- I heard several lines from John Edwards' convention speech
on the radio before I clicked it off. Anymore and I would have vomited.
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- As it was, I experienced a horrible flashback to being
a twelve-year old at the Midwest Baptists' Camp Sycamore, sitting in the
sweltering cinderblock meeting hall, shirt stuck to the back of a card-table
chair, while a strutting little preacher sprayed beads of sweat and globs
of spit into the twilight yelling about hell.
-
- John Edwards is pure Elmer Gantry.
-
- Well, what would you expect from a guy who spent twenty
years chasing ambulances, looking for deep pockets to sue, always waving
his arms and smiling like a chipmunk? America's litigation lawyers and
its evangelists-for-profit have a lot in common, and when they come from
places like Dog Bite, North Carolina, it's almost impossible to tell them
apart. There's always a syrupy sweet exterior, the beneficent smile - just
think of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson - in the ruthless pursuit of things
that human society would be better off without.
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- Here's a few lines from John's official site on how he
sees his career:
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- For 20 years, John dedicated his career to representing
families and children hurt by the negligence of others. Standing up against
the powerful insurance industry and their armies of lawyers, John helped
these families through the darkest moments of their lives to overcome tremendous
challenges. His passionate advocacy for people like the folks who worked
in the mill with his father earned him respect and recognition across the
country.
-
- That sounds like a promo for the next episode of "Rescuing
Little Nell from the Clutches of Snidely Whiplash." Of course, it's
what the words don't say that is often important. Why did John only stand
up for "families and children"? Is there something wrong with
representing people without families or children? Of course not, but his
language is reclaimed manure from the Republican family-values compost
heap.
-
- John stood against armies of lawyers? No, actually John
swelled the ranks of lawyers who now swarm America like the aftereffect
of a lab-accident release of killer bees, spreading conflict and fear everywhere
they appear. The blurb doesn't say that in twenty years John had made himself
a very rich man through litigation, that is by helping to raise insurance
premiums for everyone, but that's the truth. "Standing up against
the powerful insurance industry" could just as well read, "Mining
the huge revenues of the insurance industry for all he could haul away."
-
- Like any of America's current crop of crocodile-tear
evangelists hoping to witness a repeat of the miracle of the loaves and
fishes from a collection plate, John helped families through their "darkest
moments," just managing to accumulate a fortune by the time he was
in his forties. Well, I'm not against success, just against misrepresenting
what it is you did.
-
- Since most litigation is socially disruptive and economically
unproductive, there is something particularly disturbing about one of its
predatory practitioners seeking high office. After all, it is the abject
failure of American legislators to provide sufficient enlightened laws
and decent regulations that makes the threatening jungle where litigation
flourishes.
-
- Reading the balance of John's speech on the Internet
had the advantage of not having to hear his backwoods, folksy tone and
watch his flamboyant, well-practiced gestures, but I still quickly grasped
why John was so successful at litigation. People would settle just to escape
having to hear him for months in court. My favorite passage of his speech
is this:
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- When you wake up and sit with your kids at the kitchen
table, talking to them about the great possibilities in America, you make
sure that they know that John and I believe at our core that tomorrow can
be better than today. Like all of us, I have learned a lot of lessons in
my life. Two of the most important are that first, there will always be
heartache and struggle"you can,t make it go away. But the other is
that people of good and strong will can make a difference. One lesson is
a sad lesson and the other,s inspiring. We are Americans and we choose
to be inspired
-
- Apart from the fact that half of all America's marriages
end in divorce, you could never convince me that there are many of the
remaining families who sit around a breakfast table talking up "the
great possibilities of America." Can't you just see squirming kids,
screaming about how someone ate all the Lucky Charms or what a jerk the
math teacher is, falling silent as a father decides to lift his Lincolnesque
brows, perhaps having offered the blessing for the morning's Pop Tarts,
to invoke the great possibilities of America? Doesn't that sound just a
little bizarre? If this is what happens at John's house, you should be
afraid of his holding office. If this isn't what happens at John's house,
why is he saying it?
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- The truth is, and I'm sure John knows this, few families
even sit together at the breakfast table in America, and, if they do, there's
a better-than-even chance that a television is mindlessly blaring the whole
time. As for millions of poor families, there is no breakfast on the table.
Isn't that why Head Start supplies the kids with food at school? Even in
suburban middle-class families, it's all they can do to each make it out
of the door on time with rush-hour commutes and drop-offs for the privileged
kids' heavy schedule of activities.
-
- And how do like that injunction about adding to the breakfast-table
sermon, "you make sure that they know that John and I believe at our
core that tomorrow can be better than today." John and I believe at
our core? Why can't they just believe? Why must it be at their core, whatever
that means? The word suggests a nuclear reactor rather than a human being.
Anyway, more than a few disturbed personalities in history lay claim to
some kind of mystical core something-or-other. Frankly, this statement
is so patronizing and ridiculous, it makes me wonder about John's rationality.
-
- And what does John mean about tomorrow being better than
today? It resembles the words of a certain old American religious huckster
who used to open his pitch for money by saying "Something GOOD is
going to happen to YOU!" But it is worse than that, because it is
so utterly implausible and silly. He is giving you an injunction to talk
seriously to your kids about the fatuous advertising claims of two bought-and-paid-for
politicians.
-
- John has one or more mini-sermons in almost every brief
passage. You'd think he was running for church deacon instead of high political
office. I like his great first lesson, "there will always be heartache
and struggle"you can,t make it go away." Is that what the leaders
of a great nation are supposed to talk about? Do we need national elections
to hear lines borrowed from Oprah Winfrey?
-
- Then there's, "But the other is that people of good
and strong will can make a difference. One lesson is a sad lesson and the
other,s inspiring. We are Americans and we choose to be inspired."
-
- John probably has in mind the kind of "inspired"
a preacher talks about, as the inspired Word of God. That kind of inspired
allows of no mistakes, because God can't make any. It also allows of no
questions or critics. Nice stuff for a politician to embrace - feel self-righteous
while effectively telling people to shut-up.
-
- In the real world, and it is the job of politicians to
deal with the real world, inspired is not always a sound state of mind.
Inspired about what? Inspired to do what? People are just as likely to
be inspired to do terrible things as good things. The word is often used
by the flunkies of great tyrants. Germans regularly used the word to describe
Der Fu"hrer. The ghastly blood-letting of Vietnam was inspired by
a loopy, religious-like belief in the need to stop communism. Would you
say that that smiling humbug, Pat Robertson, was inspired when he recently
advocated America's invading Iran to overthrow the heathens?
-
- The passage is full of question-begging phrases. Make
a difference to what? I can't help thinking of the cliche about the path
to hell being paved with good intentions. Sorry, John, but there's no shortage
of leaders with strong wills in the world, and each of them believes in
his own goodness. That fact is almost certainly one of the human race's
true curses.
-
- The rest of John's speech is sprinkled with soul-deadening
cliches and even contradictions. At one point, he said, "I stand here
tonight ready to work with you and John [Kerry] to make America strong
again." Well, I think the last thing any thinking person on the planet
wants are people working to make America stronger. America has destabilized
two countries, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, tortured, and
improperly imprisoned simply because it had the power to do so. Power is
like that, as Lord Acton so wisely said, it corrupts. Chase after enough
of it, and you get absolute corruption.
-
- John's speech takes on the theme of two Americas, and
were he to deal with the genuine problem of two distinct and separate societies
in America (actually, I think it is three, including the wealthy class
represented by all the Presidential candidates)), he might have said something
worthwhile. John tells us: "Because the truth is, we still live in
two different Americas: one for people who have lived the American Dream
and don,t have to worry, and another for most Americans who work hard and
still struggle to make ends meet. It doesn,t have to be that way."
But it was John himself who already told us how struggle and difficulties
won't go away, so what's he saying?
-
- On education, John says: "We shouldn't have two
public school systems in this country: one for the most affluent communities,
and one for everybody else. None of us believe that the quality of a child,s
education should be controlled by where they live or the affluence of their
community."
-
- John must know perfectly well that education is not primarily
a responsibility of the federal government under America's 18th-century
Constitution, so what's he talking about? What does he propose to do to
change a situation where some suburban high schools have PhDs teaching
and classes enjoy trips to Europe, while urban schools have labs with rusted
taps and Bunsen burners that don't work?
-
- The truth is that all good things in America, including
medical care and political influence, are rationed according to ability
to pay. So why would education be any different?
-
- John adds: "We shouldn't have two different economies
in America: one for people who are set for life, their kids and grandkids
will be just fine, and then one for most Americans who live paycheck to
paycheck." What does that mean, beyond populist hot air? I have no
idea, and I suspect John doesn't either.
-
- Here's Preacher John on adversity and hardship: "and
you know what happens if something goes wrong"a child gets sick, somebody
gets laid off, or there,s a financial problem, you go right off the cliff.
And what,s the first thing to go? Your dreams." Your dreams? I really
think dreams are the last thing people experiencing hardship worry about.
They are worried about getting through with a shred of dignity, perhaps
about surviving. Is John offering them genuine help or an airy hand-out
of dreams and inspiration?
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- Here's a few selected gems from Preacher John on 9/11:
-
- We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes,
to make sure that never happens again, not to our America. We will strengthen
our homeland security and protect our ports, safeguard our chemical plants,
and support our firefighters, police officers and EMT,s. We will always
use our military might to keep the American people safe.And we will have
one clear unmistakable message for al Qaida and the rest of these terrorists.
You cannot run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you.
-
- Does John think there are people in America - other than
its substantial population of militia types, survivalists, millenarianists,
and those looking forward to Armageddan - who want that to happen again?
Does he think there's people, other than the two million or so in America's
prisons, who don't support police?
-
- John's promise to hunt down terrorists is pure comic-book
superhero, and isn't it exactly what the delusional Bush believes he's
been doing all along? What does John propose that is different? He says
absolutely nothing about using proper diplomatic and legal channels to
hunt down violent criminals or about strengthening international institutions.
No, it's all America this and America that, the same totally narcissistic
stuff that's making the world sick of hearing from America. Nobody wants
a friend who only talks about himself and refuses to help anyone except
on his own terms, but Americans like John think those same qualities somehow
become attractive traits in world relations. Like his partner-candidate,
Kerry, he promises only more threats about not hesitating to use the military
to kill more people.
-
- Keep in mind that John, sitting as he does on a Senate
intelligence committee, has an extremely high intelligence clearance and
ask yourself what he was able to forecast or advocate either before or
after 9/11. Not much is the answer. John's pet project now is to start
a new domestic spy agency - still another multi-billion-dollar agency on
top the vast existing network of intrusive agencies and one dedicated specifically
to spying on the homeland's residents. Does that sound like someone genuinely
concerned about rights and freedoms? Someone should ask John if he is committed
to rescinding the execrable Patriot Act, but I doubt he'd receive an honest
answer.
-
- Having Preacher John teamed up with Kerry - that drearily
ambitious man whose concept of bravery ran to shooting civilians safely
from a riverboat in Vietnam - leaves me with a bleak outlook for America
and thereby the world. That this dishonest pair and the insipid Bush are
the best America offers as leaders says something terrible about that frighteningly-powerful
nation: it suffers a devastating poverty of imagination and spirit.
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