The Good News Amidst the Current Chaos

The order of the day is anxiety-bordering-on-fear. The stock market and LIBOR zig, zag, and sag. Banks fail. Layoffs multiply. Members of the House and Senate wrangle, argue, and dither, even as the president (who’s he? Oh, right. That guy from -- Texas, is it?) warns of doom (and no one listens to him because, um, what’s his name again?)

Good news. There’s an upside to this nightmare. In fact, there are two.

First, those lawmakers in Washington. You know: all those old white guys in suits and ties who seem to spend all their time jabbing fingers at each other but otherwise not getting much done? They ARE doing something. They’re doing the most important "something" of all: They’re operating the complicated, often ugly, and always machinery of a democratic republic.

That’s right: This is what a free society looks like when the mechanism is running full tilt. We the people elect representatives and dispatch them to spend their days making the laws and rules and regulations so that the rest of us can get on with our lives waiting tables, driving trucks, writing books, and making beer.

Are our constitutional and legislative mechanisms inefficient, messy, and slow? Definitely. Is the process perfect? Hell, no. Is it maddening? Yes.

Is there a speedier, more efficient, more streamlined alternative? Yes. It’s called "dictatorship." Dictators move fast because, ya know, they don’t have to consult anyone. They do they want regardless of what the citizens want.

Me? I don’t want to live in a dictatorship. So every time I hear another "breaking news" update about the often stalled, and even more often ridiculous, closed-door talks that don’t seem to be going anywhere, I ponder the alternative. And then I send a silent thanks to the people who are devoting their lives to making this democratic republic work, clunky though the machinery may be.

Okay, so what’s the second silver lining? The economy may teeter on the brink, but the presidential campaign continues.

That’s right: On November 4, we Americans will vote. We’ll engage in the first step toward a peaceful -- and legal -- transfer of power. And then round about noon on January 20, 2009, we’ll watch the second step unfold: The person we elected will take the oath of office and become our new president.

So what? you say. Ho hum. Big deal.

It is a big deal. It’s the biggest deal we Americans have (aside from the Constitution). Pick up a newspaper and read about the millions of other human beings experience transfers of power: Through bloodshed, intimidation, riots and shooting -- and with no elections at all.

So if your anxiety levels are soaring; if the market tanks on Monday; if Wachovia crashes on Tuesday -- take a minute to rejoice in our fundamentals. They’re what make us who we are. And they’ll get us through this crisis.

Historical Tidbits: Beer. From SBA to BAA, 1952

In 1952, the members of the Small Brewers Association, the trade and lobbying group for the nation's smallest beermakers, decided that the word "small" did not accurately reflect the prestige of the association or its 150-odd members. (At the time, there were some 300 breweries in the U.S.)

Time for a new name. Henceforth, the SBA, which began life in 1942 as the Small Brewers Committee, would be known as the Brewers' Association of America. The BAA survived until 2005, when it merged with the Boulder-based Association of Brewers to become the Brewers Association.

____________________

Source: Modern Brewery Age 48 (September 1952): 79.

Bill Leinenkugel

Bill Leinenkugel died on September 23. As I noted a few weeks ago, he was one of those people who make a difference in the world: He was kind, unpretentious, and hard-working. A loving father and husband. A man who cared about his neighbors and community. I'm grateful I had the chance to interview him for the book -- and sad that I never got to meet him in person.

His hometown newspaper's obituary is here. As far as I'm concerned, it's the one that matters most.

But oh! -- how delighted he would have been to learn that his life and work mattered enough to warrant notice on the AP wire service, in the "big city" Chicago papers, and on the internet.

Tonight, I honor the life of a human being who lived a good life -- and leaves the most valuable of legacies: love, generosity, and kindness.

Historical Tidbits: Beer. Great American Beer Festival, 1985

In late May, 1985, a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera interviewed Daniel Bradford, director of the Great American Beer Festival, a two-day event scheduled to begin later that week in Denver.(*1)

Bradford predicted that three or four thousand people would attend the GABF, whose 1985 theme was "Oktoberfest of the West." Festival-goers would sample beers from thirty-four "microbreweries" (up from 20 who submitted beer in 1984).

The GABF coincided that year with the National Homebrew Competition, where judges would taste more than six hundred entries. The first 2,000 people through the door would receive "commemorative mugs," as well as a "60-page almanac" containing essays on beer history and beer styles as well as information about homebrewing.

Tickets were $10 in advance, $12.50 at the door.(*2)

_______________________

Source: "Great American Beer Festival Offers 100 Brews for Tasting," Boulder Daily Camera, May 29, 1985, p. 2e.

*1: In the early 1990s, Bradford became publisher of All About Beer magazine and also served as director of the Brewers Association of America, the trade group for small American brewers. In 2005, the BAA merged with the Association of Brewers, the sponsor of the GABF, to become the Brewers Association. Bradford is still publisher of All About Beer, which also sponsors the World Beer Festival.

*2: $10.00 in 1985 is equal to about $19.00 in 2006 dollars. Tickets for the 2008 GABF? $50.00 ($20.00 for designated drivers.)

Economic Depression and War

In my previous post, I noted the role of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in forging a path out of the horrific economic depression of the 1930s.

But, as every historian knows, the onset of World War in the late '30s, and American entry into that war in the early 1940s, significantly accelerated the end of the Great Depression. Wars require uniforms, guns, weapons. Wars also spur research in science and technology. Put another way, war creates jobs, and jobs need workers, and those workers earn paychecks.

That's useful to remember that now, in 2008. We Americans can hasten our road to economic, emotional, and moral recovery by waging a war of our own: Let's declare war on the global climate crisis.

As Tom Friedman notes in his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the crisis is upon us. It's here, both environmentally and politically. And if the foul air doesn't kill us, our enslavement to petropolitics will. (*1) The United States lags other nations in reconfiguring daily life to minimize human impact on the environment; we're way behind in shifting from "dirty" energy to "clean" energy. Making that shift will require a massive investment in science, technology, ideas, and manufacturing.

In short, making that shift will be good for the economy. It will provide jobs -- high-tech, low-tech, and everything in between. So --- let's declare war on environmental degradation. It'll be good for the planet and good for the economy.

Now -- all we need is . . . a few courageous, creative leaders. Senator Obama? Senator McCain? You ready?

___________________________________________

*1: Well, okay, it's already killing us and other human beings every day in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tragic irony, of course, is the chain of money involved. We Americans haven't got the money needed to fight this "war" on terrorism. So we borrow it -- mostly from the Chinese and from oil-rich Arab states. The oil-rich Arabs, of course, are also funding the terrorists. So -- we're borrowing money to wage a war being funded by the people we're borrowing from. Sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine -- or a Kafka novel.

Moments of Crisis and The Historian's Curse

Times like these remind me that being a historian is both a curse and a blessing.

A blessing because I love my work. A curse because in any situation, my historian's brain automatically takes the Long View of the Big Picture: Where are the roots of this current moment? How will historians fifty years from now assess this moment? All of which, I'm here to tell you, only exacerbates my gloom and anxiety.

Anyway, history is much on my mind -- The New Deal of the 1930s, of course. American refusal to acknowledge the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1970s. The way in which Viet Nam and Watergate eroded Americans' trust in government, so that 30, 40 years later, most Americans refer to elected leaders as "them," forgetting, apparently that WE are our government.

So that now, at a moment when Americans need leadership, they are least likely to turn to elected officials to provide it.

And of course, I've been thinking about Franklin Roosevelt. When FDR took office in the midst of a economic disaster, he committed himself and his administration to two major courses of action.

First, he and his team of advisors tossed out the rules and used their imaginations to develop plans for extricating the nation from its crisis. They faced an unprecedented global and national crisis. The old rules/methods simply didn't apply. Not everything FDR's team tried worked. But they understood that what mattered most was doing something, anything.

Second, FDR understood that nothing would work unless Americans were willing to share in the gamble, and they would only follow his lead if they understood what was happening, and why he was doing what he did. It's easy to look back on his fireside chats as some quaint relic of a by-gone radio era, but they had an enormous emotional and psychological impact.

FDR made sure that Americans knew that people in Washington were working hard to create solutions to huge problems. That fostered trust, and trust, in turn, translated into a willingness to cooperate with FDR's projects and plans. (*1)

Put another way, FDR provided leadership. That word gets thrown around a lot these days, usually covered in mud. So much so that most of us have stopped listening. But leaders are good things, especially in times of crisis. Leaders step to the front and take the first step into the unknown. Great leaders create an atmosphere in which people will follow, trust, and believe. (*2) People WILL rise to the occasion -- if they trust the leader, and if they have hope.

I don't know how the rest of the country feels, but I'm worried, more so than I've ever been in my life. But I'm also ready to do what needs to be done.

So: any leaders out there?

_________________________

*1: Yes, I understand that many Americans hated FDR, among them my grandmother who railed against him until the day she died in 1979.

*2: Yes, leaders can be evil. Adolph Hitler provided extraordinary leadership, rising to power at a moment when Germans were desperate and wanted someone to take the first step.