I have a crappy house. It’s not one I particularly want to live in, but circumstances dictate that for now, it’s best that I stay with it.
For now. Because even though I don’t like it, it’s for sure better than nothing. And it keeps the rain off my head while I work on better solutions.
My eventual plan is actually to take a wrecking ball to it; it’s really not worth saving (vs. rebuilding something better on that lot, or even just holding on to the land because it’s in a good location.)
At the same time, I’d be horrified (and mad as hell) if I walked out the door one morning, and found a crane with a wrecking ball trundling onto my property.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“This house needs to go. It’s not working for you, so we’re eliminating it.”
“But…where am I going to live?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll come up with something better for you.”
“But – when? Do you have any plans drawn up? Have they been stamped by an architect? Have you gotten them approved by the zoning commission? Lined up a builder? Secured the financing?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll handle all that.”
“But, when? And where am I going to live in the meantime?”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to build you a better house. It’ll be great!”
“But…”
“It’ll be the best house ever, you’ll see!”
[as he climbs into cab, and gives me a jaunty wave as he puts the ball in motion]
******
I don’t like my house. And I already agree that it isn’t working for me – that isn’t an issue. But I still wouldn’t smash it to bits until I had a concrete plan (and the approval that I already know I’d need from others as well) for what I was going to replace it with.
Would you?
Here’s a thing – you can drive right into a brick wall while you’re looking back over your shoulder. While you’re busy shooting the bird to the guy you just went speeding past.
But it might be time to pay more attention to what’s on the road ahead, than on the other guy.
And here’s another thing. Our power is our vote, full stop. It’s the only power we have.
But it’s not an insignificant power, by any means. It’s a serious enough power that billions of dollars are spent courting it. Districts are gerrymandered to give specific votes the maximum impact possible. Other nations even try to influence our votes (Russian interference was shown by Mueller’s past indictments, and was also confirmed in the Barr memo.)
But our vote has the most power and influence with OUR OWN SIDE. Which means that all the focus we put on what ‘the other side’ does, really only makes a difference to us personally (in helping us to decide what our own vote will be.) We pay attention to the other side to be informed voters.
But paying attention to the other side doesn’t change anything on that other side, except potentially on the actual day you cast your vote. And the next time that will be happening is still well over a year from now.
In the meantime, however – the politicians on your own ‘side’ care about your vote right now, right this minute. You have leverage with them right now, this minute, that you do not have with ‘the other side’ until the day you cast your vote.
Because ‘the other side’ already knows it’s unlikely you’re going to cast your vote for them anyway. They may try to convince you to change your mind before election day, but they’re not counting on your vote.
But the politician on your own side, especially the one that is already holding the office/seat you’ll be voting on next, is counting on your vote. They’re expecting it.
And they’re certainly going to listen to you sooner than they’re going to listen to any voter who isn’t already on their own side.
Right now is the time that our energy is best used on our own side, especially when it comes to objecting to things that you don’t agree with them on. Telling ‘the other side’ how you’re going to vote is meaningless, unless you are telling them that you’re *not* going to be voting for your ‘own’ side.
If you’re a registered Republican, now is the time to be looking at any Republicans who represent you and who are already counting on your vote, and telling them about things you don’t like or agree with. Same for registered Democrats who have Democratic representatives.
The ones of the same party you are registered with are the ones you actually have some leverage with; and if you want them to do better, TELL THEM SO. It’s not disloyalty. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re the one they’re going to be concerned about losing.
If you rail about ‘participation ribbons’ being handed out so that everyone feels like they won – then don’t do the equivalent of that with your own political side. Don’t hand them free ‘you’re doing great!’ passes if they aren’t doing great.
And if you rail about ‘the other side’ not holding their own side accountable – are you truly holding your own side accountable?
I think if we spent even a tiny fraction of the time and energy that we’re spending examining (and complaining about) people that we already aren’t going to vote for, and who we already have zero leverage with, on the people we do plan to vote for and that we do have leverage with instead – we might actually see some improvements. [Call me crazy, I know.]
And I think it’s also foolish to ignore too much of what the other side complains about, or to dismiss it out of hand. I think both parties have done that (and continue to do that) to their own detriment.
And to the GOP specifically – you’ve had your two-plus years of ‘owning the libs’, and I’d strongly suggest that you turn your collective attention forward again. Because I think your President is about to ‘own the libs’ right into a hole you can’t dig back out of, especially if he bulldozes the ACA without having a solid replacement not only in front of Congress, but with the necessary votes to pass it as well.
And that’s even if you believe with all your heart and soul that the ACA needs to go. I similarly believe that my house needs to go, but I would still never think about bulldozing it until I had all my ducks in a row for what to replace it with. And to have someone else come along and bulldoze it for me, without a replacement, would certainly not earn (or retain) my loyalty. The ACA may have been passed by Democrats, but it doesn’t cover only Democrats.
[Author’s note, I don’t personally have any stake in, or even any personal opinion (either way) on the ACA myself. I haven’t ever needed the ACA for coverage myself, and shouldn’t ever need it either. But I still think it’s a big mistake to nix it without a solid replacement, even if you personally feel that it should be nixed.]
I couldn’t think of a clever title for this post, but it’s the content that matters anyway – and, anyone looking for a quick-synopsis headline already knows they won’t find it here, unless this is their first visit. 😀
Some may wonder why I cherry-pick topics to write about; why I sometimes even pick maybe less-important things when there are more important things out there.
All I can say is – I choose the things I feel I can maybe offer some perspective on. And also have to say that I would quickly be exhausted if I tried to offer perspectives/opinions on everything.
Today I want to talk about the sudden avalanche of negative ‘news’ about John McCain.
I felt like I’d fallen into the rabbit hole yesterday, when I started seeing so many accusations of McCain as a traitor, for various reasons. And especially when I kept seeing, related as ‘fact’ by everyone I saw that was saying it (namely on Quora, Twitter, and as comments on news reports – I haven’t spent any time on Facebook or Instagram), that he’d been ‘responsible for the death of over 100 American servicemembers’ in Vietnam.
It took me a few such posts to realize they were talking about the mishap on the USS Forrestal, which killed 134 men.
And this particular incident is something that anyone in the Navy, and especially Navy aviation, is well aware of – because it’s been used as a ‘what not to do’ training tool for decades. Because the Navy believes in learning from mishaps, so that they aren’t repeated.
I first saw this training film in boot camp. Lost count of the number of times I saw it after that; it was so much one of the staples of aviation safety training. Probably everyone in the Navy has seen it at least once:
The film doesn’t mention McCain, as in 1973 he was still only a POW (or only recently released from being a POW). But he was on the Forrestal when this mishap occurred; there’s no question about that, it’s fact. And it would even be true to say he was ‘involved’.
But it isn’t remotely true to say he was responsible. He wasn’t in the aircraft that the rocket misfired from – he was in one of the aircraft the misfired rocket hit (he apparently said in his book that it was his aircraft, some historians say it was the aircraft parked next to his – either way, if you watch the footage from the plat camera, it’s nothing short of miraculous that he made it out of this alive.)
So, that’s one thing. Then, the ‘Tokyo Rose’ confession being circulated, people saying it proves him to be a traitor rather than a hero. All I can say about this is – if someone was beating the hell out of me, I’d probably confess to just about anything if it meant they would stop. I doubt I’d have held out as long as he did, and I definitely doubt that I’d have stayed behind when offered the chance for an early release, the way he did.
Even if you’ve been through SERE school – they still aren’t there to truly physically harm you, and you also know throughout that there is an end point. That you will be ‘rescued’ in the end. He didn’t have any such assurance of an end to his captivity, beyond them going too far and killing him.
I’d challenge anyone who believes him to be a traitor over this coerced ‘confession’ to endure even 10 minutes of what he endured for years. I’d like to think I’d last, but I’m also honest enough to know that I have limits – and that *everyone* has limits.
He also didn’t make any effort to hide this ‘confession’ in the past – he talked about it openly.
Past that – we’re also talking about a man who had enough integrity to shut down people who were supporting him, whose vote he was courting, when they said something he knew to be untrue. How easy would it have been for him to just agree with the woman in the second half of this clip – to just say, yes indeed, madam, that’s exactly why I aim to get him out of the Oval Office?
Some also take that clip as just more proof that he was a closet liberal/Democrat. I take it as proof that he had enough integrity to challenge things he knew to be incorrect or even outright lies, even as he was trying his best to unseat the very man they were being said about.
And that’s the problem with us allowing the normalization of lies, to attain a political objective. If you believe it’s fine to let lies stand as long as they further the objective – then of course that clip is proof of ‘traitorous’ intent. He should have just agreed with the woman, because challenging the lie didn’t further his (or his party’s) political goal.
Still in his Navy career before moving on to the act that most point to as ‘traitorous’, there was also this 2008 LA Times article, saying he wasn’t such a great pilot.
It basically outlines 3 aircraft mishaps that happened before he went to Vietnam. The first one, I’m inclined to believe was his fault vs. the aircraft’s, just based on what’s said there. The second one, he admitted himself that it was his fault, that he was hot-dogging. The third…there’s some room for doubt on, but I’ll get to why I think that in a minute.
I will also say that I do believe that him being an Admiral’s son probably did play a part in why he wasn’t stripped of his wings, especially after 3 mishaps. But it’s also true that things were generally more lax then than they are now – something that is also brought out in the ‘Trial By Fire’ film about the Forrestal, that I linked to above.
The third mishap, besides ambiguous evidence – what also leaves room for doubt (for me) is the statement of the mechanic, about having given him a freshly refurbished aircraft (with the associated belief that it must have been mechanically sound, because it had just come out of refurb.)
I don’t know what SDLM (Scheduled Depot Level Maintenance, the term/acronym used when I was in the Navy for an aircraft that had been sent away for refurbishment and that came back with a brand-new paint job, as is also brought up in the article) was like in the 1960’s, but I do know what it was like in the 1990’s.
And I assumed, as the mechanic in the article probably also did, that an aircraft we got back from SDLM, with a shiny new coat of paint, had been gone over from stem to stern. Everything looked at, everything adjusted, repaired or replaced as needed.
I was very surprised when I learned that wasn’t the case at all. I think my illuminating moment came when I had to replace an 80-pin HF radio connection plug, and the wire kept disintegrating when I’d strip the insulation back. I followed the harness back and saw a date stamped on the sleeve of it – 1963. In the mid-1990’s, on an aircraft that had just been through SDLM and had a nice, shiny new coat of paint on it.
I asked someone why they hadn’t replaced such an old wiring harness at SDLM, and was told that unless you specifically asked for it to be replaced when it went away to SDLM, it wouldn’t be replaced. Or even looked at. And that they usually didn’t ask for them to be replaced as a matter of course, because they’d just run a new harness alongside the old (rather than replace the old with new), and that would add weight to the aircraft. So unless they were particularly aware of an issue with one, they didn’t ask for it to be replaced.
Neither here nor there, really – just that I’ve also seen that LA Times article used to denigrate McCain recently. And while it does have more merit than others, it’s also still not 100% solid (to me, as someone who is more than just passingly familiar with what they’re talking about.)
Then, there is the characterization of him as a traitor for his no vote on the ACA ‘skinny repeal’.
Note – this was not a ‘repeal and replace’ bill. It was only a repeal (no replace), of a few provisions of the ACA. This is the actual bill that he voted ‘no’ on, as reported at that time.
And this is what McCain had to say about why he voted no (if it comes out too small to read, it says: ‘Skinny repeal fell short because it fell short of our promise to repeal & replace Obamacare w/ meaningful reform’):
Bucking your party because you don’t believe a particular piece of legislation meets the objective, or the promise that you’d made to your party or your constituents, is not traitorous – it’s why we have a Congress to begin with.
As a side note, also take a minute to think about it in relation to the mid-terms. Given that a large majority of the country expressed concern about protection for pre-existing conditions in the leadup to the mid-terms, and that even the GOP candidates took notice and went all-out to reassure voters that they’d protect pre-existing conditions, even as there was also a GOP-led lawsuit pending to strike down the ACA – I’d say that McCain’s thumbs-down potentially also saved the GOP majority in the Senate in 2018.
Seriously, think about it. That ‘no’ vote bought time for the GOP to realize that the ACA’s protection for pre-existing conditions was something that a majority would fight for, across party lines. Thus why Rick Scott, otherwise a very pro-Trump candidate, also bucked the party line on this issue in his race. And he won by a very narrow margin – narrow enough that I’m pretty sure that had he not stepped out of the GOP’s stable on this issue, he’d likely have lost. And who knows how many others might have as well.
Had a repeal taken place, without a replacement that was at least equal to, if not better than, what was being discarded – I think the GOP would have lost their Senate majority as well as the House.
But what really matters is this:
If we have come to a point where the idea of a representative having the room to come to their own conclusions about something is undesirable…
If we have come to a point where the party-line is all that really matters…
If we have come to a point where we truly feel that a representative thinking for themselves, deciding for themselves what best serves the people s/he is there to represent, is a betrayal at best and outright treasonous at worst (if it goes across their party’s line)…
…then we have no further need for a Congress at all.
And if that’s the case, we should stop pretending that we are (or strive to be) a constitutional democracy at all.
Some may think that doing away with Congress would be a great idea. I am not one of them. And I don’t think that even the ones who think it’s a great idea now would continue to think so, once it went against them rather than for them.
I really, really hope that people will give that some serious thought, rather than just rote-repeating (and believing) that McCain was a traitor for his thumbs-down vote. It’s not ‘just’ about McCain; it’s about what we are coming to believe the role of Congress actually is, how we’re defining it to ourselves.
And I think that before we allow the normalization of any idea of Congress as merely being party placeholders rather than thinking, reasoning representatives of the people, who can and should make up their own minds – we need to take a step back and give it some real thought, ourselves.
And yes – I do include AOC in that as well. Her statement about the Dem caucus needing to stay in line is just as abhorrent to me, and for exactly the same reason. We need a Congress who puts their people above the President, and who also puts the Constitution above the President (as the oath they take states). It’s the whole reason for their existence.
Then the last thing, the Steele dossier.
I’ve heard/read conflicting things – that he was given it and passed it along to Comey as FBI director, or that it was just one of his ‘associates’ that had it and gave it to others.
Whether one or both or none of the above are true, this is what I have to say, regardless – as a Navy veteran, as a career civil servant.
I’ll start by establishing that I have mountains of respect for the Commanding Officer (hereafter abbreviated to CO) that I work for. And that I also personally like her, aside from having so much professional respect for her.
If someone came up to me, and handed me documents that they said showed that my CO might be compromised, or that something existed that might compromise her with a foreign power if it came to light – I would take it to NCIS, without telling her.
–Because that’s the right thing to do, especially as a government employee or representative.
–Because it’s way beyond my paygrade and abilities, to decide on my own whether the document is true, false, or some part true and part false. (As it would also be way beyond McCain’s.)
–Because it is the JOB of an agency with ‘Investigative’ (or ‘Investigation’) in its VERY NAME, to investigate *all* accusations against someone within their purview.
–Because we’ve learned very hard lessons about people being compromised within our government, either voluntarily or involuntarily. I have to take a seminar on cyber-security annually, that devotes an entire section to the insider threat – using real-life examples of compromised government employees.
–Because if the investigation finds that the document/accusation is wholly untrue, nothing will happen to the accused. They’ll be cleared, vindicated – and may not ever even know they had been accused to start with.
But – if the investigation proves partial truth or full truth, and also finds out that I had the document and either buried it, or gave it to my CO and asked her about it myself rather than turning it over to the proper agency – I am now also complicit. And therefore also subject to penalty for her actions.
So, on the one hand – if I give it to NCIS and it proves false, nothing happens – to the CO, or to me. On the other, if I don’t give it to them and it proves even partially true – I’ve assisted my CO in whatever wrongdoing the documents had accused her of. And I could pay the penalty right along with her.
Seems like a pretty easy choice to me…?
Because that’s just how it is, when it comes to any kind of government service – military, or civilian. It’s not like deciding whether or not to blow the whistle on something in the private sector. I like my CO, I respect my CO, I am loyal to my CO – but I am not going to go to jail for her. I am not going to support or warn her if there is any chance – however slight – that she could be compromised.
Because that isn’t the right thing to do.
So, taken through that lens – consider what McCain is accused of having done. He is given this documentation, and he passes it along to the head of the agency whose job it is to investigate such accusations.
He doesn’t give it to the press. He doesn’t even hand it to the House Judiciary to investigate, or bring it up on the Senate floor – which, given that Congress also has investigative powers and mandate, could also be defensible as a ‘right’ thing to do. He takes the most prudent and discreet of the legal avenues available, that still leave him on the right side of the law himself.
I don’t see how that’s traitorous. And it pains me to see it being presented and accepted as such.
***************
Last but not least…
Here’s the thing. I don’t really care if Trump feels McCain was disloyal; he can choose how he wants to feel. I don’t care whether he personally likes McCain or not – he doesn’t have to like him, and I do actually respect that he hasn’t said ‘nice words’ that he doesn’t mean, just because McCain is dead.
But I do care that Trump, and many of his supporters, are trashing McCain’s service to this country and painting him as a traitor. And that others are remaining silent and letting these attacks go on, or even privately agreeing with them; without making an effort to find out what the story is for themselves. And without thinking about what they’re supporting, what they’re normalizing that goes well beyond Sen McCain himself.
And I absolutely care that it feels like every day, I am waking up in some alternate reality where fiction is taken for fact, and fact for fiction. Where I feel like it’s too important to just let it ride, too important not to speak out against it – spending hours finding links, crafting reasoned statements…only to have it make no difference whatsoever. The people who agree are the ones who already felt the same way, before I ever wrote this post.
I don’t believe I’ve changed even one person’s mind. But yet – I still can’t stand by and say nothing. Even if it is just so much screaming into the void…
Random Neuron Fire 
You must be logged in to post a comment.