ItSeemstoMe

Bob Metcalfe, Acrimony & 3rd Parties

Bob Metcalfe was PopTech’s host-moderator last week. He co-founded this wonderful conference with John Sculley and I love it for its focus on the intersection of technology and humanity. I’ve also enjoyed the partisan jousting and banter between Metcalfe, the token house Republican and an audience overwhelmingly Democratic and passionately anti-Bush. While in the past, the one-line zingers, in either direction, were mostly good-natured and funny, this year the banter often bordered on heckling and were often rude and tasteless or so it seemed to me. Once, it got downright ugly as an attendee interrupted Metcalfe on stage with insinuations that the president was a coke-head. Metcalfe, handled the awkward moment with class, but you could see his chagrin. And catcalls seemed to be an ugly response to Metcalfe’s lighter comments such as urging Democrats to vote on Nov. 9 (one-week late).

I managed to talk with Metcalfe at the event reception that night and we both admitted we were equally disgusted with our flawed presidential selection system and each of us wished our selective parties could offer better candidates than we seem to get, and that candidates could discuss issues thoughtfully and constructively. Metcalfe and I realized that we both agreed with each other on more things than with either candidate. Metcalfe said he was surprised at how completely he agreed with Joe Trippi who sees the time ripening for a real third party and the possible rapid disintegration of either or both the current Republican and Democratic parties. Trippi also see all candidates in our current system as egomaniacs more bent on being elected, than serving the common good; more beholden to money interests than constituent needs.

Surely America deserves better choices than the ones we are getting and surely our experience and technology can devise a better system for campaigning, nominating and electing and we both conceded that we were riper for a third party than we had ever been. I asked Metcalfe if he would ever run for office and he looked at me as if I were insane. That’s one of the problems with our system—you need to be nuts to run. The hours suck. You have no privacy. Your competitors will distort every action you take and the cost of reelection seems to be the primary activity following initial election.

Metcalfe and I agreed that most people have a sincere interest in truth and governmental fair play. Both sides denigrate the other beyond rational levels. Campaign financing is corruptive to the system. Surely, there must be an avenue to improve the system and to draw our best and brightest citizens to serve in some offices at least for a while.

Driving back to Boston after the conference, I wondered more about a third party. How would a new party evade the pitfalls of the incumbent duopoly? How does it raise money without being beholden to large contributors? Can you be elected by demonstrating vision, leadership and a willingness to serve? How does a candidate hear the voices of everyday people when there are so many voices saying so many things?

I have no answers, but I think it is time to start asking the questions.

American Myopia

In Boston years ago, I used to walk to college past a statue of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. The quote on the pedestal stayed with me: “My country is the world, my countryman all mankind.” Although today, we’d have to make it “humankind,” I kind of thought garrison had one of those really big thoughts that has helped me decide my positions on a great number of issues over the years from the Vietnam to outsourcing. I also like the Dali Lama’s related perspective: “We are all alike.”

In recent months hurricanes have ripped through America’s South killing less than 200 and causing a great deal of expense and inconvenience. You know the story, the media has been filled with it. USA Today, this morning's front page today showed a mother hugging her kid in a bus station. Buried deep inside today's news howver were brief wire stories on the death toll in Haiti rising over 1000 from Hurricane Jeanne. Haiti's not far from Florida. It is a long-suffering place. Not long ago the New York Times had a photo of women adding soil to porridge because there simple was not enough food to fill their children's bellies. The suffering must be extraordinary but I wondered how much people here cared. I went to Feedster, typed in ‘Florida Hurricane,’ and got 32,899 blog references. Then I typed in ‘Haiti Hurricane’ and got 358.

A few days ago, a Democratic friend told me he was changing his vote this year from Kerry to Bush. He cited Kerry’s lack of clarity on terrorism. He said that he's happy for both our family's that the terorrists have been rerouted from manhattan to Bagdad.

It seems to me something is wrong about the way America values the lives of our citizens over the lives of others. After all these years, I should know better. But still it makes me sad.

Confessions of a Flip-flopper

I have to come clean even if it dashes my presidential hopes. I am a flip-flopper. I have been changing my mind since my parents stopped changing my diapers. My first faith-based switch came at about age 6 when I decided I had been wrong on the Santa Claus issue. As a grammar-school kid in the 50s for a short while I used schoolyard language and stereotyping of the school yard bullies. When I became aware of how hateful and hurtful racial and sexual jibes can be, I flip-flopped big time. In college, I briefly supported the Vietnamese War as did over two-thirds of the nation. When evidence showed its wrong-headedness, I was among the two-thirds of the country whose opinion of the war reversed. More recently, I flip-flopped on Iraq. At first, I believed the tales of el Qaeda collaboration and WMD stockpiling. Then the evidence became compelling that I had reached this conclusion on misleading and dangerous allegations as well as a false sense of urgency.

I’ve come to realize that almost all complex issues evolve and it makes sense to simultaneously evolve your personal position as you become better informed. If you happen to be a U.S. Senator, you have to cast your vote based on what you know at the time the vote is called. It seems to me that flip-flopping is often the only alternative to close-mindedness. People who make a choice and stick with it, even as mountains of non-corroborative evidence are heaped in front of their noses should really consider flip-flopping every now and then. All too often, the alternatives end up being unjust wars or jihads. Even more often those who refuse the flexibility of flip-flopping demean their opponents rather than review the facts.

I hope most American voters are flip-floppers. We could use one in the White House.

Dead Journalists-51, Bloggers Zero

Italian freelance correspondent Enzo Baldoni becomes the 51st journalist killed while covering Iraq. To my knowledge there have been no bloggers killed. In this ongoing debate debate bloggers should respect that difference in danger levels between what they do and what bloggers do. After military,, police and firefighters it just might be the most dangerous profession.