the Democratic side is that, without Nader's presence in the 2000 election, it's a "fact" that all of those Green voters would have voted for Gore.

This is the point where another popular saying comes up: "Anecdote does not equal evidence." The difference is that this saying is actually accurate. I don't know whom Green voters in Florida or elsewhere would've voted for. I do know that I, as a Green voter in Michigan, wouldn't have voted for him because I've never voted for a major party candidate for president in my life. Without Greens on the ballot, I always voted for socialists who, incidentally, gained more votes in Florida than the difference between Bush and Gore in 2000, if you really want to get picky about it. Can anyone tell me, for certain, that non-Trump Republicans were going to bite the bullet and vote for Biden? Can anyone tell me they won't do that, anyway, even with Amash in the race? Of course not. That's about as predictable as Clinton losing all of the upper Midwest in 2016, right?

So, this is mostly about American political monotheism: Thou shalt worship no other gods before the Democrat and the Republican. This is the argument usually put forth by someone who is content with the current establishment, barring one orange, misogynist outlier. This is why entities like the New York Times won't mention that many current systems are broken or that the president tells lies almost literally every five minutes. They're content with the way things work right now. Life isn't as good as it could be, but they have jobs, they have health insurance, their 401ks and their mutual funds are doing OK; things were generally fine until the orange man-baby arrived. So, they don't want people to question the way the system operates (good luck with that during a pandemic!) They just want to focus on getting rid of the "other guys." This is what minor party people like myself used to laugh about when it seemed like the biggest difference between a Dem or GOP Congress was who had the larger offices in the Capitol.

Along comes former Republican, Justin Amash, and... he might spoil(!) everything! Once again, he's giving people CHOICE on the ballot! You know what happens when people have choices! The wrong people might win! But still the system will remain unchanged and the 'right' people will win it back later. This is the "boogeyman" argument that both major parties have used for the last thirty years. A lot of Democrats feel justified in currently saying something along the lines of "See?! We were right!" Well, yeah, albeit once in 30 years is similar to suggesting that the two non-Trumpers you've spoken to have said they're voting for Biden and that makes all the difference. Hey, the one time you were right has given us an election where only the hardcorest of the hardcore actually want to vote for president! Great. But it's not that simple, because it never is.

And now we're in a situation where all the systems are breaking down and their flaws are being seen not just by the people who have struggled under them for decades (if not centuries), but by everyone. Amash is essentially saying: "Hey. This isn't working. I'd like to do something different." And the response is: "All politicians are egotistical assholes and YOU'RE not the right kind of asshole!" In other words: "Not this time. This isn't the right time for change. Wait until next time." I would ask: "If not in the midst of a pandemic that's going to have lasting effects on life around the world, is there a time that is a good time?" Because time is what a lot of people will be lacking, quite soon. Without jobs, a lot of people are going to find themselves without food and shelter. Is your only answer to them going to be "Hey. Things will be fine if we all line up behind so-uninspiring-he's-soporific Joe Biden, so that things will go back to normal." 'Normal' is the problem; politically, economically, socially. Doing 'normal' with Democrats and Republicans is what has gotten us to this state of affairs; with people dependent on jobs for insufficient insurance, living paycheck-to-paycheck on those jobs, and not knowing what they'd do in any kind of calamity... just like this one.

Just as a side note: No, I'm not making a direct comparison between Dems and the GOP. Even if I were inclined to believe in the "all politicians are horrible" trope, as with all things in life, there are gradations of horrible. Some are clearly worse than others. In my direct encounters with most politicians, they're usually just regular people: dumb, self-interested herd animals. That's kind of demoralizing when it comes to the federal government, as you'd like to think that people who made it that far aren't fucking idiots but, as we've seen, that's very, very far from the case.

Land of memories

I spent a week in Hawai'i in 2002, one decade ago this May. Watching The Descendants and its presentation of "trouble in paradise" and the contrast in attitudes between the business-like Matt and his "native-like" (as it were) cousins was redolent with memories about the place. It was the last real vacation I've taken that didn't also have purpose in something else (political meeting, etc.) As an aside, since I've now been able to mine the film for three posts, I'm thinking it may be even better than I first gave it credit for.

We went in May, which is a low period, tourist-wise and, to some extent, temperature-wise. We spent the whole time in shorts and sandals, but it was cooler than you'd expect the typical "tropical paradise" to be. I saw many locals in long pants and jackets. We were going to spend around 5 days on the Big Island and then the last couple on Moloka'i. This was right in the  middle of my tenure with the Green Party and I had a ton of responsibility with the campaign season about to gear up, but we had seen a brief bit on the Travel Channel about the Moloka'i Ranch and it had sounded really inviting. My ex, never one to pass up researching a possibility, poked around and found a travel agent who landed us a pretty good deal, so we decided to go. This was before venturing into the American Dream™, so we actually had money (read: "credit space") to make the trip, even though it took a while to pay off.

This was the first flight I had taken since 9/11 so, of course, the "heightened security measures" were still the order of the day. Remember the "random" searches of passengers?

Between flying out, to and from the Big Island, to and from Moloka'i, and flying home, we had six flights. With my tattoos, long hair, and presence on at least one security list (protesting the elder Bush in 1991; long story), I was "randomly" selected to be plucked from line and put through an additional search every, single time. It was comical by the fourth time, as I'd seen the attendant at the desk in Honolulu take a look at her monitor, look straight at me, and then start the boarding call. I was the walking vision of menace and I didn't even have a keffiyeh.

We had decided to stay on the Hilo side of the island, to avoid most of the tourist traffic which tends to occupy Kona. The difference in climate on the two sides of the island is pretty remarkable, as Kona is "desert island" to Hilo's rain forest. Of course, since you can also ski on Mauna Kea, the Big Island has the gamut of climate covered, I think. We stayed at a bed and breakfast about 15 minutes away from Hilo, up in the hills in the midst of a couple dozen acres of macadamia trees. We arrived pretty late in the day and it was already dark by the time we ventured up the dirt-and-gravel road... without signposts... or lights... and with plenty of hairpin turns and dropaways. So, that was fun. We had taken a room that supposedly looked right out onto the Kulaniapia Falls and a deep pool that the inn was ensconced next to. When we crashed for the evening, we could hear the water. This was the sight right outside the window in the morning:

Yeah. I think we'd arrived.

We spent the next few days running from literally one end of the island- the Waipi'o Valley of the Kings (reputedly where many of the kings of Hawai'i were buried, as with Egypt)

to the other - the green sand beach (the sand is olivine, a volcanic byproduct), which is on a peninsula that is the southernmost point in the US. I called Leigh, who was watching the clan, from there.

The hike to the latter is pretty arduous and begins with a long drive from Hilo, a young boy sitting in a shack and attempting to extort money from people who choose to park in a dirt lot and walk (he said he would "make sure nothing happened to the car"), as we did, rather than drive overland some distance north, and a three mile trek over very uneven lava fields. My wife was in a walking cast at the time, having broken her foot shortly before we left, and I managed to tear my feet up pretty well by the time we got there (a couple groups before us had already turned back.) Getting down to the beach is no easy trick, either, as there's no path and you essentially have to slide down on your butt to get to the cove. Getting back up is a matter of balance and momentum. Once we'd gotten out, I turned to take a picture of the cove which was a perfect replica of one we'd seen in a couple tour guides but that I can't find anywhere on the Web. The camera was a standard film device and had been borrowed from my then-brother-in-law. It was the best camera I've ever used and I have no idea what happened to it.

The journey up to the Valley had its own little quirks, as the guy driving the tour horse-and-cart had been something of a world wanderer whom I mentioned in another post, as he'd been in AA the night Michigan won the national title in basketball. The town in the valley was only a few dozen people and most had generators for electricity, but he was the only person who had an Internet connection so, over the course of a week, everyone in town would drift through his living room to check their email...

We also spent a fair amount of time in and around Hilo and traipsing across Kilauea. After eating dinner that first night, I'll never be able to appreciate mahi mahi again until I end up somewhere that they've caught it a couple hours before it's in front of me. We spent most of the time eating local fare on the run, though, and filling in gaps with a large bag of macadamias that we bought on the first day. I have a hard time feeling satisfied with those out of a jar, too.

Finally, we ended up in Moloka'i.

The island is very much the model for "desert island" as the interior tends to resemble backcountry Wyoming, while the coast looks very much like the above, although often quite mountainous. The Moloka'i Ranch, the biggest hotel on the island, had set up a beach village on the western end with solar-powered, canvas bungalows and self-composting toilets ([shrug] Greens... whattaya gonna do?) which was the initial point for our being interested in the whole trip. Our bungalow was 50 yards from the Pacific and I could see the beach as soon as I opened the door... about 35 yards past the hammock strung between two palm trees. There was a central tent where they cooked meals three times a day and an activities director who tried to entice us into half a dozen different things (it was the off-season, so I think she was pretty bored; there was only one other occupied bungalow out of 40 while we were there.) I pointed to the book in my hand and that hammock and said: "After hiking all over Hell's half-acre for the past week, that's where I'll be for the duration, thanks."

Of course, me being me, I couldn't resist using the main tent's Internet access to check in on the party doings (it was operating largely with Yahoo lists at the time.) I stayed off the lists but emailed the usual series of "Jeebus, no. Don't do that."s and other warnings to a few people, who promptly admonished me for working on my vacation. I find that my memories of the couple days on Moloka'i are pretty dim, as I mostly just remember reading a treatise on Roman legion organization in the hammock, falling asleep in the hammock, waking up to read some more, going to eat, and then coming back and falling asleep again. Nevertheless, I remember thinking that I could do that for just about the rest of my life... Sadly, when the locals resisted the aggressive development plans of the owners, the Ranch closed up shop and left in 2008.

I'm not sure why that trip resonates with me so much, other than the obvious aspect of it being my last real vacation. I suppose it was a period, not only of dramatic difference with most of the locales I'd stepped into in my life, but also when my marriage was still kinda working and the party was near its peak and everything seemed like it held some degree of promise, as opposed to now when it resembles nothing so much as The Road Warrior. I'd still like to go back someday. I wonder how different it will feel.

Otter was right

In that last post (which became a bit disjointed), I spent a fair amount of time detailing my own experience and perspective in a couple situations which sounded an awful lot like I was tooting my own horn, as it were. As anyone who knows me will tell you, that's not something I'm especially prone to do. As confident as I am in my own abilities, an earlier post here will give you the general conception of how well I think I've been employing them over these 40 years.

I don't even like it when other people try to compliment me or what I've done. It makes me anywhere from cynical to horribly uncomfortable when people do so. So, in that respect, my presentation of those two scenarios was not so much to remonstrate about how I could do something and others could not, but more to elaborate upon how I feel like everyone should be able to do these things.

Contrarily, of course, I get extremely defensive whenever anyone tries to disparage or dismiss things that I've done or contributed to, as well. I spent almost 5 years chairing the Green Party of Michigan and I thought that we accomplished some solid things while I was there. My ex-wife was with me that whole time and, while I came away frustrated that we couldn't do more and pointedly critical of certain people and tendencies within the state and national parties, she later rather vocally dismissed that entire period as somewhere between a complete waste of time and an utter disaster whenever anyone mentioned it.

That, of course, would almost instantly raise my hackles. I was fairly proud of the fact that we were able to get the Greens mentioned in the same breath with the Dems and the GOP for a couple years. I was proud of the fact that I was able to be on radio or TV or in print every few days, spreading the message and getting enthusiastic feedback from people that didn't know that there was a like-minded group out there looking for their votes. I even mentioned this as my "proudest professional moment" on the board the other day and was almost immediately heckled with: "Do you mean [breath] The GOP candidate would like to thank the Green candidate for helping him defeat the Democrat?[/breath]" If you're stupid enough to believe that, run better candidates whom I and people like me would actually like to vote for, schmucks.

But every time someone would react to my experience with some degree of approbation or awe, I'd immediately backpedal; waving it off as "nothing special." It took my friend, Rodger, a couple years after I was out of the party, to finally get me to accept it somewhat. We were at dinner with many students from our dojo and he mentioned that I had chaired the party for a while and two people were expressing how great that was and I was giving my usual "sounds better than it was" response before Rodger finally interrupted me and said: "It is pretty cool, you know?" Yeah. I guess it was. For a while.

But, of course, I didn't do it alone. There were many people involved to get us even the modest achievements that we accomplished. What ties this thought to my previous post is that, again, I often feel that there's almost nothing that I can do that other people can't also do, provided that they're willing to put their minds to it. The challenge is to get them to do so (or open their minds in the first place and then do so.) Granted, this is akin to my usual assertion that if everyone would just shut up and listen to me, the world would be a much better place. But this time it's true.

I guess the one thing that I'd suggest is that the next time anyone has the opportunity to listen to actually do so. Don't think about what your next response will be. Don't even think about making a response. Just listen. It can be frustrating as hell and I'm certainly not a universal practitioner (especially when it's a discussion I've had a few hundred times...) but every once in a while you learn about the roots of someone else's thought process or you find something completely new. After that, you can proceed to blow holes in their logic and try to convert them to your way of thinking.

Two sides to everyone?

I was in Philadelphia a few years ago for a national Green meeting. It was 2002 and the party was rolling along at that point, preparing for the upcoming midterm elections and generally feeling pretty positive about where we were. It was an interesting collection of communication experiences for me, most of them positive.

There had been some turmoil within the California Greens concerning some supposedly misplaced funds and procedural irregularities. Many of them felt that it was going to tear our largest state party apart. But that's the kind of melodrama that many political activists like to wield in order to justify themselves or their actions. I don't think it was quite that serious, but it was sufficiently distracting to the national party that they put together a committee (my upcoming book: Life by Committee or Why Suicide is an Acceptable Alternative) to try to sort it out before the internecine warfare in California became the only topic ever raised on the national lists. I was on said committee with a couple other non-California Greens and one person that the GPCA insisted be present in order to have their voice in the middle of things.

When we sat down and went over what seemed to be the facts and reviewed communications both on the national and California lists, we came to the easy conclusion that most of the trouble was caused by personal animosity and had little to do with any genuine crimes with one exception wherein the state party violated its own bylaws, perhaps inadvertently. The role of the one California Green on the committee was simply to object to the casual dismissal of the "crisis" that the rest of us found to be plainly evident if everyone involved would just invest in a Valium or two. I gave the report to the national committee meeting in Philly and was immediately lauded for my efforts afterward by many people. I was baffled. We really hadn't done that much and the conclusion we came to didn't smooth over any of the hurt feelings. It simply exposed them. Perhaps that was sufficient, but it seemed like a pretty foregone conclusion to me. My profile as a "communicator" within the party skyrocketed after that for an effort that I found to be pretty trivial and over a matter that was equally trivial.

What that spotlighted for me, though, was the seeming inability of many people, even those within a small group of like-minded individuals, to simply talk to each other; to relate to one another on terms that they both understand. Both sides of that issue came into it with a predisposed attitude toward the other side and refused to abandon it, even when confronted with the facts. It took complete outsiders to get them to cease fire. This is a phenomenon extant in many situations throughout history, both large and small, national and personal, and I've always found it to be mildly irritating that people can't come to the obvious conclusion without someone, indeed, pointing out the obvious.

A different situation arose a couple days into the meeting when I, my wife, and a couple friends decided to grab dinner some distance from the hotel. We hopped into a cab out front, the three of them in the back, and me in the front. Our driver asked what we were doing in town and I told him and immediately struck up a conversation with him about politics, the Eagles, and life in the city, in general. We got to our destination and my wife mentioned to me that all three women in the back had sat there and kind of marveled at my ability to get into an easy discussion with someone I'd met 10 seconds ago. I did my Leonard Nimoy thing (arching my eyebrows: "Plainly not logical, Captain.") and wondered: Why? Because I'd just met him? Because he was black (whereas all of us were and are white)? Because he clearly had no idea what the Green party was but I could talk to him about the NFL? Some combination of those?

He was an average guy driving a car around town who felt like doing something other than driving, so he talked to me. And I talked to him because he was talking to me. That's what people do... or would do if they weren't taught to suspect and fear each other. It's really not that difficult but a lot of people shy away from it or assume that people won't want to communicate with them. What makes this phenomenon even more ludicrous is that we're currently enmeshed in the greatest communication tool ever created: these here Interwebs. People communicate, in the strictest sense, probably more now than they ever have before and on more widely varying topics. But people also use the shield of anonymity provided by the Internet to display opinions that they would never release in public. Does that make them less likely to communicate with their neighbors and casual acquaintances because they can't "be themselves"? Or is their Internet personality the Hyde to their Jekyll, rather than the converse?

When I talked to some of the California Greens about their troubles in Philadelphia, they were almost all reasonable and cooperative people. But on the national list (that tool we all used to coordinate between the states), many of them were fire-breathers. Was that sociable cabbie I talked to on the way to dinner a raving lunatic on ESPN's Eagles message board? Or was he always himself? Was I lauded as a problem-solver because I refused to dance around anything? I've been told many times that my tendency to be... direct is problematic. But that's what helped solve the CA issue.

I'll be coming back to this.