Well!? Truth is, it's her poetry I love. I suppose it's just the way my mind works: things keep happening in my current world, and -- often as not -- one of her poems pops into my head.
For instance, today, news reports and commentaries from a wide variety of sources are responding to the Supreme Court's decision regarding Citizen's United vs Federal Election Commission. After reading many sources on this ruling I conclude that what this new ruling means is that
campaign finance restrictions violate
First Amendment free-speech principles.
First Amendment free-speech principles.
For the first time in over a hundred years, large corporations and labor unions will be permitted to openly finance candidates. Millions, perhaps billions, of dollars can now be legally spent by corporations to get their chosen candidates elected. This ruling opens the floodgates of corporate influence.
I'm not at all certain how I feel about this change. Truthfully, I'm not even certain this ruling constitutes a real change in the way big government works. To what degree does big money speak to big government? Media corporations have always exercised their influences. After all (they say): "The public has a right to know!" What does this really mean?
Let me play the cynic for a moment. Does this mean: the public has the right to know about candidates and issues
the whole truth?
the truth from someone else's personal point of view?
the truth as divined among a candidate's immediate constituents?
the truth that yields the most money?
I'm not at all certain how I feel about this change. Truthfully, I'm not even certain this ruling constitutes a real change in the way big government works. To what degree does big money speak to big government? Media corporations have always exercised their influences. After all (they say): "The public has a right to know!" What does this really mean?
Let me play the cynic for a moment. Does this mean: the public has the right to know about candidates and issues
the whole truth?
the truth from someone else's personal point of view?
the truth as divined among a candidate's immediate constituents?
the truth that yields the most money?
All I really need to do to hear a different truth is change the radio or television station. Or read a different periodical, a different book, or cruise the internet. Or sit for awhile in two or three of my colleagues' social-studies classes. I've studied all my life, have earned three degrees. Yet I'm less certain all the time when I'm listening to the truth.
Exactly how does money influence so-called truth. How does money influence choices? A friend of mine who spent his entire adult life in elected office on the state level once told me that from the day he took office nearly all of his time was spent raising money for his next campaign. He had little time, he said, to do anything else.
Could he be bought by big corporate influences? I hope not.
His money came partly from the party (which largely dictated his positions on major issues), partly from contributions from constituents, and partly from other sources he didn't name. He said that his need for campaign money ruled most of his decisions. I didn't ask him if various truths came with various price tags. But how could they not?
But I'm not trying to sound like a smart-aleck. Life is not simple. Choices, no matter how carefully researched are not easy. If choices were easy, if research made them so, then we'd all be driving the same make of automobile -- or using the same washing machines, or sharing the same sources of information. Nor are choices among electoral candidates easy.
Which brings me back at last to Emily Dickinson, who wrote:
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell.
They'll banish us you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog.
Emily's first stanza speaks directly to me. In a world where immensely rich corporations can expend millions or billions to influence politicians, it is no wonder that many of us come to feel our votes don't matter -- that in the large scheme of things we are nobodies. Small wonder, in fact, that voter tallies so often reflect such a small percentage of our potential electorate.
I recently read a New York Times article that alluded to unnamed research which strongly implies that campaign spending has little impact upon election outcomes -- that there is little correlation between campaign spending and election outcomes.
Difficult to believe. Doesn't creative -- or clever -- advertising influence buyers?
And if influence can be bought, then how can we trust our political system. For instance, what are we to think of BigPharma's influence upon Health-Care reform? Or, how do PetroDollars effect movement toward development of alternative energy sources?
This commentary reminds me of the Crooked Man rhyme we all recited when I was a boy:
There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked six-pense
Upon a crooked stile.
He had a crooked cat,
Who caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together
In a crooked little house.
It was not until I went to college that I learned that this little piece of doggerel was an historical reference to the political agreement made between England's Charles I and Scottish General Alexander Lestig by which the Scotch were granted religious and political freedom from England. The crooked man was the general. The crooked stile? The jagged border between England and Scotland. The crooked house? The brokered deal. The crooked six-pense? King Charles I and the money that apparently changed hands. The crooked cat and mouse? The secret and shady transaction that brought an end to the costly military encounter.
We still use the term crooked as a reference to dealings less than honest. So too, do we speak of shady dealings as cat and mouse games. And the term politics has long-since carried with it a sense of questionable honesty. We talk about political games, as if we have reason to question the motives and outcomes of deals made and crooked money changing hands -- as if questionable deals have been struck. We never quite know, hence we never quite trust. Nor are we ever quite certain where pragmatic -- or practical exchanges -- become fraud. We only know it is difficult to trust the deal-makers -- those who appear to have sold out.
Does BigMoney speak as loudly as we fear it might? Does BigMoney divide us into many nobodies and a handful of powerful somebodies? Do we -- the nobodies -- really have a say in our political system? And if we don't, then does our Constitution really work?
Of course, our Constitution promises up front only a more perfect -- not a PERFECT union. If we examine the entire Preamble, we realize the framers of that document made no promise of perfection. Our Founding Fathers seem to have understood that where no person is perfect, no document can insure perfect union, justice, tranquility, general welfare, or blessings of liberty. We do the best we can, given human failings. We learn as we go. We amend as we learn -- 26 times to date.
And out of that imperfect process we fashion a nation envied around the world. While we are criticized, most critics would prefer to live here, crooked though we and our nation may be.
So, while I have my doubts, I still believe it's important for each of us to vote. Participation is the price we pay for our more perfect union. And there are other reasons we must vote.
I vote because I feel it's my duty to do the hard work necessary to cast the most sensible ballot I can produce. One man, one vote. Or rather: One informed person, one vote. Or even, one vote from any one person, informed, crooked, straight, or not. Still, the issues aren't easy, and it's likely the issues will become more difficult over time. Parsing liberty and freedom is no easy task. We have to try.
I refuse to be banished. Informing myself and expressing my will at the polls is one way I try to preserve my dignity as a person. First I have to inform myself best I can. Then I have to overcome my doubts about the issues, my doubts about my own ability to reason soundly, my doubts I have that I can make sound decisions about issues so immense.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about voting is expressed quietly in Emily's second stanza. In most cases, the votes I cast are for candidates -- those who, for some reason I can't quite fathom, wish to enter the public arena and make decisions for the rest of us. How can I discover and judge their true motives?
I know each of these candidates is somebody. But it's difficult to determine exactly who a candidate truly is. What does this person truly stand for? What does this person believe? What does this person truly wish to accomplish for the rest of us? It's easier to know more about our local candidates. We can pay attention over time and determine more accurately what a local candidate hopes to accomplish and how well he or she performs in getting important things done. Competence is the question.
Of course I'm not certain what Emily means in the second stanza of this poem. I do, however, know what the stanza means to me. For half my life I've lived in the same county in Michigan. I've watched local government carefully, have seen candidates come and go.
But the ones who have worked hard have impressed me favorably.
Lotta Frogs out there
Croakin' away in the dark.
Could he be bought by big corporate influences? I hope not.
His money came partly from the party (which largely dictated his positions on major issues), partly from contributions from constituents, and partly from other sources he didn't name. He said that his need for campaign money ruled most of his decisions. I didn't ask him if various truths came with various price tags. But how could they not?
But I'm not trying to sound like a smart-aleck. Life is not simple. Choices, no matter how carefully researched are not easy. If choices were easy, if research made them so, then we'd all be driving the same make of automobile -- or using the same washing machines, or sharing the same sources of information. Nor are choices among electoral candidates easy.
Which brings me back at last to Emily Dickinson, who wrote:
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell.
They'll banish us you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog.
Emily's first stanza speaks directly to me. In a world where immensely rich corporations can expend millions or billions to influence politicians, it is no wonder that many of us come to feel our votes don't matter -- that in the large scheme of things we are nobodies. Small wonder, in fact, that voter tallies so often reflect such a small percentage of our potential electorate.
I recently read a New York Times article that alluded to unnamed research which strongly implies that campaign spending has little impact upon election outcomes -- that there is little correlation between campaign spending and election outcomes.
Difficult to believe. Doesn't creative -- or clever -- advertising influence buyers?
And if influence can be bought, then how can we trust our political system. For instance, what are we to think of BigPharma's influence upon Health-Care reform? Or, how do PetroDollars effect movement toward development of alternative energy sources?
This commentary reminds me of the Crooked Man rhyme we all recited when I was a boy:
There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked six-pense
Upon a crooked stile.
He had a crooked cat,
Who caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together
In a crooked little house.
It was not until I went to college that I learned that this little piece of doggerel was an historical reference to the political agreement made between England's Charles I and Scottish General Alexander Lestig by which the Scotch were granted religious and political freedom from England. The crooked man was the general. The crooked stile? The jagged border between England and Scotland. The crooked house? The brokered deal. The crooked six-pense? King Charles I and the money that apparently changed hands. The crooked cat and mouse? The secret and shady transaction that brought an end to the costly military encounter.
We still use the term crooked as a reference to dealings less than honest. So too, do we speak of shady dealings as cat and mouse games. And the term politics has long-since carried with it a sense of questionable honesty. We talk about political games, as if we have reason to question the motives and outcomes of deals made and crooked money changing hands -- as if questionable deals have been struck. We never quite know, hence we never quite trust. Nor are we ever quite certain where pragmatic -- or practical exchanges -- become fraud. We only know it is difficult to trust the deal-makers -- those who appear to have sold out.
Does BigMoney speak as loudly as we fear it might? Does BigMoney divide us into many nobodies and a handful of powerful somebodies? Do we -- the nobodies -- really have a say in our political system? And if we don't, then does our Constitution really work?
Of course, our Constitution promises up front only a more perfect -- not a PERFECT union. If we examine the entire Preamble, we realize the framers of that document made no promise of perfection. Our Founding Fathers seem to have understood that where no person is perfect, no document can insure perfect union, justice, tranquility, general welfare, or blessings of liberty. We do the best we can, given human failings. We learn as we go. We amend as we learn -- 26 times to date.
And out of that imperfect process we fashion a nation envied around the world. While we are criticized, most critics would prefer to live here, crooked though we and our nation may be.
So, while I have my doubts, I still believe it's important for each of us to vote. Participation is the price we pay for our more perfect union. And there are other reasons we must vote.
I vote because I feel it's my duty to do the hard work necessary to cast the most sensible ballot I can produce. One man, one vote. Or rather: One informed person, one vote. Or even, one vote from any one person, informed, crooked, straight, or not. Still, the issues aren't easy, and it's likely the issues will become more difficult over time. Parsing liberty and freedom is no easy task. We have to try.
I refuse to be banished. Informing myself and expressing my will at the polls is one way I try to preserve my dignity as a person. First I have to inform myself best I can. Then I have to overcome my doubts about the issues, my doubts about my own ability to reason soundly, my doubts I have that I can make sound decisions about issues so immense.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about voting is expressed quietly in Emily's second stanza. In most cases, the votes I cast are for candidates -- those who, for some reason I can't quite fathom, wish to enter the public arena and make decisions for the rest of us. How can I discover and judge their true motives?
I know each of these candidates is somebody. But it's difficult to determine exactly who a candidate truly is. What does this person truly stand for? What does this person believe? What does this person truly wish to accomplish for the rest of us? It's easier to know more about our local candidates. We can pay attention over time and determine more accurately what a local candidate hopes to accomplish and how well he or she performs in getting important things done. Competence is the question.
Of course I'm not certain what Emily means in the second stanza of this poem. I do, however, know what the stanza means to me. For half my life I've lived in the same county in Michigan. I've watched local government carefully, have seen candidates come and go.
But the ones who have worked hard have impressed me favorably.
Many are worth my respect. Each is somebody special. However! The further I get from Monitor Township outside Bay City (Michigan), the less certain I become.
Lotta Frogs out there
Croakin' away in the dark.
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