O pinion
KVETCH ’N KVELL
Listen Now, Rather Than
Planning for the Future
BY DAVE ANDERSON
HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) deserves to
be congratulated for her vic-
tory over President Donald
Trump. But the victory must
be regarded as partial since she
was able to get the partial gov-
ernment shutdown terminated,
but only for three weeks.

The saga we are living
through concerning border
security is politics at its worst.

Yet it is a prism into what pol-
itics is so frequently about:
positioning for a future elec-
tion and optics.

First, politicians do not
have job security and they
must work hard to keep their
jobs and that work is ongo-
ing. Second, politicians, like
most people, look for images
and pictures and symbols to
advance their agendas.

Trump, Pelosi, Senate
Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate
Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were all as
and building walls like doz-
ens of other countries around
the world.

We are a country that must
have a wall, the president says, to
protect ourselves against crime,
drugs, terrorists and illegal
immigrants that steal American
jobs. We are a country that
must not have a wall, the core
Democrats say, because, apart
from being ineffective, it is rac-
ist, xenophobic, antiquated and
down-right un-American.

This saga illustrates two
goals we need to set for
American politics.

First, we must figure out
ways to make the next election
less critical to decisions today
than the importance of the pol-
icy issues at stake. This can be
done in various ways, including
longer terms of office and term
limits. We need a national com-
mission to address this funda-
mental problem.

Second, we must shift the
attention in our politics from
the eye to the ear. Philosophers
like Richard Rorty in
Jewish Community Should Respond to
Virginia Governor Blackface Scandal
visualize the future. Analogies,
metaphors and images can be
misused by politicians and
make our thinking more rigid
and uncompromising.

We need a politics — as
many of our centrist organi-
zations like No Labels, Better
Angels, the Institute for
Communitarian Policy Studies,
and the Bipartisan Policy
Center have been explaining for
years — that focuses more on
dialogue and listening.

We need politicians who
will speak to those tens of mil-
lions of Americans in the mid-
dle who are not certain and
who want bold, creative solu-
tions that take ideas from the
left and the right.

Ironically, if we put lis-
tening over both talking and
ocular metaphors, we will also
make an abstract unreachable
future less relevant to decisions
today because our long-term
goals will be more integrated
with our current challenges.

In short, we can make the
next election less relevant to
We need politicians who will speak to those tens of millions of Americans
in the middle who are not certain and who want bold, creative solutions
that take ideas from the left and the right.

focused or more focused on the
2020 election than what was in
the best interest of the country
today. Trump needs the wall to
fulfil a campaign promise, and
the Democrats need to block
his request in order to deny
him the loyalty from his base
that he craves.

A 2,000-mile concrete wall
is a vivid image that helped
Trump win in 2016. It is also an
image that is anathema to many
Democrats since it paints a pic-
ture of the United States which
is offensive to their moral sen-
sibilities — the United States
losing its exceptionalism status
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature have decried the role
that ocular metaphors play in
Western thought for illustrat-
ing how knowledge is obtained.

Focusing on visualizing the
future basically devalues the
importance of other human
senses, notably listening.

Every politician and corpo-
rate leader creates a vision for
the future. Truth be told, this
leadership style is overrated.

Politicians spend too much
time speaking and not enough
time listening, and they spend
too much time focused on the
future and getting voters to
our politics if we listen more
to each other and envision the
future less than we try to hear
it from each other. Hearing
the future does not mean not
having long-term goals; it
means not having simplistic
visions which we will realize
and which make us less likely
to compromise with others. l
Dave Anderson is editor of
Leveraging: A Political, Economic
and Societal Framework. He
has taught at the University
of Cincinnati, Johns Hopkins
University and The George
Washington University.

JEWISH EXPONENT
THE BLACKFACE AND KKK scandal of Virginia Gov.

Ralph Northam offered the Jewish community an opportu-
nity to join forces with African-Americans, including the
Congressional Black Caucus, in calling for the governor’s res-
ignation. Yet the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish
Committee and other national Jewish organizations have
been silent.

Historically, the Black-Jewish alliance was at its high point
during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, when Jewish
leaders such as Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel and Wolfe
Kelman marched in tandem with Martin Luther King Jr. at
Selma, Ala., and other places in the South.

Since that time, there have been fractures in the alliance. Now,
however, this opportunity presented itself, but we let it slip away.

Jews might view this through our own prism. Imagine Gov.

Northam had Nazi memorabilia on his yearbook’s page. We
would be outraged and demanding his resignation. There’s no
difference. If the Nazi memorabilia insults our sensibilities, we
should recognize that the blackface and KKK robes do the same
for African-Americans.

It’s not too late. The ADL, et al. can still weigh in. And we can
learn for the future, as incidents like this will surely surface. Next
time, the Jewish community should be ready to act.

David Broida | Bryn Mawr
Roe v. Wade Under Ongoing Attack
Stanley R. Askin wrote (“Human Life is Worth the Inconvenience,”
Feb, 7), “As a Jew, I would never wish to force upon a woman the
burden of caring for a child that she does not want.” Yet, he goes
on to condemn abortions performed for reasons other than the
“usual rape, incest and for the health of the mother.”
Roe v. Wade gave women the right to control their repro-
ductive health and that the right to choose is to be made by her,
her health care provider and loved ones should she so choose.

The Casey decision placed constraints on Roe allowing states to
restrict that right as long as they did not constitute an “undue
burden.” Every Republican governor has pushed the envelope on
“undue burden” to the extreme.

Abortion will be illegal in 35 states as soon as Roe is over-
turned or rendered meaningless by the Supreme Court. This will
happen during the Trump administration. Ironically, it’s the
Republicans who call for less government intrusion on our lives
and freedom of choice yet they always embrace the religious right
to pass laws restricting personal freedoms that conflict with their
personal dogma. l
Mark N. Cohen | Havertown
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FEBRUARY 14, 2019
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