[Mb-civic] Goldwater straight Talk

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-hamill16aug16.story

COMMENTARY

Truth Is, We Need More Goldwaters

Weasel words and stale ideas have replaced his brand of straight talk.
 By Pete Hamill

 August 16, 2004

 Once upon a time in America, there were public figures like Barry
Goldwater. He was a rock-ribbed conservative Republican. I disagreed with
almost all of his political positions and could never have voted for him.

 He was against the trade unions that gave my father a life with dignity. He
was a rigid Cold Warrior. He once suggested that my home city of New York be
cut off from the United States and floated out to sea. But oh, how I miss
him now.

 Above all his other qualities, I miss Goldwater's extraordinary penchant
for straight talk. He was one of those old-fashioned Americans who
absolutely believed that our freedom of speech was there to be used. He
understood that clear, declarative sentences, unencumbered by evasive
qualifiers and legalese, were the sinewy muscles of our democracy, and like
muscles, they grew flabby and weak if they were not used.

 In his long career (five terms in the U.S. Senate), Goldwater always said
what he believed. He didn't submit to the slippery guidance of media
consultants, who have turned so many of today's politicians into ciphers. He
spoke his mind, even when his blunt opposition to the prevailing New Deal
orthodoxies brought forth mockery.

 In 1964, when accepting the Republican nomination for president, he spoke a
few lines that doomed his candidacy: "I would remind you that extremism in
the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." More than a few people
noted that such words could have been uttered by Malcolm X, that other
plain-spoken American. Goldwater lost the election in a landslide.

 The result changed our politics. The motto became "safety first." Talking
plainly became a kind of gaffe, and gaffes could cause defeat. Political
discourse got tamer, slicker, more controlled. But Goldwater did not join in
the blanding of America.

 When Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican, was dodging and dissembling during
the Watergate scandal, Goldwater said: "Nixon should get his ass out of the
White House today." When the country was addled by the debate over gays in
the military, Goldwater said: "You don't need to be straight to fight and
die for your country. You just need to shoot straight."

 When the Republican Party was fervently embracing the Christian
conservatives, Goldwater (the Episcopalian grandson of a Jewish immigrant
from Poland) spoke his mind: "When you say 'radical right' today, I think of
these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are
trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party and make
a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics
good-bye."

 Goldwater died in 1998, full of years, respected by people in both major
parties and by millions of independents. He was at once a fierce defender of
conservative American traditions and a cranky champion of the very American
obligation to dissent.

 Now we live in a country where the collective lack of courage has infected
the language itself. We don't demand honesty and accountability from our
leaders; not surprisingly, our leaders conclude that we can't handle the
truth.

 Instead of Goldwater's blunt lucidity, we get weasel words, as in Bush's
"weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities," from his 2004
State of the Union address. We get dissembling, as in Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld's tortured answer to a reporter's question about Abu
Ghraib: "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse,
which I believe is technically different from torture." We get legalistic
evasions, as when then-Vice President Al Gore replied to a 1997 question
about his phone calls from the White House soliciting Democratic campaign
contributions: "There is no controlling legal authority that says this was
in violation of the law." And we get Bill Clinton's notorious non-answer to
the grand jury: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' means."

 Throughout our society, courage is becoming all too rare ‹ and the deficit
is of our own making. Today, more than ever, we need people with the courage
to tell the plain truth. We need brave men and women who refuse to trumpet
platitudes or take stale ideas off the rack. We need more people who
scrutinize every public utterance crafted by the rented fingers of
ghostwriters and point out the evasions. We need leaders and citizens who
say no to what George Orwell once called the "smelly little orthodoxies."

 Telling the truth, of course, can carry heavy penalties: condemnation,
ostracism, slander, the end of careers. Telling the truth often requires the
courage of the foot soldier, the police officer, the firefighter. The arena
is different; there are no rocket-propelled grenades, no roaring fires or
desperadoes with guns. But truly brave people share one big thing: In doing
their duty, they can lose everything. Without such people, we can lose
everything too.

 No democracy can survive if it is wormy with lies and evasions. That is why
we must cherish those people who have the guts to speak the truth:
mavericks, whistle-blowers, disturbers of the public peace. And it's why, in
spite of my own continuing (though chastened) liberal faith, I miss Barry
Goldwater. More than ever.

 *


Pete Hamill's latest book "Downtown," will be published in December by
Little, Brown. This essay will appear in next month's Fast Company magazine.




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