It seems you have to be a $$billionaire$$ to run for president. Possibly just a millionaire but preferably a billionaire. It was such a touching moment during the 2nd Presidential debate when billionaire Kerry found common ground with billionaire Bush and surprising contender "Charlie" (ABC moderator Charles Gibson) as the three people in the room who might suffer financially from rolling back a Bush tax cut for the rich.
You can't help but think that there is a bit of common ground lost with the voting public when all the candidates are billionaires. And it is not just in the USA. New Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin is either a millionaire or possibly even a billionaire. The reason is that it is hard for a non-billionaire primarily concerned with the rolling fortunes of a risk-infused bank balance to adopt the mindset of a billionaire.
So what you have with these debates is a schooled at Yale billionaire's boys club performing in front of a nervous general public audience struggling to read Q-cards, often mispronouncing their own questions. You feel Bush's backroom boys told him to be assertive. Sometimes it seemed Bush walked that fine line between assertive and scary, out-of-breath, crazy-eyed fiend. You had to wonder if Bush didn't dip into a stash of some nasty hydroponic Canadian BC Bud when he was practicing but opted not to on national tv and paid the price. It seemed even more possible when he disclosed:
"When a drug comes in from Canada I want to make sure it cures ya and it doesn't kill ya. My worry is that it looks like it comes from Canada but it comes from a different part of the world."
So the obvious answer my friends is to sample. Just a thought. And from that assertive occasionally raged into crazy-eyes. Kerry took a different approach, playing with the farce, like a billionaire plays with solid gold juggling balls. He got a question from an audience member asking him to look straight into the camera and declare he won't raise taxes. So Kerry looked straight into the camera which had to be looking straight at him because of the nature of the question. Hence he grabbed some straight in the camera time with America. Tricky. Tricky. But not so tricky that your average viewer doesn't see straight through it. It's easy to dislike Bush's machismo but poor Kerry remains difficult to like.
I think one of the problems with attacking tax cuts for billionaires is that this is the stable of the American dream. By going after the top 1% of financial earners Kerry is going after the Valhalla, Eldorado, and Graceland of citizen aspirations. It's like introducing a new lottery by describing how the winners will be persecuted and asking for the support of all the participants. Nobody wants to go after a winner because secretly we all be believe we will be winners one day. It is one of the often unspoken pillars of capitalism. By nature of 1% there's limited room at the top but we secretly think we can all fit in there, like high school kids into a Volkswagen. Take that pillar away and the game gets a lot less attractive for a lot of players.
Everyone has an opinion on Iraq ranging from crooked and illegal occupation to the libertarian deliverance of freedom. It really is the trickiest topic to address. But couple it with the pathetic responses Kerry and Bush gave to Jim Lehrer on the topic of Sudan during the first debate (both agreed studiously that it was genocide, shaking their helpless heads) and you can frame these topics. Political leaders massaging the levers of power should recognize that rhetoric of any kind is only as believable as the maxim of their actions. As in Emmanuel Kant's epic categorical imperative: "Always act so that you can will the maxim of your action to become universal law". What a beauty! Implicit to this moral law is that there are two universes: the phenomenal world of experience, and the noumenal world of reason. We live in these worlds and experience good and evil. An act that you would by willing that anyone or everyone should perform is a good act. His law demands that everyone act at all times as though he/she were the ruling monarch of the universe and the principle of his/her action would automatically become the principal of the action of everyone. IIt sound like a free pass to become leader of the free world.
And as such we can look to the opinions on Iraq and Sudan expressed by Bush and Kerry during the first two debates in this philosophical light. Kerry scores first by attacking Bush in a bully light. The underlying text decrying the possibility that at some future date, in India/Pakistan, North/South Korea, China/Taiwan more bullies will emerge, pointing to precedent. You went unilaterally into Iraq to protect your interests and we are now doing the same. We are also too strong to be stopped. Bullies on the rampage all licking their lips at the savaging of the UN that occurred under Bush's watch.
But when we look further to the issue of Sudan, Kerry's false start on Iraq crumbles, and the maxim of his action descends to dwell with dour and hostile Bush. Neither man distinguishes himself in dodging questions on the topic, speaking of non-existent African forces, and shaking their heads with such a serious shake.
Kant's law demands that we set the standard for others through our actions. So the standard is that we can walk in anywhere we like and bully whoever we like over whatever we like. And the standard is also that we will not come to the aid of those in desperate need of our available support unless there is an obvious advantage to our interests. Oh please. Why do you have to set the bar so high? Whatever will future generations do to improve these lofty standards?
For a better example you can return to the Crusades of the 12th century described brilliantly by James Reston Jr in Warriors of God:
"The King was a very giant in the field, and was everywhere in the field -- now here, now there, wherever the attacks of the Turks raged the hottest," reported a chronicler until unbelievably he was unhorsed!
"Sire, see him there! On foot!" one of the Arabian Sultan Saladin's sergeants shouted to his lord excitedly. Saladin had seen it all.
And turning to his brother el Melek el-Adel, he said "Go. Take my two swiftest Arabian horses and lead them to him. Tell him that I send them to him, and that a man so great as he is should not be in parts such as these, on foot, with his men."
"It was the crowning act of chivalry in the entire Third Crusade. The present was 'for the brave deeds he had done and all the prowess he had won,' el-Adel said when he reached Richard in the melee. He requested only that the King remember the gift later should he be so lucky as to return from the battle alive."
So not only was Saladin victorious in vanquishing the crusaders from Holy lands but he also established precedent in a maxim of action. The bar needs to be set high by nature of leadership. Saladin and Richard the Lionheart understood that but do the current presidential candidates? What if a candidate suddenly announced that they were heading to Sudan to restore the people and land to safety in the interest of a common humanity. Their suffering is our suffering, your suffering is mine. Would it blow the lid off the rhetoric or would the polling numbers crumble. I have no idea. But I'd like to find out.
Labels: literature, politics
