I’ve written here now and then about hopes of the coming of an Age of Transparency, and then the dawn burst upon us and one of its names was Wikileaks.  And like other dawns, it was even accompanied by a chorus, even a symphony, of tweets, and other social networking sites buzzing.

And like other beginnings, it became messy and sometimes violent.  Very violent, as the revolutions and protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and Iran demonstrate.

I doubt anyone will ever be  able to draw a direct line from any Wikileaks document, specific FB post or tweet, to any resignation or deposing of any official anywhere, but that’s not necessary.   There’s an atmosphere, a field of influence, a spirit, to which they all contribute and in which they reside.

I’m glad to see it. I feel somewhat vindicated by it, and feel certain Dad, parked in some celestial recliner somewhere, feels vindicated, too.  If you’re so inclined, check out the latest addition to the library of his columns.  There’s a subhead in that column that reads, “Visionaries Are Scoffed At.”

Dad was certainly a visionary, and I have inherited that particular gene, or curse, or blessing, depending on your perspective.  At times it’s all three.  It’s a wonderful thing because visionaries can see a beauty that isn’t yet, and be driven by that beauty, and try to make it real.  It’s a horrible thing because there can be few or no others who can see anything similar, and when others pay any attention at all, it’s likely to scoff or worse.

When Dad left the newspaper and wrote that column, he was given a copy of it engraved in metal and framed.  I’ve seen it nearly every morning since he died in 1997.  It hangs in what may seem an odd place: in the kitchen, next to my coffee bar.  I like it there because seeing it at the start of the day reminds me that I came by this visionary propensity honestly, and his column is proof that there are other people in the world who get it.  It also reminds me that when scoffs and worse come, the appropriate response is, “So what?”

Twenty five or so years ago I set out on a path having to do with a particular vision of people being treated well, with respect, especially dis-empowered people, and how people in power treat them.

My attention focused first on child protective services, and how it can become better by treating everyone involved, including the workers, with respect.  That focus of attention was by choice, and I gave it my all, even to making that the center of my doctoral research. Next, I became intimately familiar with the maltreatment of another state agency, this time not by choice. Bureaucrats who were more concerned with preserving their power than serving the populace did what they could to silence me through a different arm of bureaucracy.  I gave my all once again because it was either fight or give up my credibility, and without my credibility, I would have no way to advance the vision I had about people being treated better, with honesty and respect.  The fight took pretty much everything, literally, but I came out with my credibility.

I also came out with a sharpened vision, about how much bureaucratic maltreatment there is and how to reduce it.  I’ve studied and researched and at times wondered if all this vision does is present a distorted image of a windmill on the horizon, and what a fool I’ll find myself to have been.

I’ll know better about that pretty soon.  If it turns out I’m a fool for thinking I can do anything to make things better, so be it.  I’d rather be a fool reaching for something beautiful than a cynic congratulating myself on rendering an accurate description of the mud on the ground.

But maybe I haven’t been tilting at a windmill.  Maybe there is a way my experience and knowledge can be put to use to make a substantive difference.  When the gubernatorial campaign started up last year, Peter Shumlin struck me as also being a visionary, and therefore someone who might be able to understand this vision that I see.  I put in time on his campaign, and at a couple of campaign events buttonholed him about meeting with him after he was elected.  Given the field of Dem candidates and their favorability ratings, he wasn’t “supposed” to win, but he did, and now I get to lay out the vision, along with the nuts and bolts of how to make it real.

Windmill, or something else?  I have two meetings scheduled in the Governor’s office–this Friday, March 18, and Thursday, March 24.  I’ll update here after those meetings.

Far from it.

I put in some time both pre- and post-primary on Peter Shumlin’s campaign for governor, and thanks be to all who voted him in.  I’m certain we’re on the cusp of happier political days in Vermont.

I had intended an official launch of a State Ombudsman Campaign to be a few months ago, but circumstances, including the passing of one of the dearest and most significant people in my life, resulted in its delay.  If you’re new to this blog, the short story is that after having encountered and witnessed much in the way of Kafkaesque machinations and injustice in state bureaucracies, I planted this little seed of creating a State Ombudsman in Vermont.  I’ve watered and tended it to become a healthy growing thing, but now it needs the attention of many more people to become the thing that will bear good fruit for the citizens of this fine state.

Though delayed, the timing is good,  because now the election has come and gone and all Vermonters know (or can easily find out) who their state legislators are for the session starting January 2011.  The focus now is on people contacting their legislators to say they think creating a State Ombudsman is a good idea.  The idea has bipartisan support, e.g. Rep. Anne Donohue (R) and Sen. Harold Giard (D). The legislators I’ve talked with so far have identified additional reasons for having a State Ombudsman that I hadn’t thought of–such as its dovetailing well with Challenges for Change–so it seems an idea whose time has come.

The one-page State Ombudsman Proposal is here.  Right click to download it. Distribute it, talk it up, email your pals, post on Facebook and Twitter.  We’ll be seeing transparency and justice increasing in Vermont when the legislature makes it so!  We can do this in 20012, yes?  Maybe even 2011??

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

So the news is still full of bad stuff, but I detect a change in people’s reactions to the bad stuff, in that calls for transparency and accountability keep mounting.

Here are a few of the current stories that prop up hope that there is a substantive shift going on, and not just in this country.

Amrit Singh writes today on Huffington Post how the U.S. may soon face some measure of accountability for the secret “extraordinary rendition” program and torture undertaken post-9/11.  She tells a bit of the story of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen whom the CIA and Macedonian government detained and tortured. El Masri tried to obtain justice through the U.S. courts, but the government got his case dismissed by invoking “state secrets privilege.” El-Masri  has now taken his case to the European Court of Human Rights. While the U.S. is outside the jurisdiction of the ECHR, the court will need to determine Macedonia’s liability, and to do that, it will need to determine the role of the U.S. and form a judgment of the actions of the U.S.

On the same issue, the UK is launching a government inquiry into its role in rendition and torture. Many are hoping it will be done in such a way as to provide a model for how other governments should investigate their roles, as well.  All of that is good for transparency; I’ll hope the inquiries result in recommendations for, and actions to effect, accountability as well.  Otherwise in the UK, there’s been a coming clean about Bloody Sunday, that day in 1972 when British troops slaughtered 13 Northern Ireland demonstrators. A 12 year investigation determined that British soldiers were wholly to blame, and that determination has helped a lot of families heal some very old wounds.

The Roman Catholic Church, which has verbally made some progress in moving toward transparency and accountability in its multinational pedophile priest scandal, is also being challenged about financial transparency and accountability in Germany.  SpiegelOnline carries this report about enormous assets controlled by bishops, though just how much can’t be determined.  The bishops have no requirement to make full financial disclosure to the German government, nor do they even let the faithful in their own diocese know how much and what kinds of wealth they control.  And while there are clear indications that the amounts are, in most dioceses, quite large, and some of the bishops enjoy a lavish lifestyle, the rank and file of the church are going through major cutbacks.  So again, more of people calling for transparency and accountability.

The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill cataclysm: good heavens, where to start?  Fortunately, the news is full of stories demanding transparency and especially accountability within and from BP.  Even the numbers of right wing politicians who’ve sought to protect BP is dwindling, as the catastrophe grows ever larger.  With all the different articles out there I’ll restrain myself and link only to this one.

May turning of the tide toward transparency and accountability become a great sea change, even to becoming its own Age.  Coming soon: a report on efforts to achieve more transparency and accountability in Vermont.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

At one point during his question and answer period, in a section having to do with the national budget, Obama spoke about wanting to bring transparency to all Congressional “earmarks,” those additions to necessary bills that add on monies for projects and programs in some congressional district or other, that the Congressperson gets to go back home and tout as what s/he has accomplished for the voters back home.  The President wants all proposed earmarks to be put online where everyone in the country can see them, as a way of discouraging some of the spurious and frivolous things that have historically been slipped through Congress.  It was in that context that he said, “I think sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

That applies, also, to the very event at which he was speaking.  It was the White House that wanted the event to be televised live.  The Republican House leadership at first resisted, then agreed.  Afterward, MSNBC’s Luke Russert reported that one House Republican said to him that “We shouldn’t have done that.”  The only reason for wishing it hadn’t been televised would be to keep from the public view the things the President had to say, especially about the process and dangers of demonizing everyone and everything associated with the other party;  that is to say, to be able to maintain the culture of demonization that has become so prevalent in U.S. politics.  Here, too, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

But while some in the Republican leadership regret the live telecast of sunshine being thrown into their works, I’m optimist enough to believe that a considerable number of Republicans were, albeit silently, cheering President Obama and the live telecast as opening a door to the return of a civility that used to be SOP in Congress, and which will give them a way to accomplish even more for their voters back home.

When did the demonizing take over?  Hard to say when it took over, but it certainly took root with the fundamentalist rise in the Republican party a few decades ago.  Quite literally, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others made claims that The Devil was behind much, if not all, of liberal politics.  I defer to Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, to impart the details of how that happened.  But prior to the rise of the religious right, respectful opposition among opposing party members was the norm.

May the sunshine that Obama brought to Congressional politics yesterday be the beginning of its re-establishment. If you haven’t seen the video yet, you can find it and the transcript here.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Twitter and blogs and cable pundits have been afire with commenting on Rep. Joe Wilson‘s lying publicly, brazenly and loudly when he shouted “You lie!” at President Obama during Wednesday night’s speech. Mainstream Republicans are understandably embarrassed by his actions.  Except for far right wingnuts, the criticism has been consistent and deserved.

So why, oh, why, has the Gang of Six–the six Senators working on the Senate Finance Committee’s version of a health insurance reform bill–why on earth, why in heaven’s name, would they do anything (as they have) to accommodate him and his wingnuts?!?

Battered Woman Syndrome.

It’s misnamed, since it doesn’t apply only to women, and in clinical circles more precise terminology predominates these days. But that’s beside the point. What is to the point is the phenomenon of people who have been repeatedly beaten, in some way or another, developing a habit of trying to stop the abusive party from being abusive by doing something to appease that person (or persons).

It’s important, for the sake of understanding the reaction of the Gang of Six in this case, and Congressional Democrats more broadly, to leave aside any considerations of how this situation is different from the domestic violence suffered by so many women and children, and yes, some men also.  What is cogent here is that the Gang of Six has adopted the same erroneous stance of trying to appease someone who was totally out of line, when they had nothing to apologize for and had not done anything wrong to begin with.

They all need therapy. Maybe Dems and progressives can provide it in a group, virtually via endless phone calls and emails, and IRT on the Senate floor.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

None of that is much of a surprise, people being people.  And as much of a progressive/liberal as I am, and however much I would personally prefer a more progressive/liberal solution to a particular problem, I know that’s not an effective way to go about change.  That’s the way to go only if one wants to generate backlash.  So, even though I wish, on the one hand, to see more progressive and liberal moves coming out of the White House, I accept, on the other, the necessity for proceeding a little less bombastically.

Having been clear, I hope, in presenting my progressive/liberal credentials, I’ll say that for some things there simply is no middle road.  Transparency and accountability are among those things. 

President Obama has so far signaled, if not outright opposition, at least considerable foot-dragging when it comes to undoing some of what can be undone of Bush’s legacy, and pursuing accountability for Bushies who may have committed crimes.

We’ve been here before, and the failure to pursue accountability in the past was very much a part of opening us up to the abuses of Bush et al.  I’ll refer again to another old column of Dad’s (aka Kays Gary), written after President Ford pardoned President Nixon.  Read the whole column to see just how prophetic Dad was.  Indeed, I dare say Papa came in a little short on just how bad the next round would be.   He worried that there would be “a resurrection of the politics of pious infidels,”  and sure enough, that’s just what we got.  But I don’t think he would ever have imagined the scope and sheer volume of high crimes and misdemeanors that the Bush years would bury us under.

Some articles currently on Huffington Post are germane to this issue. It will be important to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, and Congressional Democrats’ as well.

First is the matter of Karl Rove having been subpoenaed to testify before Congress.  There is talk of offering him immunity if he testifies.

In the first place, this puts me at odds with my good senator from Vermont, Patrick Leahy.  Senator Leahy has proposed a Congressional truth commission that would grant immunity from prosecution to anyone from the Bush administration who testifies freely to Congress.  I agree with most of the points the Senator makes; and while I see the benefits of setting up a structure that will elicit truth rather than blanket non-cooperation, there are some higher-level people whom I think should not have an opportunity to slip-slide their way out of accountability. Karl Rove is one of them.

In the second place, people who have been substantively injured by Rove’s actions deserve to see him held to account.  Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is one of those people (HuffPo article here).  I feel some kinship with Gov. Siegelman, given my experience with Vermont bureaucracy (road map here), but he had the far worse of it, going to prison.  If, as Gov. Siegelman maintains (and I believe), he went to prison for things he never did, why then should the man who put him there get immunity from prosecution?  And how can Obama claim to be reinstituting the rule of law if that happens?

If we do not solidly ground ourselves in the rule of law now, after Bush, the next time the “pious infidels” take over, in another couple of generations or so, I doubt we could hold a long reign of fascism at bay.

Peace.  And accountability.

Deborah Alicen

The thought of the Little Rock incident touched on another memory, one closer to home, in Charlotte, NC.  It’s one that my dad, Kays Gary, wrote about in 1957, the first time a black child attended a previously all-white school in Charlotte.  Here’s what Dad wrote about Dorothy Counts, offered here as food for thought on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Dorothy Counts

A head needs no face for expression.

The way it is carried upon the neck tells all.

If it is too high it shows defiance.

If it is too low and twists from side to side with a forward thrust of the neck it is full of shame.

Between these extremes is the posture of dignity and confidence, and a certain blend of humility and pride.

And that is the way she held her head.

They spat and she was covered with it.

Spittle dripped from the hem of her dress.

It clung to her neck and her arms and she wore it.

They spat and they jeered and screamed.

A boy tumbled out of the crowd and hit her in the back with his fist.

Debris fell on her shoulders and around her feet.

And the posture of the head was unchanged.

That was the remarkable thing.

And if her skin was brown you had to admit that her courage was royal purple.

For how many of us could have taken that walk to and from a school?

Originally published September 5, 1957, in The Charlotte Observer, and copied here with permission.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

If you have not acquainted yourself with the Innocence Project, do so now.  And by all means, anytime you start feeling as if your situation is really terrible, just give a few minutes thought to what has been endured by those whom the Innocence Project has helped, and what is being endured by those who continue to be wrongly imprisoned.

Then beyond that, consider all the people for whom there is no such advocate as the Innocence Project, who suffer persecution, beyond prosecution. In these current days, when so many people are feeling stressed because of the economic situation, because of having lost big in the stock market, or because of hiring and promotion freezes, or for whatever reason—anyone who still has their home and even some who have lost it, anyone who has a job or two that can pay the bills, it’s important to think about the people served by the Innocence Project, as well as anyone else who fall between the cracks in our society.  Think about them long enough to realize genuine gratitude for what you still have, and long enough to resolve to help those who have less, to whatever extent you can in your current circumstances.

In other words, let’s get started early this season with the gratitude part of the approaching Thanksgiving Day.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

As I regularly refer to Franz Kafka, this item on some of his unpublished papers got my attention this morning.

Part of Kafka’s genius was in seeing, and making the picture accessible to others, the crazy-making, and sometimes downright evil (e.g. Nazi), abuses to which bureaucracies so often are given. In doing so he has also imparted a measure of sanity to those caught up in the hidden and unresponsive machinations of one bureaucracy or another, by showing them (us; me!) that no, you aren’t alone, this happens to a lot of people, and it’s been happening for a long time, because the powers-that-be enjoy their power just a little too much. And sometimes a lot too much.

Read The Trial and The Castle if you haven’t already, and be astonished by how relevant they are to interfacing with present-day bureaucracies.

Along with the others mentioned in the CBC News article, I also hope these papers soon become available to researchers, and their content to the public.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen