Not much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving

President Reagan and Tip O'Neill

Earlier this month, the University of Ulster announced it would be establishing the John Hume and Tip O’Neill Chair in Peace, designed so that the school in Northern Ireland would become a world leader in peace and conflict resolution studies.

O’Neill’s association with this university stems, of course, from the late House speaker’s longtime interest in Northern Ireland. He was one of the famous “Four Horseman” of Irish American politics -- along with Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy and Hugh Carey -- who pressed leaders in Ireland, Britain and the North to peacefully resolve the ancient conflict.

But O’Neill was quite good at conflict resolution on this side of the Atlantic. And a lot of Americans would be quite thankful, this holiday week, if we had some political representatives like O’Neill today.

It would also be helpful if people reacquainted themselves with an Irish American guy who served as president from 1980 to 1988. He is an idol of the conservative right, yet worked with the liberal likes of O’Neill, and even -- gasp! -- agreed to tax hikes while he served as president.

You don’t hear that from the Tea Party, do you?

Not that it’s just Republicans who are to blame here. Democrats haven’t exactly come out looking like statesmen, either.

Indeed, even if the so-called congressional super-committee in Washington manages to come up with a last-minute compromise (which looked like a dim prospect as the Irish Voice went to press), not much has been done in the last week to enhance our view of Washington. Compromise remains a dirty word, and neither the Republicans nor Democrats seem willing to do anything to change that.

This was not always the case. Consider the two Irish giants of the 1980s political scene –O’Neill and Reagan.

They were quite different. Reagan’s great-grandfather was from Tipperary, but his background was deeply American as his family settled in the generally non-ethnic Midwest and then California.

O’Neill, on the other hand, was an East Coast ethnic kid, an old style pol who knew, as his famous saying put it, that “all politics is local.”

Also, O’Neill was an old-style New Deal liberal, while Reagan was an icon of the Republican party.

And yet, somehow, the duo managed to work together, in a way that seems unthinkable today.

When you hear the likes of Michele Bachmann bow at the altar of Reagan, you think she is talking about a man who was so ideologically pure that he could not utter the word “Democrat,” much less work closely with such a creature to come up with a compromise economic plan.

And yet, O’Neill and Reagan -- and even a Republican senator named Bob Dole -- did that throughout the 1980s.

Yes, there were early tax cuts Reagan and his allies supported. But when it was clear the U.S. budget was going bust (in part because of Republican support for military spending), Reagan agreed to tax hikes nearly a dozen times in order to keep the country functional.

Now, this is not to pretend that these were the good old days. Many people saw Reagan as a right wing devil and O’Neill as a sell-out.

But it must be said that both Reagan and O’Neill understood something about the Founding Fathers that many of today’s strident political types do not.

Compromise is not a very sexy thing. There’s a fine line between compromise and selling out.
When everyone is cutting deals in a smoke-filled room, we often crave someone who is willing to stand up and be independent.

But the famous Federalist Papers written at the time of America’s founding speak at length about how political factions must compromise.

And make no mistake about it. Irish machine politicians like O’Neill knew a lot about compromising.
From Chicago to New York, they were often challenged by idealistic reformers who had lots of big ideas but knew precious little about actually getting things accomplished.

Yes, the Tea Partiers and others can claim that it is time to break away from a system they view as inherently corrupt. They can claim that the likes of Tip O’Neill were part of the problem, rather than the solution.
But they’d pretty much have to say the same thing about that notorious tax-and-spender Ronald Reagan.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Losing our immigrant values - little coverage of John McCarthy as Steve Jobs mourning continues

Computer scientist - John McCarthy RIP

The world is still reeling from the death of Apple computer whiz Steve Jobs, who died October 5 at the age of 56.

Jobs was recognized as perhaps the foremost pioneer in a field that defined the end of the 20th century, and will surely dominate the early decades of our current century.

It is interesting, then, that not nearly as much attention was paid a few weeks later when a computer scientist named John McCarthy died at the age of 84.

Though not nearly as well known as Jobs, McCarthy was a certified prophet of our current e-world.

According to The New York Times, McCarthy “helped design the foundation of today’s Internet-based computing and…is widely credited with coining the term…artificial intelligence.”

Nearly four decades ago, meanwhile, McCarthy “presented a paper in France on buying and selling by computer, what is now called electronic commerce,” Internet security expert Whitfield Diffie noted in the Times.

There’s no need to belabor the Jobs-McCarthy comparison.  The latter was a secular saint who made Apple one of the hippest and most profitable corporations in the world.

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McCarthy was one of several people who played a key role in formulating the technological world we live in today.

There is, however, one more key similarity. Both Jobs and McCarthy were the children of immigrants.

Jobs’ father was born Abdulfattah Jandali in Syria. He goes by the name of John and famously gave Jobs up for adoption.  

McCarthy, meanwhile, was the son of an Irish immigrant labor organizer in Boston. McCarthy’s dad was a member of the Communist Party, as was his wife, a Lithuanian immigrant active in the women’s suffrage movement.

It’s important to think of McCarthy and Jobs as we slog through yet another depressing chapter in America’s immigration debate.

Lawmakers in Alabama recently passed what is believed to be the most severe immigration law in the U.S., targeting undocumented immigrants.

Over a dozen nations from Latin America and the Caribbean, meanwhile, have joined in the Justice Department's lawsuit against a controversial South Carolina law that would require police officers to contact federal officials if they believe someone is in the country illegally.

Just to make things really interesting, the South Carolina law was signed by Republican Governor Nikki Haley, herself the daughter of immigrants from India.

It is very easy to bash the Republicans and point out that this is the latest battle in a deeply schizophrenic country, where a deep nativist streak does battle with America’s inherent pride in its immigrant tradition.

It is easy -- but necessary.  

We lose something profound when we decide that now, finally, is the time to build walls and seal the borders.  When we convince ourselves that there were absolutely no illegal immigrants back when it was mostly the Irish and Italians and Poles and Jews who were streaming into America.

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But conservatives like Haley, as well as Alabama governor Robert Bentley, are right about one thing.  The federal government has dropped the ball on immigration.  

As a Haley spokesperson put it, “If the feds were doing their job, we wouldn’t have had to address illegal immigration reform at the state level.”

And, yes, we do need to think about criminals and terrorists when we think about immigration.  

But you know what else we need to think about?  What kind of country America is going to be in the 21st century.

And do you what else we need to think about? The next John McCarthy or the next Steve Jobs. 

Again, let’s not pretend we live in a time unlike any other.  Immigrants have always been a lightning rod for controversy.  

Consider McCarthy’s parents, immigrant Communists in Brahmin Boston.  A Catholic and a Jew.  

Surely had you asked a select group of Bostonians what to do with such a couple, they would have told you something about cramming these radicals back into steerage and sending them back to Ireland or Lithuania.

But consider what we would have lost.  Is that sentimental view of immigration?  

Perhaps.  But that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Occupy Wall Street - NYPD, Ray Kelly and Pat Lynch can’t win

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Ray Kelly and Patrick Lynch are often at odds.  After all, the former is a “boss,” the New York City police commissioner, while the latter represents the average street cop for the PBA, the city’s largest police union. 

But the crime-fighting duo are also the Irish face of New York City law enforcement. 

The NYPD is not nearly as Irish as it used to be, but to have a guy named Kelly running things, and a guy named Lynch representing thousands of officers illustrates how Irish the NYPD remains.

That being said, these are tough times for Kelly, Lynch and the NYPD.  The department is currently enduring a ticket-fixing scandal in the Bronx.  This comes as cops have also endured other sleazy allegations ranging from rape to racism.

In an article entitled “Is Ray Kelly’s NYPD Spinning Out of Control?,” The New York Observer recently wondered, “Between racist cops, rape cops, ticket-fixers, gun-runners and 'white shirts' gone wild, New York's Finest are losing their shine. Is the commissioner to blame?”
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True, as that same article noted, Kelly is still viewed quite favorably by average New Yorkers.  In fact, 25% of New Yorkers in a recent poll said they would vote for Kelly for mayor, the best showing of any local politician. (Kelly has said he has no interest in City Hall.)

Still, there is trouble looming. Perhaps the biggest problem for Kelly – as well as Lynch’s beat cops – is the ongoing occupation in downtown Manhattan at Zuccotti Park. 

Already we’ve seen ugliness as cops wrestle, pepper spray and otherwise not-so-gently subdue Occupy Wall Street protesters.

It should go without saying that there is plenty of blame to go around here.  No American’s right to assemble and express should be infringed, even if some of those people are peeing and pooping on the street. 

On the other hand, you can imagine an average beat cop’s sentiments towards the protesters.  They have been reassigned from locations all across the city to essentially babysit a ragtag group of folks who (at least some cops might think) don’t seem to have anything better to do.

That, to me, is where things get really interesting.  What do Lynch and other PBA officials think about the Occupy Wall Street movement? 

After all, yes, cops are charged with keeping the peace and keeping the city safe.  But they are also union men and women.

As one 21-year-veteran of the NYPD told the Observer, “We’re working stiffs, we have families to support. People seem to forget that we work as hard as everybody else.”

Furthermore, they are “working stiffs” in a cash-strapped city which actually delayed the hiring of a new class of NYPD recruits back in April.

Other unions, from the United Federation of Teachers to the Service Employees International Union, have expressed support for at least some aspect of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  And yet, police officers have essentially been put into a position where they are in direct opposition to the movement.

In fact, you might go so far as to say the cops are in a position where they literally cannot win.  Their bosses are telling them to monitor the protestors closely, so much so that any messy attempt to keep the ultimate peace might be taped via cell phone camera and end up on YouTube or the front page of the New York Post.
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On the other hand, let’s say the police succeed in essentially muting the pro-union themes among the many messages coming out of Zuccotti park.   Are cops, then, acting against their own best interest?

I hate to sound like an old-fashioned Marxist class warrior, but for the longest time, police officers – for all of the flaws people like to bring up about them  – have been asked to protect the interests of the elite, even though they themselves live far from elite lifestyles. 

To use the terms currently in vogue, your average police officer is without a doubt a member of the 99%.  And yet, it seems as if they are acting on behalf of the 1%.

That old union song asked, “Which side are you on?”  For now, it looks like New York’s Finest have two choices -- bad and worse.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

Please leave John F Kennedy rest in peace

Stephen King

You know how they say it took Richard Nixon - someone with strong anti-Communist credentials – to visit China back in the 1970s?

Well, maybe it’s going to take an Irish Catholic to say something uncomfortable about John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Enough.  Really.  Enough.

Horror master Stephen King has just writing a 900-page time-traveling novel about how the JFK assassination could have been prevented.

So.  Enough.

This might be the kind of reaction you would expect from a Kennedy-bashing conservative, or a twenty-something slacker who has no interest in any history prior to the great Y2K scare.

That’s not me.  And yet, I’m compelled to, if not banish all Kennedy-related studies, then at least declare a moratorium.

Later this month, we will again mark the anniversary of the assassination that supposedly changed everything.

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Fittingly, as the fateful date approaches, new waves of Kennedy studies wash upon our cultural shores.

Last month there was a new book from Caroline Kennedy about her mom, Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy.

Now there’s Stephen King’s tome and TV pundit Chris Matthews’ new (500 more pages!) book Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.

Matthews does an interesting job putting the Kennedys on the couch, psychoanalyzing the family dynamic as well as the lingering bigotries they had to confront.

Joe Kennedy Jr., of course, was seen as the family’s brightest light.

For his parents, Joe “would be their bridge to both joining and mastering the WASP society from which they, as Roman Catholics in early twentieth-century America, were barred.”

JFK, meanwhile, had to carve out a space as the “second son,” which is the title of one of Matthew’s chapters.

“Unlike his older brother, bound to a more conventional blueprint, Jack wasn’t under the same pressure. There was a lightness to him, a wry Irishness that blended with the WASP manner rather than aspiring to it,” Matthews writes.

“With that combination, he could enter where his father, mother, and brother could not.”

I’m not suggesting the Kennedys in general and JFK in particular are not interesting.  But I can’t help but think the amount of energy which we continue to focus on this clan means we are no longer interpreting the family and their times.

We are now interpreting the already-countless, already existing interpretations.

There’s also a lot of nostalgia involved in this.

Yes, every generation is susceptible to this.

Nevertheless, certain children of the 1960s have clung to Camelot with a passion bordering on disturbing.

A Washington Post contributor recently wrote, “As a prominent television personality himself, (Chris) Matthews understands the riddle of being constantly in the public eye, but also in another space the public doesn’t see. And he has brought this intuition to a reexamination of JFK, who you might think is the most chronicled and therefore the best understood president in modern history. Not so.”

Not so?  Well, maybe that’s best as it is.

Maybe we already know enough about this president, not to mention his killer and the folks who surrounded this president and his killer.

If you don’t think so then consider King’s new book, simply titled 11/22/63.  If Oliver Stone, in his movie JFK, depicted the assassination of Kennedy as a crime so heinous it simply must have been hatched at the highest levels, then King goes Stone one better.  (FYI: Early reviews suggest King’s book accepts the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.)

What King’s book does feature is a character who stumbles upon a portal which allows him to travel back to 1958 and, thus, possibly stop the assassination before it happens.

Maybe the world would still be a great place, then, right?

It’s hard not to look at all of these Kennedy books and realize they have little to do with JFK himself.

They seem to give a voice to our own fantasies about bold, youthful leadership and more innocent times.
 
Very basic questions, of course, would force us to confront the fact that there really were no more or less innocent times.

Ending our JFK obsession would, I believe, force us to grow up a little bit more as a nation.

So let’s let Jack rest in peace.  For a little while.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)