PEACEMAKING AND VIOLENCE IN THE HEALTHCARE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 24, 2009
I have my utopian visions. I wish that we had single-payer medical care, with all medical personnel on salary, all medical facilities not for profit, and all higher education including medical training free of charge. Although I’ve never been quite sure what political labels mean, I am aware that much of what I wish for places me with “progressives,” “the left,” and makes me “liberal” (or worse).
Early this Christmas Eve morning the U.S. Senate passed a healthcare bill. It has been a messy process. The next step for legislators is to try to reconcile the Senate bill with the House bill. Who knows what new healthcare law, if any, will emerge.
In this the Northern Hemisphere’s season of rebirth, I have been reflecting on my own position, and indeed on the posture I have taken on my “peacemaking” blog. The bulk of my posts have been critical, notwithstanding my posture as one who would learn how to build positive human relations in the face of violence. Last night as I lay in bed to go to sleep, I was struck with the irony that despite my frustration with many of the provisions in the Senate bill, it is a product of the very peacemaking process I advocate as an antidote to violence.
To me, violence is attachment to or fixation on substantive outcome in our relations. In my own relations, notably in the classroom and in victim-offender mediation, I have celebrated surprise, as in what issues are addressed and as in mediation, in outcomes I could not have anticipated. I have noted that when political battles have been won in my favor, backlash (or in CIA-speak “blowback”) has swamped gains I have celebrated. Notably, a consequence of U.S. surrender in Vietnam and degradation and humiliation of President Nixon resulted, I believe, in draconian sentencing laws domestically in the late seventies, and in the landslide victory and worship of a bellicose, corporate-profit-worshiping and re-election of the Reagan administration. Humiliate your political opponents, kill and terrorize your “terrorists,” and they will come back to bite you.
In the face of that historical reality, of what happens in the wake of what Marx called political rather than human emancipation, I remind myself that political like military victory does not pay. I remind myself that in any political process, from response to disagreements with my students or victim-offender differences, the most gratifying responses to entrenched positions are in Roger Fisher’s words “getting to yes!” as participants in political/military processes move from position to negotiating interests a step at a time.
So it is for me now with healthcare legislation. If people can no longer be denied insurance or have it taken away on grounds that they are poor insurance risks, that is to me real, unanticipated progress. While President Obama hedges on campaign promises for a public health insurance option, I find myself concluding, with him, that his approach may do more to resolve healthcare violence in the United States than the Clinton position of trying to dictate law to members of Congress. As I have so often preached, as in the classroom, peacemaking is a process, not an outcome. In life there is no peace, only stepping away from entrenched political positions.
I do not consider myself a Democrat any more than I consider myself a liberal, but I do consider the position of Republicans in Congress to constitute violence, attachment to outcome, in extremis. I guess that makes me about as partisan as Joe Liberman, Ben Nelson, and Bernie Sanders.
For all the negativity I have posted at pepinsky.blogspot.com, in this holiday season, I celebrate the capacity of U.S. senators under a Democratic umbrella to shift from position to interest, negotiating beyond political impasse. I remind myself: trust the process, not the result. Merry Christmas. Love and peace--hal
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Bernie Sanders and Evo Morales: my heroes
Every now and then a truly independent, personally morally responsible, person rises to national political office. Today's democracy.org broadcast from Copenhagen starts with portions of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders introducing his single-payer amendment to the health care bill, prophesying that sometime after he is gone, the social good will prevail over the imperative for corporate growth. That was followed by Amy Goodman's interview with Bolivian President Evo Morales--their second democracynow.org exclusive interview at least.
Jill and I visited our Katy three times in Bolivia while she was was an agricultural volunteer in the Peace Corps, and so I pay particular attention to news from that country.
Twice now in Goodman's interviews, I have found myself feeling that here in Mr. Morales is the peacemaking leader I dream of. I encourage readers to see this interview of his, where he concludes that getting better is our primary threat to getting well with our mother earth. Wow Mr. President! Love and peace, hal
Jill and I visited our Katy three times in Bolivia while she was was an agricultural volunteer in the Peace Corps, and so I pay particular attention to news from that country.
Twice now in Goodman's interviews, I have found myself feeling that here in Mr. Morales is the peacemaking leader I dream of. I encourage readers to see this interview of his, where he concludes that getting better is our primary threat to getting well with our mother earth. Wow Mr. President! Love and peace, hal
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Climate Thought for the Day
The Alliance of Small Island States is the canary in the mining of mother earth's fuel for human combustion. Love and peace, Hal
Monday, December 14, 2009
Going Home
THANKS FROM A RETIREE TO MY WELCOMERS BACK HOME IN INDIANA
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 14, 2009
In a blog before going back to my Bloomington home of the last 33 years, I wrote “on retirement.” I drove to Bloomington December 6, primarily to celebrate Vinod Krishnadas Thichempully’s dissertation defense, but also to get back in touch with the office staff I so treasure to this day, and to be with students in all three sections of a course on alternative social control systems designed by colleague Ellen Dwyer 34 years ago, which I picked up in 1977.
I can drive to Bloomington in fewer than four hours, and so I expect to pay more return visits. Jill and I closed on our Indiana home of 32 years July 20, and caravanned back to our Ohio home. I write here in holiday appreciation of the welcome I received on my first return, and of what it means to this old man to accommodate to changing homes. I must say I was surprised by my own reactions. On one hand, I felt truly loved and appreciated. On the other hand, I quickly recognized that Bloomington is no longer my home, let alone my business.
The highlight of my return was engaging with students in all three sections of the alternative social control systems class. Any single class is but an episode in anyone’s daily life. In my visits, conversations ranged from deferential, through exploratory, to confrontational: in all cases to me stimulating, both in learning what twenty-somethings are talking about, and in giving me chances to reflect on what I have learned about social control by telling stories to future generations without simply talking to myself. Bloomington, I will always love you. You bring me alive in retirement, just a few hours’ drive from Worthington. All best wishes as our region of mother earth emerges into spring.
Countless are the essays and poems on homecoming. For what it’s worth, this is how homecoming felt to me. Thanks to everyone for your hospitality. Love and peace--hal
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 14, 2009
In a blog before going back to my Bloomington home of the last 33 years, I wrote “on retirement.” I drove to Bloomington December 6, primarily to celebrate Vinod Krishnadas Thichempully’s dissertation defense, but also to get back in touch with the office staff I so treasure to this day, and to be with students in all three sections of a course on alternative social control systems designed by colleague Ellen Dwyer 34 years ago, which I picked up in 1977.
I can drive to Bloomington in fewer than four hours, and so I expect to pay more return visits. Jill and I closed on our Indiana home of 32 years July 20, and caravanned back to our Ohio home. I write here in holiday appreciation of the welcome I received on my first return, and of what it means to this old man to accommodate to changing homes. I must say I was surprised by my own reactions. On one hand, I felt truly loved and appreciated. On the other hand, I quickly recognized that Bloomington is no longer my home, let alone my business.
The highlight of my return was engaging with students in all three sections of the alternative social control systems class. Any single class is but an episode in anyone’s daily life. In my visits, conversations ranged from deferential, through exploratory, to confrontational: in all cases to me stimulating, both in learning what twenty-somethings are talking about, and in giving me chances to reflect on what I have learned about social control by telling stories to future generations without simply talking to myself. Bloomington, I will always love you. You bring me alive in retirement, just a few hours’ drive from Worthington. All best wishes as our region of mother earth emerges into spring.
Countless are the essays and poems on homecoming. For what it’s worth, this is how homecoming felt to me. Thanks to everyone for your hospitality. Love and peace--hal
Friday, December 11, 2009
Climate Control and Copenhagen
CLIMATE DEVELOPMENT AND COPENHAGEN
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 11, 2009
Democracynow.org is the only U.S. media outlet to be broadcasting from Copenhagen during the U.N.-sponsored attempt to replace Kyoto with another climate treaty. Check out their free archive of daily broadcasts. Today’s feature was the global grassroots alternative to the UN conference: Klima (“climate” in Danish) Forum 2009. The series of reports from groups ended with the Ecuadoran president of the global group, “No Soil for Oil, No Hole for Coal.” Check out Democracy Now!’s reporting. Protestors this time want to block the pretense of international agreement on how to stop poisoning the planet for human consumption.
In my first essay on this blog last July, I argued that “growth” is inherently unsustainable. Growth remains the primary global force for human self-destruction. The imperative for growth is the human attitude that in practice most threatens the capacity of planet earth to support human life.
I’m thinking that the greatest contributor to laying waste on mother earth is transportation. How many thousands of miles does it take to produce the computer I am writing on, let along the fresh berries from Chile I eat for breakfast? How many people around me laid off have lost jobs dependent on it being cheaper for me to shop globally than locally? And in my country, the greater part of lost jobs is of people paid to sell imported goods.
I don’t know how to get from consuming globally toward consuming locally, but the movement represented in Copenhagen just now by Klima Forum 2009 and attendant protests convinces me that local commerce is the best antidote I can imagine to the global human footprint of global commerce. We cannot grow forever. Love and peace--hal
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 11, 2009
Democracynow.org is the only U.S. media outlet to be broadcasting from Copenhagen during the U.N.-sponsored attempt to replace Kyoto with another climate treaty. Check out their free archive of daily broadcasts. Today’s feature was the global grassroots alternative to the UN conference: Klima (“climate” in Danish) Forum 2009. The series of reports from groups ended with the Ecuadoran president of the global group, “No Soil for Oil, No Hole for Coal.” Check out Democracy Now!’s reporting. Protestors this time want to block the pretense of international agreement on how to stop poisoning the planet for human consumption.
In my first essay on this blog last July, I argued that “growth” is inherently unsustainable. Growth remains the primary global force for human self-destruction. The imperative for growth is the human attitude that in practice most threatens the capacity of planet earth to support human life.
I’m thinking that the greatest contributor to laying waste on mother earth is transportation. How many thousands of miles does it take to produce the computer I am writing on, let along the fresh berries from Chile I eat for breakfast? How many people around me laid off have lost jobs dependent on it being cheaper for me to shop globally than locally? And in my country, the greater part of lost jobs is of people paid to sell imported goods.
I don’t know how to get from consuming globally toward consuming locally, but the movement represented in Copenhagen just now by Klima Forum 2009 and attendant protests convinces me that local commerce is the best antidote I can imagine to the global human footprint of global commerce. We cannot grow forever. Love and peace--hal
Friday, December 4, 2009
On Wishful Thinking About A President
TESTS OF OUR FAITH IN OUR FATHER
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal
TESTS OF OUR FAITH IN OUR FATHER
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal
TESTS OF OUR FAITH IN OUR FATHER
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
December 4, 2009
I was carried away by President Obama’s election. I allowed myself to hope that this charismatic, well-spoken young black man who promised so many wonderful words would live up to his promises. The president’s take on Afghanistan December 1 at West Point has finally brought me back to reality. Somehow, I had no illusions about President Clinton when he took office; he was slickly and purely expedient from the beginning of his campaign, when he made a point of being in the Arkansas governor’s house the night an effectively lobotomized black man was executed. I am chagrined to say that Barack Obama took me in. I shed tears of celebration as he announced his victory in Lincoln Park. I allowed myself to feel that yes we can! had become yes we will! If only wishing it were so could make it so.
Barack Obama’s considerable gifts as a listener/organizer opened his path to the White House. Now as president he uses the same gifts to listen and organize to win political battles in Washington. He works for consensus, wherever the least common denominator of consensus happens to emerge. I shake my head in wonder at myself for even thinking of taking a position on whether to vote for health care reform. WHAT reform? Is it going to be reform as in Afghanistan, where all the thinking is inside the Washington political box?
I won’t beat on all the ways that President Obama shows primary concern for winning battles against Congressional Republicans with his Senate ally Harry Reid. The bottom line is that what qualifies people for US national political office is how well they get with the political flow of gaining and holding votes, from congressional committee votes to votes in presidential elections. Anyone who has not cornered the market on political expediency will scarcely gain national office of any sort (how many Kuciniches, Sanderses and Feingolds are there in Congress at any time?), let alone be considered seriously “presidential.” President Obama has thus far passed the presidential test, spectacularly so. He does so by standing behind his advisers rather than in front of them.
On reflection, the anger and disappointment I felt when I saw the president looking his tv audience in the eyes from the West Point podium was really displaced anger and disappointment at myself, for believing that any father in Washington could significantly reframe political discourse. No president will fix things. I think Barack Obama knew that when he organized on the streets of South Chicago. Now he uses old ways to deal with powerbrokers instead of powerless people. In retrospect, I’m not surprised he follows his political habit of suspending what he believes as he mediates what others’ believe.
And so once again I have given up hope that a president will save us from ourselves. I’m grieving, but I think I’m about back to limiting my political aspirations to changes in political culture that spring of their own accord from the political ground up. Mr. President, I give you credit for working really hard at your job. I just think you’ve arrived at the wrong place to use your political skill to accomplish real change. But then, who was I to imagine that any father in Washington could save us. Love and peace, hal
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