Booman’s earlier short post in which he quotes Ann from Feministing’s take on Ryan Lizza’s article in the Sunday NY Times yesterday, fatuously titled The Invasion of the Alpha Male Democrat, got me thinking (which is as we all know a very dangerous thing for me to do). And despite the opportunity to make a complete fool of myself through a further discussion of what is, in essence, a very silly, and ultimately meaningless puff piece masquerading as cogent political analysis, I’ve decided to take that risk. Because what Mr. Lizza wrote, ridiculous and inane as it may be, is really only the tip of the iceberg, whether we are discussing political tactics versus political goals, men versus women, confrontation versus cooperation, or simply put — human nature.
So, let’s begin at the beginning, shall we, with a few choice excerpts from Lizza’s article yesterday:
(cont.)
The architects of this strategy, Representative Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Lapp’s boss, as well as Senator Charles Schumer, are well-known political pit bulls. Mr. Emanuel won his Congressional seat by navigating the ward politics of Chicago’s old-fashioned political machine.
He is missing half of one finger — his aides refer to him as “nine point five” — and swears enough to make a Soprano blush. Senator Schumer is so aggressive and demanding that he has a reputation as one of the most difficult people in the Senate to work for. Both men, who have been elevated to leadership positions in the new Congress, are throwbacks to the era when tough-guy Democrats were urban ethnic politicians, like Dan Rostenkowski and Tip O’Neill.
When Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Schumer set out to find candidates to run in the red states and districts of the 2006 electoral battleground they sought their own rural and exurban doppelgängers.
The fruits of those efforts arrived in Washington last week. Take, for example, three House freshman from Pennsylvania. Patrick Murphy, the son of a Philadelphia police officer, was a West Point professor, a prosecutor and an Iraq war veteran before he ran for Congress. Chris Carney was a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves. Joe Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral whose last job was commanding 15,000 sailors and dozens of ships and aircraft for operations in Afghanistan.
“Joe Sestak — that guy’s muscular!” says Mr. Lapp. “He’s a vice admiral. I’ve told him to spend a lot of time going on the national talk shows. He can really do a service changing the mold and the way the Democratic Party is viewed.” […]
In the Senate, Mr. Schumer’s tough-guy caucus includes Jon Tester, a husky Montana farmer with a buzz-cut, and Jim Webb, the former marine from Virginia who turned his son’s combat boots into an effective electoral prop. Upon arriving in Washington, he promptly picked a fight with President Bush at a White House reception. […]
“Presidential politics, but also the rest of national political leadership, has a lot to do with the understandable desire of voters for leadership, strength, clarity and sureness,” says Jim Jordan, John Kerry’s first presidential campaign manager. “Frankly, in the post-Vietnam era, Democrats have come up short by those measures too frequently.”
I’ve always been struck by people who idolize other people (usually males but not always) because of their imagined toughness or manliness or macho “make my day punk” persona that Clint Eastwood made a fortune off of portraying in the Dirty Harry movies. Because as any man with half a brain will admit, if he’s being honest (and you promise not to quote him by name,) 99% of toughness or being macho or having cojones or big brass ones or however you choose to describe such behavior is an act. A bluff far more often than an actual threat to commit an aggressive act, verbal or otherwise. A cheap attempt to achieve higher status and social, monetary and other rewards by portraying yourself as the baddest man among whatever group of which you are a member.
There’s a reason for it, though. Oddly enough, it has to do with evolution. You see, behavior like this is a direct result of primate display rituals which we as human beings still share with our cousins, the apes and monkeys. It actually helps avoid real violence from breaking out, provides a hierarchy and order within primate groups, and helps group cohesion. Does it actually have anything to do with real strength, or character, or courage? Does shouting and intimidating subordinates and being a complete asshole demonstrate superiority in any fashion, whether of intellect, leadership ability or even raw physical strength? Of course not.
That Chuck Schumer is supposedly a major league asshole to those who work for him, or Rahm Emanuel the hard core survivor of the rough and tumble Chicago political scene, or James Webb a former Marine or Jon Tester is a real down to earth man’s man, or Joe Sestak has muscles or Heath Schuler is a former star athlete, tells us nothing about them of any real importance. It especially tells us nothing about their courage, guts, balls and/or real strength of character, as men or as politicians. Nor does it help us in divining whether they will be the best representatives for our interests, the best proponents of our ideals and the best leaders for our country. What it does do is reinforce a limiting and out of date stereotype about men, and also it promotes the idea that such stereotypical behaviors as aggressive posturing, berating inferiors, talking tough, and appearing strong physically are the sum total of what it means to be a man, or more importantly a human being who just happens to have a y chromosome.
In my personal experience, I have met no braver individual than Cindy Sheehan when I had the opportunity to walk within a few dozen feet of her during the September 24, 2004 protest march in Washington, DC. She was walking next to Jesse Jackson, as alpha a male as you can get (he certainly had the steely expression on his face that day which we usually equate with masculine power and aggression), yet she came across to me as the more courageous individual. Here she was, a middle aged woman who had chosen to turn her grief at the loss of her son into a personal mission to end the war in Iraq. Through circumstances that she had little control over, she became the poster child for the antiwar movement, and a target for any right wing nutcase who believes assassinating her (either actual murder or merely “character” assassination) is the quickest and easiest path to fame and approbation. She has become one of the most hated people in America among those who take their marching orders from the Fox News crowd and other bastions of conservative hate speech.
And yet when you see her in person, you see a simple, real, authentic person. She smiles when she’s happy and expreses anger when she mentions George Bush and the architects of this war. She speaks with great dignity and passion (if not, to be perfectly honest, great oratorical skill) at rallies. She cries when she talks of her son, killed in a war that is as pointless as it is cruel.
She didn’t have to put herself out in this way. She didn’t have to sacrifice her life for a cause that will not bring her son back to her, and has led to health and marital problems. But she felt that it was more important for her country, and for the mothers and fathers of all those other men and women serving in our military, that this war end. It was more important to her than remaining anonymous and suffering her grief in private, far from the hostile crowds and critics who have dogged her footsteps. It was more important to her that America see the mother of a soldier, who lost his life for George Bush’s ego, taking a public stand against the war at a time when most Americans were afraid to speak out, and when many of them still believed the lies of the Bush administration and still supported its failed policies in Iraq.
That she is a medium sized, rather ordinary woman, without bulging biceps or a ferocious appearance or dominating stature or a loud, raucous voice, does nothing to take away the moral courage that she has demonstrated time and time again, even in the face of ridicule from the corporate controlled lapdog press, death threats and even complaints by many in the progressive movement that she was becoming too controversial. That took real courage, and I was honored to have been in her company, even if for only a very brief moment in time.
Now let me describe the strongest person I know: my wife. She’s given birth to our two children without the use of any drugs to relieve the pain of labor. The anguish I saw on her face at times was seemingly so severe that I have no doubt I couldn’t have born it. This year she had surgery for pancreatic cancer, which required the doctors in a 4 hour operation to cut a 14 inch incision across the length of her belly. Having had a few surgeries myself which involved much lesser incisions, I know the pain that accompanies the post operative phase of one’s recovery, but I never saw anyone endure more suffering than she did in the days following her operation. While she was still in the hospital, she was informed that, in fact, the mass they had removed was indeed malignant (there had been some doubt before surgery) and that she would be required to undergo months of a combined chemotherapy/radiation regimen. She wore a special pump to continuously push in the chemo drugs 24/7, and had radiation treatments five days a week. She lost the use of her pancreas because of the radiation and now must give herself daily insulin shots. Then, after surviving days of nausea, pain, fatigue and the inability to shower but once a week (a greater loss to her than any other), she began another round of chemotherapy which continues as I write these words about her.
Still she has remained upbeat and positive for our children, rarely letting them see the true nature of how she was feeling, or the emotions of fear and distress that are the constant companion of anyone faced with a possibly fatal illness. She has returned to work and has insisted on regaining as much of her former life, meeting friends and pursuing her many interests, as she can. Recently her father passed away, and she was a rock for her mother at the funeral. When my sister was diagnosed with cancer, she freely took it upon herself to call her long distance to discuss her own situation, and offer support and coping strategies for the ordeal ahead. Frankly, she amaze me with her fierce desire to live life despite what has been thrown at her this past year. I don’t know of anyone who is stronger mentally or physically than she is.
It should come as no surprise that the bravest and strongest people I know are both women. This is not to demean the heroism of so many men throughout history which has been well documented, but simply to make the point that strength, resolve, courage, fortitude and character are not the preserves of either gender. Those attributes rightly belong, not to any particular sex or class or race or nation, but to individual human beings who make the hard choice to make them their own. Human beings who are members of a species that has managed to rise above much of what was once considered fate, or destiny, or providence or god’s will or (more recently) scientific determinism, to become more than the sum total of our genes, instincts, environment or and/or pre-programmed behavioral traits.
I believe that we can choose whether to continue to follow the ancient path of conflict and confrontation, sabre rattling and penis swinging and war drums, or to follow the path of cooperation with one another, tolerance, decency, rational discussion and community. It’s up to the truly strong and brave people of this planet to take the lead and choose the second path I’ve described above. We already know where the first one invariably ends, with disaster, death and immorality.
So let’s get to work to achieve an alternative future for humankind, one devoid of war, intolerance, racism, sexism, agism and most importantly of all, me-firstism. And frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn who leads us there.