The Queen and Bush: Lessons

Last Sunday, I finally got around to seeing the film, The Queen, starring Helen Mirren. Mostly, I went to see Mirren's performance, given the pre-oscar buzz. Besides that, I had lived in London at the time of Diana's death; during the period when Tony Blair and the Labour party swept into parliament following the inept bumbling of John Major.

Her death was shocking, certainly - her modern, fashionable class, confessionary TV specials, and predisposition with good causes and interesting men, made her far more the stuff of iconic legend than Paris Hilton should ever apire to. During those days, as the movie got right, you couldn't avoid the outrage at the 'Royals' - the 'why don't they get it', the 'how frigid can they be' the 'why are they still there' type headlines.

But, the Queen of England, at the time and as dramatized in this movie, did something that Bush, in all his boy-in-a-bubble arrogant stupidity can't do.....She considered public opinion (25% of which was against her for her initial handling of the Diana situation, compared to the 90% against Bush for his handling of Iraq.) She considered her decision not to make a public statement regarding Diana. She may or may not have listened to Tony Blair's insistence to say something as the film surmises, but nonetheless - she put her pride (and decades of her brand of leadership, sullen and dignified vs. emotional and tabloidal) aside and did a public about face......

She didn't wait ALMOST FOUR YEARS to take the pulse of reality and the public - she chewed on it for a COUPLE OF DAYS.

Now, I'm not comparing the magnitude of Diana's death with that of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqi civilians plus thousands of American soldiers. But, that difference is precisely the point. Bush is going away to 'have a think' about a new Iraq strategy? What? What part of the bloody civil-war-sparking incompetent mess going on in Iraq requires more time to figure out? If he had the balls of the Queen of England, he'd be able to process the years of being so very wrong without having to return to his ranch over Christmas AND New Year's while thousands more people DIE to change his strategy.

Freedom of Peace Prevails

It’s hard to feel threatened by four women carrying a peace petition. Yet, that was the contention of the NYPD who, on March 6, 2006 arrested and imprisoned overnight, activist mom of slain soldier, Cindy Sheehan, CODEPINK leader, Susan (Medea) Benjamin, Episcopal preach, Reverend Patricia Ackerman, and Melissa (Missy) Beattie.

For carrying a petition to end the Iraq war to the United States Mission at the United Nations, police and security officers said these women created a “dangerous situation.” During their week long trial, deputy police commissioner for public information, Paul J. Browne, said individuals who engage in civil disobedience ‘expect to be arrested.’

The trial on an initial trespassing charge, plus four other misdemeanors that the District Attorney threw in, ended today, December 11. At 10:00 AM, New York City Criminal Courtroom 450A was full of supporters. By 10:30 AM, we were asked to switch courts due to the 50+ crowd which included members from various peace activist groups like CODEPINK, the Granny Peace Brigade, and Veterans against the Iraq War.

Ten minutes after reassembling in the larger court room, the Judge announced that the jury had reached a verdict. He told the audience to refrain from any outbursts. Democracy, of course, doesn’t do ‘silent’ well. But, silence continued as the foreperson read the verdict. Beginning with Cindy Sheehan, the tone was set. Not guilty for resisting arrest, not guilty for obstruction of government administration, not guilty for both counts of disorderly conduct, but guilty for trespassing on private property (the original charge)

After the judge thanked and dismissed the jury, Ms. Sheehan’s defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, requested the trespassing charge be set aside because the DA had conveyed grossly inaccurate information to the jury about the nature of private property, the crux of the case. The prosecution retorted they had sufficiently conveyed the state of law. The judge denied the application.

Then, in an act of stunning ignorance as to what these women do with their lives, the prosecution asked that 5 days of community service be given the defendants as punishment - for the charges on which they’d been acquitted.

All three defense attorneys responded to the absurdity of that request and asked instead for non-conditional dismissal. Medea Benjamin’s lawyer was outraged, “For 30 years, [Medea] has spent every waking moment helping other people – to have her do community service as a punishment is ludicrous.”

The judge agreed, “The fact that they spent a day in jail, two days the way the corrections department counts a day in jail, is sufficient.” However, he did set a conditional discharge as sentence. “Conditional, on living a law abiding life,” plus the $95 trial fee.

Fortunately, the binds of the justice system can’t keep a good movement down. In her inimitable heroic style, Medea turned to the audience even before leaving the courtroom, “We will now take our petition to the UN mission.”

There was a bigger access issue riding in court today. The government simply shouldn’t have as important an office as the UN mission housed in a private building. Public offices should be open to the public. “It’s obvious,” said Medea, "who the people are that should have been on trial here – like George W. Bush.”

Upon leaving the court room, Cindy Sheehan, was still seething, “I am furious that they arrested us for trespassing, piled on these other charges, and that we spent a night in jail - just because of who we were. I feel violated.”

In the hallway, Medea told supporters, “We are going to meet for lunch in the café at the US mission and deliver our petition.”

“We love you guys!” added Cindy, to loud applause.

Congress Needs an Empathy Shot

Sometimes, you need to go back in time to move forward. That thought occurred to me as I was watching Sam Wood’s 1941 classic film, The Devil and Miss Jones. It’s the story of a tycoon, J.P. Merrick, who takes on the identity of Mr. Higgins, a shoe salesman in his department store, so that he can infiltrate and bust up a group or workers unionizing for better wages and conditions.

Then, empathy and love happen. Mr. Higgins befriends two of the main organizers (including the progressive and spirited Miss Jones) and an older woman, with whom he falls in love. For this woman, feelings towards him are not about money - she doesn’t know who he is or how much money he has. They are about the hero she thinks he is; someone that will stand up to management and fight for what’s right.

At first, an undercover J.P. Merrick, can stand up in day to day situations; in the back of his mind, he knows he is management. Power provides that confidence. Afterwards, he learns empathy. He stands up because he comes to see his workers as real people: people with whom he hangs out on a crowded Coney Island beach. In the end, he saves everyone’s job and takes them all on a cruise. He becomes a hero, not through having accumulated obscene wealth, but through doing the right thing. Okay, it's Hollywood in the 40s, but still.

While, it’s hard to imagine today’s CEO’s spending an hour in the jobs of their union or other workers, it needn’t be a stretch to bring back the sense of fairness that walking a mile in someone else’s shoes should inspire.

It’s that empathy that should be at play in the 110th Congress. Americans voted for and against many issues on November 7th. Most importantly, they sent a clear demand for change. It’s time to honor that demand.

Fairness requires a living wage be enacted at the federal level. It requires creating a mechanism for providing preventive and active health care coverage to all. It requires fixing Medicare Prescription D – no donut holes, no breaks for drug companies – instead caps for any drugs companies that want to be represented by the program.

We need a progressive social security tax so that billionaires can proportionally pay for social and financial insurance for a wider spectrum of aging Americans. We need to increase the higher education budget and replenish the $12 billion cut that was voted in last year. Congress, while funding post-Katrina reconstruction, should penalize insurance companies who don’t honor their claims.

The new finance committee should cap credit card company charges and interest rates. These firms don’t have to extract 28% interest rates from individuals and only 7% from corporations. Fairness requires examining the egregious multiple of 421 times the average workers compensation that CEO’s made last year. It should transfer that excess to secure employee pension funds and health-care costs.

Not each congressperson may pull a Mr. Higgins and live in the shoes of their average constituents, but they can listen, take the votes for them seriously, add some empathy and long term thoughtfulness, and change some damn laws!