FDR Called for the Rights of the Individual; Will Obama Do the Same?

FDR'S FAMOUS COMMONWEALTH CLUB SPEECH REVERBERATES TODAY

President-elect Barack Obama has not saved the economy yet, but his victory last month is going a long way toward saving the publishing industry.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's two-year-old book Team of Rivals has becoming a bestseller on the heels of countless references to it and Obama's desire to create the same open-ended discussion in his own cabinet. (Listen to Kearns Goodwin discuss the book at The Commonwealth Club.) Of course, newspapers and magazines around the country couldn't keep enough copies on newsstands with the visage of Obama during the days after the election.

Now, it's all about making the link between the Depression-era beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and Obama's today.

One of the better and most specific books concerning our current period of economic upheaval and presidential transition is Jonathan Alter's The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.

Alter posits that FDR's common jibe of being a "traitor to his class" was born out of his battle with polio. This debilitating illness forced him to gain an understanding with those less fortunate. It could be said that Obama's background and his fight with race in America would allow for the same empathy.

One interesting chapter in the book details how FDR broke convention tradition by accepting the nomination the day after. Though flying by aircraft was not particularly safe in 1932, FDR flew to Chicago for the mere spectacle of such arrival. Recall how Obama, on short notice, chose to accept the nomination in an 80,000-seat football stadium instead of at the convention hall and packed nearly 100,000 into Chicago's Grant Park on election night.

But it is one of FDR's most famous speeches that reveals a plausible connection between the two leaders.

On September 23, 1932, he gave what Alter calls "a dividing line in his political evolution." during a speech at The Commonwealth Club of California. The speech ranks as one of the club's most famous moments. (Read the entire speech here.)

The address has been characterized as un-Roosevelt-like in its clarity and bluntness. Alter says this was because the speech was barely read over beforehand by FDR; therefore, the candidate was unable to "sand the edges and apply his usual caution."

The Commonwealth Club speech is now seen as the first clear rationale behind the New Deal and, more important, redefined the idea of the individual. Some of FDR's rhetoric seems pedestrian today, yet it was revolutionary to a country set in an economic free fall and wallowing in self-doubt.

Every man has a right to life; and this means that he has also a right to make a comfortable living. He may by sloth or crime decline to exercise that right; but it may not be denied him. We have no actual famine or death; our industrial and agricultural mechanism can produce enough and to spare. Our government formal and informal, political and economic, owes to every one an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work.

University of Chicago professors Jane Dailey and David Nirenberg bring the speech and the current state of our financial atmosphere into perspective in an article in Dissent magazine from last September.

As we watch (at current estimates) more than a trillion dollars in collective savings disappear into the whirlpool that was once Wall Street, we are already hearing calls for such restrictions and regulations. These calls are not misplaced, but they are not enough. We also need what Roosevelt provided three-quarters of a century ago: a politically convincing and principled way of imagining a relationship between the economic and political rights of the individual and those of the collective, which he called the “economic constitutional order.”

They go on to urge this simple bit of advice: "In order to know what we want to regulate or whom we have to bailout, we first need to know what and whom we want to protect."

In Defense of Blogs; They're Not Taking Writer's Jobs

Will newspapers exist five years from now? Will bloggers overrun newsrooms? And what to do with legions of out-of-work career journalists unable to shift to the Brave New World of the Internet?

One of web journalism's pioneers, Michael Kinsley believes cyberspace is critically inundated with blogs, as he writes in his Dec. 1 article in Time.

Kinsley, who founded the web magazine Slate in 1996, would seem to be the one journalist able to see into the journalism's tangled future. Instead, like many long-time scribes, the ability to condemn blogging as a craft unlike any other form of writing seems easier than describing its possible benefits.

In a article for The Atlantic, long-time blogger Andrew Sullivan writes what may become the manifesto for the true meaning of blogging. In the current issue of the magazine, Sullivan describes blogging as an elusive middle ground between dialogue and writing. Because of the immediacy and unfiltered aspect of the blogging, he argues, a writer delivers crisp, unfiltered information.

Kinsley's article laments the sheer number of blogs that "need" to be read. Jason Linkins writing at The Huffington Post thinks this coming "blogopocalyse" is a bit of hyperbole with a simple solution.

I just don't recognize the human beings suffering from blog overload in the way Kinsley describes it, as creatures I have met in Real Life. Blog readers are not all mindless, passive drones on a Sarah Palin-esque quest to read "all of them." The simplest solution to the problem Kinsley cites, it seems to me, is for sentient beings, capable of making choices, to exist.

Beyond this, Kinsley veers back to a common dig at the bloggers perpetuated by print journalists. The key is to ridicule them as Kinsley wrote in a 2006 column for Time, asking, "So are we doomed to get our news from some acned 12-year-old in his parents' basement recycling rumors from the Internet echo chamber?"

One could argue that the underlying argument against the blog levied by journalists is buried beneath human nature – jealousy and spite – for the most part. In my own experience, I have two 25-year-vets of the San Francisco Chronicle as journalism lecturers. Both despise the activity and openly mock the craft. To them, being a reporter is about pounding the pavement and getting the story before the other guy. As Kinsley writes, "while an article a day used to be a typical reporter's quota (or in the leisurely precincts of newsmagazines, an article a week), reporters are now expected to blog 24/7 as well."

The bulk of the perception regarding the end of newspapers may actually be a related to the experience of professional journalists who pushed their way through J-school, worked the dreaded city council beat and forged a solid reputation for honesty, reporting and excellent writing and now see the younger generation have it way too easy.

Change is difficult no matter occupation you're in. The influx of computers in the office space during the 1980s surely made older employees nervous about doing jobs that once involved pencils, paper and giant accounting ledgers.

The other point of ridicule is to propagate the image of a slacker recycling the news, or as Kinsley said two years ago:

Meanwhile, there is the blog terror: people are getting their understanding of the world from random lunatics riffing in their underwear, rather than professional journalists with standards and passports.

Scott Rosenberg, one of the founder of the web 'zine, Salon, answers the question of blogging's legitimacy succinctly in an article for The Guardian last year. It is not about the ability of anyone on the planet to broadcast their thoughts and ideas according to the media, but what that power will do to their jobs.

Most journalists' understanding of the nature of blogging has been circumscribed by a focus on how it might affect our profession. We write articles about whether blogging can be journalism, we worry about whether bloggers can or will replace journalists, and we miss the real stories.

The real story is the democratization of thought that worries journalists who bash bloggers. The keys to the kingdom of information no longer sit in the locked offices of the publisher, but on simple, free blogging sites readily available on the web. In some ways the rise of blogs is similar to the decline of adult film studios and the availability of VCR's and video tape. Adult studios quickly ran out of business. Actors and actresses were no longer needed. Anybody could produce these videos and a glut of "entertainment" followed.

If you follow Kinsley's logic that every single blog must be read instead of making informed choices on the integrity and newsworthiness of each, then hordes of teenage boys would have never left their homes.

When it comes to the quality of blogging, it is compelling to think of John Milton's concept of the "marketplace of ideas." There are surely millions of worthless blogs, but like any good newspaper or book, the good one's can rise to the top, leaving the scum at the bottom of the cyberspace tank inconsequential and without significant page views.

"We're not going to run out of web space." writes Rosenberg, "and each of us still decides how to spend our time. What price is the world paying for the existence of blogging's universal soapbox? Unless someone has figured out how to make you read a blog when you don't want to, I don't see one."

The blog as most of us knows it is not the Wild West of writing that journalists will have you think, but a place well-known to the those same writers – The New York Times is of far greater gravitas than your free weekly tabloid dropped on your driveway in the same way The Huffington Post is of greater importance than the slacker posting in his underwear that Kinsley describes.

Unless you own stock in The New York Times Co., it is best not to lament the fall of newspapers. For every journalists out of work, a thousand citizen journalists will rise to take their place making society stronger with the power of truth and knowledge.

Michael Kinsley will be speaking Dec. 9 at The Commonwealth Club of California at 6 p.m. For tickets click here. Kinsley will give his thoughts on the current U.S. financial system and the politics involved.

Turner and Kawasaki at ContentNow Blog

Martine Paris has nice things to say about the recent appearance at The Club of Ted Turner and Guy Kawasaki. Read the post or check out her entire ContentNow blog.

Rhonda Becomes Invisible

Try sitting on the sidewalk. The rhythm of the noontime San Francisco foot traffic is steady on the corner of 2nd and Market, and the skies have been graying on the verge of rainfall. Businessmen and tourists stroll by and hover over you. This is the epitome of power, like Cassius Clay looking down at a destroyed Sonny Liston.

From this vantage point you become invisible. You don't really see more than shiny loafers and stylish pumps skitter across the cold concrete. This angle doesn't allow for much eye contact, either way. For a homeless woman named Rhonda this arrangement makes her disappear. Her obscurity lets passersby off the hook. I don't see you and you don't see me. People like Rhonda are easily forgotten.

Rhonda has made her home on 2nd Street for 10 years or as far as anyone around here remembers. John, the shoeshine man on Market, remembers her that far back, and the manager at the Men's Wearhouse, whose wall Rhonda uses as a backrest, agrees. "She thinks that's her home," says John, who is has been a fixture on that corner for 20 years. Members of The Commonwealth Club may have passed her by on their way to a fanciful speech on the downfall of our society, or something like it.

Rhonda's spot is quite large. She lies sideways on the sidewalk. Her elbow propping her body up against a few worn blankets -- a homeless Cleopatra without consorts. To her left is a large cart filled with a sleeping bag, cardboard boxes, half of a broom, a sheet of plastic to shield the rain and various sundry items. "Nothing I have is worth anything," she says.

Rhonda herself is a large African-American woman, though the the multi-layers of shirts, coats and sweaters makes her look rounder than she really is. She says she is 72, but like a lot of what she will tell you, this is subject to debate. The upper bridge of her teeth is gone, along with a few on the bottom, and she tugs a dark blue knit cap to her eyebrows and covers her ears. She's listening to her radio with her earphones. She likes R&B music with a little jazz. She listens to KBLX and sometimes the news to pass time.

There is no denying that Rhonda is one of many homeless people suffering from mental illness. Our conversation devolves into a jumble of non sequiturs and delusions of grandeur, but in between she realizes her life is not what she once imagined.

"I don't want to live like this -- like some wino -- or some dope addict," Rhonda says, "I don't want to be one to beg the streets. I don't want to be a panhandler." By all accounts, she does not ask for money, though she wears a small button on her coat saying donations are welcomed. She says she typically receives $5-$10 per day. She does, though, beg for food, saying "I love to eat."

On this day, she was nibbling on graying pieces of chicken presumably from the Subway two doors down. She would not say whether the sandwich shop gave the food or she found it in a garbage can. With Thanksgiving around the corner, Rhonda says she might visit a local soup kitchen or get in line at Glide Memorial nearby.

"Everybody who loves me helps me," she says, "There's a lot of people who hate me and do nothing."

John says there's a woman who visits Rhonda every day and gives her food and other necessities, but Rhonda doesn't want to talk about it. She calls her "just a friend."

Having survived on the streets for over 10 years, Rhonda has seen awful things. She says she was stabbed early on when another homeless person attempted to steal her purse, and she says she has been in the crossfire of numerous gunfights. Her meager possessions are also always in danger. "You can't leave nothing. You can't even close your eyes with all these vagrants and dope addicts around," she says.

Like many of the downtrodden among us, Rhonda is prone to alcoholism. "I love to drink liquor, especially gallons of liquor," she says, "I hate to even drink if it isn't a gallon."

John has seen her go on binges and notes "when she drinks, she gets the good stuff," but also says she doesn't bother anybody. The manager at the Men's Wearhouse agrees and says it is that fact that justifies not bothering her in return.

"She cleans up after herself. She sweeps her spot. If she would be throwing chicken bones all over or using it as a bathroom it would be different," he said.

Before I leave, Rhonda shakes my hand and blurts out, "I'll probably be locked outdoors for Thanksgiving." As I rise from a kneeling position next to her, my face floats out of her view and our line of eye contact is broken. All I become is just another pair of black shoes walking away from her and Rhonda becomes invisible again.

Presidential Transitions

As President-Elect Barack Obama moves with unusual speed to select and present the cabinet for his incoming administration, a great deal of attention is being focused on his possible and actual choices.

Today, Obama presented his economic team to the country. In coming days, we expect to hear about his foreign and domestic policy teams. Clues about the team and its goals can be found at the transition team's web site.

To provide some perspective on transitions past and present, we present Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria C. Duffy's most recent "InSight" column from The Commonwealth magazine. The column, called "Transitions," explains why a slow transition can present a danger to the nation. For a full-sized image of the column, click on the picture to the right of this posting.

Mukasey's Back on His Feet

Attorney General Michael Mukasey told reporters he was feeling "excellent" after an apparent fainting spell last night at an address to the Federalist Society.

Mukasey, who replaced embattled former AG Alberto Gonzales, made a memorable appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California in late March of this year when during the question-and-answer session he defended the Bush administration's use of wiretapping and remarked on a little-known Al Qaeda phone call placed from Afghanistan to the United States.

We shouldn't need a warrant when somebody picks up a phone in Iraq and calls the United States," Mukasey said. Before the 2001 terrorist attacks, he said, "we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald took a detailed look at the alleged 1999 phone call from Afghanistan and wonders why the 9/11 Commission never knew about it.

In the meantime, the 67-year-old Mukasey says he ready to get back to work.

Steve Fainaru and the Private Warriors of Iraq

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Fainaru speaks tonight about his new book, Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq, tonight at the Commonwealth Club of California.

Here's a sample of some of the articles on the use of private security contractors in Iraq written by Fainaru for the Washington Post. The collection led to Fainaru winning the prestigious award in international reporting this year.

• A Chaotic Day On Baghdad's Airport Road (April 15, 2007)
• Iraq Contractors Face Growing Parallel War (June 16, 2007)
• Cutting Costs, Bending Rules, And a Trail of Broken Lives (July 29, 2007)
• For Abducted Guards, Iraq Wasn't Just About Money (July 30, 2007)
• Where Military Rules Don't Apply (Sept. 20, 2007)
• Guards in Iraq Cite Frequent Shootings (Oct. 3, 2007)
• How Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards (Nov. 8, 2007)
• Iraqis Detail Shooting by Guard Firm (Nov. 26, 2007)
• Warnings Unheeded On Guards In Iraq (Dec. 24, 2007)

The title of the book is a reference to soldiers behaving however they please or no rules, whatsoever.

Fainaru is also the coauthor of The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream. He lives in El Cerrito, California.

Fainaru will speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco today at 6 p.m.

Ted Turner Sings an Old Tune

Media mogul Ted Turner spoke at The Commonwealth Club twice yesterday, first in conversation with San Francisco Chronicle's Phil Bronstein in San Francisco, and in the evening in conversation with Club CEO & President Dr. Gloria C. Duffy in Palo Alto. Both times, he was full of opinions and humor and good-natured orneriness.

But he sang at only one of the events, after he boasted to Bronstein that he could sing, and promptly began his song. (He followed up the song by reciting poetry.)

How many businessmen can carry a tune? Bronstein's blog includes the above video, from Dickson Louie, of Turner's Old Kentucky Home rendition. Not a bad singer, eh?

Turner Tells Old War Stories; Reveals Little About Ted

When Dr. Gloria Duffy, the Commonwealth Club's president and CEO, began a question to Ted Turner with "Mr. Turner," the cable news revolutionary deadpanned, "Call me Ted."

That, of course, is the title of Turner's autobiography slated to debut at number eight on the New York Times bestseller's list.

The humorous retort was emblematic of an evening featuring Turner's thoughts on the economy, foreign affairs, his children, ex-wife Jane Fonda and pet projects such as nuclear disarmament and global warming.

When asked why he had little involvement in the dot-com boom of the late 90's, Turner said facetiously, “Has there ever been anybody who ever led more than one revolution in one lifetime? Martin Luther King had civil rights, but that’s all he did. Alexander the Great conquered the world, but that’s all he did.”

Turner, who turned 70 Wednesday, sounded at times like an elder who claimed to have forecast every important event with the aid of hindsight.

On the demise of newspapers: "It's obsolete technologically. I saw that 40 years ago."

On the automobile industry: Turner said he "studied the situation" during the 1974 energy crisis and begrudgingly purchased a compact Japanese car.

On the rise of digital photography: Turner said he realized film was in trouble when he tested digital cameras 15 years ago.

It is undeniable, though, that Turner's wild-eyed vision of a 24-hour cable news network changed the media landscape forever. In some of the most interesting moments of the hour-long conversation, Turner described with wonderment how the Big Three networks failed to see the potential of cable news.

He described the network's vast infrastructure as being "1,000 times bigger than mine" and furiously worked to build the network from scratch without arousing the attention of the networks.

“I figured they were like a pack of hounds and I was going to be like a rabbit. I had to stay out in front of them because if they ever caught me they would tear me apart like a pack of hounds do a rabbit,” Turner said.

Calling himself a "global worrier," Turner mixed humor with real concern for the economic well-being of the country. At one point, he said people should welcome children back to the nest if the economy continues to spin downward.

“I’m really worried that we’re going to have a meltdown," Turner said, "But, I’m already thinking in terms of offering my children to move back into my house with me. If you remember "Sanford & Son," you know Lamont and Fred seemed happy.”

When asked if he believed the automobile industry should be bailed out, he said, "I don't think so" and instead offered his own idea for a bailout of the restaurant industry. "You can’t go more than three days without eating.” said Turner who owns Ted's Montana Grill with 50 restaurants in 18 states.

Turner believes the economy will distract president-elect Barack Obama's attention from other pressing issues like global warming, poverty and nuclear weapons.

He also agreed with Obama's desire to talk with our enemies, in particular, Iran. “I would meet with them and see if I could make them laugh," Turner said, "How can you sit there with a straight face? We’ve got 12,000 nuclear weapons and we tell Iran they can’t have any, but it’s okay for Israel to have them. They look at Israel as a danger. I think we all got to get rid of them or we’re all going to have them.”

Similar to numerous reviews of his book, Turner focused very little on his early years. The suicide of his father and abuse and the death of his sister to Lupus were touched upon but Turner offered little or no real insight, despite Turner's belief that you cannot know someone without understanding where they came from.

Turner did speak about his famous ex-wife Jane Fonda who wrote a section of the autobiography, revealing warts and all. “I’m good with that," said Turner. "I mean, after all, what’s she suppose to say? We got divorced. There must have been some problems.”

Despite the breakup, Turner indicated the two still share a good relationship. Fonda attended his birthday bash last Saturday featuring Burt Bacharach.

“She came to my birthday party. I talk to her just about every week to get my dose of humility," Turner said, "My father use to say that a few fleas were good for a dog, they reminded him that’s what he was.”

For Hillary, the Second Cut May Be the Deepest

An anonymous former adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking on the likelihood of her former boss's secretary of state ambitions, told the New York Times this weekend, “I can’t believe they would have her schlep out there with all this publicity unless they were real about it.”

It sounds logical until you consider that president-elect Barack Obama has an exit strategy in the name of Bill Clinton's potentially iffy post-presidential dealings around the world.

Alex Koppelman at the Salon's War Room blog writes that the Clinton's may be using their old, yet ineffective bullying tactics or riding a wave of inevitability into the State Department. That old wave did not quite reach the shores of the Potomac unfortunately

In the meantime, rumors and spin are swirling around whether Clinton is a shoo-in, somewhat interested or merely a trial balloon about to deflate.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Clinton is willing to cooperate in the vetting process of his financial dealing around the world and Bloomberg.com reported that Hillary may have to pay off $7.6 million owed to vendors from her failed presidential campaign before she could accept a place in Obama's administration.

Politico, though, reports that Hillary may not actually want the job and the New York Times published an even more peculiar article pointing toward Clinton withdrawing her name from consideration.

It was unclear if Sen. Clinton’s stated hesitation was part of a bargaining tactic as the Obama team weighs whether to appoint her secretary of state, a genuine moment of indecision or, perhaps, a signal that she was preparing to withdraw from consideration.

Both articles contain remarks about Clinton being "torn" between the cabinet position and finishing her work in the Senate. A bit of political posturing may well be going on between the Clintons and president-elect Obama, which leads to the question of who is next in line?

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) was an early rumor. While his name has not dropped from the rumor mill, it also has not gain much momentum.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has gained a modicum of attention in the last week after taking a meeting with Obama last Friday. During the Democratic primaries, many pundits joked both Richardson and vice president-elect Joe Biden were running – not for president, but for secretary of state.

When Richardson visited the Commonwealth Club of California in June of 2007 to talk about his presidential campaign, he gave some insights into how he would handle foreign affairs. Calling himself a "little rough around the edges," Richardson said that "the essence of governing is diplomacy. It's talking. It's dialogue. It's mediation. It's not, first, seeking a military solution." (See video above.)

Nearly taking a page out of Biden's strategy of splitting Iraq into three separate countries, Richardson said he would use diplomacy to urge the Iraqis to form a coalition government that would split oil revenues. "I would tell them we are going to divide your country into three entities – not three states," Richardson said.

Mimicking Obama's plan to approach hostile nations in the Middle East, Richardson said he would try to find "common ground" with Iran and Syria, while proposing an all-Muslim peace-keeping force in Iraq.

As a former Ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, Richardson said he recognizes the usefulness of the U.N., but does not favor using it in issues pertaining to Israel. "I believe there are times when you shouldn't use the U.N. – [for example,] the Israeli-Palestinian issue – they just basically get in the way because Israel is outnumbered," said Richardson.

The prospect of Richardson as secretary of state has some backers and a few detractors, without mentioning the possibility of greatly expanding the rift caused between Richardson and the Clintons over his support for Obama in the primaries.

Robert Guttman, blogging at The Huffington Post, likes Richardson; though he would seem to like anybody but Clinton at State. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, though, has some really harsh words for Richardson. (Watch the video here.)

Eagleburger slammed Richardson Tuesday on MSNBC, "I don't want to beat everybody to death, but I have very little respect for his intelligence and his knowledge of foreign affairs."

How might Richardson perform as secretary of state? Maybe a bit more aggressive than you might imagine. Click here and here.