Educating Sarah Palin

There is currently a high probability that Sarah Palin will run for President in 2012. This is not based on her qualifications, but on her strength as a symbol for Republicans who are suspicious of advanced education and secularism.

As things stand now, it appears that a Palin campaign would be just like McCain's, but without his moderating influence. It would most likely be a very divisive campaign, fought at the level of fear, insinuation, holier-than-thou moralizing, and dirty tricks. That is, yet another a campaign that would harm America regardless of who wins.

As a Democrat, I would rather have a Republican win a campaign focused on constructive debate and including all elements of our society, than have Obama or some other Democrat win a second term by vanquishing yet another destructive, McCarthy/Nixon/Bush-ish Republican attack. But given that Palin is likely to run, is there anything that can be done now to raise the level of the 2012 campaign?

I think there is. I think that Obama should have as one of his priorities the "education" of Sarah Palin, with an eye toward the level of debate of the 2012 presidential election.

This does not mean that he should try in any way to convert her into a progressive. In fact, that would be a mistake, because if that happened, someone else, maybe someone even less likely to run a responsible campaign, would run as the Republican candidate. Instead, what Obama should do is to give Palin a voice in the Obama administration. Not in a central position with a title and real power (because she is not yet qualified for that), but in an advisory capacity, where she would have a genuine opportunity to shape national policy through the force of her ideas.

A straightforward way to implement this, for example, would be for Obama to ask groups of governors (including Sarah Palin) to produce executive advisory reports on topics of interest to their states. Palin should be included in both energy and wildlife related committees, and any others that might apply. President Obama should take an active part in these governors' groups, and Governor Palin should be asked to take on a leadership role as well.

This would be valuable experience for Palin in two ways. First, in a group consisting of governors and presidents, hopefully only good ideas would survive. Even if she herself did not produce much in this regard, the experience of taking part in such a process at a national level would provide her with context that was desperately lacking in the 2008 campaign. Second, by working personally with Obama and with a diversity of governors and members of Obama's cabinet, I believe that she will lose her fear of them. They will become colleagues. At a minimum, this will provide a degree of collegiality that was sadly missing in 2008.

In short, ironically, perhaps the best thing that Obama can do to prepare for 2012 is to help prepare his most likely opponent. This is a win-win for everyone. Her participation in these national groups will add essential breadth and depth to her candidacy. Her input will make the product of the groups more representative of the national consensus. The campaign will most likely be far less harmful to the nation. And, in the event that she actually won the election, the experience could make her a much better president than she would be otherwise.

One might imagine that Palin would be unwilling to partake in this process, because it could lose her her Mackerick™ spurs. This would be a decision she would have to make. I think the governors advisory groups are a good idea in any case (something like that seems to be gather steam even now, before the inauguration), and I think it would be her loss if she decided not to participate, or if her participation was obstructive rather than constructive. In any case, I think the attempt should be made to include her.

Greg Shenaut

Foreign language education and national security

America was caught flatfooted by the attacks of Sept 11, 2001 in many ways, but one of the most subtle was linguistic. American people have almost no understanding of Muslim culture, and this is due in large part to our even greater lack of comprehension of the languages spoken in most Muslim countries. This has been seen directly by US armed forces in Iraq (Arabic, Kurdish, Farsi, Aramaic) and Afghanistan (Farsi, Hazaragi, Pashto, Pashayi, Turkmen, Uzbek, Aimaq, Balochi, Brahui). Our soldiers have been in increased danger, and our foreign policy has been a disaster, in part due to the language gap.

There have been several programs set up by the US military to increase knowledge of key languages, including special high-paying positions for translators, and educational programs for members of the military. However, progress has been slow.

On the seemingly unrelated front of the presidential elections, both candidates have at least mentioned foreign language education. Senator McCain has included some support for online foreign language training in his plan, and while Senator Obama has not stated anything specific regarding foreign language education in his plan, he has made several statements indicating that he understands its importance.

The position of Senator Obama deserves some further comment. First, he stresses the importance of foreign language training solely in the context of business, which I feel is a mistake. The principle advantage of foreign language training has to do with the ability to make all kinds of connections (yes, including business connections) to members of another language culture. This includes social relationships, but it also includes the ability to read a newspaper or a novel written in and for a different cultural milieu. Foreign language is really more like a doorway than it is a cash register.

The other aspect of Senator Obama's position that is noteworthy is the response to it by his opponents. Senator Obama emphasized the end product of a good foreign language program by mentioning that it would be very desirable if all Americans were bilingual or even trilingual. This position was criticized as an attack on America, in that (if I understand this criticism at all), it would somehow dilute the role of English. This criticism has actually received considerable support during the electoral campaign. I see this as a manifestation of the strong distaste of Americans for things foreign, a kind of fear, in fact. I admit that I don't understand this objection, so perhaps I've misinterpreted it. However, perhaps as a result of the criticism, Senator Obama's education plan does not emphasize foreign language education, in spite of his strong support for it.

It is very interesting that neither Senator Obama or McCain, or the American military, has seemed to notice the connection between the abysmal status of foreign language education in America and the flat-footedness with which we were caught on Sept 11. The connection seems obvious to me: if substantial numbers of Americans were conversant in languages spoken in Muslim communities around the world, there would have been a shared knowledge base available to us to help guide our foreign policies. Instead of relying on summaries from the government and the media (which may or may not be complete, correct, or objective), we would be able to talk to the guy down the street who took Farsi in school and reads a Kabul newspaper online every day.

Obviously, we would also be able to find soldiers who spoke the language in any area of the world where we might need to become engaged, and not only soldiers: there is a need for all kinds of American expertise and support in many places around the world, and having a strong linguistic connection with them would help our country in countless ways.

The point I am working towards here is that foreign language expertise is a national security issue. American schools must begin to teach many more world languages, not just Spanish, French, and German. This must be supported federally from the Homeland Security budget in the form of an educational grant program aimed at second language diversity all over America.

There are many details that would have to be worked out, but here are some basic ideas:

• Learning a second language, or at least trying hard to do so, should be a requirement at the elementary school level and beyond. This is because pre-pubescent children, whose brains have not yet fully lateralized, learn a second language more like a native.
• Different schools or school districts should be targeted to learn the same languages, so that a kind of ad-hoc community allowing interaction in the languages can exist. The corollary of this is that the adoption of a certain set of languages in a school district should be a long-term commitment, to increase the depth of understanding of the language.
• The "classic" foreign languages, that is, the large languages, should still be taught orthogonally to the targeted world languages. That is, French, Latin, and Spanish should still be taught just as they are now. The federally-funded program to teach world languages should be separate.
• The choice of which languages to teach should reflect the number of people who speak that language in the world. There are as many as 15,000 US school districts, which means that there could be a fairly accurate reflection of world languages and dialects in US schools.
• There will be a problem of finding teachers. I believe that an informant-based approach could be used in the beginning, whereby an individual trained in language teaching and in the basics of the target language could work with a native speaker informant in the classroom to teach the language. The "teacher" would be a trained teacher with knowledge of English or foreign language instruction who has passed a course in informant-based methods; the "informant" would be a native speaker of the target language and dialect, possibly brought into the country with government support for the purpose. Later, a combination of informant-based and conventional instruction could be used.

I think that a program like this should be emphasized even in the electoral campaign and certainly afterwards. This would enrich America both economically and culturally, and it would also make us more secure in an increasingly globalized world.

Human beings, oaks, seeing forests and trees

A recent article in Science Now describes a very interesting situation regarding oak trees in North America. Based on a recent survey of plant life in several forests that were surveyed in detail in 1950, researchers concluded that (1) oak trees are in decline; (2) smaller plant species that depend on the oak forest environment are fading out in favor of intrusive species; (3) human activity is the primary cause of this change. There really shouldn't be anything all that surprising about that, it sounds like just another human-caused environmental tragedy in the offing, where human beings upset the natural order.

However, the concept of "natural order" is something that pulls random philosophizers' chains. What the heck is "natural order" if it doesn't include human activity? Aren't humans "natural"?

Well, the story of the oaks is a pretty interesting example of why the idea of natural order is overly simplistic.

It turns out that one of the major mechanisms whereby human activity is killing off the oak forests is the control of forest fires. Oaks, it seems, need fire to succeed. They are capable of surviving most forest fires, and after a fire, less fire-resistant vegetation, including maple trees, their primary competitor for lifegiving solar radiation, is thinned out, allowing the hardier oaks to thrive. This is also a reasonably familiar theme--we have heard, for example, that fire control in the West causes the buildup of thick forests filled with flammable underbrush, so that when a fire does come, it is much more difficult to control. Once again, human beings, messing with the natural order.

But here is where the article spins into random philosophizing territory: it turns out that Indians, over hundreds of years, had depended on the oaks for acorns, one of their primary food sources. No dummies, they figured out about oaks and fires, so for hundreds of years, they had been deliberately setting fires in North American forests to bolster the oaks, thereby increasing their own food supply.

Therefore, the preponderance of oaks in North American forests is the product of human intervention in the first place!

So where is that natural order argument now? The fact is, when it comes to oaks versus maples in North America, we can't see the forest for the trees. Who knows which species would naturally be dominant (i.e., without humans)? Probably, it would vary over the centuries, perhaps with variations in rainfall and fires. Probably, oaks would be far more limited, on average, than they were when Europeans arrived.

It seems to me that it does no good to talk about abstractions like "natural order". It's just a little too close to "divinely ordained" for my taste. I think that humans should do things to benefit humanity, and fuck natural order arguments. The truth is, humans can not survive as a species in an unfriendly environment, and so doing things that would make big changes should be done only after careful scrutiny and with great care.

That is, if we want more oaks, and after adequate study we conclude that no great harm would be caused by selective burns in oak forests, then why not do it? On the other hand, maybe maples are pretty cool trees too, and so maybe burning wouldn't be such a great idea. Either way, let's make the decision after figuring out what we want as human beings, and what effects a certain endeavor will have on us as a species, without worrying about the abstract "natural order".

Greg Shenaut

"Occupancy in default": a solution to future mortgage crises?

As we all know, there has been a wave of primary residence foreclosures in our country. Foreclosures always do two things: someone who is living in a house can't live there anymore, and the bank or mortgage company now has another house in their inventory. However, when there are many foreclosures happening within a fairly short period, as is the case in America now, a third thing happens: significant numbers of houses remain vacant, creating crime and safety hazards in the community.

There are various government initiatives that may or may not solve this problem, but it seems to me that it is partially due to the absolutist way in which mortgages are structured. That is, either you make your payments, or you lose your home.

There is another possibility, one that I think would be a net win for all concerned, especially in times of mortgage/home ownership crisis: occupancy in default (a word I just made up meaning something that continued occupancy of a property after defaulting on a mortgage).

The way this would work is very simple. When a homeowner fell behind on payments to a sufficient degree that foreclosure proceedings would commence, the mortgage lender would make all of the standard notifications, put the home on the market, and try to sell it, exactly as under current law. The difference is that the homeowner would not be evicted. That is, the dwelling would continue to be occupied by the homeowner until someone else bought it and was ready to move in. Furthermore, all of the usual negotiations would continue regarding interest rate, payment schedules, and so on, and if an agreement could be reached, and the homeowner could raise the cash and meet the requirements before someone else bought the house, then the (possibly modified) mortgage could be resumed with no disruption of the homeowner's family. On the other hand, if someone else bought the house and wanted to move in before the previous owner could meet the requirements, then a conventional foreclosure and possible eviction would take place.

I believe that it would also be advantageous for previous mortgage holders who are still occupying the premises to have a one-shot opportunity to accept (and to qualify for) the terms agreed to for the would-be owners. I say "one-shot" because the last thing we would want would be a bidding war between the current occupant and the prospective owners. Basically, the law would establish that in the case where a previous occupant in default still occupied the premises (under the occupancy in default law), the previous owners would have an opportunity (three business days?) to qualify for the same terms as the new occupant before the sale could close. If they did qualify, they would be able to stay under those terms; if they did not, the sale could close with the new buyer, but only on those terms.

I also believe that a court should decide whether and how much money the in-default occupants should pay the mortgage holder. This will depend on their circumstances, not on the size of the debt or even the value of the property. One possible rule of thumb is that it be no more than 1/4 of their net or "take-home" income. As long as they remained in occupancy in default, the payment would be split between principal and interest in proportions reflecting the term implied by the payment amount and the size of the debt, with an interest rate determined by the average rate for the time and region. This amount would be garnished from their wages if necessary. That is, it is theoretically possible eventually to pay off the mortgage and become the full owners of the property while still in occupancy in default. (Of course, not if someone came along willing and able to pay the full market value of the property.)

Now reliance on occupancy in default would not solve all of the problems of bad mortgage debt, but it would certainly do one thing: it would not allow situations such as the current mortgage crisis to cause largescale evictions at a time when new buyers are not available. Owners would not be so quickly evicted and would at least have a chance to retain the property; lenders would receive a reduced but greater than zero flow of cash from defaulted properties. In "good" times, where there is a healthy stream of home purchases, this new law would have little effect, because new owners willing and able to pay the market value of the property would come along fairly quickly. Basically, the new law would only serve to add a three-or-so-day delay into the purchase timeline. But in "bad" times, this law would have a profoundly positive effect on both lenders and borrowers.

I believe that both lenders and borrowers would be in favor of this possibility, but I do believe that for it to work fully, it should be supported by state and/or federal law, because part of the motivation for it is to protect our economy against crises of mortgage lending. For example, how would the occupancy in default status of a property affect inheritance or other transfers of the property (it seems to me that the law might want to distinguish between transfers to someone already living in the property versus to someone else).

The main target of occupancy in default is, of course, primary residences of mortgage borrowers. However, I can see little reason why the laws should not be extended to all residential properties, or even to all improved properties. It is less clear how it could help with unoccupied and/or unimproved property, but on the other hand, I don't see how it could actually hurt.

Greg Shenaut

"Soviet" aggression against "democracies" ?

The recent Caucasian conflict has awakened the anti-Communist Right around the world. I have actually heard the battle described in terms of "Soviet" and "communist" aggression against "democratic" and "Christian" neighbors. And, even if those words are not used, it is clear that they are beneath the surface: Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, is seen as a "democracy", and a "Christian" nation, while Russia is not. Russia is considered "Communist" and "Soviet", while Georgia is not.

In fact, though, Russia and Georgia are both former parts of the USSR, and are both capitalist democracies today. And, in both formerly officially atheist countries, Christianity is now the main, state-favored religion. The old vocabulary and the old framing simply do not work.

It is true that one can quibble about variations of democratic procedure, yet, there is no doubt that both countries are proudly democratic and thoroughly capitalistic.

So, what vocabulary should we use to talk about Russia? One advantage of the old Soviet/Communist/Atheist versus Democratic/Capitalist/Christian dichotomies is that it is very efficient. With that vocabulary, there was never any need for a deeper analysis of goals, motives, or plans: the commies wore the black hats, the democracies wore the white ones. Is there any possible replacement vocabulary that could hope to do this job?

Another word I've seen is eastern versus western, but of course Georgia is just as eastern as Russia, so that doesn't work.

Basically, I don't think there is a replacement.

This has enormous implications for our political discourse. In order to castigate the Russians, we will have to drill down into whatever the specific action is that they have done. There won't be a convenient shortcut. We will be forced to analyze the issues involved, and consider that maybe there will be two sides to the situation, with good and bad on each.

There are certain other very interesting questions that this raises for the Right.

The biggest is: what about the Cold War? Since Communism was invented way back in the 19th Century, we have been defining international relations in terms of the struggle between it and Capitalism. Somewhere along the way, Communism was tagged with "atheist" and "dictatorship", while Capitalism got "Christian" and "democratic". For many decades, both before and after World War II, those tags were adequate to explain every detail of the economic and military aspects of our foreign policy. However, if the Right is right (which I doubt, but for the sake of argument), and Russia is about to embark on its earlier imperialistic adventures, then perhaps the problem during the Soviet years wasn't with Communism (or with dictators or with atheism). Maybe the problem all along had to do with Russia: its history, its neighbors, its peoples, its geography, and so on. This is a potientially mind-altering thought.