The Book of the Week is “Frank, A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage” by Barney Frank, published in 2015.
Born in 1940, Frank grew up in New Jersey. By the early 1970’s, he found himself becoming a career politician. Along the way, he earned a law degree and realized that he possessed the kinds of skills required for leadership in government.
Frank learned many lessons, including that “…[Republican president Richard] Nixon proposed policy changes in health care and welfare that Congressional Democrats rejected as too conservative, only to settle for less years later.” In other words, a partial victory that arises through compromise and playing well with others is better than no victory at all via an attempt to pass comprehensive legislation.
Frank considered himself a civil libertarian in that he favored pornography and prostitution in limited circumstances, and legalizing marijuana and abortion. Yet, he also argued for gun control, strong environmental laws, unions, gay rights and racial integration.
In previous decades, the Republicans were better than Democrats at pressuring their Congresspeople to adopt their political agenda. They continue to accomplish this with front groups which appear to be grass-roots movements secretly funded by special-interest, big-money campaign donors.
Those groups of “concerned voters” flood the media and Internet with misleading, emotionally charged stories and ads– persuasive messages which have been screamed louder and longer than the Democrats’. These smear campaigns have used angry, mean, petty people to target political enemies such as Frank.
The Democratic voters (people who are actual members of grass-roots movements) have historically attended rallies, marches and protests. Usually, to no avail. But the Democrats have caught up and learned to use those sleazy (yet successful) tactics, and have been just as retaliatory of late.
Politics (on BOTH sides) has become one big, abusive hierarchy of vengeful cliques with a few troublemakers– the leaders– acting like teenagers, or sometimes even kindergarteners; this, characterized by social manipulation, bullying, poor impulse control, shameless hypocrisy and narcissistic attention whoredom.
The media are their accomplices, egging them on, and behaving just as immaturely. Some media outlets would have their audiences believe there are an alarming number of morons and nutcases everywhere spreading stupidity. Yes, and it takes one to know one. Lots of pots calling kettles black out there. More airtime than ever is wasted on cutting people down and blaming them for the collapse of modern civilization.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. All parties have to relearn that two wrongs don’t make a right, and an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
In 1989, Frank fought fire with fire when childish Republicans put out a vicious rumor that he was gay. The point was– this is what angry, mean, petty people do to take a swipe at an easy target, sow dissent– regardless of whether it was true or not. He told the press that he would reveal the names of all Republicans who were closeted gays if they ever tried that again. They apologized, because, fortunately, Frank had sufficient power to strike back at them.
In the early 1990’s, Frank pushed for equal rights for gays in the military in a proposal. President Bill Clinton modified it in a way that created a double standard, and it was named “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). Under DADT, if gay servicemen were caught off-duty engaging in any activity indicating their sexual orientation– from electronic communications to sodomy to same-sex dating to simply entering a gay bar– they would be in trouble. When DADT took effect, members of the LGBT community were spied on and punished.
Read the book to learn how the (preventable) 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was spawned by specific people in power such as John Hawke, Sue Kelly, Alan Greenspan, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, the House GOP leadership, and most of the GOP– in an excellent, concise, specific explanation for laypeople; and other difficulties Frank faced in doing his job.