My sister first showed me this three years ago, and I continue to find it incredibly amusing. Just a few of the things I admire:
…makes me laugh every time.
I wrote a post not long ago about some of the challenges to voting rights for the District. You can see that here. At the end of that post you will notice that I had to make a correction; these issues are complex.
I just received the following from someone at the D.C. City Council. I plan on attending, and encourage anyone interested in local politics/advocacy to attend as well. These issues are complex, and it is important to try and spread our opinions and ideas professionally, with as much understanding as possible.
In a democracy being a part of the solution = being willing to be a part of the process, in whatever way.
John A. Wilson Building, Council Chambers (Room 500)
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Panel One: Framing the Discussion
The Honorable Reverend Walter Fauntroy, Former DC Delegate to U.S. House of Representatives; Pioneer of DC Statehood & Home Rule Movements
The Honorable Jamin Raskin, Maryland State Senator; Constitutional Law Professor, American University’s Washington College of Law
Panel Two: The Impact of Voting Rights, Statehood, and Similar Measures to the Home Rule Charter and Structure of the District of Columbia
Brian Flowers, Counsel to the Council of the District of Columbia
Peter J. Nickles, Attorney General for the District of Columbia
Panel Three: The Constitutionality of the DC House Voting Rights Act of 2009
The Honorable Patricia Wald, Former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Jonathan R. Siegel, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Walter Smith, Executive Director, DC Appleseed Center; District of Columbia Bar, The District of Columbia Affairs Section
Panel Four: Beyond the DC Voting Rights Act: Additional Pathways to Full Democracy
Manus Cooney, Constitutional Lawyer, TCH Group; Former Staff Director for Senate Judiciary Committee and Counsel to U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Richard (Rick) Dykema, Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Stephen Pershing, Constitutional Lawyer, Center for Constitutional Litigation, P.C.; Adjunct Professor George Washington University Law School
The Honorable John Capozzi, Former “Shadow” U.S. Representative for the District of Columbia
Johnny Barnes, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area
Panel Five: Voting Rights, Statehood and Full Self-Determination for the District of Columbia: A Political Analysis
The Honorable Tom Davis, Former U.S. Congressman from Virginia
Panel Six: Perspectives from Future Legal Scholars and Political Leaders
Edneka Haynes, 3rd Year Student, Howard University School of Law
Jackie Ouidia, Student Body and BLSA President
Watching this video made my blood boil all over again from 8 years of the Bush administration. It reminded me that this kind of thinking isn’t gone at all. It just exited stage left, and will reappear…. The video is from a few days ago, of Condoleeza Rice being questioned about torture – unexpectedly – by students after a speaking gig.
One of the things that I see is her willingness to wield information to deny questions. She uses her intelligence, experience, and access to information to try and make the questioner feel stupid. She doesn’t have to answer questions, because somehow the questioner doesn’t know enough to ask the question. That’s what Bush did a lot of, cause we let him. Dr. Rice gets angry and begins asking questions herself. As if, because he doesn’t know something, why should she explain anything to him?
What we saw with the last administration was the arrogant sense of “you don’t know enough to know anything…. You can’t question me cause you don’t know all the information, and I can’t share any of the information with you.” 8 years of people in power telling us we don’t know enough to ask questions, and that for our own best interest: just back off. If we don’t get the lesson learned, it will return.
Information is used by those in power to make people feel stupid. Of course, they have access to the best information, they see it in a constant stream. That does not mean that questions are invalid.
At whatever level of public office, in a democracy, there is a need for a reasonable (not complete) level of transparency and communication. Not on every issue, or every decision, or every conversation. But on the issues and conversations that most impact constituents. And the constituents get to decide what issues they care about. Not the government.
To wit: I don’t care if Fenty is too busy governing to explain what’s happened with baseball tickets. He doesn’t get to decide everything that he is too busy to deal with. I’m not saying Fenty is anything like Bush. We all have our personal buttons, and this is one of Fenty’s… but he’s better than that. So they oppose(d) the stadium. Let history judge.
In a democracy, all leadership is temporary. There is an inefficiency there. You’re never gonna get it all done. But as part of a process, government leaders do well more than make laws. They are models for behavior.
Government leaders play a role in the evolution of our civilization. If leaders can only lead behind closed doors, in secret, then they never really were leaders. Just people holding power. You can distinguish between the two this way: the people who are just holding power have a particular reticence to truly share the information and power that their position gives them necessarily exclusive access to.
To take it one step too far: our leaders encourage us to play ball with them, even when they don’t want to play with us.
{image stolen from DCist… image of the day April 30, 2009.}