Slouching toward something-or-other

Where do policy analyses and emotions intersect? We like to think that someone, somewhere, is calculating what would be best for the rest of us in a given arena of human endeavor—war, food, learning, doctoring, earning, transport, shelter—and yet everywhere these things are addressed, we see that decisions emerge based not on what might or has proven to work but rather on how we feel, or are made to feel, about them.

The principal issues this week are healthcare reform and warfare in Afghanistan. Surely few of those immediately and deeply engaged in the latter exercise in futility can take seriously their own sunny projections of how ‘we’ will snatch that country back from the heroin traffickers and bring it long-lasting peace and prosperity.

But as the Cheney outburst illustrated, the debate is not really about saving our nation from attack but whether this team or that team is the boldest and most valiant. Cheney’s remarks about Obama ‘dithering’ on a decision simply reminds us what a dick Dick is, but his argument is as old as bipedal deambulation itself. No matter how foolish and dangerous a warlike act may be, there will always be a peanut gallery demanding that it be pursued and calling those who resist hopeless weenies.

How curious also that the historical division around what was once called ‘foreign aid’ has undergone a complete ideological shift. In my youth the conservatives railed against this waste of good American dollars to try to help out ‘those people’ in places like Africa and Asia while liberal-minded sorts went off to join the Peace Corps and generally endorsed ‘development assistance’ or ‘international cooperation’ in the form of dam-building, well-drilling, education for girls, green agriculture and the like.

Now, the Bush-ite camp insists on staying put for the long haul in both Iraq and Afghanistan to ‘secure the population’ by means of bringing them all good things, such as ‘effective governance, economic development, education, the elimination of corruption, the protection of women’s rights’ to quote one list from retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich.

Of course, these actions are justified as merely the soft side of doing battle, part and parcel of the geopolitical aim, in this case to achieve ‘counter-insurgency’, and exclusively for that reason. After all, if they were worth anything in themselves, why wouldn’t we start by providing them to our own citizens?

As for healthcare, the less said about the twists and turns of that debate, the better, at least until something concrete is laid before us. It is interesting to note, however, that after the summertime follies of the ineffable teabaggers, another groundswell of popular opinion has made itself felt, this time from the liberal base. It is not due to sudden legislative enlightenment that the public option is firmly back on the table in Congress but a testament to the enormous appeal that this measure has among those who put Barack Obama in office and have been paying close attention to the zigs and zags all year. A campaign last week to get 100,000 people to call Capitol Hill ended up generating three times that amount, and suddenly Harry the Horsetrader Reid is almost a popular champion.

Notwithstanding the bizarre and often base aspects of the mammoth healthcare struggle, a chance remains that something positive will come out of the legislative thicket. Good or bad, it will spring as much from our collective gut as from our treacherous primate reasoning.