Vol. 1 No. 4 August 2002 Uncommon Denominator
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."
- Alexander Hamilton
TALKING POINTS
As we approach the 2002 elections, each issue of the Uncommon Denominator will highlight a particularly resonant theme in American political culture. These are themes that cut across the ideological spectrum and across a variety of issues. What they all reflect is a widely held, deeply felt, set of beliefs or values on the part of the public - and therefore represent a powerful means of shaping debate on public policy. This month's topic: Trust.
It's well known that polls have shown, ever since the 1960s, a gradual decline in the American public's trust in government and the media. The reasons for this decline are complex, but the usual suspects include Vietnam lies, Watergate lies, and the relentless anti-government rhetoric of modern conservatism. Corporations have generally fared better (with the exception of the occasional big scandal) but this year, clearly, the public's trust in Wall Street has been badly shaken. It's not just that the markets and regulatory systems didn't function properly, but that people feel betrayed by other human beings. It's personal. But what does it portend? What does it mean?
Consider it from this angle. The opposite of trust is suspicion, or least a clear-eyed skepticism. These can be healthy attitudes in a society where it sometimes seems that everybody's either trying to sell you something or concealing their own motives and interests. Much good has come from the work of investigative journalists, cultural critics, and others who get beneath the surface of things by refusing to take what they're told at face value. And to the degree that the general public, in its wariness, avoids getting snookered by charlatans and con-men, so much the better.
But an excess of suspicion is not good. In the first place, to be overly suspicious is, oddly enough, to be naïve. Tossing out the whole barrel because of a few bad apples (to use a metaphor currently in vogue) means that a person is making a leap of faith, that they haven't bothered to figure out what's really going on and what they can do about it. In the second place, suspiciousness tends to have a corrosive effect on society, alienating people from each other and from their representatives, and thus undermining the ability of a democracy to function properly. Trust is no less vital a quality in a republic than it is in a family. It enables people to make sound decisions, to cooperate, and to contribute to the common good.
So how are we supposed to walk the line? Which institutions, organizations, or public figures should we trust? How far should we trust them? On what criteria do we base such decisions? The answers, as they do in one's personal life, all come back to two basic issues: experience and information. Trust has to be based on long familiarity, built up over years of observation and interaction. Only that kind of experience allows one to understand another person's (or group's) motives, interests, habits, and decision-making processes. One can then weigh this knowledge against mere words. Does Exxon really care about the global enviroment? Hmmm. At the same time, a receptivity to information provides a crucial mechanism for checking whether our trust has been well placed. Lipstick on the lapel? Time to reevaluate. The tricky thing with public figures or impersonal entities like corporations is that, unlike friends or family members, we only known them in a highly remote and mediated form - except, perhaps, when they'Trust can leave people vulnerable, but it's our best social bond and should not be lightly discarded. For a complete loss of trust in our public institutions may pose a graver threat to American democracy than do those who have proven themselves unworthy of our trust. Those people in positions of power - journalists, elected officials, business leaders - should step up to the plate and take responsibility for creating and maintaining a system that we CAN trust.
WIT AND WISDOM
"Earlier this week the Senate voted 97-to-0 for tougher regulations. For example, when corporations buy a Senator, they must now get a receipt." - Jay Leno
QUOTED!
"It's easy to imagine an infinite number of situations where the government might legitimately give out false information. It's an unfortunate reality that the issuance of incomplete information and even misinformation by government may sometimes be perceived as necessary to protect vital interests." - Solicitor General Theodore Olson, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, March 18, 2002.
EYE ON THE RIGHT
Some ugly politics are forming around the administration's proposed Homeland Security Department. Beyond the still-unresolved questions of secrecy and accountability at the agency, the fight over labor practices has become sharply partisan. It appears that the White House and its conservative allies are looking to use the department as a way to undermine legal protections for federal workers and then, when progressives or Democrats protest, to accuse them of favoring unions and "big labor" over national security.
Here's the strategy. The new department would draw its 170,000 workers from other federal agencies, where they now enjoy a variety of rights regarding compensation, redress of grievances, collective barganing, and so forth. But the White House wants to limit or remove these protections, ostensibly as a way of ensuring a high-quality workforce, but really as part of the larger conservative campaign against organized labor. The code-word? "Flexibility." The administration's published proposal calls for "significant flexibility in hiring processes, compensation systems and practices, and performance management to recruit, retain, and develop a motivated, high-performance and accountable workforce." What that means in practice is that the Secretary of Homeland Security could fire or demote people for almost any reason at all. In President Bush's words: "He needs the ability to move money and resources quickly in response to new threats, without all kinds of bureaucratic rules and obstacleOn July 26, the House voted to create the department largely along the lines of the adminsitration proposal. As of this writing, the Senate is considering a more worker-friendly bill which the President has promised to veto.
The relation between unionization, on one hand, and worker productivity and organizational efficiency on the other is an enormously complex issue, varying from industry to industry and from union to union. Still, it doesn't take a genius to see the folly of diminishing and demoralizing the very employees who would be the life-blood of such an important federal department. Yet that's not the whole picture. The broader conservative strategy is to gain a rhetorical and political advantage, both in the November elections and in their ongoing anti-labor campaign, from the current fight.
As Michael Franc, the Heritage Foundation's Vice President for Government Relations, put it: "This new agency and the war on terrorism is the conservative agenda between now and the elections" (Houston Chronicle, June 20, 2002). The Chronicle story continued: "He said threshold issues for the GOP - such as managerial rights over unions, ensuring no race or gender hiring targets are allowed, and preventing attempts to apply prevailing wage laws - will be a large part of the debate and provide ample material to mobilize conservative voters."
CHECK IT OUT
We at the Uncommon Denominator have an interest in how marketing works - in how people use language and craft images to sell everything from toothpaste to smiling Presidents. Culturally, economically, and politically, marketing directly shapes our individual and national experience. As part of our ongoing effort to call attention to educational, useful, or just cool resources, the Uncommon Denominator thinks readers might like to check out the following:
The Political Communication Centerin the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma (www.ou.edu/pccenter). "The PCC is committed to contributing to the analysis of political communication and to the historical preservation of our political discourse. The Center is the repository of the Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive®, the largest and most comprehensive collection of political broadcast advertising in the world."
AdBusters(www.adbusters.org). "Adbusters is an ecological magazine, dedicated to examining the relationship between human beings and their physical and mental environment. We want a world in which the economy and ecology resonate in balance. We try to coax people from spectator to participant in this quest. We want folks to get mad about corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy, and any industry that pollutes our physical or mental commons.."
False Advertising: A Gallery of Parody (parody.organique.com). Nothing intellectual here - no analysis, no discussion, no fuss - just a whole bunch of hilarious, high-quality advertising parodies.
READY TO GO
Helping people communicate with their elected leaders or with the media is a central part of how the Commonweal Institute plans to contribute to a vital democracy. This month, the Uncommon Denominator offers a sample letter-to-the-editor about the corporate crime wave.
The Commonweal Institute claims no proprietary rights over the text of this letter. Feel free to use all of the text verbatim, or portions of it, as you see fit - or you might just use the letter as a starting point for your own piece.
"To the Editor:
In the last few weeks, we've heard a lot about what caused the epidemic of corporate accounting abuses. Many conservatives are blaming the "permissive climate" of the Clinton era for the criminal behavior of executives. The irony is that this sounds a lot like the traditional liberal belief that a person's environment and upbringing are largely responsible for what they do. That suggests to me that conservatives might not be applying the principle of individual moral responsibility as rigorously to corporate executives as to everybody else.
Of course, the truth lies somewhere in between: the corporate scandals were caused both by a flawed system and by "bad apples." And when it comes to the "climate" of the 1990s, a quick fact might provide a little perspective. In July 1995, over President Clinton's veto, Congress passed a deregulatory bill that made it harder for stockholders to file and win class-action lawsuits charging CEOs with misrepresenting a company's performance. That was the only Clinton veto to be overturned, with a sizable number of Democrats joining the Republicans.
The real problem, clearly, is the cozy relationship between big business and our elected leaders. It's a relationship about individuals' desire for money and power, and it depends on a cooperative legal and political system. The solution is threefold: reform the laws, punish the lawbreakers, and reform the campaign financing laws so that candidates are less beholden to moneyed interests. Blaming President Clinton is just a sideshow."
HAPPENINGS
On July 25, the Commonweal Institute hosted a major reception at its offices in Menlo Park. Over 150 people attended the event, which was intended to raise CI's profile both locally and nationally, and to raise some of the contributions needed to carry out our operations. The featured speaker was former California Assemblyman Ted Lempert, whose talk focused on the need for long-term strategic planning on the progressive side of the political spectrum.
Meanwhile: The Country Almanacnewspaper in Menlo Park has published a lengthy and rather flattering article about the Commonweal Institute, providing a healthy dose of always-welcome media coverage. For instance: "Established to add a strong moderate-progressive voice to [the national political] dialogue, the institute aims to consolidate the efforts of people and organizations that now often focus only on single issues." The full article, by Almanac News Editor Renee Batti, appeared in the July 24, 2002, edition, and is available online at www.almanacnews.com/thisweek/2002_07_24.think.html.
© 2002 The Commonweal Institute
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