August 2007 Archives

Martin Luther King dreamed that one day people would be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." If you listen to that speech again, it is difficult not to be moved by the notion that the United States as a country has established an ideal of equality and justice for itself; that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." We are a long way from such an uprising ...

As we mark the second anniversary of hurricane Katrina, the disjunction between our ideals and our reality is ever more poignant. The plight of the least advantaged among us is ever more difficult. We as a nation should aspire to be judged by the content of our character, and our response to the disastrous storm, two years ago and still today, is a powerful testimony to our lack of character as a nation.

If we are to begin to live up to the ideals King himself understood America to have set for itself, we will need both vision and eloquence. I see and hear something of both here:

This year witnessed the death of Richard Rorty, an important American philosopher and good friend to my own teacher, Richard Bernstein. I embed here a YouTube clip posted by my colleague at Penn State, Phillip McReynolds, who is working on a documentary entitled American Philosopher.

The book to which many of those who appear in this clip refer is:

Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

In the distance is the sound of drums and horns. The high school band has begun to practice again behind the football field where young men run and tackle, drilling for the new season. The band's music is punctuated periodically by the short, sharp whistle of the football coach barking out discouraged words designed to encourage.

Fall is on its way.

The construction that closed streets all summer has suddenly disappeared as the town prepares for the arrival of 40,000 students. The quiet lifts and a fresh spirit of energy descends upon this college town.

The days are shorter, the nights cooler. It is time to begin again. But as we begin, I take a moment to remember a beautiful summer ...

The Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) sponsored its second annual Centre County farm tour today. My family, along with our neighbors, the Erickson's (with whom we share a summer share at the Village Acres Farm CSA and a dedication to supporting the local farming community), spent the day visiting four beautiful farms.

There is a difference between driving by or flying over a landscape and seeing it from the perspective of those who work in intimate connection with it. Since moving here three years ago, the topography and spirit of the landscape in Centre County has become an important part of my life. There is a beauty to the light here as it plays in the foothills of the Allegheny mountain range that often gives me pause. It is a welcome interruption. However busy, stressed or otherwise preoccupied, I find myself brought up short by the beauty of this place, made to feel the presence of a Nature larger than my preoccupations.

Today, we visited Common Ground Farm, Full Circle Farm, Goot Essa Farm and Mountain View Farm. Each place had a special feel of its own, but what struck me everywhere is the dedication of the farmers, their shared love of the land and their deep commitment to working with nature in a sustainable way. I am grateful to live in a place that takes the idea of sustainable agriculture seriously and has such dedicated people working to produce food that is healthy for the environment and for us humans who are its stewards.

For a slideshow of our tour, click here.

Last week I wondered whether Congress would have the courage to pursue the question of impeachment. This week we received the unequivocal answer: no. In fact, not only will the Congress not pursue the national inquiry the framers envisioned, but they passed legislation to grant further powers to an executive branch with a long history of abuse of power.

The issues surrounding the updating of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are complicated. For a thoughtful analysis of the process that led to the bill signed into law this week expanding the government's power to eavesdrop without warrants, see Patrick Radden Keefe's article in Slate Magazine, entitled "Wiretap at Will."

I was happy to see that Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama both voted against this legislation, disappointed that both of our senators from Pennsylvania lacked the insight and courage to vote nay. Of particular concern, of course, is the use of that ancient strategy of tyrants to appeal to fear in attempting to appropriate ever expanding authority.

In the Federalist Papers #65, Alexander Hamilton articulates the "true spirit" of the institution of impeachment written into the constitution. Article II, section 4 of the United States Constitution, puts the question of impeachment in stark and striking terms:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The precise meaning of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" remains vague enough to allow each generation to decide for itself its precise meaning. Hamilton, however, gives us a sense of what the framers thought of the institution of impeachment. He writes:

The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

The question of impeachment is couched in terms of violated trust, of misconduct and of injuries done to society itself. The offense is not criminal, but political: it concerns the well-being of the community of citizens. Hamilton writes that the "true spirit" of the institution of impeachment is to for it to be "a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men." The impeachment process seems to have been seen as vital to the long-term health of the Republic.

The institution itself appears to have been based on a deep belief in our capacity for self-examination, in our willingness to face up to the ramifications of our own decisions and inquire into the conduct and performance of those we have elected. Impeachment does not imply constitutional crisis, rather, it is one of the ways the constitution itself seeks to safe-guard the society against its own poor judgment.

Thus, it is to that branch of government allegedly most alive to the interests and will of the citizenry (the House of Representatives) that the founders gave the "the sole power of impeachment" (Article I, sec. 2, clause 5).

Of course, Hamilton recognized that undertaking such a serious, but necessary because palliative, endeavor would be difficult and take courage, for, as he writes, the prosecution of impeachments "will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused." A concern for the seriousness of the question of impeachment and for the dangers endemic to the passions it agitates led the framers to consider the Senate as the proper place for a tribunal that would be "sufficiently dignified" and "sufficiently independent." As Hamilton puts it:

What other body would be likely to feel CONFIDENCE ENOUGH IN ITS OWN SITUATION, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an INDIVIDUAL accused, and the REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, HIS ACCUSERS?

Today it is unclear whether the House of Representatives has the courage to adopt articles of impeachment against Vice-president Cheney and President Bush, nor if the Senate has the confidence, maturity and integrity to prosecute an impeachment trial with impartiality between the individuals accused and we, the people.

Hamilton and his colleagues trusted that posterity would somehow find the courage to apply the medicine, however bitter, that would preserve the health of the Republic when its chief executive officers abuse and violate the public trust.

The question of impeachment is a political question in a larger sense than the so-called "politics" that reigns in Washington. It concerns the well-being of a community that finds some of its core values - individual rights, the just treatment of others, the balance of powers in government - threatened by the very ones who pledged "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The decision as to whether to pursue the question of impeachment ought to be made with sober seriousness, not with an eye to the short term political expediency of a single party or a specific candidate, but with the long-term prosperity of the community as the sole and guiding consideration.

In this light, it is difficult to argue against the urgent need for such a "national inquest."

Below you will find some articles on the issue that will be updated over the course of the next few months as the national discussion of impeachment continues.