Smart peopleby: bloomingpolTue Aug 28, 2007 at 07:27:43 AM EDT |
| I wrote this piece for our local on line citizen journalism paper The Forum and thought I would post it here as well. After going to the Rockingham County Democrats picnic on Sunday, I was thinking about what I look for in a candidate. I have previously written that I look for a leader on progressive values, but I decided I needed something else as well, well-trained intelligence. |
| I must admit, when it comes to my government, I have a prejudice toward smart people. I feel much more secure knowing that decisions are made based on finding facts and considering the real world, followed by the use of reason and logic to discover solutions. Starting from the result one wants to see and working backwards, spinning the facts to fit the ideology, and advocating that the end justifies the means scares me a lot! I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing a couple of gentlemen who are really smart guys the other day at the Rockingham County Democrats? picnic in Hampton Falls. Jay Buckey, MD, former astronaut, professor of medicine at Dartmouth, and candidate for US Senate, a physician and scientist, as well as having served in the Air Force Reserve, talked about how we should move forward as a nation to deal with the issues of alternative energy (so we won?t be dependent on the Middle East for oil) and climate change, and how the perversion of science in the current administration puts our nation?s security in peril. And I loved his line about political experience: (paraphrasing) ?Yes, I have to agree that John Sununu has very little real world experience!? Then John Edwards stopped by, all too briefly, and said something that caught my ear. In passing, discussing the economy, he noted that it might be ?wonkish,? but he had as an economic advisor Joseph Stiglitz, and that given the choice between balancing the budget first, or fixing what he called the ?structural problems? with the economy (meaning our healthcare problems, the erosion of the middle class, the increase in poverty, and the stagnation of real growth [despite the Republican spin that if the rich get richer all of us benefit]), he would chose to fix the problems first because that would lead to economic growth and a decrease in the deficit. Now, I read some economics now and then. I am particularly interested in those thinkers who manage to go beyond so-called ?classical? economics, where the market solves all ills. I like to read those who look at the real world and see that markets are not perfect, because people do not have all the facts to make market decisions, and because people are not always perfectly rational beings even when they have all the facts. Stiglitz is one of those, and if John Edwards is listening to him, I will definitely listen to John. I was also pleased that John is calling for getting rid of ALL nuclear weapons on the planet. Given the climate crisis we face, which threatens all of us with enormous changes in resources and lifestyle, health and actual survival, spending time and money on weapons to wipe out life on entire continents strikes me as an awful waste. Now that we are learning the price of ?preventative war? perhaps we can decide that war is a waste of people and resources and there are better ways to solve conflicts. Smart people give me hope for a future for me and my children and grandchildren, and my lovely planet without which I cannot survive. I know that the political process does not have to be a zero sum game, where if I win, you lose. We can all win if we elect smart people to run the show. |