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I was thinking lately that maybe our democratic republic would work better if we had more political parties.
Some critics of the current system say there's "really no difference between Democrats and Republicans, they just have two parties so that voters have the illusion of choice."
That's both true and not true, I think.
During my lifetime, in my experience, I've never seriously (or lightly) contemplated having more parties ("who are we, Italy?!") ... you know, John Anderson, in 1980,
was -- interesting. George Wallace in 1968 -- was -- scary. 1992's "Third Man" Ross Perot -- somewhat interesting and maybe just a little scary, though not in a bad way. (And -- have I forgotten a Ralph Nader candidacy? -- maybe...).
Two reasons why I think about more political parties:
1. With current political parties, it appears to me that their candidates and officeholders are alternately tired, bought-up, and/or crazy.
2. Discourse has devolved into: "The other candidate sucks!!" Newsflash, fellas: That statement is not An Idea. What we need are Good Ideas. With five or six or seven different parties, there would be more opportunity for individual candidates to simply present, in a positive fashion, their platform -- their "Good Ideas" -- and basically ignore the other candidates completely.
(Although -- caveat alert -- a candidate could just run around slamming all four or five or six of the other candidates with a slogan of, "They all suck!!" -- we saw our current president do that in the Republican primary last year.)
You could potentially still have the problem of candidates simply and constantly vilifying each other, but with a bigger field of names, the bile would at least be diversified. And an individual candidate could make the choice to carve out a more unique niche and actually think about the American people -- "What positive things can we do together?" instead of "Whom do we hate?"
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask (ahsk) what you can do for your country..."
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U.S. News and World Report had a piece titled "The 10 Worst Presidents" (Dec. 31, 2014), written by Andrew Soergel and Jay Tolson.
They do it as a 10 to 1 countdown, with #1 being the Worst, I guess.
Number 10 is a tie between two presidents in recent memory -- one more recent than the other. I'm not going to reprint the two Number 10s here, so as not to offend supporters they may have in the Internet World Audience. (I wouldn't want to be the first person to write something offensive on the Internet...) Will review, beginning with #9.
Looking at past presidents can give us perspective on present presidents.
----------- [excerpt, US News]
Number 9
Herbert Hoover
Born: August 10, 1874
Died: October 20, 1964
Presidential term: March 4, 1929 - March 4, 1933
Vice President: Charles Curtis
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Hoover was known as a poor communicator who fueled trade wars and exacerbated the Depression.
Herbert Hoover, the 31st president, and Richard Nixon, the 37th, share the ninth spot for entirely different kinds of failings. and both had offsetting qualities and achievements that keep them off the 10-worst list of some major rankings.
Hoover, elected on the eve of the Great Depression, came to the office with the skills of a consummate technocrat and manager. The Iowa native and Stanford-educated engineer ran massive relief operations in Europe both during and after World War I. He was commerce secretary under Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Once the Depression set in, he lowered taxes and started public works projects to create jobs, but he steadfastly resisted outright relief.
Hoover's rigid adherence to conservative principles may not have been his greatest problem. A poor communicator, he came across as mean-spirited and uncaring. The homeless dubbed their make-shift shanty towns Hoovervilles.
Perhaps his single greatest policy blunder was supporting and signing into law a tariff act that fueled international trade wars and made the Depression even worse. But style points alone would have cost him the election against FDR.
For all his good qualities, it is fair to say that Hoover failed to rise to the greatest challenge of his time.
------------ [end, excerpt - U.S. News]
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When it comes to current events, please show us someone with good sense!
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--------------- [excerpt] -----------
...Moments later, O'Brien appeared on the screen to say things weren't really that bad, and that there was no truth to any rumors concerning his inability to stay in the same room for more than forty seconds with Gary Hart, McGovern's campaign manager. . . . Then Hart came on to deny any and all rumors to the effect that he would just as soon feed O'Brien, head-first, into the nearest meat grinder.
This kind of thing is extremely heavy-duty for a presidential candidate. Private power struggles inside a campaign are common enough, but when one of your top three men flips out and starts blowing his bile all over the national press and the TV networks, it means you're in a lot more trouble than you realized . . . and when the howler is a veteran professional pol like O'Brien, you have to start flirting with words like Madness, Treachery, and Doom.
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{Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson. 1973.}
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---------- [Austen excerpt] -----------
"I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston," said Mr. Knightley, "of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I think it a bad thing."
"A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing? -- why so?"
"I think they will neither of them do the other any good."
"You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently we feel! -- Not think they will do each other any good! This will certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr. Knightley."
"Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle."
"Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday, and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case.
You are so much used to live alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life.
I can imagine your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman which Emma's friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more herself. They will read together. She means it, I know."
"Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through -- and very good lists they were -- very well chosen, and very neatly arranged -- sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen -- I remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now.
But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing. -- You never could persuade her to read half so much as you wished. -- You know you could not."
"I dare say," replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, "that I thought so then; -- but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting to do any thing I wished."
"There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as that," -- said Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. "But I," he soon added, "who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family.
At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident.
And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have been under subjection to her."
"I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on your recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse's family and wanted another situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held."
"Yes," said he, smiling. "You are better placed here; very fit for a wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to promise; but you were receiving a very good education from her, on the very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I should certainly have named Miss Taylor."
"Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to such a man as Mr. Weston."
"Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of comfort, or his son may plague him."
"I hope not that. -- It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not foretell vexation from that quarter."
"Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune. -- But Harriet Smith -- I have not half done about Harriet Smith.
I think her the very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have.
She knows nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing.
She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned. Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to.
She will grow just refined enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma's doctrines give any strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally to the varieties of her situation in life. -- They only give a little polish."
"I either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance. How well she looked last night!"
"Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty."
"Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect beauty than Emma altogether -- face and figure?"
"I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial old friend."
"Such an eye! -- the true hazel eye -- and so brilliant! regular features, open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health, and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure! There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her glance. One hears sometimes of a child being 'the picture of health;' now, Emma always give me the idea of being the complete picture of grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?"
"I have not a fault to find with her person," he replied. "I think her all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my disapproval of Emma's friendship with Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm."
"And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm. With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times."
"Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and I will keep my spleen to myself...."
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{Emma, by Jane Austen. 1815}
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----------- [excerpt] -------
Friday, Aug. 11
National Broadcasting Company, Inc.
Thirty Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10020
CIRCLE 7-8300
Dear Hunter,
Because we share a fear and loathing for things which aren't true, I point out that it ain't true that I was taken in by the McGoverns on the South Carolina challenge in Miami Beach.
While they were still switching votes, I said on the air that they might be trying to lose it deliberately. We had the floor people try to check this out and they ran into a couple of poolroom liars employed by McGovern who said yas, yas, it was a defeat, etc., but a little while later Doug Kiker got Pat Lucey to tell it all. (Lucey called headquarters for permission, first, as Kiker waited.)
We were pleased that we got it right. Adam Clymer of the Sun called the next day with congratulations.
I think the reason most people thought we blew the story is that CBS blew it badly. I guess I should have gone through the night pointing out what happened, but we got involved in the California roll-call and a lot of other stuff, and suddenly it was dawn.
Other than that I enjoyed your convention piece and let's have a double Margarita when we next meet.
J. Chancellor
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{Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson}
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---------- [excerpts] -----------
Chapter IV
Harriet Smith's intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had very early foreseen how useful she might find her.
In that respect Mrs. Weston's loss had been important.
Her father never went beyond the shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston's marriage her exercise had been too much confined.
She had ventured once alone to Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore, one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs. ...
*
...Mrs. Martin had told her [Harriet Smith] one day (and there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all.
"Well done, Mrs. Martin!" thought Emma. "You know what you are about."
"And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose -- the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with her."
"Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business? He does not read?"
"Oh yes! -- that is, no -- I do not know -- but I believe he has read a good deal -- but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window seats -- but he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. ...
The next question was --
"What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?"
"Oh! not handsome -- not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. He has passed you very often."
"That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity.
The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.
A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other.
But a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as much above my notice as in every other he is below it."
...
... "You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse.
I want to see you permanently well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmer's daughter, without education." ...
CHAPTER V
"I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston," said Mr. Knightley, "of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I think it a bad thing."
"A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing? -- why so?"
"I think they will neither of them do the other any good." ...
-------------- {Emma, by Jane Austen}
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--------------- {excerpt} ------ [Also on the beach is Bill Dougherty, Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota, longtime McGovern crony and a key floor leader who worked under Stearns. Forty-two years old, he is wearing trunks and a short-sleeve shirt and staring at the surf.]
Dougherty: You know, this is the first time I've ever seen the ocean. Oh, I saw it out in California, but not like this. Not close up....
HST: Let's get back. You came down in May to set up your communications.
Stearns: We had to protect the communications system in the trailer and the communications system in the hotel, so we traced the telephone lines and there were two points where it was vulnerable. In the convention center it was behind five link fences and pretty well guarded; but you had open manhole covers....
Chances are any manhole covers you pick up in this city you're gonna find telephone lines laid under it. We pointed that out to Southern Bell, and they suggested that we weld the manhole covers down, which we agreed to. The only other vulnerable point was in the hotel itself.
There is a switching room at the backside of the hotel behind the room where all the press equipment was set up. That was the other vulnerable spot. So we had an armed guard placed on that. A guy with an axe could have demolished that communications system in thirty seconds.
Dougherty: You can do some of those things at a Convention, 'cause everybody forgets about it five days after it happens. Once the vote goes in, they don't recall any situation even where the crookedest of things may have changed it. There's no protest. There have been terrible things that happen at conventions.
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{Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson}
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-------------- [Austen excerpt] ------------------ "And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? -- I pity you. -- I thought you cleverer -- for, depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor word 'success,' which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so entirely without any claim to it.
You have drawn two pretty pictures; but I think there may be a third -- a something between the do-nothing and the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield enough to comprehend that."
"A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational, unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them, by interference."
"Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others," rejoined Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. "But, my dear, pray do not make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one's family circle grievously."
"Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr. Elton, papa, -- I must look about for a wife for him....
"Mr. Elton is a ... very good young man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to meet him."
"With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time," said Mr. Knightley, laughing, "and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself."
*
...Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury....
She was a very pretty girl...and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.
She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging -- not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk -- and yet so far from pushing, shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given.
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{Emma, by Jane Austen}
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----------- [excerpt] --------- Once they let you get away with running around for ten years like a king hoodlum, you tend to forget now and then that about half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they honestly doubt their own sanity.
These are not the kind of people who really need to get hung up in depressing political trips. They are not ready for it. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare. ---------------
{Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson}
--------------- [excerpt] ----------- "Dear Emma bears every thing so well," said her father. "But, Mr. Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will miss her more than she thinks for."
Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. "It is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion," said Mr. Knightley.
"We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor's advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor's time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor must be glad to have her so happily married."
"And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me," said Emma, "and a very considerable one -- that I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for any thing."
Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, "Ah! my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more matches."
"I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such success, you know! -- Everybody said that Mr. Weston would never marry again...."
... "I do not understand what you mean by 'success,'" said Mr. Knightley. "Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady's mind!
But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,'
and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said."
"And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? -- I pity you....
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{Emma, by Jane Austen}
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from BBC News, today
(a reprint)
(since it's from the BBC, one must read it with a British accent...)
U.S. & Canada
| | Obama and Bush decry deep US divisions without naming Trump
^ ^ Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush have voiced concern about the current political climate in the US, in comments seen as a veiled rebuke of Donald Trump's leadership.
Mr Obama urged Americans to reject the politics of "division" and "fear," while Mr Bush criticised "bullying and prejudice" in public life.
They were speaking separately. Neither mentioned President Trump by name.
Mr Trump, who has been critical of his two predecessors, is yet to comment.
Ex-presidents traditionally shy away from commenting publicly on their successors, and Mr Obama said on leaving office he would extend that courtesy for a time to Mr Trump, as George W Bush had to him.
He has broken his silence since to issue statements on Mr Trump's efforts to dismantle Obamacare, as well as his controversial "Muslim ban" and decision to abandon the Paris climate accord.
Speaking at a Democratic campaign event in Newark, New Jersey, Mr Obama said Americans should "send a message to the world that we are rejecting a politics of division, we are rejecting a politics of fear."
He added: "What we can't have is the same old politics of division that we have seen so many times before that dates back centuries.
"Some of the politics we see now, we thought we put that to bed. That's folks looking 50 years back. It's the 21st Century, not the 19th Century. Come on!"
He touched on similar themes at another event later in Richmond, Virginia, saying: "We've got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonise people who have different ideas, to get the base all riled up because it provides a short-term tactical advantage."
Speaking just hours earlier in New York, Mr Bush said: "Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.
"There are some signs that the intensity of support for democracy itself has waned -- especially among the young."
Americans, he said, have "seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty."
"At times it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together.
"We've seen nationalism distorted into nativism, we've forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America."
Both former presidents have until now largely avoided commenting publicly on Mr Trump's policies.
Before his election last year, Mr Trump was highly critical of both Mr Obama and Mr Bush, describing each of them at one time or another as "perhaps the worst president in the history" of the US.
Since his inauguration in January, Mr Trump's combative style and direct public comments on a number of key issues have caused controversy both among Democrats and Republicans.
He has regularly blamed the media, which he says do not focus on his achievements and instead choose to concentrate on what he describes as "fake news."
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Shared concerns
Analysis by Gary O'Donoghue in Richmond, Virginia
President Barack Obama still knows how to draw a crowd -- and they queued round the block for hours to see him speak.
If they were hoping for head-on attacks on Donald Trump, they were to be disappointed.
However, the criticisms when they came were scarcely veiled -- with talk of pandering to the extremes and sowing divisiveness.
The speech followed a much more full-frontal attack on the current political situation by former Republican President George W Bush.
He talked about bigotry and falsehood threatening American democracy -- while celebrating immigration and arguing for a more open trade policy.
These attacks certainly aren't co-ordinated -- but they do demonstrate just how widely concerns about the current president are shared.
[end]
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Some differences in phrasing and wordage (is that a word...?) between American style and UK-style are displayed in the above article.
They didn't, for example, "line up" to hear the speech, they "queued" -- and not, "around the block," but rather "round the block"...
(And now, along with worrying about North Korea starting nuclear holocaust and destroying world, must add to Worry-List: why do UK writers put "Mr." without the period, typing it as "Mr" ? Oh, the burden of it all....)
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