Ruminations, November 23, 2008

The most important election

Throughout the election season, people were telling us that the 2008 election was the most important election in history. If you remember, we were also told that about 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992 … Each election, it seems, was billed as the most important election.

So was 2008 the most – or an – important election? In regard to what?

Many think that this election was important because an African American was elected president. It certainly was a milestone but an African American being elected president was going to happen one day. In fact, if Colin Powell had chosen to run in 2000, arguably it could have happened then. But as far as civil rights are concerned, the most important election since Lincoln was the 1948 presidential election. Surprised?

Going into the 1948 presidential campaign, Truman looked like a loser. In fact, Franklin Roosevelt’s son, James, worked to get Truman off the ticket. Overtures were made to Eisenhower to run as a Democrat. In the off-year elections of 1946 the Republicans gained control of both houses for the first time since 1928. On the Republican side, Thomas Dewey was the Republican candidate. The popular governor of New York had made a name successfully fighting organized crime. It looked bad for Truman and then, things got worse.

The Democratic Party, the home of the ardent segregationists, passed a strong civil rights plank in its platform. It may not seem strong in the 21^st century but it was in 1948. The Democrats and Truman were to campaign on a platform that promised to eliminate state poll taxes in federal elections, ban lynching, establish a fair employment practices and desegregate the armed forces. But wait; two weeks after the convention Truman, by executive order, mandated equal opportunity in the armed forces and federal civil service.

That was enough for the South – maybe too much. The State Rights Party (aka Dixiecrats) was formed with Strom Thurmond as its standard bearer. It looked bad for Truman; very bad. In fact, Truman was not even on the ballot in Alabama.

But, as we know Truman won. Had he lost, the “lesson of 1948” could easily have been that the civil rights issue is a loser; a party with a strong civil rights plank loses. But not only did Truman win; he was able to win while losing four southern states to Thurmond. The “lesson of 1948” was that you can win with a strong civil rights plank and civil rights became a winner.

Even with Truman’s victory, it still took another 16 years before any meaningful civil rights legislation got through Congress. It is true that Republicans supported civil rights but they could not have passed legislation without the support of the Democrats and, had Truman lost in 1948, it could have taken another 30 years or more for that to happen.

Could Barack Obama have won the presidency in 2008 without Truman’s win in 1948? By 2008, maybe the country would have been ready for Obama anyway. But there is no question that Truman’s win set the table for the civil rights legislation that followed. And that’s why 1948 was a more important election than 2008.

It’s a Beautiful day in the neighborhood

In spite of what some people say, there is still controversy about global warming. So. Let’s address another aspect.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume two things:

1. The earth is getting warmer due to human activity
2. We humans can do something to change that

Maybe you don’t agree with those assumptions but humor me and say that you do.

If you go to the website http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/change.htm, you will find a graph depicting the average temperature of the globe over the last 425,000 years (courtesy of Schlumberger, a self-described non-profit community development program). The average temperature from 1961-1990 is the base line for this graph.

Using the average temperature of the period 1961-1990 as the norm, we can see from the graph that the average temperature has varied from the norm from -10 degrees to +3 degrees Celsius. Right now, it is about one degree Celsius warmer than the norm. Given that the temperature movement has been quite dramatic over 425,000 years and assuming we can influence the global temperature, what is the optimum temperature for the humans?

• We know that warmer temperatures cause deaths. But we also know that colder global temperatures cause more deaths. So we can conclude that with warmer temperatures fewer people will die prematurely.
• If the earth warms, we know that large areas of farm land in the U.S. will not be able to produce the same quantities of food that they do today. On the other hand, even more vast areas of Siberia will become arable and be able to produce vast quantities of food for human consumption.
• We know that one of the potential concerns for the future environment will be the scarcity of water. We also know that as the earth warms, polar ice caps will begin to melt and glaciers will recede which will make more water available.

Maybe we should not try to reduce global warming just yet but try to increase temperatures by another degree or two Celsius. Or maybe three or four.

Of course, I’m no scientist and maybe the above assumptions are totally bogus. Nonetheless, if we can indeed affect the temperature of the planet, wouldn’t it make sense to decide on an optimum condition before we embark on an expensive program to reduce warming?

Offsets

On NBC’s Today Show last week, the emphasis was on the environment. Accordingly, the co-hosts broadcast live from Iceland, Belize, Australia and Tanzania.

A viewer sent in an email asking if, with the crews flying around the world, NBC was not creating a large carbon “footprint.” Host Matt Lauer said that NBC carefully kept track of everyone’s flights and purchased carbon offsets to counter the harm done by the travel.

Carbon offsets are financial instruments intended to reduce the effect of greenhouse gases. The money collected from a carbon-offset purchaser, such as NBC, is used to pay for activities that reduce greenhouse gases.

Sounds pretty clever. It’s so clever that a couple of British entrepreneurs, Alex Randall and Christian Hunt, have borrowed the concept and formed a company called CheatNeutral. The lads reasoned that since so many people cheat on their significant others and feel guilty, the cheaters could assuage their guilt by purchasing cheating offsets in much the same way that people purchase carbon offsets. CheatNeutral takes the money it receives from cheaters and hires couples to be faithful. That way, it reduces cheating just as NBC reduced carbon creation.

If you’re interested in the concept, would like to do some cheating or want to enroll as a faithful partner, you can go to the website http://www.cheatneutral.com/

Camelot

There has been a lot of talk among pundits lately about Barack Obama returning us to the Camelot of the Kennedys.

Ah yes, Camelot. “Where once it never rained ‘till after sundown ... don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment, that was know as Camelot.” Remember, as King Arthur sings this reprise in the Lerner and Lowe musical he is a cuckold whose kingdom is falling apart as he goes to war against his ace knight Lancelot over Guinevere.

Maybe we don’t want to return to Camelot. If you have to choose a Broadway musical as a theme, maybe Oklahoma or Fiorello would be a better choice.

Quote without comment

David Brooks writing in the New York Times on insiders of the coming Obama administration: “Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) … wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law) … Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.)… Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law). … If a foreign enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game an y time over the next four years, we’re screwed.”

Robert J. Kulak

West Hartford, Connecticut