By MARSHA MERCER
Vilified, then vindicated, Shirley Sherrod did what Americans do in such circumstances. She made the rounds of TV and cable talk shows.
Unlike most people on the talk circuit, however, Sherrod actually had something to say – and teach.
Within about 24 hours, she had been accused of racism and fired from her Agriculture Department job, then bathed in apologies and offered a new job. Sherrod, 62, who is black, wanted to talk to President Obama and clue him in:
“He’s not someone who has experienced some of the things I have experienced through my life, being a person of color. He might need to hear some of what I could say to him,” she said on ABC.
“I don’t know if that would guide him in dealing with others like me…” she said. The implication, was that this embarrassing episode could be a teachable moment for the president.
Obama did call Sherrod Thursday, and he apologized. They talked for all of seven minutes.
If there’s one thing people didn’t expect in electing the first black president, it’s that he would need tips on understanding the African-American experience. But there’s a sense he is removed from ordinary experience.
He “hasn’t lived the kind of life I’ve lived,” Sherrod said on CNN. “He’s part African American … (but) he really, where the rubber meets the road, needs to understand what life is really like.”
Obama was born in Honolulu and grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii. His age – he turns 49 Aug. 4 -- and his Ivy League education also set him apart from many who lived through the civil rights era.
So far, hopes that he would usher in a post-racial era haven’t materialized. Speeches aside, he has been less than sure-footed on race.
Last summer, Obama stumbled when his friend and black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested – “stupidly,” the president said -- by a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer. A “beer summit” photo op at the White House followed.
This week, the administration jumped to conclusions and fired Sherrod after viewing a 2-minute video clip from a 43-minute speech Sherrod gave in March to an NAACP group in Georgia. The clip, posted on the Web by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, seemed to show Sherrod describing a time in the 1980s when, working for a non-profit agency, she had done less than she could to help a white farmer facing foreclosure.
No one at the NAACP, the White House or Agriculture bothered to watch Sherrod’s entire remarks before concluding she was a racist and had to go. The news media and bloggers ran to keep up with events without checking into the facts.
Spurred by fear that Fox News host Glenn Beck would take up the story, the administration pushed out Sherrod, the first black director of federal rural development efforts in Georgia.
Her speech in its entirety shows a woman whose personal story of forgiveness and redemption is interwoven with the nation’s civil rights struggle. Growing up on a farm in Georgia in the 1960s, Sherrod dreamt of leaving the fields and heading north.
Then, in June 1965, when she was 17, a white man murdered her father, shooting him in the back in a dispute over cows. Her mother was seven months pregnant with her sixth child. Sherrod said she vowed that night to stay in the South and devote her life to working for social change.
Her father’s death went unpunished. Despite three witnesses, the Grand Jury refused to indict anyone. White men burned a cross on the family’s lawn, Sherrod said.
After college, she began helping black Georgia farmers keep their land. She discovered after helping a white man save his farm that the true fight was not between blacks and whites but between haves and have nots. The farmer, Roger Spooner, now in his 80s, is still grateful.
“It’s not just about black people; it’s about poor people,” she said in the speech. “I’ve come to realize we have to work together.”
With the full content of the speech known, the NAACP said it had been “snookered” by the reports, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack apologized. Vilsack offered Sherrod a job in race relations, but she was skeptical. She said she doesn’t want to be the one person charged with cleaning up discrimination at USDA.
But she could use her moment to teach the president about race.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
On the FCC, indecent speech and the pig -- July 15, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Dear Big Brother, thanks for your help keeping the pig out of the parlor all this time, but we aren’t living in 1978 anymore. You’re excused.
That was the gist of a federal appeals court ruling Tuesday on the government’s power to police indecent speech on TV.
This, as Joe Biden might say in the East Room, is a big _____ deal.
The court struck down a Federal Communications Commission policy that allows the agency to fine broadcasters for “fleeting expletives,” those stray curse words that spring spontaneously from the mouths of celebrities.
The court said the FCC’s policy was unconstitutionally vague and could chill free speech by causing broadcasters to limit what people say on TV. The ruling likely will be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The federal government has been struggling with what’s unfit for American ears at least since 2 p.m. on Oct. 30, 1973, when an FM radio station in New York played a recording of George Carlin’s 12-minute monologue, “Filthy Words,” about the seven words you couldn’t say on television.
In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could fine the station’s owner for the broadcast. The high court, emphasizing the narrowness of its ruling, used a quaint and telling analogy.
“Nuisance may be merely the right thing in the wrong place – like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard. We simply hold that when the Commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene,” the Supreme Court wrote.
Part of its rationale was that TV held “a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans” and was accessible to children, even those too young to read a newspaper.
As part of its ongoing efforts to keep the pig out of the parlor, the FCC tightened its rules following Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” and several incidents of unscripted profanity. The new rule threatened "the heart of the First Amendment," the appeals court ruled.
"By prohibiting all `patently offensive' references to sex, sexual organs and excretion without giving adequate guidance as to what `patently offensive' means, the FCC effectively chills speech, because broadcasters have no way of knowing what the FCC will find offensive," the appeals court wrote in the decision in Fox Television Stations v. FCC.
The court noted how much has changed in three decades.
“Indeed, we face a media landscape that would have been almost unrecognizable in 1978.” The Internet was known only to a few guys at the Pentagon; YouTube, Twitter and Facebook weren’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. Since January 2000, every TV 13 inches or larger has contained a V-chip, which enables parents to block TV programs based on a standard rating system. Digital converter boxes also contain the V-chip.
The Supreme Court had sent Fox Television v. FCC back to the 2nd Circuit after ruling that the FCC had not acted capriciously in changing its policy. The Supreme Court did not address the rule’s constitutionality.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps blasted the appellate court’s decision as “anti-family” and said the court focused on the policy’s chilling effect on broadcasters when it should have focused on “the chilling effect today’s decision will have on the ability of American parents to safeguard the interests of their children.”
The 32-page decision, however, portrays the FCC as wrestling over when a word is OK and when it’s indecent. Different standards prevailed for different circumstances. Words deemed OK in a news interview or a war movie like “Saving Private Ryan” would be unacceptable in a music documentary about “The Blues” or an awards program.
The appeals court cited that uncertainty in its ruling. It left open the possibility that the FCC might be able to craft a rule that is constitutional.
The case raises questions about the role of government in the 21st century. We don’t need a Big Brother censor in the world of the V-chip, numberless Web sites and cable TV stations. And many who want TV language policed also decry the nanny state and insist they want a less intrusive federal government
The pig may be in the parlor to stay, but we still have the power to turn off the TV.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Dear Big Brother, thanks for your help keeping the pig out of the parlor all this time, but we aren’t living in 1978 anymore. You’re excused.
That was the gist of a federal appeals court ruling Tuesday on the government’s power to police indecent speech on TV.
This, as Joe Biden might say in the East Room, is a big _____ deal.
The court struck down a Federal Communications Commission policy that allows the agency to fine broadcasters for “fleeting expletives,” those stray curse words that spring spontaneously from the mouths of celebrities.
The court said the FCC’s policy was unconstitutionally vague and could chill free speech by causing broadcasters to limit what people say on TV. The ruling likely will be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The federal government has been struggling with what’s unfit for American ears at least since 2 p.m. on Oct. 30, 1973, when an FM radio station in New York played a recording of George Carlin’s 12-minute monologue, “Filthy Words,” about the seven words you couldn’t say on television.
In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could fine the station’s owner for the broadcast. The high court, emphasizing the narrowness of its ruling, used a quaint and telling analogy.
“Nuisance may be merely the right thing in the wrong place – like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard. We simply hold that when the Commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene,” the Supreme Court wrote.
Part of its rationale was that TV held “a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans” and was accessible to children, even those too young to read a newspaper.
As part of its ongoing efforts to keep the pig out of the parlor, the FCC tightened its rules following Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” and several incidents of unscripted profanity. The new rule threatened "the heart of the First Amendment," the appeals court ruled.
"By prohibiting all `patently offensive' references to sex, sexual organs and excretion without giving adequate guidance as to what `patently offensive' means, the FCC effectively chills speech, because broadcasters have no way of knowing what the FCC will find offensive," the appeals court wrote in the decision in Fox Television Stations v. FCC.
The court noted how much has changed in three decades.
“Indeed, we face a media landscape that would have been almost unrecognizable in 1978.” The Internet was known only to a few guys at the Pentagon; YouTube, Twitter and Facebook weren’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. Since January 2000, every TV 13 inches or larger has contained a V-chip, which enables parents to block TV programs based on a standard rating system. Digital converter boxes also contain the V-chip.
The Supreme Court had sent Fox Television v. FCC back to the 2nd Circuit after ruling that the FCC had not acted capriciously in changing its policy. The Supreme Court did not address the rule’s constitutionality.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps blasted the appellate court’s decision as “anti-family” and said the court focused on the policy’s chilling effect on broadcasters when it should have focused on “the chilling effect today’s decision will have on the ability of American parents to safeguard the interests of their children.”
The 32-page decision, however, portrays the FCC as wrestling over when a word is OK and when it’s indecent. Different standards prevailed for different circumstances. Words deemed OK in a news interview or a war movie like “Saving Private Ryan” would be unacceptable in a music documentary about “The Blues” or an awards program.
The appeals court cited that uncertainty in its ruling. It left open the possibility that the FCC might be able to craft a rule that is constitutional.
The case raises questions about the role of government in the 21st century. We don’t need a Big Brother censor in the world of the V-chip, numberless Web sites and cable TV stations. And many who want TV language policed also decry the nanny state and insist they want a less intrusive federal government
The pig may be in the parlor to stay, but we still have the power to turn off the TV.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Frustrations spew in oil-spill summer -- July 8, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
She was on Metro after work, heading home, when a complete stranger got in her face and blurted, “Why aren’t you in the gulf? Why aren’t you guys doing anything?”
The target of the verbal attack was a young woman whose mistake in this summer of the oil spill was wearing her federal I.D. card. It identified her as working for the Environmental Protection Agency.
No matter that she’s a gentle scientist whose area of responsibility is far from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
With up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day still spewing and no relief from the environmental crisis in sight, some people are so frustrated they’re venting their frustrations on random bureaucrats they see in Washington’s subway system.
“They take it out on the low-level people who have nothing to do with the oil spill or the clean-up,” the woman told me.
Confrontations are rare, thankfully, but without doubt the worsening oil disaster has shaken people’s confidence in government. There’s an eerie, anxious similarity to the Iran hostage crisis, when another president was tested. Jimmy Carter’s powerlessness to bring the hostages home proved to be his undoing.
Starting in November 1979, the news media began counting the days Americans were held hostage in Iran. The crisis dominated the news for 444 days and helped make Carter a one-term president. Today, media outlets count off each day of the oil disaster. President Barack Obama vows to kick someone’s ass, and oil still poisons the water and coats defenseless waterfowl. Tar balls soil beaches.
More than half of Americans disapprove of Obama’s response to the oil spill, and more than eight in 10 think BP is doing a poor job responding, an Associated Press-GfK poll found last month.
The AP also reported that some BP employees have stopped wearing the company’s green-and-yellow logo. A BP security official sent a memo warning workers to keep a low profile, watch when walking to their cars at night and avoid conversations that could turn nasty.
Taking frustration out on workers – whether for BP or the government – is senseless, of course, and won’t plug the leak. But what can we do? Jesse Jackson and others proposed a boycott of BP gas stations, but the idea turned out to be counterproductive. A boycott would hurt individual franchisees and their employees, not BP.
People expect, at the least, that the White House will fight for a cleaner environment. A report by House Republicans charged that the administration cared more for favorable public opinion than about cleanup.
A report by Republican staffers of the House oversight committee said the White House’s oil spill PR campaign had hurt the cleanup. After interviewing local officials and reviewing documents, the staffers said “the situation in the Gulf is actually more dysfunctional and dire than what has been portrayed through official reports and press accounts…This blurring of reality is exacerbating problems with the clean-up effort.”
The report said “local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand.”
It’s an election year, and the White House dismissed the GOP report. Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander, insisted that the oil spill information he has given in numerous press briefings was accurate.
For its part, the government honed its PR efforts. Allen launched a new Web site Wednesday. RestoreTheGulf.gov describes itself as the official federal portal for spill response and recovery. It provides information about state-specific cleanup efforts and a place to file claims and submit suggestions.
Already up are spill-oriented Web, Facebook and Twitter pages run by EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies. The new site will replace DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com, jointly run by BP, Transocean and 14federal agencies and departments.
A new, “streamlined” Web site may look good, but it will do little to restore public confidence. Americans won’t begin to relax until oil stops gushing, but even then, we’ll face years of cleanup.
For now, people count the days of the disaster, and one EPA employee takes off her ID card and shoves it in her purse before she gets on Metro. She doesn’t want strangers to know where she works.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
She was on Metro after work, heading home, when a complete stranger got in her face and blurted, “Why aren’t you in the gulf? Why aren’t you guys doing anything?”
The target of the verbal attack was a young woman whose mistake in this summer of the oil spill was wearing her federal I.D. card. It identified her as working for the Environmental Protection Agency.
No matter that she’s a gentle scientist whose area of responsibility is far from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
With up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day still spewing and no relief from the environmental crisis in sight, some people are so frustrated they’re venting their frustrations on random bureaucrats they see in Washington’s subway system.
“They take it out on the low-level people who have nothing to do with the oil spill or the clean-up,” the woman told me.
Confrontations are rare, thankfully, but without doubt the worsening oil disaster has shaken people’s confidence in government. There’s an eerie, anxious similarity to the Iran hostage crisis, when another president was tested. Jimmy Carter’s powerlessness to bring the hostages home proved to be his undoing.
Starting in November 1979, the news media began counting the days Americans were held hostage in Iran. The crisis dominated the news for 444 days and helped make Carter a one-term president. Today, media outlets count off each day of the oil disaster. President Barack Obama vows to kick someone’s ass, and oil still poisons the water and coats defenseless waterfowl. Tar balls soil beaches.
More than half of Americans disapprove of Obama’s response to the oil spill, and more than eight in 10 think BP is doing a poor job responding, an Associated Press-GfK poll found last month.
The AP also reported that some BP employees have stopped wearing the company’s green-and-yellow logo. A BP security official sent a memo warning workers to keep a low profile, watch when walking to their cars at night and avoid conversations that could turn nasty.
Taking frustration out on workers – whether for BP or the government – is senseless, of course, and won’t plug the leak. But what can we do? Jesse Jackson and others proposed a boycott of BP gas stations, but the idea turned out to be counterproductive. A boycott would hurt individual franchisees and their employees, not BP.
People expect, at the least, that the White House will fight for a cleaner environment. A report by House Republicans charged that the administration cared more for favorable public opinion than about cleanup.
A report by Republican staffers of the House oversight committee said the White House’s oil spill PR campaign had hurt the cleanup. After interviewing local officials and reviewing documents, the staffers said “the situation in the Gulf is actually more dysfunctional and dire than what has been portrayed through official reports and press accounts…This blurring of reality is exacerbating problems with the clean-up effort.”
The report said “local officials describe White House outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the disaster at hand.”
It’s an election year, and the White House dismissed the GOP report. Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander, insisted that the oil spill information he has given in numerous press briefings was accurate.
For its part, the government honed its PR efforts. Allen launched a new Web site Wednesday. RestoreTheGulf.gov describes itself as the official federal portal for spill response and recovery. It provides information about state-specific cleanup efforts and a place to file claims and submit suggestions.
Already up are spill-oriented Web, Facebook and Twitter pages run by EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies. The new site will replace DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com, jointly run by BP, Transocean and 14federal agencies and departments.
A new, “streamlined” Web site may look good, but it will do little to restore public confidence. Americans won’t begin to relax until oil stops gushing, but even then, we’ll face years of cleanup.
For now, people count the days of the disaster, and one EPA employee takes off her ID card and shoves it in her purse before she gets on Metro. She doesn’t want strangers to know where she works.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
SPICES for health -- AARP Bulletin
AARP and the Baptist General Convention join forces in Virginia to improve health for African Americans. Read my story on the SPICES program in the AARP Bulletin: http://bit.ly/cJifAf
Thursday, July 1, 2010
More freedom today or less? -- July 1, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Senate confirmation hearings often show us more about senators and the state of the country than about the nominee. The Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Elena Kagan was no exception.
While not suspenseful – everybody agreed Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was inevitable – the election-year hearings gave Democrats and Republicans a chance to remind core supporters why they should care.
Democrats posed questions aimed at letting the first woman Solicitor General and first woman dean of Harvard law school shine. Republicans tried to provoke her into saying something – anything! – revelatory of her political or personal views.
Kagan, though, wasn’t into confession. Through 500 questions during 17 hours on the hot seat, she remained calm, confident and deft with a quip.
But the hearings did reveal a sharp contrast in views about a quintessentially American theme: freedom.
An exchange involving Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Amy Klochubar, D-Minn., exposed a fault line around the question: Are Americans freer today than 30 years ago?
Coburn, a physician from Muskogee who is 62, thinks not. He waxed nostalgic about Americans’ freedom in 1980 and asked Kagan how her freedom three decades ago compares with her freedom today.
Kagan stalled. She hadn’t really thought about that before, she said. “How old was I 30 years ago?”
“You were 20,” Coburn supplied helpfully.
Coburn argues that health-care reform, with its requirement that individuals purchase health insurance, impinges on personal freedom. He likened the health-insurance requirement to a hypothetical congressional mandate that people eat three fruits and three vegetables a day. Would such a law be constitutional? he asked.
That would be a “dumb law,” Kagan said, sidestepping.
Coburn and other conservatives blame overreaching government programs for Americans’ waning confidence in government. Only 22 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress, he said.
“A lot of Americans are losing confidence because they’re losing freedom,” Coburn opined.
Enter Klochubar, who like Kagan was 20 in 1980. She called Coburn out on the freedom question.
“Were we really more free, if you were a woman in 1980?” Klochubar asked.
In 1980, there was only one woman in the Senate and no women on the Supreme Court. A woman senator did not get a seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee until after Anita Hill testified in Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.
Freedom, Klochubar said, is in the eye of the beholder.
And Kagan, who hadn’t answered Coburn directly, allowed that women do have more freedom today.
Klochubar asked Kagan about progress toward women’s equality. Women make up 50 percent of law school students around the country, but very few have attained leadership roles, Kagan said. There’s also not enough diversity in law firms, said Kagan, who avoided blaming anyone but cited structural obstacles, such as how to balance work and family.
We hear little today about government’s role in achieving women’s equality or freedom. These days, most of the loud talk about freedom comes from the political right. Polls find that large groups of voters are frustrated and fear their rights are being eroded. Republicans and tea-partiers decry President Obama’s policies as usurping individual rights. Talk show hosts dine regularly on the demise of freedom.
“We’re watching freedom evaporate and erode every day right in front of our eyes,” Rush Limbaugh declared the other day.
Nearly half of Americans – 48 percent -- see the government as a threat to individual rights rather than as a protector of those rights, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey.
And yet, the survey shows a sharp partisan divide. Among Republicans, 74 percent consider government a threat to individual rights. Among Democrats, however, 64 percent regard government as a protector of rights.
Notably, Democrats see Arizona’s anti-immigrant law as eroding civil rights. The American Civil Liberties Union, whose slogan is “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself,” urges supporters to donate because, “The need has never been greater for freedom-loving people to support the ACLU.”
Those who decide elections are split too. The Rasmussen survey found 51 percent of independent or unaffiliated voters believe government is a threat to individual rights.
Interestingly, “men strongly believe it is more important for the government to protect individual rights, while women are almost evenly divided on the question,” according to the survey.
Here’s a question for your next backyard barbecue: Are Americans freer today than 30 years ago?
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Senate confirmation hearings often show us more about senators and the state of the country than about the nominee. The Judiciary Committee’s questioning of Elena Kagan was no exception.
While not suspenseful – everybody agreed Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was inevitable – the election-year hearings gave Democrats and Republicans a chance to remind core supporters why they should care.
Democrats posed questions aimed at letting the first woman Solicitor General and first woman dean of Harvard law school shine. Republicans tried to provoke her into saying something – anything! – revelatory of her political or personal views.
Kagan, though, wasn’t into confession. Through 500 questions during 17 hours on the hot seat, she remained calm, confident and deft with a quip.
But the hearings did reveal a sharp contrast in views about a quintessentially American theme: freedom.
An exchange involving Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Amy Klochubar, D-Minn., exposed a fault line around the question: Are Americans freer today than 30 years ago?
Coburn, a physician from Muskogee who is 62, thinks not. He waxed nostalgic about Americans’ freedom in 1980 and asked Kagan how her freedom three decades ago compares with her freedom today.
Kagan stalled. She hadn’t really thought about that before, she said. “How old was I 30 years ago?”
“You were 20,” Coburn supplied helpfully.
Coburn argues that health-care reform, with its requirement that individuals purchase health insurance, impinges on personal freedom. He likened the health-insurance requirement to a hypothetical congressional mandate that people eat three fruits and three vegetables a day. Would such a law be constitutional? he asked.
That would be a “dumb law,” Kagan said, sidestepping.
Coburn and other conservatives blame overreaching government programs for Americans’ waning confidence in government. Only 22 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress, he said.
“A lot of Americans are losing confidence because they’re losing freedom,” Coburn opined.
Enter Klochubar, who like Kagan was 20 in 1980. She called Coburn out on the freedom question.
“Were we really more free, if you were a woman in 1980?” Klochubar asked.
In 1980, there was only one woman in the Senate and no women on the Supreme Court. A woman senator did not get a seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee until after Anita Hill testified in Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.
Freedom, Klochubar said, is in the eye of the beholder.
And Kagan, who hadn’t answered Coburn directly, allowed that women do have more freedom today.
Klochubar asked Kagan about progress toward women’s equality. Women make up 50 percent of law school students around the country, but very few have attained leadership roles, Kagan said. There’s also not enough diversity in law firms, said Kagan, who avoided blaming anyone but cited structural obstacles, such as how to balance work and family.
We hear little today about government’s role in achieving women’s equality or freedom. These days, most of the loud talk about freedom comes from the political right. Polls find that large groups of voters are frustrated and fear their rights are being eroded. Republicans and tea-partiers decry President Obama’s policies as usurping individual rights. Talk show hosts dine regularly on the demise of freedom.
“We’re watching freedom evaporate and erode every day right in front of our eyes,” Rush Limbaugh declared the other day.
Nearly half of Americans – 48 percent -- see the government as a threat to individual rights rather than as a protector of those rights, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey.
And yet, the survey shows a sharp partisan divide. Among Republicans, 74 percent consider government a threat to individual rights. Among Democrats, however, 64 percent regard government as a protector of rights.
Notably, Democrats see Arizona’s anti-immigrant law as eroding civil rights. The American Civil Liberties Union, whose slogan is “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself,” urges supporters to donate because, “The need has never been greater for freedom-loving people to support the ACLU.”
Those who decide elections are split too. The Rasmussen survey found 51 percent of independent or unaffiliated voters believe government is a threat to individual rights.
Interestingly, “men strongly believe it is more important for the government to protect individual rights, while women are almost evenly divided on the question,” according to the survey.
Here’s a question for your next backyard barbecue: Are Americans freer today than 30 years ago?
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Reclaiming Declaration's promise -- June 24, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Independence Day brings more than a long holiday weekend for cookouts and concerts, flags and fireworks. This year, especially, it’s a chance to step back from our cares and reflect on the inspiring history of our country.
Recent polls confirm a sobering fact: Americans are less optimistic than we were a decade ago or even last year. Nearly two in three Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. People are angry, and they want change. Generally viewed in political terms, the sour national mood affects more than the fall elections; it speaks to our national identity. We need a tonic.
On the 234th anniversary of our severing ties with Great Britain, we can reclaim the promise of the Declaration of Independence and savor its assertion of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We don’t need to shout, wave Old Glory or wear a flag pin – but we also need not take as gospel Samuel Johnson’s line that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Everybody loses when only the grumpiest speak out about what it means to love this country.
Negativity pays, of course. Commentators make a handsome living tearing down our leaders and dividing us from one another. And there’s no shortage of people to blame after years of recession, joblessness, housing and energy crises, and war on two fronts.
In April, 64 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about life for themselves and their families over the next 40 years. That number was down substantially from 1999 when 81 percent said they were optimistic.
Asked about the long-term future of the United States, in April 61 percent were optimistic and 36 percent pessimistic. A decade ago, 70 percent were optimistic.
The survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press and Smithsonian magazine also found several upbeat predictions. People think that by 2050 we’ll find a cure for cancer, ordinary people will travel in space, and computers will chat like humans.
And yet, the future holds bleak prospects too. Many under 30 expect World War III by 2050. People expect a warmer planet, energy shortages and the risk of a major nuclear attack on the United States, the Pew survey reported.
As for the economy, 56 percent predicted it will be stronger in 2050. But that was down from 64 percent in 1999. Bear in mind that this recession began in December 2007. In 1999, we were enjoying the longest-lasting economic expansion in decades.
The Pew survey was taken just after the Gulf oil spill occurred. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted June 17 to 21 found majorities dissatisfied with the spill response by the federal government, Congress and BP. President Barack Obama’s job approval rating, 70 percent when he took office, dropped to a dismal 45 percent.
But tough times shouldn’t stop us from commemorating how far we’ve come.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail from Philadelphia that the “Declaration of Independency” should be celebrated by succeeding generations as a great festival “with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” I’ve modernized his spelling and punctuation.
Across the country, Independence Day means parades and patriotic music and readings. In Washington, the National Archives -- where the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights are on display -- will extend viewing hours until 9 p.m. on July 2, 3 and 4.
Adams, clear-eyed about the new country, wrote his wife, “You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states.
“Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”
In 2010, as we endure our own troubles, we could do worse than reread the Declaration and recommit ourselves its promise: “For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Independence Day brings more than a long holiday weekend for cookouts and concerts, flags and fireworks. This year, especially, it’s a chance to step back from our cares and reflect on the inspiring history of our country.
Recent polls confirm a sobering fact: Americans are less optimistic than we were a decade ago or even last year. Nearly two in three Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. People are angry, and they want change. Generally viewed in political terms, the sour national mood affects more than the fall elections; it speaks to our national identity. We need a tonic.
On the 234th anniversary of our severing ties with Great Britain, we can reclaim the promise of the Declaration of Independence and savor its assertion of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We don’t need to shout, wave Old Glory or wear a flag pin – but we also need not take as gospel Samuel Johnson’s line that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Everybody loses when only the grumpiest speak out about what it means to love this country.
Negativity pays, of course. Commentators make a handsome living tearing down our leaders and dividing us from one another. And there’s no shortage of people to blame after years of recession, joblessness, housing and energy crises, and war on two fronts.
In April, 64 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about life for themselves and their families over the next 40 years. That number was down substantially from 1999 when 81 percent said they were optimistic.
Asked about the long-term future of the United States, in April 61 percent were optimistic and 36 percent pessimistic. A decade ago, 70 percent were optimistic.
The survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press and Smithsonian magazine also found several upbeat predictions. People think that by 2050 we’ll find a cure for cancer, ordinary people will travel in space, and computers will chat like humans.
And yet, the future holds bleak prospects too. Many under 30 expect World War III by 2050. People expect a warmer planet, energy shortages and the risk of a major nuclear attack on the United States, the Pew survey reported.
As for the economy, 56 percent predicted it will be stronger in 2050. But that was down from 64 percent in 1999. Bear in mind that this recession began in December 2007. In 1999, we were enjoying the longest-lasting economic expansion in decades.
The Pew survey was taken just after the Gulf oil spill occurred. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted June 17 to 21 found majorities dissatisfied with the spill response by the federal government, Congress and BP. President Barack Obama’s job approval rating, 70 percent when he took office, dropped to a dismal 45 percent.
But tough times shouldn’t stop us from commemorating how far we’ve come.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail from Philadelphia that the “Declaration of Independency” should be celebrated by succeeding generations as a great festival “with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” I’ve modernized his spelling and punctuation.
Across the country, Independence Day means parades and patriotic music and readings. In Washington, the National Archives -- where the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights are on display -- will extend viewing hours until 9 p.m. on July 2, 3 and 4.
Adams, clear-eyed about the new country, wrote his wife, “You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states.
“Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”
In 2010, as we endure our own troubles, we could do worse than reread the Declaration and recommit ourselves its promise: “For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Is Gulf Coast our 21st century Appalachia? -- June 17, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Barack Obama was not yet born in 1960 when young John F. Kennedy, campaigning for president in West Virginia, saw hungry children, men without jobs or hope, and streets with boarded-up houses.
Stunned by the poverty and grateful for the landslide victory the state’s Protestant voters gave him in the primary, Kennedy never forgot. As president, he steered the nation on a path to boost economic development in Appalachia that’s still going strong after half a century.
Today, another young president’s eyes have been opened to devastation in a different region. Stung by criticism that he has shown too little emotion about the BP oil spill, President Obama is making the Gulf Coast his Appalachia. After several visits to the Gulf Coast to assess the widening damage, Obama Tuesday declared “a commitment to the Gulf Coast that goes beyond responding to the crisis of the moment.”
Beyond BP’s compensation for people whose livelihoods have been disrupted, Obama said in his Oval Office address, “it’s also clear we need a long-term plan to restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.”
In April 1963, JFK created what became known as the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission and called for an economic development action plan. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Appalachian Regional Development Act. Every president since has sent millions of dollars to the region to fight poverty and create economic growth.
Now comes Obama, who has named Ray Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi, to work with states, communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents to design a long-term Gulf Coast restoration plan.
Few details of what Obama envisions have emerged, but one thing is clear. He’s setting a priority that could long outlast his time in the White House.
Obama says he wants to help Gulf Coast residents recover from the economic disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to help people keep the way of life generations have enjoyed. The twin tasks of repairing the environment and the economy will be harder than fighting poverty in Appalachia.
A key difference between aid for the Gulf Coast and Appalachia is the source of the money. Obama insists that BP will foot the bills for Gulf Coast restoration. And yet, taxpayers often wind up footing bills they didn’t see coming.
Environmental damage to the fragile Gulf Coast region began long before the oil spill. Louisiana loses a football field of land every 38 minutes, the Associated Press reported. Obama proposed $40 million in his 2011 budget to begin restoring the Louisiana and Mississippi coast. Also under discussion is a massive, multi-billion-dollar project to redirect the flow of the Mississippi River and save wetlands.
In the days before 24-7 news and underwater Web cams, a book pricked America’s conscience. In 1962, “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” by Harry M. Caudill about poverty in Kentucky shocked readers about life in the mountains. People found it unacceptable that Appalachians lived in deplorable conditions while many others basked in 1950s’ prosperity.
Typically, few people consider how much or how long we’ll pay to fix a problem. It’s safe to say nobody imagined millions of dollars would pour into Appalachia indefinitely. Obama in his 2011 budget proposed $76 million for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership.
To be sure, as agency budgets go, $76 million is small change. Nobody is suggesting it’s time to pull the plug on Appalachia. The regional commission gets good marks for administration, and there’s much work to be done. Appalachia, whose boundaries have been expanded over the years to include parts of 13 states ranging from southern New York to northeastern Mississippi, still has not achieved economic parity with the rest of the country. The recession has hit parts of Appalachia especially hard.
We will never know what would have happened in Appalachia had JFK not lifted up West Virginia and neighboring states. Conditions might be far worse than the double-digit joblessness that plagues many counties.
In 2010, a different region and a new crisis have captured our imaginations. Our hearts break over the plight of fishermen and sealife. Once again, Americans are compassionate. We’re emotional. We demand action on behalf of oil disaster victims.
But emotion is easy; accountability is hard. We need success.
Otherwise, Americans not yet born today will wonder in 50 years why Appalachia and the Gulf Coast are still suffering.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Barack Obama was not yet born in 1960 when young John F. Kennedy, campaigning for president in West Virginia, saw hungry children, men without jobs or hope, and streets with boarded-up houses.
Stunned by the poverty and grateful for the landslide victory the state’s Protestant voters gave him in the primary, Kennedy never forgot. As president, he steered the nation on a path to boost economic development in Appalachia that’s still going strong after half a century.
Today, another young president’s eyes have been opened to devastation in a different region. Stung by criticism that he has shown too little emotion about the BP oil spill, President Obama is making the Gulf Coast his Appalachia. After several visits to the Gulf Coast to assess the widening damage, Obama Tuesday declared “a commitment to the Gulf Coast that goes beyond responding to the crisis of the moment.”
Beyond BP’s compensation for people whose livelihoods have been disrupted, Obama said in his Oval Office address, “it’s also clear we need a long-term plan to restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.”
In April 1963, JFK created what became known as the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission and called for an economic development action plan. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Appalachian Regional Development Act. Every president since has sent millions of dollars to the region to fight poverty and create economic growth.
Now comes Obama, who has named Ray Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi, to work with states, communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents to design a long-term Gulf Coast restoration plan.
Few details of what Obama envisions have emerged, but one thing is clear. He’s setting a priority that could long outlast his time in the White House.
Obama says he wants to help Gulf Coast residents recover from the economic disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to help people keep the way of life generations have enjoyed. The twin tasks of repairing the environment and the economy will be harder than fighting poverty in Appalachia.
A key difference between aid for the Gulf Coast and Appalachia is the source of the money. Obama insists that BP will foot the bills for Gulf Coast restoration. And yet, taxpayers often wind up footing bills they didn’t see coming.
Environmental damage to the fragile Gulf Coast region began long before the oil spill. Louisiana loses a football field of land every 38 minutes, the Associated Press reported. Obama proposed $40 million in his 2011 budget to begin restoring the Louisiana and Mississippi coast. Also under discussion is a massive, multi-billion-dollar project to redirect the flow of the Mississippi River and save wetlands.
In the days before 24-7 news and underwater Web cams, a book pricked America’s conscience. In 1962, “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” by Harry M. Caudill about poverty in Kentucky shocked readers about life in the mountains. People found it unacceptable that Appalachians lived in deplorable conditions while many others basked in 1950s’ prosperity.
Typically, few people consider how much or how long we’ll pay to fix a problem. It’s safe to say nobody imagined millions of dollars would pour into Appalachia indefinitely. Obama in his 2011 budget proposed $76 million for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership.
To be sure, as agency budgets go, $76 million is small change. Nobody is suggesting it’s time to pull the plug on Appalachia. The regional commission gets good marks for administration, and there’s much work to be done. Appalachia, whose boundaries have been expanded over the years to include parts of 13 states ranging from southern New York to northeastern Mississippi, still has not achieved economic parity with the rest of the country. The recession has hit parts of Appalachia especially hard.
We will never know what would have happened in Appalachia had JFK not lifted up West Virginia and neighboring states. Conditions might be far worse than the double-digit joblessness that plagues many counties.
In 2010, a different region and a new crisis have captured our imaginations. Our hearts break over the plight of fishermen and sealife. Once again, Americans are compassionate. We’re emotional. We demand action on behalf of oil disaster victims.
But emotion is easy; accountability is hard. We need success.
Otherwise, Americans not yet born today will wonder in 50 years why Appalachia and the Gulf Coast are still suffering.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
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