QUOTES OF THE MONTH: (Note: The following exchange occurred Sunday, August 1, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” between host David Gregory and guest Alan Greenspan.)
MR. GREGORY: “You don’t agree with Republican leaders who say tax cuts pay for themselves?”
MR. GREENSPAN: “They do not.”
SENSE AND NONSENSE: ANARCHY IN CONGRESS
From the editor: Writer George Packer published an article in the Aug. 9, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine entitled, “The Empty Chamber.” The article documents the systematic campaign by Republicans to make sure, through parliamentary shenanigans, that a minority of senators can block any legislation aimed at solving problems.
Struggling working middle class citizens have good reason to give Congress an 11 percent approval rating when Republican and some Democratic corporatists defeat an extension of unemployment benefits; when they block passage of legislation that would provide funds for small businesses; and when the tactics of obstructionists become so effective they can dissuade Senate Majority Leader Reid and the White House from pursuing climate change legislation this year.
Unlike many liberals (I despise the term “progressive”) I don’t blame Obama for the ineptitude of Congress. I think Obama is a remarkably skilled politician capable of accurately reading the congressional tea leaves to distinguish between what is possible and what is a political pipe dream. Obama’s track record in his first 18 months as President is impressive, especially in light of the Bush legacy coupled with the control of Congress by special interests.
The arrows of obstructionism fill the quiver of special interests to overflowing. Packer’s article provides an inventory. Among them is an abuse of the filibuster rule to obscure Senate Rule 26, Paragraph 5, which “requires unanimous consent before committees and subcommittees to hold hearings after two in the afternoon while the Senate is in session.”
“The Empty Chamber” reads like a horror chamber of Republican tactics to cripple the democratic process. Following are more examples from the article:
- “Earlier this year, the Senate’s procedural absurdities became national news twice in one month. On February 4th, Congress Daily reported that Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, was secretly blocking the confirmation of seventy Obama appointees over a dispute involving earmarks for his state. (His tactics exposed, Shelby -- whose office maintains that he was responsible for fewer than fifty holds -- lifted all but three.) Later that month, Bunning (Sen. Jim Bunning, R. Kentucky) spent several days and a late night on the Senate floor, filibustering to prevent benefits from being paid to millions of unemployed Americans. When Merkley (D., Oregon) tried to reason with him, Bunning responded, ‘Tough shit.’ (Eventually, Republicans persuaded Bunning to stop.)”
- “Seventy-six nominees for judgeships and executive posts have been approved by committees but, because of blocks, haven’t come up for a vote in the full Senate, leaving courtrooms idle and jobs unfilled across the upper levels of the Obama Administration. (The Democrats also practiced the art of blocking nominees during the Bush Administration.)”
- “Three hundred and forty-five bills passed by the House have been prevented from even coming up for debate in the Senate.”
- “Harry Reid controls the Senate’s schedule, but Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, who is the Minority Leader, can object. Since nearly everything in the Senate depends on unanimous consent (emphasis added), the main business of the place is a continuous negotiation between these two supremely unsentimental men.”
- “After the Republicans lost their majority in 2006, filibusters became everyday events: there were a hundred and twelve cloture votes in 2007 and 2008, and this session Republicans are on target to break their own filibuster record.”
Add to these examples the threat of a filibuster as opposed to actually requiring Senators to physically get up before the Senate and speak; the anonymity allowed individual Senators who want to place a “hold” on Senate proceedings; and the power of “poison pill” amendments such as Sen. Tom Coburn’s “Viagra amendment,” designed to stall or embarrass Democrats wanting to vote for health care reform. Republican Senators have transformed the phrase “congressional action” into an oxymoron.
The March, 2010, issue of The Compass identifies three major goals or “tools” of conservatives: 1) demonizing big government; 2) installing a voting majority on the Supreme Court; and 3) globalizing corporate power. The examples from The New Yorker magazine article underscore conservative efforts to demonize big government. If they can prevent government from working by abusing parliamentary rules in the Senate, they can be successful in claiming that only the private sector should control the public treasury. Recent examples include the Medicare Advantage program, Medicare, Part D for prescription drugs, and the attempt by Bush to privatize social security.
The most recent effort to curb these abuses comes from Tom Udall, 62-year-old freshman Senator from New Mexico. Udall has authored a resolution that says, “Resolved, that upon the expiration of the Senate at the Sine Die Adjournment of the 111th Congress, the Senate shall proceed in accordance with article I, section 5 of the Constitution to determine the Rules of its Proceedings by a simple majority vote.”
Interestingly, outgoing Senator Chris Dodd spoke in opposition to such a resolution, warning freshman senators that Republicans may regain control of the Senate.
I say this to Chris Dodd: Any abuse of congressional power, if it is allowed to persist and grow like a malignant cancer, results in anarchy. I prefer a balance of power over anarchy anytime.
Maynard Chapman, Editor
The Compass
A PERSONAL STORY ABOUT SHIRLEY SHERROD
From the editor: I first met Shirley when I worked in a voter registration project in southwest Georgia in 1967 and 1968. All the civil rights workers, white and black, lived in the same house at 615 South Jefferson St. in Albany, Georgia. Shirley and Rev. Charles Sherrod had turned their house into the headquarters for the Southwest Georgia Project. Shirley and Charlie reserved the middle bedroom for their privacy, and front and rear bedrooms housed bunk beds for civil rights workers. From its center of organization in Albany, the project organized voter registration efforts in the 10 surrounding counties.
Two years prior to my participation in the project, Shirley’s father had been murdered by a white man. The suspect was never indicted and the family’s lawyer, C.B. King, was pressured into dropping the case. To my knowledge, Shirley never talked to any of the civil rights workers temporarily bunking in her house about the murder. She was only 17 years old when it happened.
Her husband is Rev. Charles Sherrod who started his civil rights work as a “freedom rider” in Mississippi in the early 1960s. Sherrod (all of us respectfully called Charlie by his last name) was the first field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and co-founded the “Albany Movement” emphasizing sit-ins to protest discrimination. Sherrod believed strongly in using voter registration as the primary means for blacks to achieve equality in the South. He was strongly criticized by other black activists for inviting and allowing white civil rights workers to work in the movement. He resigned from SNCC in 1966 when Stokely Carmichael took over and expelled white workers. He continues to adhere to two principles: equality for all and non-violence. He is currently a teacher at Albany State University in Albany. Shirley’s story is very much Charlie’s story. They are both dedicated and committed individuals. They are both life-long civil rights workers no matter what job they hold at the moment.
The manner in which Shirley Sherrod was asked to resign from her latest job shocked the nation. While on the road, she was called three times by Cheryl Cook, USDA deputy undersecretary, and asked to resign because a clip from a speech she had delivered to the NAACP in March, 2010, was going to be aired on Glenn Beck. It was a heavily edited excerpt from the speech which allowed ideological blogger Andrew Breitbart to claim Shirley was a racist. More complete excerpts from the speech proved just the opposite. The more complete video of the speech includes the following statement by Shirley:
“Working with him (white farmer Roger Spooner) made me see that it’s really about those who have versus those who haven’t. They could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to help poor people -- those who don’t have access the way others have.”
Farmer Spooner and his wife told CNN, “If it hadn’t been for her (Shirley), we would’ve never known who to see or what to do. She led us right to our success.”
Ironically, Shirley generously and unselfishly told her real story in the earlier speech to the NAACP. Following are excerpts that tell her story in her own words:
“But, you know, you can never say what you’ll never do. And it was during March, my senior year in high school. I mean my father was just everything to us. I had four sisters -- I’m the oldest. There are six of us. But my father wanted a son so bad. We were all girls. We all had boys’ nicknames. I was “Bill.” Now, he loved his girls but he wanted a son so bad. And when my youngest sister was eight, he convinced my mother to try one more time for this boy.”
“So, to my surprise -- my senior year of high school -- I thought my mother was just sick. And one day my best friend…said, “Girl, your daddy was up at the store yesterday giving out cigars. Your mama is going to have a baby.”
“He told everyone that that baby was the son. And he was, in fact, having a new home built….So this new house that was being built -- there was this one room that was the boy’s room -- his son’s room. And he and my mother came to pick me up from school one day early to go to Albany with him to pick the furniture for this boy’s room. He didn’t live to see him. My brother was born two months after he died, in June of ’65.”
“We started the Movement.”
Copyright © 2010, The Compass Society
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