Change the System: Make Strategic Investments

I was riding in a taxi in Washington, DC talking with my companion about morality and moral dilemma when the taxi driver interrupted:

Moral dilemma? I'll tell you about a moral dilemma that the City of Washington, DC is putting me through right this moment.

I make my basic living as a taxi driver. But during the day, when things are slow, I supplement my income by taking patients to get their dialysis treatments. The City pays as part of it's program to assist poor people get needed medical care.

So here's the dilemma I'm in. I need the extra money. The people need to get to the care centers. But the City hasn't paid me in five months! That's right... five months. It's not a billing discrepancy. Everyone agrees that I'm supposed to get the money. They just don't have the money to pay us.

So what am I to do? Stop picking up and delivering patients who need my service to get their medical help?

Now that's a moral dilemma.

Problems like that haven't gone away. A recent Washington Post editorial exposed very similar circumstances: promises made, good intentions put into governmental programs, and no (or slow) actions or funding. Think Katrina.

Or think about all the other major problems that could be remedied with foresight and preventative investments which I like to think of as strategic investments [an investment now into remedying a social problem to save a larger amount at a later date. Think Head Start programs. In venture capital terminology, strategic investors are distinguished from venture capitalists and others who invest primarily with the aim of generating a large return on their investment.]

• Alzheimer's will shortly become our biggest and costliest killer. The medical costs for a patient are phenomenally high as they become more and more incapacitated. As baby boomers age and other diseases find cures, Alzheimer's is moving quickly up the ladder to the number one spot. The numbers and costs are against us and NIH knows this as does every major health organization -- yet funding for Alzheimer's research is still meager and disorganized. There's no reason why a strategic investment today won't reap cost-saving benefits in the future. Yet... it's not happening.


• Mental health is another serious concern. In Congress they're talking about "parity" which is a spin word to defuse the issue. [Disparity between full medical coverage versus limited mental health coverage (if any).] Yet today's military can't cope with their present load (as evidenced by recent articles about an APA Task Force studying the subject). Returning Vets from Iraq and Afghanistan's have mental health issues AND head injuries that are causing VA costs to skyrocket out of budget with future years even worse. As life becomes more complex and people live longer, mental health issues become more prevalent. Yet they are still treated primitively when it comes to insurance coverage. Limited treatments, if any, may alleviate pain temporarily, but don't provide life-changing help. Other than cost, there's no reason why a strategic investment here won't reap long-term benefits. Yet... it's not happening.


• Educational changes are also strategic investments. Educating doesn't just happen in schools. Think Surgeon General Koop's condom and anti-smoking messages. Complexity, ethnic diversity, religious tolerance, compassion, and developing an understanding that we're all the same AND in the same boat are teachable and could have significant cost savings (think no wars).


• Treating addictions as a mental health issue through early education and exposure to and emancipation from the underlying causes is another cost-saver.

The list goes on (the climate crisis, immigration, stem cell research, biotechnology, etc.) but the bottom line is the same: an altruistic strategic investment today will save what we'll have to pay down the road.

We all know that government is innefficient. Ours is. But this is an area that they (we) are charged to provide. Let's get the new Congress and the next administration to do their job - particularly in the area of strategic investing.

Psychology and Politics

"Fear of death has the highest correlation with being conservative" says scholar and author Frank Sulloway.

Many recent studies prove that the fear of death drives people to demonize those who hold different world views or beliefs about life and death. Tragically, most people are willing to sacrifice themselves in war to preserve their nation’s or religion’s particular symbols of immortality in a desperate attempt to achieve a sense of mastery over death. On a lesser scale, people can be – and are – manipulated using pseudo fears that elicit the same psychological reaction(s). Thus the title of this message: Psychology and Politics.

There are many studies, and many government-funded ones after 9/11, that delve into the psychology of politics. Particularly, that identify characteristics which differentiate between liberal and conservative ideologies.

• Three books by George Lakoff: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think; Metaphors We Live By; and Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives.


• Other books by Jost (Political Psychology: Key Readings (Key Readings in Social Psychology)), Kruglansky (The Psychology of Closed Mindedness (Essays in Socialpsychology)) and Sulloway (Born to Rebel) provide in-depth research useful to identify distinguishing characteristics of conservative and liberal personalities.


• The Origins of Ethic Strife, Mind and Human Interaction, Vol 7, #4, 1996, Robert W. Firestone.


• In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror, Pysczynski, Solomon, Greenberg.

Consider these examples from a NY Times article by Patricia Cohen:

• Most liberals think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone's welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. Conservatives, by contrast, broden that definition to include loyalty, respect for authority, and purity or sanctity.


• There is a whole dimension to human experience best described as divinity or sacredness that conservatives are more attuned to.


• Offices and bedrooms of conservatives tended to be neat and contain cleaning supplies, calendars, postage stamps and sports-related posters; bold-colored, cluttered rooms with art supplies, lots of books, jazz CDs and travel documents tended to belong to Democrats.

Thinking cynically, this is wonderful material for political strategists. Imagine what they could do with a presidential campaign budget and these targeting tidbits. They could slice and dice messages that would inflame religious fervor, patriotism, fear of terrorism, and loyalty to either enlist the conservatives or provoke the liberals (depending on who the consultant was working for). And they could match their voter and cable channel databases against consumer purchasers of jazz CDs, members of book clubs, etc. to further enable accurate demographic targeting.

I wasn't always this cynical. I used to be a believer, particularly in Democrats and their social consciousness. But dirty politics has bred dirty politicians on both sides making them indistinguishable in their infighting and fundraising; only in their positioning are they different -- they are still Democrats and Republicans with major differences in beliefs and wants and an inability to compromise for the common good.

When people are fearful or exasperated, they forget that we're all just like one another. They forget that if other people have different colored skins or religious practices that, nevertheless, they are human and have human desires and aspirations, that they're fragile, hurting, have a limited life span - that they're just like us.

As psychologist Robert Firestone said in his interview with Fred Branfman, "It's madness to be rigid: to define God in your own terms in a way that excludes other people's beliefs. It's madness to think that our way is right and everybody else is wrong. It's even the definition of insanity where you think everybody's wrong and you're right."

Click to see the 5-minute video clip from the interview:

It's time to remember that we're all the same. It's time to teach it in our schools and secondary media (like movies and commentaries) and from our pulpits and bully pulpits. It's time to teach people a world view full of complexities yet that we're all the same, that to be at odds about belief systems and to be defensive is criminal when it leads to destroying other people. This I believe and this I hope will happen when we get a different administration.

Let me introduce myself

For the past six months I've jotted down my thoughts about various political issues, particularly those involving the campaign process. All the while I've hidden my identity and wondered what right I had to put my thoughts out on the Internet, what credibility I had, even what value my ideas and opinions might have, and that it was naive of me to think otherwise. But a few things happened these last six months which have caused me to rethink my situation. In addition to developing a small but regular group of readers, I've come to believe that silence is an endemic problem gripping our society, country and global leadership, and I value my opinions and comments and want them to be heard and read.

So let me introduce myself: Frank Tobe, partner and then owner of the firm Below, Tobe & Associates, Inc., and founder/owner of APT (Applied Political Technologies) Inc. Both developed and segmented political databases somewhat similar to what Karl Rove has done, and both provided political direct mail of all types. Ten years ago I sold or dissolved both.

Vanity Fair's December issue had an article about Rove in which the author described Rove's process of splitting versus lumping -- discriminating versus celebrating inherent similarities -- indicating that Rove was a divider and FDR and Ronald Reagan were lumpers (consolidators).

For 25 years I was in the same business as Rove but never went as far as him in the splitting process because part of his process was to also use his information as a wedge to widen the divisiveness and inflame the fears of that split rather than try to unite around some issue or candidate that could help provide a real solution.

I wanted to differentiate my activities from Rove's and say that my companies and the clients that we worked with, mostly attempted to use niche targeting to get people's attention but then to talk about generic, consolidating, real issues. Although I've been out and away from the business for the last 10 years, I've followed the process and the players with interest and recently, with dismay. Today's extensive national databases and slice-and-dice software are so enabling, and the temptations so great to inflame divisiveness to get the results wanted, that altruism and the pursuit of fairness in politics are almost lost in the process. Although I'm glad I'm no longer part of that business and have no desire to reenter, I think it important to speak out -- because silence is part of the problem and I want to be part of the solution... and to consolidate and unite my friends and readers in the process.

So . . . welcome to my blog.

Want to change the system? Educate females!

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights. Over many thousand loans they've found that the most effective and wide-reaching in their successes have been those loaned to women.

Another example written up by Nicholas Kristof in today's NY Times is about an elementary school in rural Cambodia initiated with American funds raised from an elementary school in Redmond, Washington. In addition to the initial funding, they regularly carry on e-mail communication with the students at both schools. Without schooling, Cambodian girls are ripe to be kidnapped and placed into the sex trade. Kristof bought two such prostitutes out of their brothels only to follow up and find that one returned and the other was pregnant and a ward of her village.

Building schools doesn't solve the immediate problem of girls currently enslaved inside brothels - that requires more rigorous law enforcement, crackdowns on corruption and outspoken diplomacy. But in the long run no investment in poor countries gets more bang for the buck than educating girls. Literate girls not only are in less danger of being trafficked, but later they have fewer children, care for their children better and are much better able to earn a decent living.

Every study shows that female literacy has a direct coorelation with fertility rates. Girls' educational achievements have a direct influence on the timing and number of their children: educated women have fewer children, and have them later. Today, some 400 million adolescent girls stand on the brink of adulthood. If many choose to delay childbearing, even for a few years, they will enhance their health, education and employment prospects.

Here comes the rant. There are so many areas in our lives where a bit of investment in strategic areas can have such a great impact on the future that it's almost criminal to NOT make those investments. For sure it's immoral! Instead we are wasting our resources in Iraq and through governmental inefficiencies and corruption. We have to change our priorities to focus on reducing poverty, fighting rampant diseases (like Altzheimer's and AIDS), educating females, attempting to curb environmental crises, providing fair and equal health care, and expanding communication everywhere. We're all in the same boat!

Manipulation Is Manipulation No Matter How You Spin It

Where do you all those political consultants go when the election cycle is over?

They do commercial work for large corporations. Although they have to moderate their techniques, manipulation is manipulation no matter where or how you spin it.

Consider CEO salaries. During the Clinton years a law was passed attempting to put a ceiling on the disparity between CEO and the average employee salary difference and make salaries more performance-based. It also put the burden of monitoring and officiating on the board of directors. But shortly after the law was passed (1993) so many loopholes were found that, for a paltry $5,000 consulting fee, any tax lawyer or accountant could document how a particular corporation and their board of directors met the requirements of the law (but not the moral implied law that was intended). So the serious disparities have continued undeterred. The anecdotes of seemingly ludicrous CEO pay never stop; every week a fresh batch of fat cats parade as examples of capitalism run amok.

When the head of a company gets $200 million for his severance package but was fired for lack of performance there is a riple effect throughout the corporation and the business world. Loyalties diminish; schisms widen; paranoia increases; profits are wrongly used (in this case $200 million of profits); and hopes for a better life working within that corporation are dashed. By the way, you and I are paying a good portion of that $200 million because it's tax deductible to the corporation.

Call in the spin masters to try and mitigate the damage. Release the information around Christmas time when no one is paying attention; release information slowly and in confusing terms; obfuscate. One form of obfuscation is to commission an economic analysis of how CEO's (and their top-5 team of similar highly paid executives) enhance corporate performance and support their outrageous pay. There are a lot of non-profit economic think tanks and universities that can use the commission money AND, if you don't like what they write, trash it and find another one that reports what you need it to say. Release those studies around the same time as the damaging information is released. Now THAT'S obfuscation!

It's sad and shameful that things aren't improving and that spinmasters are exacerbating the situation by clouding the facts. It's immoral that this year's top paid CEO got $254 million (Forbes). That's 7,000 times greater than the average salary for his corporation! SEVEN THOUSAND TIMES!

I think it naive that the new Democrat Congress will make any inroads in this area but I'm forwarding a copy of this blog to my congresswoman and two senators just in case.

Let's Take Annihilation Out of the Equation

In reviewing candidates and issues for the 2008 Presidential Election, the Iraq situation - as distinguished from the fight against international terrorism - is and will be the leading topic, even if it's in hindsight. Here's my thinking:

• Nothing dramatic is going to happen in Iraq except a steady slide downward.
  
  
• Democrats and Republicans will go along with the Iraq Study Group's 79 proposals and negotiate with President Bush and new Secretary of Defense Gates some semi-satisfactory actions that will slowly take effect.
  
  
• As Senator Feingold recently said: "Unfortunately, while the Iraq Study Group's report recognizes that the Administration's policy is not working, it doesn't correct the myopic focus on Iraq that has so dangerously weakened our national security."
  
  
• Israel is likely to continue it's paranoid policy of self-preservation at any cost, periodically signaling their neighbors to seriously worry about being attacked.
  
  
• Iran is getting a free ride (and it's fervent wish to merge all Shiites into one region) while all of this is going on and making the most of it by outrageous provocations, threats and proclamations.
  
  
• Hezbollah is progressively taking over (and likely to succeed at taking over) the entire government of Lebanon.
  
  
• No leader anywhere - within the U.S., at the UN, or worldwide - is passionately proposing a solution... any solution.
  
  
• There's no chance of Congress withholding funding of additional Iraq expenditures so the saga will continue, properly funded. Perhaps with more attention to veteran's costs and benefits.
  
  
• The King of Saudi Arabia is worriedly saying that the region is ready to blow up. What he didn't say is that in addition to Wahhabism being the State Religion of Saudi Arabia, it was he and the previous King that started, funded and provided instructors for the 15,000 +/- religious Madrases schools that populate the Muslim world and provide a breeding ground for worldwide radical fundamentalists.
  

Everyone is threatening everyone with annihilation, often nuclear annihilation. So... what would happen if we took annihilation out of the equation? What if some passionate statesman somewhere - perhaps at the UN, perhaps here in the US - were to make a comprehensive suggestion that Iran AND Israel get rid of their nuclear weapons and that the UN not only verifies the removal but also promises to secure and protect both countries and the surrounding region? Imagine an Al Gore-type statesman presenting and proposing his Iraq solution with similar passion, data and clout.

If the nuclear alternative were eliminated, would people then have no choice but to sit down at the table and honestly talk?

Every candidate for president, Rep, Dem or whatever, I look for that passion, that plan, that suggestion or set of ideas, that intensity and strength of character to pursue this goal until it or something better actually happens. Senator Feingold has dropped out of the race; Howard Dean isn't going to run either... I've got to admit that nobody thus far qualifies. But I'm hopeful. Perhaps naively so.

Democrats Didn't Win The Mid-Term Elections

Instead, the Republicans lost them.

Republicans shot themselves in their own feet with their corruption, business favoritism, lock-step voting and party-line talking points, arrogance and outright lies, religious righteousness, and gross missmanagement of the situations in Iraq and with Katrina. And the people came to know that these things are true. And they sent the word that change was (and is) needed. It didn't take Bob Woodward's thorough expose "State of Denial" to prove it; rather, it was just felt and seen. Seen in the everyday behaviors and comments of the Bush leadership; felt by the ferocity of their hackles being raised over normal questioning and limited criticisms. Seen by the extent of the corruption and scandals. And felt and seen by the growing numbers of cynical warriors and seriously wounded young Americans returning from Iraq and then having to go back again. Everybody has plainly seen the diminution of our standing in the world community; has felt embarrassment over Bush's crude and simple remarks; has begun to see how missmanaged and misshandled our DOD really is and how it has been forking over fistfuls of money to business friends of the Bush administration and to sheer corruption and incompetence. And we've slowly come to learn how extensive the lieing and cherry-picking of intelligence information was manipulated to enable a foregone but unnecessary war. And we're all seeing how half a trillion dollars has been taken from our economy because it's starting to show and be felt everywhere.

Worse Is Yet To Come

Secret U.S. government report: Insurgency in Iraq now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, fake charities and other crimes...

It would be VERY wrong for the Democrats to think that they won the elections. It would be VERY right of the Democrats to show their feminine side in the next many months and stick to an agenda of social and leadership readjustment along a more altruistic line rather than one of self-interest.

Rhetoric generally gets toned down after an election. The Democratic leadership has to make sure that it stays down, matter-of-fact, productive, and socially sensitive. No bickering or excessive partisanship. I'm rooting for our team (but then, I'm the naive one).

Hurry Up and Wait

From now until February 1st, 2007 we're in a funny state of limbo. Remember the line from your service days that went "Hurry Up and Wait (Huaw)?" Well it's true today as we wait for the new 110th Congress to come online, elect new speakers, pick committees, and actually go to work and do something.

Kos reminded his readers of all the puzzle pieces that came together to make the mid-term election outcome as it was:

• Senate: 51 Dems; 49 Reps; +6 Dems
• House: 229 Dems; 196 Reps; +29 Dems
• Governors: 28 Dems; 22 Reps; +6 Dems

Kos also admonished everyone who thinks that they single-handedly won the election that they didn't, couldn't, and shouldn't think of themselves as the source of all good for the party, government and the world.

• It wasn't the DNC and Howard Dean (although Dean's 50-state program played a significant role).
• Nor was it the DCCC andd Rahm Emanual.
• Nor the DSCC and Chuck Schumer.
• Nor the 527s and unions and allied organizations that ran all those independent campaigns (the VoteVets ads were awesome).
• Nor the grassroots and Internet crowd (although the technology is improving and more and more are participating and contributing).
• Nor the big dollar donors.
• Nor the new campaigning technologies.
  

Kos reminds us that we were all (including Bush and his cronies) part of a glorious puzzle, working together, not always harmoniously to effect the election. Also, it might be said that part of the success was because we mostly ignored the pundits and middle-of-the-roaders who advocated a Democrat-swing-to-moderate-Republicanism approach.

The people spoke in a rush and flurry of exclamation points. And now we have to wait until February for their wishes to come to fruition... if they do. Huah.

[Many terrible things have happened in this waiting period in the past; it's not a time to hibernate.]

GOTV, Campaign Money, Rush Limbaugh and our Do-Nothing Congress

GOTV

• Republican get-out-the-vote (GOTV) programs are set and ready to roll. They track people who've been identifed as saying they intend to vote right up until they actually do vote. If they vote early or absentee, they are purged so that the resulting target list is up-to-date and refined. Democrats have a similar capability but not a system for doing it everywhere; they do it where and if they have the money. The result is that the Reps get some votes that would otherwise fall through the cracks. And this election cycle, many Reps are seriously considering not voting, thus this GOTV program will get many of them back in the fold.


• My opinion: a fair portion of moderate Reps that either didn't plan to vote, or were planning to vote moderately, will be guilt-driven back into voting solidly Republican. Dems just don't have the same mechanism or mentality. And if Dems are apathetic, as many are, they don't get goaded back into the fold.

Campaign Money

• In targeted races, the money is coming in evenly albeit late for the Dems. But late money means more costly expenditures, in effect, less for more. Early money gets lower rates and the effect of repetition, a necessary requirement for name recognition in the less popular races. In organizational money for party and party organizations, the Reps are far ahead of the Dems. That money goes to GOTV, database development and maintenance, volunteer recruitment and voter registration.


• My opinion: Coupled with the Rep many-year investment in a national database and their seriously greater party-building monies, wherever organization and technique play a role in the outcome of an election, the Reps win.

Rush Limbaugh

• Time Magazine asked whether Limbaugh was good for America and the answer seems to be "No." Especially as he has stretched our tolerance and amusement levels with his caustic and slimeball remarks about Michael J. Fox, the feeling de jure seems to be less noise; more brotherhood.


• My opinion: The Fox fiasco may not play out as well as the Foley one, but it adds to the consensus that false bravado, "staying the course," "cut and run," and all the other phrases Reps have used and Limbaugh has repeated are nothing more than that - harsh, insensitive, slimey, PR phrases.

Our Do-nothing Congress

• The only breath of fresh air in Congress today is Nancy Pelosi's statement about not tolerating impeachment diversions but instead, focusing on a progressive agenda of very necessary action items should the Dems win the House and she gets the leadership post (Reid has said that he intends to pass it on to her). This truly has been our worst and most unproductive Congress. A recent mass e-mailer making the rounds shows that although Congress has been lackluster in terms of passing laws, they have been wonderful at breaking them!
  
  3 have done time for assault
  7 have been arrested for fraud
  8 have been arrested for shoplifting
  14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
  19 have been accused of writing bad checks
  21 currently are defendants in lawsuits
  36 have been accused of spousal abuse
  71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
  84 have been arrested for drunk driving within the last year


• My opinion: A pox on both houses. But a (naive) hope for a less politicized leader, Nancy Pelosi, should the Dems win the House.

Kos vs Stephanopoulos

When George Stephanopoulos was in the White House I admired him greatly for sticking to his guns. But in his recent interview with President Bush on Sunday's ABC This Week, he didn't blink an eye when Bush lied. But Kos came to the rescue with his Monday blog "Stay the course"? Whoever said such a thing?

Kos embedded a YouTube video montage showing all the times Bush specifically said "Stay the course" in his speeches. Bush made such a blatent lie in that TV interview that it's well worth our effort to send this video to every news editor everywhere in the country. Certainly John Stewart could run it as is on his Daily Show.

In relation to Stephanopoulos, he might benefit from a quote from Martin Luther King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal."

In relation to whoever prepared the video on YouTube, BRAVO!

In relation to Kos who incorporated the video into his diary entry, you are showing why your blog is supplementing the major news outlets and is so well read. Keep up the good work!

And in relation to those of you that read my blog, consider taking a few moments to forward the link to this YouTube video to every news person you know. Let's see what happens. I hope something does.