Synchronicity: the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but that have no discernible causal connection
Oxford English Dictionary
Dear Friends,
No, you're not seeing double. Let me explain.
Earlier this week, I received an e-mail marked “URGENT” in the Subject line, which turned out to be from a Fox News reporter: “Please call me to talk about The Mitchell Report.”
Well, why not? If the price of fame and the possibility of fortune requires going on-air with Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or that other great American, Geraldo Rivera, so be it.
So, I called:
“Hi, this is Garry Mitchell from The Mitchell Report. You asked that I call.”
“Oh, yes, thanks for calling back so quickly. Can we talk about the report?”
“Of course,” I said.
“What can you tell us about it,” she asked?
“Well, it's a forum for writing about politics and policy issues, and - “
“Wait,” she said. “I'm talking about The Mitchell Report.”
“Right,” I said.
“Steroids,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
Click.
Sure, it hurt a little, but as the pain subsided, I got to thinking about That Mitchell Report - the one she was hunting down. And despite having lost my enthusiasm for Major League Baseball around the time of its first strike, I listened to Senator George Mitchell's opening comments on the following day:
"Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades -- commissioners, club officials, the players association and players - shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era . . . There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on."
Two thoughts dawned on me.
The first was about George Bush as an owner of the Texas Rangers, one of those “club officials” during “the steroids era,” who was just one among many turning the other cheek (sic) while players were bulking up to break records and build behemoth bank accounts.
And the second was about George Bush as President of the United States, who has presided over a “steroids era” in American politics - a noisome period in which his Administration's principals have engaged in bombast, bluff, hyperbole, embellishment, dissembling, and bullying on a list of issues that promoted division at a time when the country most needed unity.
It was at that moment that the notion of synchronicity -- a simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but that have no discernible causal connection - came to me. One George. W. Bush and two simultaneous, though unconnected, “steroid eras.”
So, I decided to pursue this convenient and slightly contrived parallelism, not knowing exactly where it might lead.
First: “Everyone involved in baseball shares responsibility.”
True enough. It is an “everyone” problem, but the players are the primary culprits -- Bonds, Clemens, Tejada, Pettitte, Knoblauch, Dykstra, Giambi, Palmeiro and a few hundred more.
The others -- -- commissioners, club officials, the players association -- are enablers.
In politics, the same notion applies.
“Everyone involved in politics shares responsibility.” And in a democracy, that's everyone - literally.
But, like baseball, the players are the primary offenders: Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Gonzales, Feith, Bolton, Libby, Addington, and a few hundred more.
The rest of us are enablers, and none more so than the Republican-controlled Congress that rolled over for the President's first six years.
Second, there's Senator Mitchell's conclusion that the baseball-and-steroids problem had been growing “over the past two decades.” And while American politics has been a blood sport from inception, it's also true that its “steroids era” is about two decades old.
Experts differ on a precise starting point - Vietnam; Nixon and Watergate; Ford's pardon and the election of 1974; Iran-Contra, Ollie North and Elliott Abrams -- but if we start the clock on the occasion of the incendiary fight over the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, politics' “steroids era” is almost precisely two decades old, too.
And while there were many contributors to the “politics of personal destruction,” in this opening chapter, it was Massachusetts' Senator Ted Kennedy who fired - or administered -- the first shot:
“Robert Bork's America is a land in which . . . blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters.”
A hyperbolic steroidal pronouncement if ever there was one, providing evidence that steroidal behavior is bipartisan.
So, what's the point?
The uber-steroidal years of the Bush Administration and their Congressional counterparts -- Gingrich-DeLay-Armey-Hastert - have escalated a practice that's as old as the republic itself.
And like steroids-in-baseball, the problem has become far more pervasive and disruptive during the past two decades, as has the “collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on.”
In baseball, That Mitchell Report outlines how to deal with the problem, but because the authority to do it rests with Commissioner Bud Selig, then the operative question is not how but whether?
In politics, the problem is different and more complex because it isn't clear how to deal with the problem or who can lead the effort to ratchet down the use of steroidal tactics and techniques in American politics?
Where are the leverage points? Who has the authority? How do we de-imperialize the presidency? How do we restore an atmosphere of relative respect and civility in the Congress?
This isn't about taking the politics out of politics. It isn't about taking the partisanship out of politics. But it is about reducing the deliberate polarization and politics of personal destruction - little by little, taking baby steps, perhaps aiming to have it down to something that approximates an acceptable level about the time that automobile manufacturers are required to get 35 miles-per-gallon in their fleets - when CAFE standards meet café demeanor.
Between now and Tuesday, February 5th, the most important decisions in the path toward this goal will probably have been made. More than half the states will hold primary elections or caucuses to determine the selection of each party's presidential nominees. Odds are that Democrats will know on Wednesday, February 6th while Republicans may well have to wait longer.
But if you're a registered voter in any of those 26 states, this will be the time to exercise your franchise and to give thought to which candidate(s) has the richest store of political capital and the strongest personal commitment to winding down the “steroids era” in American politics. And that may lead you to look beyond the list of front-runners to one or two who seem far back in the pack today.
If the time has come for baseball to clean out its dugouts, the time is ripe to take the perpetrators of steroidal politics out for a long walk to the woodshed.
a very detailed report, thank you very much for the info.
Posted by: steroids | June 17, 2018 at 03:52 PM