Meeting My Congressman: Rick Larsen

I was invited to a Town Hall Meeting with my Congressman, Rick Larsen (D-WA), in Arlington last Saturday. So I packed up the family, my wife Evelyn and two daughters, and we braved the snow and ice to drive to the Arlington Boys and Girls Club. We had front row seats as part of an audience of about 40 people.

Rick Larsen (no relation by the way) has always been the most responsive of my three state representatives as far as answering emails and letters is concerned. (Maria Cantwell could learn a thing or two from Congressman Larsen.) But I was curious to see what he was like in person. Rep. Larsen gave a brief overview of the First 100 Hours program the Democrats have been working on since they were elected into the majority: ethics reform, exposing earmarks, returning “civility” to the House, implementing the rest of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, keeping WMD out of the hands of terrorists, raising the minimum wage, stem cell research, etc. This only took him about 20 minutes and he didn’t seem to posture and over-hype things like so many politicians do (but there weren’t any television cameras so he may not have felt the need). But he did admit that “Iraq is a cloud that hangs over everything we are trying to do.”

Then Rick started taking questions. This was the most interesting part of the meeting. People asked a lot of questions on a lot of topics. There were few weirdoes (“I’m worried about terrorists. Will you ban cell phone use on the highway?”) and a few people were there to pump their pet projects (“Will you support the right of horse owners to ride in National Parks?”), but most of the questions showed an admirable level of intellect, knowledge and concern on the part of those who attended. It was good to share concern over Iraq, the environment, and other topics with others in my community, especially when my opinions seem so “far out” to most of the people I work with and live near. For a conservative district there were a lot of liberal concerns.

The most memorable exchanges were these:

Rick said he did not think the Congress would support Bush’s troop surge.

He said that the Democrats would not try to impeach the President because “he is done in two years” and because he didn’t feel that Democrats had been elected to impeach the President. I did remind him that George Bush deserved impeachment even if he didn’t get it.

Rick felt that our concerns about military action against Iran were not founded. Several of us disagreed with him on this one and I asked why we were raiding Iran’s Consulate in Iraq, but the Congressman felt that no military strikes against Iran would happen. I hope he is right. Larsen also said that “talking to Iran and Syria about Iraq was probably a good idea.” Imagine that, wanting to talk to people instead of bombing them!

He also expressed concern that we were passing the cost of the war onto our children.

When my turn came I asked the following: I appreciate the actions the Democrats are taking so far, but my concern is a more fundamental one. When I talk to my daughters about our government, I find that I have to describe two governments: the representative democracy we are supposed to have and the money dominated government we actually have. I feel that our representatives should only be taking money from us, not from corporations and lobbyists. Would you support some kind of publicly financed campaigns?
Unfortunately Congressman Larsen was unwilling to support publicly financed campaigns. He said that it was up to the voters to judge the honesty of our representatives and to throw the bums out if they aren’t doing a good job. Not a surprising answer really coming from an incumbent congressman with all the fundraising advantages that come with it.

All in all I was encouraged by the experience. I felt like Rick Larsen was actually interested in our opinions even if they did not match exactly with his. And it was good to expose my children to part of the democratic process. In 2003 and 2004 I was disappointed in Larsen’s support of the Iraq War, but that was during a time when the majority of his constituents supported the war. Now that a majority of us in this district have made it clear that we do not support the Occupation of Iraq, it is good to see Rick Larsen shifting to represent us. I hope he can use his new seat on the Arm Forces Committee to bring our military involvement in Iraq to a close.

New Strategy in Iraq?

I listened to the President’s speech on Iraq. The speech that promised to layout his new strategy for winning in Iraq. The result of months of consultation and careful deliberation. So I listened to the President’s speech to see what the new strategy would be.

I must say first off, this was probably the best speech George Bush has given in years. He sounded reasonable and he even wore a blue tie. And the best part was when he admitted that things had not gone well in Iraq and that any mistakes made were his responsibility.

But the content left me speechless. There was no new strategy. There were a few minor tactical tweaks made and apparently some fresh arm twisting of the Iraqi Prime Minister, but new strategy? No. This speech was “Stay the Course” disguised as new strategy. The only strategy being employed was one of delay—delay changing anything significantly until Mr. Bush is out of the White House and the horrible problems he created in Iraq are someone else’s responsibility to clean up.

The “surge” of new troops does not even return U.S. troop levels to what they were only 18 months ago. More troops did not make a difference then. There is no indication that more troops will make a difference now. The level of troops that military experts say would make a difference would require hundreds of thousands of new troops, not tens of thousands. We cannot muster enough troops to reach effective levels of security in Iraq.

The new plan by the Iraqi government is really the new plan that Bush has forced the Iraqi’s to endorse. So there is little evidence to suggest that Iraqi forces will change strategies or take on more responsibility. Continued U.S. troops gives the Iraqi’s a cheap and easy target to blame for everything that is wrong in Iraq, (and much of the problem is our fault) but the U.S. is not causing this religious and sectarian violence which everyone refuses to call A Civil War.

The U.S. should never have invaded Iraq. But staying is not solving the current political, religious, and racial problems. The U.S. won the war in Iraq. But we are losing the occupation of Iraq. We need to stop trying to force a military solution to these religious, sectarian, political and racial problems. We should admit our ineffectiveness, work with Iraq’s neighbors to secure the borders, and get out of the middle of the Iraqi Civil War.

When you have a bucket full of muddy water, you don’t clarify it by stirring it with a stick. You stop and wait and let the sediments fall to the bottom. You don’t calm a situation by throwing more violence into the middle of it.

There are many new strategies that could be taken in Iraq. But what President Bush proposed in his speech was not new and it was not strategic. It was pathetic and dangerous. Time will tell if the new Democratic Congress has the balls to withdraw support and authorization for Bush’s Iraqi policies. I hope they do.

Listening To: Myself

Art is not what I do for a living.
But Art is what I do when I am living.
I had a few friends who went into commercial art for a living. And they all stopped producing their own art (which they loved) and began hating the commercial art they were producing for a living. Art went from being enjoyable personal expression and became hated public product. I, on the other hand, have always felt that my artistic expression was a necessary and valuable personal expression. Art is part of my practice, part of my psychology, part of my intersecting with and making sense of the wider world. So I decided years ago that I needed my art for me and that commercializing it could poison it.

So I make extremely personal and perhaps egocentric art.
And I make no real effort to publicize or commercialize my art.
Only a handful of friends and family (people who have to bump into me anyway) are exposed to what I do artistically. Some of them tolerate my art. Some of them yawn and roll their eyes. Some of them genuinely seem to like my drawings and music. But mostly, I have to admit, the audience for my art is me. And as long as I am enjoying producing and reviewing my art, I am satisfied.

But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a wider audience. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to make art for a living. But that would mean making an effort to market my art and myself. It could just be fear or laziness that stops me from taking that road. What if I’m not as good as I think? What if I tried really hard and failed? What if people didn’t want to pay for what I do? But then again I like making a steady salary. I like being able to produce what I want when I want, so that it feels like a genuine personal expression instead of a job.

So for reasons dark and light, I keep my art to and for myself.

But I do stick some of it up on my website (www.whatdoweknow.com) and my art blog (www.thunderecho.blogspot.com). And strangely enough a small handful of complete strangers have expressed an interest in my art, poetry and music. A few (mostly in Japan for whatever reason) have even paid cash to have Thunder Echo CDs mailed to them. And I still harbor secret fantasies of being “discovered” by some rich person who wants to pay me huge amounts of money for my art. But I know what the odds are of that happening…

So to my friends and family: Sorry but I will keep putting my stuff on the refrigerator and asking you what you think.
To the handful of anonymous fans: Thanks for being interested enough to drop me note and listening to my music.
To the Artist: Dude, you are a weird fucker, but you make me laugh. So keep making music. And keep making doodles. And keep throwing random words together. Cause you let me know I am alive.