Jack Bogdanski probably can't help himself. He is a lawyer, and that takes a certain personality. And while not all lawyers are arrogant to the degree he is, it seems to be an occupational hazard of the job.

In this case, it's his speaking for a "we" he intends to mean the right-thinking people of Portland that troubles me. In his (typically) brief post, he uses "we" as if it's, well, everyone. Who he is really referring to, I think, since I doubt even he believes every single person in Portland agrees with him, is the "we" of those who agree with him. In his mind, as indicated by the tone of the post, there is a wrong way and a right way to think about the matter. For people like Jack Bog — and it's not just lawyers who hold the belief that what they think is Truth, although for lawyers it is often their job to convince others that their Truth is The Truth — the idea of "difference of opinion" is a sick old dog that needs to be put down, buried in a vacant lot and replace with a compliant lap dog. No matter how yippy.

Speaking of the passing of a man he accused of helping to change "Portland from a special place that we liked a lot to a fake New York that we don't like nearly as well," Bogdanski's use of "we" is the clear definition of arrogant. With no actual clarification of who is "we" is, the inference, of course, is that "we" are those who are correct in our thinking on such matters. That is, those who agree with Bogdanski.

I'm a native Oregonian, I've lived in Portland (off and on) since 1981, and I have seen the city improve so much over the years. Not in every way (TriMet seems determined to destroy bus service) but in many ways. The growth of light rail and trolleys, the East Side Esplanade, the growing inclusion of bicycles in "regular" transportation, the ability of neighborhoods (especially on the east side) to retain their character despite growth, the containment of growth (go visit Houston), the openness of the city to people of "otherness", the civility of our civic life — no, it's not perfect, but visit any other city in America of a similar or larger size, and it's hard (in my opinion) to imagine doing a lot better than Portland has done. Most cities, in fact, have done much worse. There is no comparison, in my opinion, of the livability between Portland and Seattle; we win that one hands down.

There will always be those who decry the loss of a place's charm and character — as they see it. This is a dangerous way to think. For every person who misses how more town-like Portland once felt, there's another who longs for the time when the queers kept quiet in their closets. Those of us who enjoy seeing the growth of diverse ethnicities in the city (and hope to see that reflected more in our governments) are matched by those who fear the loss of "real American values".

Using a word like "we" as indiscriminately as Bog does is never wise. Absolutism tends to cause problems, whether it's in deciding what a correct view of a city's character should be or who the right people to live in, or govern, that city should be. After all, the Founders used the same word — "We, the people..." — while excluding many of the people of the nation from sharing in the rights and liberties they were proclaiming.

I believe that one of them major reasons so many people have so little to do with politics is that they feel overwhelmed. Not merely challenged; overwhelmed. Deer-in-the-headlights overwhelmed. Better to stay at home safely than get mowed down on the road.

Americans are not trained in politics. We learn about Washington, the Revolution, Lincoln and a few other facts; we watch election results and listen to pundits talk out their asses. We do not learn what politics really is and how vital it is that each citizen do more than vote. We are not educated to the fact that we are not the deer; we are the driver of our own vehicle.

And everyone knows how to drive. We know how to go 70 mph on a 3-lane freeway while fiddling with the cd player, talking to the people in the car and sipping a latté. Politics is the same thing: a complicated act made simple by practice, familiarity and learning the easy parts first. Many of us begin to drive by rolling around an empty parking lot; we learn politics by registering to vote and filling in our ballot. The rest is just a matter of time and participation.

If we stopped before getting in our car and thought about all the different ways we could die, all the cars and trucks and bad drivers and drunks and maniacs — we'd head back inside and call in sick. Forever. But we don't think about that because we know we are only facing one road full of drivers at a time. We know that we have the ability to stop or accelerate, to get out of the way if we have to; we know we'll be looking around and keeping ourselves from getting into trouble. And we're pretty sure almost every driver that comes near us is doing the same and we should be ok.

In politics, it's not much different. A letter to the editor, a call to the Senator's office, an evening making phone calls to fellow citizens. Small acts, done in the safety of your home, your office, a campaign run by professionals who know what's going on. The secret to politics, and to progressive politics, is that we each only need to do a little bit. I don't have to drive I5 from Seattle to San Diego; I just get on downtown and exit a few miles later. That's all I have to do for the job I'm doing: a short drive, one that I know I can handle. One I know I can do well.

We need to begin training our kids in real politics. Not the history few remember once high school is done; not the freakshow that elections have become. Real politics. People becoming educated on issues (what exactly is public option?), becoming engaged (dammit, I want that option) and then doing one small thing to make it happen (Senator, you vote for the public option or I'm not voting for you). I've simplified the hell out of this, but that's the point. Politics can be simple. Learn a little and do a little. No one has to fix it all, no matter how huge and important the issue. No one can fix it all. So fix the little you can.

And drive safely.

50 million Americans with no health care; tens of millions with coverage they can barely afford; most insured Americans one health crisis away from disaster.

Yes, this is why we should trust the Republicans and Blue Dogs and do nothing. Because the "world's greatest health care system" is just shiny.

But what really pisses me off is that Obama has always said, and the Democrats continue to say: If you have health care coverage now, and you are happy with it, you can keep it. Period. Of course, the opponents of reform (who place political power and profit far, far above the health and well-being of the American people) are spreading the fear that this is a lie. They are telling people the government will take over their heath care, make decisions for them (Sorry, Bob and Sue, but Grandma's rheumatism is a bit costly; she's got to go), that the coloreds will move in next door.....

Oops sorry. Wrong scare tactics. But the same philosophy: Play upon fear with lies and let people's worst instincts do the dirty work. Anything to keep the money flowing.

There is, as they like to say, a power struggle occurring in Iraq. The people we always figured were going to duke it out are doing just that, and some of them know no limit on what they are willing to do. So today bombs were exploded in a village and in Mosul, killing at least 43, destroying lives, homes and the opportunity to step a bit closer towards a peaceful, democratic society.

Meanwhile, on the home front, we have our own power struggles to contend with. No one has blown up a truck full of explosives in many years, but people are using guns to kill individuals: sometimes singly (Dr Tiller) and sometimes in groups (the women at the health club). And when violence is not being used in an overwhelming manner, near-violent disruptions of democratic activity are being targeted as a means of prevailing in the current struggle over whether or not a far right corporatist minority will resume the tyrannical control of American government it enjoyed under Bush/Cheney.

People screaming down elected officials.
People murdering fellow citizens.

What do these actions have in common? That's easy: A refusal to participate in an open, democratic dialog about the future of a nation. Those who scream and those who murder share a common trait: They refuse to be the losers in a political struggle. And since they are fanatic in their goals, to lose means to not have total control. The various groups in Iraq want to have power, and they don't want to share it. If they have to slaughter hundreds, even thousands, of fellow citizens, many of them are willing to do exactly that.

And our fanatics? We know a few are willing to kill, but how far will the movements — the tea-baggers et al — go to ensure their views are the only ones recognized by our government? In 2000 and 2004, those at the top of this movement were able to steal the presidential elections. With a restoration of democracy in 2006 and 2008, others are deciding they need to take more extreme steps to keep Obama and his ilk from securing their position. So far their violence has been directed at disrupting the process of enacting legislation and conversing with the American people. At what point will they decide, as has been decided in Iraq, that their enemies cannot be allowed to participate at all? When will murder become a tool they use to win the power struggle?

This is not an absurd or extreme question. It's a recognition that the distance from hatred and shouting to murder is very small. Timothy McVeigh showed how easily that distance can be travelled. How can we doubt that others are not planning to follow his example?

Dr Tiller's family knows too well there can be no doubt.

Here's an idea for legislation: Limiting the number of miles I may drive my Rolls. Or how about this: Restrictions on the amount of Cristal I can serve on my Lear jet. Maybe a cap on how many homes worth $1 million I am allowed to own. What would any of these bills have in common?

Stupid pointlessness. I have no Rolls, no jets, no home of any kind. They would put limits on things I don't have and am likely to never have .The Cristal is a possibility, but not in the near future; this is how ridiculous suck limits would be.

This is exactly, however, how stupid the talk about rationing health care is. 50 million Americans have as much health care as they own Lear jets: zero. And I am not likely to have either at any time soon. My workplace offers a barely adequate plan, but with child support payments, I cannot afford that plan. It would not offer dental or vision, the two things I actually need (apart from an annual physical, the lack of which was mitigated somewhat by the exams I got when I was hit by a car in December). So talk about health care rationing is, from my point of view, as meaningful as a discussion about the travails of extreme wealth.

When I hear someone like Sen Judd Gregg talking about rationing health care, it angers me so much because those words have no regard for the plight of tens of millions of Americans with no access to health care. How can you ration what people do not have? And when the costs of basic care are skyrocketing — a fact no one argues with; no one — and people are going into bankruptcy over medical issues more than anything else, the most idiotic thing to talk about is rationing. That's the least of our problems.

I have already been rationed out of the system. The health care and insurance industries want nothing to do with me. If I can't afford the premiums, I certainly can't afford the co-pays and other charges that will come my way. What good am I to them if I can't even pay the admission at the front door? The current system is working fine for them; fee-for-service makes billions in profits for the existing medical industry, just like the current bidding-plus-approved-overruns is fabulous for military contractors. Changes that would ensure all Americans and make health care affordable, not just for consumers but the economy as a whole, is an end to the money machine being run by insurance, high-end doctors, drug and pharma, and the other criminal conspirators who are content with 50 million Americans having no health care other than WebMD and emergency treatment.

Ration me? Please. The fuckers have already done that. I'd simply like a seat on the bus; they can keep their damn Rolls.

I care. A lot. And not only do I care, I want to know what I care about. I am not content with the talking points; I want facts, details, actual knowledge. I care, I learn and I act. I get out and do something about what I care about. I try to be, as the saying goes, the change I seek.

And I frequently do absolutely nothing at all. A classic conundrum.

Take health care. On Saturday, I will be doing with the Bus Project to walk for health care reform. We'll be joined by Health Care for American Now! and Organizing for America, and we'll be informing people in the Salem area about changes made here in Oregon that will cover all children. This is an important step forward for the state, and I'm happy I will be able to help in a small way.

I am also trying to learn all I can about the issue. I'm trying to understand "fee for service" and "single payer" and "whatever the hell Wyden is pushing" and all the other various elements. I try to follow Baucus' latest attempts to destroy real change in order to provide zero votes from Republicans. I am taking notes, using Evernote to capture and, I hope, organize information.

And, as I said above, I am doing nothing at all. Joining with the Bus? I'm just showing up. Richelle and the rest of the Politicorps team are doing the the actual doing. I'm just giving a few hours, which do matter, of course, but actual doing. Writing, organizing, real involvement that goes beyond the easy superficial activity of a few hours on a Saturday. Nothing.

The problem, apart from a paying-the-bills job that sucks away most of my day, is that I have yet to find a way to focus on doing one concrete, useful thing each day. There is so much I want to do and so much I visualize myself doing, that I end up doing nothing. The list of Things That Doing By Me is extraordinarily long. It is very large, too, and frightening. It is an 18-wheeler roaring towards me at 75 mph, and I'm the scared little bunny sitting on my haunches staring up at it and waiting to become roadkill.

This is why we have Zen, of course, and I know that, but try to get me to practice any of the precepts?

So if health care reform fails, please feel free to blame me for not doing anything because I wanted to do so much. Maybe what I am doing at this moment — I chose one thing, and I did it, letting everything else I might have chosen just sit in a corner and wait for its turn — will help me learn the lesson I have been trying to teach myself for a very long time:

I cannot save the world. I can only use the next few minutes wisely.

Or not.

Sen Max Baucus is, allegedly, a Democrat. Democrats were sent to Washington, DC, state legislatures and other elected bodies in huge numbers last year because Americans were sick of what the Republicans were doing and they wanted change. Real change. To make this message clear, vast numbers of Dems were elected with the mandate to join the President in real change. So what is Baucus doing?

Trying to appease Republican Senators.

Ok, a moment to mutter dark obscenities under my breath. Then: What the frack is wrong with him? Is he waiting for his copy of the memo that explains the new political landscape? Does he not know the Rs have been repudiated by the voters and that Barack Obama is the leader the American people chose — not Chuck Grassley?

Yesterday in an interview in Esquire, Howard Dean spoke of Washington, DC being "he most conservative town in America. Its culture is the most resistant to change except a few religious cults." Conservative does not even begin to cover it. It's like Baucus does not give a damn what people voted for. As if the polls that show three-quarters of the nation demanding a public option do not matter. Max Baucus is treating the American people as irrelevant while he concentrates on pleasing Chuck Grassley.

And I hope that sounds as nasty as I intend it to be.

Don't forget the breath mint after, Max.

From the AP, via the Corvallis Gazette-Times:

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day ... said he is hoping that when the costs of environmental legislation this session come home to roost — particularly the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions when the state already ranks 41st in the nation on carbon footprint — voters will look to the GOP to send the pendulum swinging the other way.

The Oregon GOP is in freefall, and their hope is that Oregonians will be angry at Dems for protecting the planet? Yet another brilliant recipe for success. Will they be looking to Sarah Palin for inspiration and guidance? We can only hope.

The economy will turn around. By the time Oregonians vote in November 2010, things will be moving in the opposite direction than they are now. How strong a recovery Oregon is enjoying at that time is a big question, given how little we have to build on and how badly we are suffering now. But the national mood will be more optomistic; two years of gloom about the economy is more than most people can take, and any upswing will be a good enough reason to decide, "Hey, I'm feeling more positive."

Even in Oregon. Next year, of course, the #1 political story is going to be the race for governor. That is likely to be settled in May when the Democrats select their nominee. Republicans no longer have the ability to wage a winning statewide campaign. The general election campaign will be run with an eye on what the Legislature can accomplish in 2011, and that means building on what should be a more positive national atmosphere and turning against anything that smacks of defeatism. As in, "Poor Oregon, we cannot afford to stop destroying the planet. We have no choice but to end regulations that will save the planet but undercut corporate profit."

Because, yes, Oregonians want nothing more than to enrich corporations, most of which take those profits out-of-state while leaving the state not merely poorer, but less capable of future survival. Exhibit one: the timber industry. So Ferroli can fantasize that the Leg's actions regarding global climate change will cause a Newtonian shift to his party but what's more like is that Oregonians will have had an additional year to watch the climate turning ugly and realize that corporate profits are less important to them than basic survival.