A recent op-ed piece in The Baltimore Sun lambastes the institution of professorial tenure at America's colleges and universities and the notion of "academic freedom" it supports.
Thomas Sowell's "Academic freedom twisted on today's campuses" addresses, specifically, the rantings of Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado, who has written that the World Trade Center workers who died in the 9/11 attacks were "little Eichmanns" doing Nazi-style dirty deeds in "the mighty engine of profit." From this example Sowell extrapolates that tenure and academic freedom are crocks.
Mr. Sowell's logic is itself a crock. For one thing, he is tarring all universities and tenured professors by association with this one admitted "jackass." Furthermore, he himself admits that Churchill's "remarks that provoked so much controversy were not made in a classroom or even on campus" — so no students were at risk of left-wing propaganda. Moreover, if indeed "at one college, some gutsy students start chanting 'OT' — for 'off topic' — when one of their professors starts making political comments that have nothing to do with the subject of his course," then how big could the risk have been, even if Churchill were indulging himself right in the university lecture halls?
So where's the beef?
Manifestly, Sowell's article is an example of rhetoric in service to naught but inflating — or keeping inflated — his particular neo-conservative ideological bubble. This particular bubble is the one which says that unfettered pursuit of the profit motive is the mainspring of American liberty. Private enterprise, good; public welfare, bad. Markets, good; regulation, bad. That kind of thing.
But advocacy of the supposedly "good" things is never enough to inflate an ideological bubble and keep it inflated. Much of the air pressure must come from rhetoric that does nothing but bash the supposedly "bad" things.
Here, the "bad" thing is the seeming near-socialism (if not outright socialism) of Prof. Churchill's stance. It's as if making the slightest room for such ultra-left opinion on our campuses of higher learning threatens to bring down the whole American house of cards.
That's the way it always is with ideological bubbles. They wouldn't be bubbles if their main function wasn't to rigorously exclude whatever notions lie outside the surface of the bubble. It's as if anything outside the bubble might be a pin.
Thus, during the Cold War almost all Americans, even liberal ones, were anti-Communist. But there were ideologues who kept yelling that most of our national leaders weren't stauch enough in their anti-Communism. There were Reds under every bed, they said ... and so the thing to do was denounce, denounce, denounce the few actual Reds and their "fellow travelers" that did exist.
That didn't actually help win the Cold War, but it did inflate an ultra-conservative ideological bubble which persists to this day. The bubble was quite tiny in 1964 when Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican challenger, lost badly to President Lyndon Johnson on a platform of Cold War staunchness and small-government libertarianism.
But by 1980, the year of the Reagan Revolution, the bubble had grown considerably.
Then, by 1992, when Bill Clinton won the Oval Office, conservatives had to stop bashing Communists to keep their bubble inflated — Communism had fallen on the ash heap of history — and start bashing "liberals." We started to hear the "L-word" used as an out-and-out slur.
Of course, every now and then these days an actual socialist or near-socialist such as Prof. Churchill pokes his head out of the ash heap as if to judge how many more weeks of "capitalist winter" there will be ... and conservatives such as Mr. Sowell gleefully bash away at him, just like in the good old days. Anything to keep that bubble of ideology inflated.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Privatizing Social Security, Part 2
In Privatizing Social Security, Part 1, oldstyleliberal took note of the fact that the water level in the Social Security trust tund "reservoir" will start dropping in a decade or so, and by late in the second quarter of this century the reservoir will fully run dry. That means Social Securiy benefits are threatened in the medium term, and if nothing is done, will one day stop flowing entirely.
What to do? There are two basic options. One is President Bush's proposal to partially "privatize" Social Security, plowing payroll deductions into personal retirement accounts which, if their annual yield is at least 3 percent higher than the inflation rate, will eventually make retirees better off than they are today under straight Social Security. (Or so says the Bush Administration.)
The other basic option is to raise taxes. If more tax money were collected, it could be funneled into the Social Security trust fund to make up the shortfall in contributions. Of course, the contributions themselves are taxes — payroll taxes. Conceivably, raising the (FICA) payroll tax rate and/or the maximum pay level which is subject to the payroll tax could help.
But that idea's not even on the table. Doing that would burden less affluent workers, all of whose pay is under the maximum, more than more affluent workers, some of whose pay is not taxed.
In other words, the payroll tax is regressive. Both politically and mathematically, there's no way a regressive tax could solve the Social Security problem. What's needed would be to target a progressive tax such as the income tax.
That's why critics of the President's plan such as former Social Security Commissioner Kenneth Apfel recommend making the income tax more progressive as a Social Security fix. Apfel wrote in "Unnecessary and unwise" in The Baltimore Sun:
What to do? There are two basic options. One is President Bush's proposal to partially "privatize" Social Security, plowing payroll deductions into personal retirement accounts which, if their annual yield is at least 3 percent higher than the inflation rate, will eventually make retirees better off than they are today under straight Social Security. (Or so says the Bush Administration.)
The other basic option is to raise taxes. If more tax money were collected, it could be funneled into the Social Security trust fund to make up the shortfall in contributions. Of course, the contributions themselves are taxes — payroll taxes. Conceivably, raising the (FICA) payroll tax rate and/or the maximum pay level which is subject to the payroll tax could help.
But that idea's not even on the table. Doing that would burden less affluent workers, all of whose pay is under the maximum, more than more affluent workers, some of whose pay is not taxed.
In other words, the payroll tax is regressive. Both politically and mathematically, there's no way a regressive tax could solve the Social Security problem. What's needed would be to target a progressive tax such as the income tax.
That's why critics of the President's plan such as former Social Security Commissioner Kenneth Apfel recommend making the income tax more progressive as a Social Security fix. Apfel wrote in "Unnecessary and unwise" in The Baltimore Sun:
Simply repealing the Bush tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans would resolve a large part of the Social Security shortfall.
In other words, Apfel wants to make tax rates higher for the people with the biggest incomes. That is equivalent to making income taxes more progressive. (And the Bush tax cuts were equivalent to making them less progressive.)
In addition to personal retirement accounts and tax hikes, there are other fixes to Social Security that have been suggested, but privatization and tax increases are the major topics in the debate.
Which leads oldstyleliberal to his suggestion: why not do both?
Why not both institute personal retirement accounts and roll back the Bush tax break for the top 1 percent.
There would be several advantages. First and foremost, a lot of the burden which falls on the Bush privatization strategy, all by itself, would be taken off. Right now, critics charge the Bush scheme with (for example) not being able to adequately replace today's survivor and disability benefits, or not being able to keep its promise to lock in benefits for those currently 55 or over.
Such worries would very likely vanish if the top-1-percent tax cut were rolled back and the proceeds were funneled into the Social Security trust fund.
Likewise, part of the tax-cut rollback could be used to finance a special fund to indemnify those unlucky individuals whose personal accounts tank.
But the main appeal of oldstyleliberal's "do both" approach would be that both sides in the debate would have to give ground. The liberal Democrats would have to get on board with privatization, and all the President's men would have to get jiggy with raising taxes on the wealthy back to pre-Bush levels.
In other words, the "do both" approach nurtures the art of compromise — something sorely lacking on both sides in today's political climate.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Privatizing Social Security, Part 1
oldstyleliberal is interested in trying to follow the debate (if you can call it that) between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans over President Bush's plan for "privatizing Social Security" via personal retirement accounts. Mostly, oldstyleliberal wishes to cut through the rhetoric to glimpse "the truth," whatever that may be.
Part of the truth seems to be that, unless something is done, Social Security can be expected to slowly start going broke. At some point in the next couple of decades, the benefits paid out to retirees and their survivors — not to mention those receiving disability benefits — will start to exceed contributions from current workers. Due to inexorable population trends, the number of workers will shrink as the number of retirees goes up.
Then, after another decade — or two, or three, depending on who you ask — the Social Security trust fund will finally run dry, like a reservoir that for ages hasn't seen enough rainfall.
For the Social Security fund is very much like a reservoir. Normally, there's an inflow (precipitation routed into the reservoir; payroll taxes routed into Social Security) and an outflow (faucets being turned on; benefits paid out). As long as the inflow tends to exceed or match the outflow, no problem. If the outflow exceeds the inflow briefly, again, no problem. But if the outflow outstrips the inflow chronically for a long period of time, the reservoir runs dry. That's what will happen to Social Security unless something is done.
Bush wants to do something. He wants to lock the current system in place for those 55 and over when (and if) his privatization plan goes into effect (starting, if Bush gets his way, in 2009). For those younger than 55, some of their payroll taxes would be diverted to worker-selected personal retirement accounts (PRAs) instead of reaching the Social Security trust fund. Workers would continue to feed their PRAs until reaching the age at which they would normally retire and draw Social Security. Then (assuming they are eligible for Social Security in the first place) they would draw a reduced amount of Social Security benefits. They would also start tapping into their PRAs to make up the difference.
It would be this reduction in the money amounts paid out to beneficiaries that would keep Social Security afloat.
So one of the key questions about the Bush plan is this: would retirees' PRAs actually make up for their reduced Social Security benefits?
A recent column by personal finance expert Eileen Ambrose, appearing in The Baltimore Sun, said this:
Part of the truth seems to be that, unless something is done, Social Security can be expected to slowly start going broke. At some point in the next couple of decades, the benefits paid out to retirees and their survivors — not to mention those receiving disability benefits — will start to exceed contributions from current workers. Due to inexorable population trends, the number of workers will shrink as the number of retirees goes up.
Then, after another decade — or two, or three, depending on who you ask — the Social Security trust fund will finally run dry, like a reservoir that for ages hasn't seen enough rainfall.
For the Social Security fund is very much like a reservoir. Normally, there's an inflow (precipitation routed into the reservoir; payroll taxes routed into Social Security) and an outflow (faucets being turned on; benefits paid out). As long as the inflow tends to exceed or match the outflow, no problem. If the outflow exceeds the inflow briefly, again, no problem. But if the outflow outstrips the inflow chronically for a long period of time, the reservoir runs dry. That's what will happen to Social Security unless something is done.
Bush wants to do something. He wants to lock the current system in place for those 55 and over when (and if) his privatization plan goes into effect (starting, if Bush gets his way, in 2009). For those younger than 55, some of their payroll taxes would be diverted to worker-selected personal retirement accounts (PRAs) instead of reaching the Social Security trust fund. Workers would continue to feed their PRAs until reaching the age at which they would normally retire and draw Social Security. Then (assuming they are eligible for Social Security in the first place) they would draw a reduced amount of Social Security benefits. They would also start tapping into their PRAs to make up the difference.
It would be this reduction in the money amounts paid out to beneficiaries that would keep Social Security afloat.
So one of the key questions about the Bush plan is this: would retirees' PRAs actually make up for their reduced Social Security benefits?
A recent column by personal finance expert Eileen Ambrose, appearing in The Baltimore Sun, said this:
A senior administration official told reporters that workers would come out ahead if they earned more than 3 percent above the rate of inflation annually in their private accounts.
But it also said this:
But markets are hardly predictable. What if you don't earn 3 percent over inflation, which could be difficult if inflation roars back?
Accordingly, it would seem as if the 3-percent-over-inflation target for a PRA's yield is the "figure of merit" here. If PRAs generally manage to achieve that figure, the Bush plan could be workable. If not, then nothing else need be said. The Bush plan will, in that case, not work.
Let's say, temporarily — purely for the sake of argument — that PRAs will generally earn 3 percent over the rate of inflation. What are the other potential pitfalls of the Bush plan?
Ms. Ambrose points out several. One is that there's no certainty yet what the Bush proposal portends for survivor and disability benefits, as distinct from retirees' benefits.
Another is the risk that PRAs will not always meet the 3-percent-over-inflation goal. Since the PRAs will be invested in securities such as stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and so forth, they could run into dry spells and not manifest the intended growth.
If the markets swoon while the investor is still young, there will be plenty of time for them to recover their health. By retirement age, if the inflation-plus-3-percent target has been met overall, the retiree will be fine.
But what if the investment market goes into a coma just when our worker retires? According to Ms. Ambrose:
... the president promised that the government would provide good options to protect accounts from sudden market swings on the eve of retirement.
So, taking Bush at his word, we still need to know what happens if the PRA of any one particular John or Jane Doe tanks, while most PRAs are doing fine.
If one particular PRA loses money, or if it simply fails to beat the rate of inflation by 3 percent, oldstyliberal has so far been unable to learn what insurance, if any, would be in place to offset such a disaster. He encourages liberal Democrats, instead of simply trying to shout down the President's proposal, to work to make sure some form of "account insurance" is incorporated into the program.
There are of course, many other issues. oldstyliberal will go into those in a future installment.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Man of the Center
Theodore H. White wrote in The Making of the President—1972 
, of Sen. Edward Muskie of Maine, who tried for the Democrats' presidential nomination in that year, that he "could say, out of his own life, 'I have an ancestral belief in this system. I inherited it from my father. I'm a man of the center, but the center gradually moves left, and it's the Democratic Party that does it.'"
oldstyleliberal agrees with Muskie in part, and disagrees with him in part.
Yes, it is good to be a "man of the center." There are too few men or women of the center in politics today.
But no, I don't think the center "gradually moves left."
What actually happens, I think, is that change happens at the center. It emerges from the center, and over the long run that change tends to be good. If there once was slavery and now slavery is no longer, that is change, and it has been for the good. If grinding poverty was once the lot of most human beings and now the majority enjoys middle-class economic aspirations, that is change, and it has been for the good.
The change which emerges at the center and tends to be for the good makes it seem like the center "gradually moves left." Why? Because for the most part the good change that gradually emerges at the center has originally been advocated by the left. If there was once racism encoded in Jim Crow laws in the Old South, it was "liberal" agitation by Martin Luther King and others that called it into question and paved the way for change.
Thus, while change must emerge from the center, it has to be summoned forth by action at the ideological extreme.
Here's where the situation gets tricky. Sometimes the extreme gets its way too much.
That's what happened in the 1960s and 1970s. The left grabbed so many levers of power — though it never won the hearts and minds of President Nixon's "silent majority" — that America was not coaxed but jerked leftward.
In reaction, the movement we today know as neo-conservatism was born; neo-conservative pioneers said they were "mugged by reality" as the peace-love ideals of the mid-1960s degenerated into violence, and the so-called New Leftists of the day revealed themselves as anarchist proto-dictators. The late-'60s radicals — Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and the rest — wanted to disrupt "the system" so they themselves could seize control over it.
With the 1980s Reagan Revolution, neo-conservatism summoned forth a healthful, center-seeking response from the American politcal system. But then it was the conservatives' turn to overreach in the mid-1990s. Remember when Rep. Newt Gingrich wanted to shut the government down rather than give Pres. Clinton the budget he wanted?
Gingrich was trying to jerk the country rightward. Oh, he was for the most part quite clever about it, claiming he and his fellow neocons had signed a "Contract with America" to do so. It took a while for some citizens to see through that, but see through it they did.
The moral here is that we need the political extremes, both of them, to summon forth constructive change when it is needed, and to keep the pendulum swinging. But, more than that, the message is that the polity as a whole makes best progress when it is centered.
Not statically centered, that is, but dynamically centered. Think of your hips when you walk. Unless you walk like a fashion model, with no hip sway all, your weight shifts from hip to hip as you march forward, and your hips wiggle. Maybe not a lot. Maybe not in an exaggerated way. But they move from side to side.
That's how God-blessed America ever moves into a better, brighter future: dynamically centered, with a fair amount of hip sway.
, of Sen. Edward Muskie of Maine, who tried for the Democrats' presidential nomination in that year, that he "could say, out of his own life, 'I have an ancestral belief in this system. I inherited it from my father. I'm a man of the center, but the center gradually moves left, and it's the Democratic Party that does it.'"
oldstyleliberal agrees with Muskie in part, and disagrees with him in part.
Yes, it is good to be a "man of the center." There are too few men or women of the center in politics today.
But no, I don't think the center "gradually moves left."
What actually happens, I think, is that change happens at the center. It emerges from the center, and over the long run that change tends to be good. If there once was slavery and now slavery is no longer, that is change, and it has been for the good. If grinding poverty was once the lot of most human beings and now the majority enjoys middle-class economic aspirations, that is change, and it has been for the good.
The change which emerges at the center and tends to be for the good makes it seem like the center "gradually moves left." Why? Because for the most part the good change that gradually emerges at the center has originally been advocated by the left. If there was once racism encoded in Jim Crow laws in the Old South, it was "liberal" agitation by Martin Luther King and others that called it into question and paved the way for change.
Thus, while change must emerge from the center, it has to be summoned forth by action at the ideological extreme.
Here's where the situation gets tricky. Sometimes the extreme gets its way too much.
That's what happened in the 1960s and 1970s. The left grabbed so many levers of power — though it never won the hearts and minds of President Nixon's "silent majority" — that America was not coaxed but jerked leftward.
In reaction, the movement we today know as neo-conservatism was born; neo-conservative pioneers said they were "mugged by reality" as the peace-love ideals of the mid-1960s degenerated into violence, and the so-called New Leftists of the day revealed themselves as anarchist proto-dictators. The late-'60s radicals — Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and the rest — wanted to disrupt "the system" so they themselves could seize control over it.
With the 1980s Reagan Revolution, neo-conservatism summoned forth a healthful, center-seeking response from the American politcal system. But then it was the conservatives' turn to overreach in the mid-1990s. Remember when Rep. Newt Gingrich wanted to shut the government down rather than give Pres. Clinton the budget he wanted?
Gingrich was trying to jerk the country rightward. Oh, he was for the most part quite clever about it, claiming he and his fellow neocons had signed a "Contract with America" to do so. It took a while for some citizens to see through that, but see through it they did.
The moral here is that we need the political extremes, both of them, to summon forth constructive change when it is needed, and to keep the pendulum swinging. But, more than that, the message is that the polity as a whole makes best progress when it is centered.
Not statically centered, that is, but dynamically centered. Think of your hips when you walk. Unless you walk like a fashion model, with no hip sway all, your weight shifts from hip to hip as you march forward, and your hips wiggle. Maybe not a lot. Maybe not in an exaggerated way. But they move from side to side.
That's how God-blessed America ever moves into a better, brighter future: dynamically centered, with a fair amount of hip sway.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
You Go, Hillary!
TIME magazine for Feb. 7, 2005, has as its cover story an article on what President Bush "owes" Christian evangelicals for helping re-elect him. A sidebar, "The Democrats: Trying Out a More Soulful Tone," accessible here, features coverage of Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton 
of New York's address to abortion rights supporters on the occasion of the (what, 32nd?) anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
(Before going any further, oldstyleliberal would like to make clear that he thinks of Sen. Clinton as "Hillary," and he will refer to her that way not out of any disrespect, but to distinguish her from "Bill," also a noteworthy American political figure ... and in his case, of course, a former President. As oldstyleliberal is about to reveal, he favors Hillary for President in 2008 ... so let no one say that his use of her first name alone is meant to cheapen her or belittle her.)
Hillary noted in her address:
of New York's address to abortion rights supporters on the occasion of the (what, 32nd?) anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
(Before going any further, oldstyleliberal would like to make clear that he thinks of Sen. Clinton as "Hillary," and he will refer to her that way not out of any disrespect, but to distinguish her from "Bill," also a noteworthy American political figure ... and in his case, of course, a former President. As oldstyleliberal is about to reveal, he favors Hillary for President in 2008 ... so let no one say that his use of her first name alone is meant to cheapen her or belittle her.)
Hillary noted in her address:
While affirming her view that women should continue to have the right to choose, Clinton urged Democrats to support measures to reduce the number of abortions—encourage abstinence among the young and force insurers to cover contraceptives—and surprised some by saying the goal was not just making abortions rare but eliminating them altogether. She even sought to get on the right of Bush on the issue by noting that abortions have risen in eight states under his presidency.
Her tone did not please many liberals. Ellen Goodman, op-ed columnist for The Boston Globe (link to her archives here), wrote in "Whose common ground?":
Hillary Clinton, in a speech that was widely described as a retreat, said, "There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in this debate -- we should be able to agree that we want every child born in this country to be wanted, cherished, and loved."
That, on top of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's (D-MA) recent
"Surely we can all agree that abortion should be rare and that we should do all we can to help women avoid the need to face that decision."
provoked Ms. Goodman to gripe:
Where exactly is it "possible" to find common cause with those who call themselves prolife? In the three states where women must legally be told the lie that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer? In Virginia, where a state legislator introduced a law that would have made women report "fetal deaths"? Among those who think that stem cell research is homicidal? Or want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
oldstyliberal disagrees wholeheartedly with Ms. Goodman's attitude. He thinks Hillary Clinton is onto something in her attempt to close the gap on abortion between liberals and conservatives.
For background on her political instinct to reconcile the differences between ideological extremes, see the transcript of her speech/interview at the Panetta Institute on June 28, 2004. Her lecture on "Women and Leadership in the 21st Century" was followed by a Q&A session led by former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta. Scroll about three-quarters of the way down to find a segment on the topic of "How does any President govern when this country is so split apart?"
In response, Hillary bemoans the loss of a spirit of compromise and bipartisan consensus in Congress today, an attitude that was typical in her younger days, when as a teenager from a Republican family background she even supported Goldwater for President:
That's not what we currently have in Washington. I think that's a great loss. It breaks the continuity of bipartisan consensus that really did move us through the last half of the 20th century.
You can disagree with the direction of the country, but the majority of people are a little beyond the center to the right or to the left, but basically within a kind of boundary where the disagreements took place.
But there was always a minority on both sides of the political spectrum who were not satisfied with that. They wanted to jerk the country to the left or jerk the country to the right.
Now, Hillary says, there is "increasing intolerance" among Republicans and they are jerking the country to the right. Gone are the days when "you had the Senate on a bipartisan vote passing a budget which included the old fashion concept of pay-as-you-go," with cooperation from the leadership of both parties needed to get the budget passed.
That spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship at the end of the politcal day, after all the back-and-forth rhetoric is done, is sorely needed now, oldstyliberal thinks. And if angling for such a center-seeking climate requires a Hillary Clinton to soften her erstwhile hard-line support for abortion rights by shifting the emphasis to unwanted pregnancy prevention and contraception, oldstyliberal believes Ellen Goodman and others ought to cut her some slack.
It's Hillary Rodham Clinton's wisdom in seeking common ground at (or at least near) the political center that makes oldstyliberal say, "Hillary in '08!"
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
From the Edge: Postcards from Buster
The latest controversy in the culture wars is reported in this piece in today's The Baltimore Sun. The article by TV critic David Zurawik is headlined "Despite denunciation, 'Buster' episode to air."
It seems the traveling, 8-year-old, asthmatic cartoon rabbit who is the title hero of the PBS children's series Postcards from Buster is scheduled to make a stop in New England, where he will visit — uh oh — "a home with lesbian parents."
Zurawik tells us that "the controversial segment — 'Sugartime!' — takes Buster to Vermont where children show him how maple syrup and cheese are made. The focus is on the children except when Buster is invited to dinner by two families headed by lesbian mothers." These women are, that is, the mothers of children who are Buster's friends. (And they are real, live women. Postcards from Buster is a combination of animation and live action. oldstyleliberal assumes Buster's friends are the women's real, live children.)
Not Buster's friend, apparently, is Margaret Spellings, the new secretary of the Department of Education. She "denounced the use of federal funds for" producing Postcards from Buster. Zurawik writes, "Most of the $5 million financing for Buster came from the federal government."
A sizable number of PBS stations have either refused to air the episode or postponed it pending further consideration. When the headline states "'Buster' episode to air," it refers to the 18 or so local PBS affiliates such as WGBH in Boston, New York's WNET, and KQED in San Francisco who will air the episode as scheduled.
oldstyliberal, this blog's proprietor, feels it is "culture war" issues like this one than most challenge his intention to find his way back to ... well, to "old-style liberalism." This is certainly the kind of controversy which never would have arisen in the period from, say, 1960 to 1968, the heyday of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King.
So he will just have to explore the issue a bit further.
TV critic Zurawik tells us that a strong supporter of the "Sugartime!" episode, Peggy Charren, "a WGBH board member and pioneer in children's TV," claims that "it's about the children, not the parents. What you learn about is maple syrup — how its made — and that cheese comes from cows."
To which defense of Buster oldstyliberal feels he is forced to say, get real! The pre-schoolers at whom the series is aimed have antennae that will unfailingly lock in on the fatherlessness of Buster's friends' families.
In fact, that's what's another Buster defender, Dr. Michael Brody, a psychatrist and expert on children's TV, lauds: that "the very idea of this series was to show diversity." That doesn't mean different kinds of cows, folks. It means different kinds of people.
And it segues into reason number one why oldstyliberal thinks Secretary Spellings was wrong to raise a fuss. Per the article:
It seems the traveling, 8-year-old, asthmatic cartoon rabbit who is the title hero of the PBS children's series Postcards from Buster is scheduled to make a stop in New England, where he will visit — uh oh — "a home with lesbian parents."
Zurawik tells us that "the controversial segment — 'Sugartime!' — takes Buster to Vermont where children show him how maple syrup and cheese are made. The focus is on the children except when Buster is invited to dinner by two families headed by lesbian mothers." These women are, that is, the mothers of children who are Buster's friends. (And they are real, live women. Postcards from Buster is a combination of animation and live action. oldstyleliberal assumes Buster's friends are the women's real, live children.)
Not Buster's friend, apparently, is Margaret Spellings, the new secretary of the Department of Education. She "denounced the use of federal funds for" producing Postcards from Buster. Zurawik writes, "Most of the $5 million financing for Buster came from the federal government."
A sizable number of PBS stations have either refused to air the episode or postponed it pending further consideration. When the headline states "'Buster' episode to air," it refers to the 18 or so local PBS affiliates such as WGBH in Boston, New York's WNET, and KQED in San Francisco who will air the episode as scheduled.
oldstyliberal, this blog's proprietor, feels it is "culture war" issues like this one than most challenge his intention to find his way back to ... well, to "old-style liberalism." This is certainly the kind of controversy which never would have arisen in the period from, say, 1960 to 1968, the heyday of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King.
So he will just have to explore the issue a bit further.
TV critic Zurawik tells us that a strong supporter of the "Sugartime!" episode, Peggy Charren, "a WGBH board member and pioneer in children's TV," claims that "it's about the children, not the parents. What you learn about is maple syrup — how its made — and that cheese comes from cows."
To which defense of Buster oldstyliberal feels he is forced to say, get real! The pre-schoolers at whom the series is aimed have antennae that will unfailingly lock in on the fatherlessness of Buster's friends' families.
In fact, that's what's another Buster defender, Dr. Michael Brody, a psychatrist and expert on children's TV, lauds: that "the very idea of this series was to show diversity." That doesn't mean different kinds of cows, folks. It means different kinds of people.
And it segues into reason number one why oldstyliberal thinks Secretary Spellings was wrong to raise a fuss. Per the article:
The Department of Education grant that funds Buster specifies: "Diversity will be incorporated into the fabric of the series to help children understand and respect differences and learn to live in a multicultural society."
If that's true, then Spellings hasn't a leg to stand on. The mandate to "help children understand and respect differences" doesn't stop at the doors of same-sex households.
So Spellings is technically wrong to overlook the stated rules. But is she wrong in a broader, more overarching sense? Cultural conservatives will, of course, uphold her stance. oldstyliberal, however, will not. He feels the politics of liberty and opportunity extend also to lesbian cheese and syrup farmers in Vermont.
Limits on the tolerance of oddity and diversity, upheld in the name of cultural conservatism, hold people back in our society. They keep people from maximizing their opportunities for making good and getting ahead. Specifically when it comes to gay and lesbian couples, the political fruits of cultural intolerance block legal recognition of the economic rights, such as those of inheritance and community property, that heterosexual couples — formally married or not — routinely enjoy.
oldstyleliberal thinks that's the decisive factor here. We need Buster and "Sugartime!" to help our children become more tolerant than we adults are, to move the society toward letting gays and lesbians alone so they can, in the old Star Trek expression, "live long and prosper."
Admittedly, the cultural conservatives might be in the right, and oldstyliberal wrong, if exposure to tolerant attitudes on homosexuality might lead children into adopting a gay lifestyle of their own, one day. Which it might, if people choose their sexual orientation. If people are non-heterosexual by choice, then we need to think really carefully about possibly influencing them, and thus the culture, away from "straight" sex.
But oldstyliberal has never seen any convincing evidence that people do choose their sexual preferences. In which case, he insists that TV programs that promote "lifestyle" tolerance are just fine for America.
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