At a press conference held earlier today at the Fairfax, Virginia, headquarters of the National Rifle Association, NRA President Wayne LaPierre issued a plea for “restraint” in the “rampaging-gunman community” while the United States Congress prepares to debate new firearms regulations.

“As most cold-blooded spree killers know, this is a very sensitive time for gun rights in America. Traditionally, the nation can handle three, even four scenes of unimaginable carnage per year without much difficulty,” LaPierre said. “But after what happened in Newtown, the country is just . . . jittery. And so the NRA encourages all homicidal maniacs, wherever they live in this great country of ours, to keep a low profile for a few months.”

LaPierre was referring to the events in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, when gunman Adam Lanza opened fire in the Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing twenty children and six adults.

LaPierre added, “And by a low profile, we mean that those intent on mayhem should NOT commit large-scale, multiple-victim murders in the near future. We can’t stress that enough. Please, no mass butchery. Not right now.

“Let me put it simply: Congress wants to take away our rights. Congress wants universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a ban on assault weapons. Although the NRA has held back the tide so far, another random, soul-crushing bloodbath would make it highly likely that Congress will act.”

Directly addressing all sociopathic madmen watching the press conference in their living rooms, LaPierre softened his voice as he urged, “Work with us here, guys. If we have even one more slaughter of innocents before these votes, the NRA’s job of defending the liberty of every gun-owning American, including you, gets that much harder. And then where will we be? In tyranny, that’s where! So, please, think about the big picture. Let’s come together as a community. Let’s be reasonable. We’re only asking for a month or two.”

Speaking in a fatherly drawl, LaPierre continued, “I’m sure we can all agree it will be just as easy to walk into a mall parking lot, a clothing store in your hometown’s historic district, a high-school reunion — really anywhere you want — sixty or ninety days down the road. At that point you can all fulfill your dream of blowing apart unarmed, innocent people with high-velocity, fragmenting bullets . . . provided we work together now.”

In closing, LaPierre reiterated his call for restraint: “Just give us a few months, and we’ll be through this crisis of threatened governmental overreach into the lives of lawful, if sometimes mentally unbalanced and enormously dangerous, gun owners.”

Following his remarks, LaPierre took questions from the press.

A.P. reporter Tom Johnson wondered how a moratorium on ruthless, senseless brutality might impact a unhinged killer. “How will he satisfy his urge toward mass murder? How will he duplicate the excitement of firing hundreds of rounds from an assault rifle into the flesh of terrified victims?”

LaPierre responded frankly, “Look, no one thinks this is going to be easy. For anyone. Particularly someone who is a tortured ball of rage with easy, legal access to military-grade weaponry and full body armor. But if a gun owner feels absolutely compelled to snuff out life and happiness from dozens of individuals and their families, we just hope that he will stop to consider how his actions might affect his fellow firearms enthusiasts. And if he still can’t hold off for a couple of months, then maybe he can limit himself to five kills or less . . . and no children. Not for now. That would be very unhelpful at the moment.”

LaPierre informed the press corps that if a bloodthirsty madman chose to use a legally available sniper rifle with an accuracy of up to 1,000 yards, he could almost certainly knock off several helpless targets before being apprehended. “What we’re saying is there are ways to slay unknowing victims without jeopardizing everyone’s Second Amendment rights. If you have to go on a spree, the NRA would like you to consider some guidelines we’ve put up on our website.”

LaPierre then ticked off those suggestions on his fingers. “First, try to stick to a poor or already-high-violence area. This will decrease media attention, which in turn increases our chances of defeating these bills in Congress. A rule of thumb is: “Urban” is always good” (here he inserted air quotes around “urban”). “But there are also wonderful areas of rural poverty often overlooked by individuals compelled towards mass murder. Just drive down back roads scanning for trailer parks. It may be a little inconvenient for you, but could prove invaluable to your fellow gun owners. Second, avoid suburban neighborhoods at all costs. That’s self-explanatory. And third, don’t be flashy. No masks. No makeup. Don’t give the media anything to grab onto. If you absolutely have to, then do your thing. But remember, this is about more than just you, the deranged killer. Your real victims will be other gun owners.

Hidro Santa Cruz over The Q’ambalam River.

Rocael is Q’anjob’al Maya. He lives in Cantón Recreo B, in the Guatemalan highland town of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango. He is married and has one daughter. He is 20 years old and studying to be a teacher. And for the first time in his life, on May 1, 2012, he understood the fear that his grandparents felt during Guatemala’s civil war. He related this to the reporter during a recent interview.

Rocael was speaking about an event last spring in which an opponent to the building of a hydroelectric power facility and dam near his community was gunned down as he walked home from a fair in the town square.

The man, Andrés Francisco Miguel, was killed and two of his friends were badly injured as they made their way home that evening. The murdered man had, for years, resisted selling his land to Hidralia Energía, the Spanish Corporation building the hydroelectric facility.

In the days that followed Andrés Francisco Miguel’s murder, the local community rose in protest of the project and the lack of justice for their fallen campesino.

For Rocael, he was finally able to contextualize the fear often spoken of by his grandparents, when they discussed the nation’s long and bloody internal conflict.

“I had never experienced it, but now I understood.”

Old strategies of repression against small communities are repeating themselves in this region of Guatemala, where, since 2007, the Q’anjob’al indigenous communities have organized to defend their territory against the imposition of a foreign-funded megaproject.

On May 1, last year, the people of Barillas were celebrating the annual festival in honor of Santa Cruz, their town’s patron saint. Along with Rocael, Cesar Juan, a Barillas community spokesperson, told this reporter how everything was proceeding normally with the annual event, until people heard the gunshots and soon discover that Andrés Francisco Miguel had been assassinated.

Cesar Juan continued, “So, in the evening, members of the local communities arrived at the urban center of Barillas to denounce the assassination. That day set the community off. They shouted enough more forcefully than ever.”

This story begins in 2007, when a hydroelectric dam project, paid for with Spanish capital, began construction along the Q’ambalam River near Santa Cruz Barillas. The company doing the work was Hidro Santa Cruz, the Guatemalan partner of Hidralia Energía, the Spanish transnational.

Deeply unsure of the effects of the project on their lives, the Barillas community began organizing to defend its territory and oppose the megaproject. They did this by carrying out informational sessions with neighboring towns, holding community consultations and assemblies, meeting with municipal authorities, resisting the sale of their lands, demonstrating peacefully and holding a consulta, or public referendum, that came out strongly against the dam project. The situation had been tense between the community and the company, but it was the murder of Andrés Francisco Miguel on May 1 that set off a chain of rapidly accelerating events.

On May 3, 2012, the Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina declared martial law, asserting that the community had seized military weapons from an army base in the region in response to what was widely seen as the assassination of a community leader. The imposition of martial law led to the suspension of constitutional rights in Barillas — including the right to freely assemble.

The President justified the imposition of martial law based on claims that community leaders had ties to the drug-trafficking organizations and terrorism.

At the end of January 2013, this writer traveled from the city of Huehuetango — capital of the departamento of the same name — to Santa Cruz Barillas with organizers of an indigenous movement against this megaproject. My objective was to try and understand the government’s strategy of repression and the business interests that lay behind the dam project. During our days in the region, we were able to visit some of the affected areas, speak with neighbors — men, women, elders, youth and community organizers — as well as with the lawyer representing the Barillas community’s case.

Rocael, deeply affected by the events of last spring, described the scene as he experienced in on May 1, 2012. “People from different municipalities came for the festival. Suddenly shots were heard and everyone went on alert. Gunshots? I didn’t believe it! I went down to see. When I got there, my uncle Pablo Antonio Pablo was bleeding and they had just killed his compañero, Andrés. He was already dead, there was nothing we could do. ‘Why do they do this?’ I asked myself. Yes, these people are organizers and participative, but they aren’t violent.”

That day, Rocael fled to the mountains out of fear. He took his pregnant mother with him. He was afraid not only of assassins, but of being rounded up by the Perez Molina government under the orders of martial law. Other leaders, along with their families, fled for the border with Mexico.

Rocael said, “We couldn’t place calls among ourselves because our phones were tapped. We communicated using our own language, Q’anjob’al. People were afraid because community leaders were being followed under the pretense that their names were on a ‘black list,’ along with photos of lots of people participating in the mobilizations.”

Rocael, frightened though he is, has returned to Barillas in order to keep defending his community’s territory.

Attempts To Break Up The Movement

The buying up of indigenous lands, the persecution of leaders, the accusations of drug trafficking and terrorismo all became strategies of the government and the company in attempts to divide the community and undermine the movement against building the hydroelectric facility.

Last issue we ran a series of short pieces by Bill McGowan

In this issue of La Cuadra, Bill has given us three more stories to consider. The first is another recollection about Ali. The second is about an occurrence in a Chicago bar back when Bill was living there in the early 1980s. The final story is about a friend of ours who passed through town several times in the past five years named Shanghai Pearce. Shanghai, as predicted in the last story in this series, has left the auditorium and we can only hope that he and Ali have teamed up and are making them laugh in the hereafter. 

Each of these stories are well-crafted and clear — yet intriguingly complex. They gently ask the reader to be exposed over some perilous cultural and moral expanses. And they pay off beautifully.

Thanks again, Bill. Keep on writing!

The Red Suit

I had the benefit of hearing this story twice. Ali told it to me once, and then I got to hear him tell it to an unknown couple that we invited to sit at our table in some bar a few years later. I realized with the second telling that Ali had refined this story over the years to achieve maximum effect.

“After I got back from ‘Nam, I went back home to Rock Hill, South Carolina. I couldn’t stand it. It seemed so small to me after having been in Vietnam and then San Francisco. I was getting on the nerves of my family and they were sure botherin’ me. I couldn’t relate to anyone, even my old high-school buddies. And I realized it wasn’t going to be easy with the women either.

“I had this uncle that was only about fifteen years older than me that lived up in New Jersey. I’d always looked up to him. He had a reputation as a real ladies’ man. My mother suggested I go visit him for a while. That sounded like a great idea to me! He invited me up there to stay with him.

“Hey, Uncle Joe was living good. He had a decent job, money in his pocket, many women. He was a dresser. He knew just about everyone in town. He took me around to all of his haunts and even found me a part-time job. I was tryin’ to model myself on him, learning the way; I always had the jive.

“At this time he was livin’ with a really hot babe. Man, Jessie was sharp! One day I got home from work around six in the evening. I was dead tired. No one was home, so I decided to lie down on my uncle’s bed. I was tired of always sleeping on the couch. I figured I’d get up as soon as someone came home.

“I fell asleep. When Jessie came home she went to the bathroom, and then came straight into the bedroom thinking it was my uncle in there. I woke up when she laid down next to me with next to nothin’ on. It was dark. It was crazy, but I couldn’t resist just goin’ with the flow. Well, we were playing around and I was just about to go IN there when the front door opened.

“My uncle called out, ‘Hey, where is everybody?’

“The gig was up!

“She jumped up, turned the light on, and said, ‘What the fuck are you doin in the bed, Horace?’”

(Horace was his given name. He took Ali Akbar later, when he converted to Islam.)

“Man, she was pissed. She started screamin’ at me, and then she went out to my uncle complainin’ about what I’d done to her.

“My uncle called me out gruffly, ‘Horace, get your ass out here!’

“I got my clothes on, and came out to the living room.

“He laid into me. I tried to apologize and say it was just an accident. The whole time she was still yellin’ at me and telling my uncle he needed to kick me out of the house.

“‘Horace, you heard her. Man, you got to go. And NOW!’

“I gathered up my clothes and stuff and packed them in my bag. I didn’t have much. I walked out, saying I was sorry again. I didn’t know where the hell to go, so I just walked down the block to a little tavern we always went to.

“I was well on my way to my sixth or seventh drink when my uncle walked in. Man, I jumped up. I was real nervous. He walked up to me.

“‘Uncle Joe, I’m real sorry about what happened,’ I said.

“I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t hit me. He was a big man! He surprised the hell out of me when he walked up and put his big arm around my shoulder.

“Laughing, he said, ‘Oh Horace, don’t worry about that. I just had to kick you out because she was so mad. I’ve called your Auntie; you can stay with her a few days. Then you can come back to my place after Jessie calms down.’

“‘Boy,’ he added, ‘I can’t believe you pulled that stunt! Let me buy you a drink.’

“That’s the way my uncle was. He taught me a lot.

“After a few months up there, I had a little money in my pocket. I had my own apartment then. I knew I needed some good clothes. My uncle dressed well, and I saw the effect that had on everyone, particularly the ladies. So I went to this men’s clothing shop in the ’hood and I bought a nice suit. Fitted! Red! That night I hit the clubs in my suit and a nice hat too. Wow! I felt like the MAN. I could feel the effect immediately. It gave me confidence, and I played it for all it was worth.

“The first time my uncle saw me in the suit, I think he was a little jealous. You know, he was a little older, and here was this young upstart that he had helped gettin’ all of the attention. Still, he was cordial to me. And, you know, I was always glad to see him.

“I hung out up there in Jersey for a year or two. Even stayed for a while in New York City. But eventually, I ran out of jobs and money, and decided to go back home to Rock Hill. That was disappointing, to say the least. I was even more disconnected than before. I couldn’t find work. I was living at home. The scene there was sooo small-town. I’ll never forget, and maybe never forgive, that my mother at this time suggested I try to get a job on a garbage truck! A garbage truck!!! Whoa, that’s what she thought I should aspire to?

“After about six months in Rock Hill, I thought I might as well go back to San Francisco. When I was stationed there, it was the most exciting place I’d ever lived. I pulled together enough bread to catch a bus out there. I was big-time broke but, you know, I found my way. I was livin’ over in Oakland where it was cheap, and makin’ my way over to the City as often as I could.

“Before long, I started picking up a little dough sellin’ weed, and pretty soon I’d built up a clientele.

“One day I was standing on my corner where I knew some people would find me. I had the weed in my pocket.

“Suddenly a cop car pulled up and they jumped out. They asked me to empty my pockets and there it was. There was no gettin’ out of it. They arrested me and put me in the back of the car. I was had. There was no point in arguing. I was goin’ in.

“A white cop was driving. His partner was black. They weren’t bad; weren’t mean to me at all. I was sittin’ back there, kinda calm. I asked them, ‘Hey, you got me fair and square. But what I can’t figure is how you knew to pick ME up.

“They looked at each other and smiled. The black cop turned to me and said, ‘We got a tip!’

“‘What tip?’ I asked.

“They looked at each other again, smiling. The black cop turned to me again, and almost laughin’ said, ‘The nigger in the red suit gots the dope!’

“Even I had to laugh at that!”

Hepcat Thomas Jefferson

There’s an old saying back in the States that I just made up and it goes something like this: “If there is a zombie in the well, you probably shouldn’t drink the water.” Apropos of which, for all the buzz in El Norte regarding a civil war brewing within the ranks of the Republican Party, I’m thinking the metaphor is all wrong. It’s not a civil war. It’s a zombie apocalypse of absolutist ideologies. A near-tipping-point percentage of the Republican Party has become like unto a herd of undead intellects unable to alter course and chomping ferociously at everything in their way. I know that’s an inflammatory charge, and I intend to back it up with some ballpark (barroom?) numbers. But it seems to the Surly Bartender that at least half of — and arguably far more — conservative voters in the United States have surrendered their ability to reason based on observable truths.

That deserves comment.

And let’s not get too cute here. I am not saying all Republicans are silly absolutist “zombies.” What I am saying is that the ones who think Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that global climate change is a world-wide conspiracy of evil scientists, and those who believe the Second Amendment should prevent background checks on gun purchases, in fact, are.

Further, it’s my contention that the framing of the intraparty battle by the Beltway media has it all wrong. A civil war, while violent, presumes a rational point of disagreement. But in the current situation, one side in the battle has given up living in a fact-based world — and their influence is spreading despite the claims from D.C. of a resurgence of the Republican establishment.

The remaining rationalist Republicans, rather than trying to put out positive spin on the Sunday morning talk shows, would be better off nailing boards to the windows and grabbing anything that can be used as a blunt instrument. They might need them to survive.

A civil war in the party allows for the possibility of reconstruction in its wake. I do not think that will be possible. My assessment may be wrong, but I’d wager that at some point in the next few years, the Grand Old Party will break apart upon the anvil of history. The establishment and the radicals will be cleaved in twain. The other alternate future is no brighter, wherein the “zombie virus” takes over entirely.

Republicans have drunk deeply from a well they should have avoided, and it has altered them in ways that can’t be reversed. The radical Republicans of today hold political, social and economic views that are absolutist and often just plain nuts. And once staked, absolutist ground is near impossible to surrender.

This is a bad thing for all of us.

Effective government ain’t easy. Effective democracy in a world where corporations are people (my friend), and money is speech (old chum) is more difficult and dangerous than juggling axes in a kindergarten. There are the constant pressures of lobbyists advocating for the self-interests of the already powerful. There is the natural tendency towards faction. And there is the usual incoherence of the uninformed and otherwise occupied.

But the most dangerous times for any representative government are when the ignorant band together in celebration of their folly. At times like these, bullying hordes advance terrible, foolish, provably untrue ideas with missionary arrogance. That is what is going on in the Republican Party today, but by no means is it the first time such a thing has happened in American history. Even the Founding Fathers were aware of these dangers and did what they could to build a ship of state that might withstand a crew of fools, and the voyage has been choppy since the early 19^th Century.

With that in mind, let’s consider some events of the early republic. We’ll get back to the zombies later.

On November 29, 1803, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, received the new British Ambassador to the United States at the White House. The Ambassador, one Anthony Merry, arrived dressed to the nines in 18^th Century aristocratic poofery. He was sporting a giant hat with an exaggerated plume. At his side was a long, ceremonial sword with a bejeweled hilt. His knee socks were sparkling white and his shoes were clasped by shiny silver buckles. Merry was a man quite full of himself and his position in society. Rather exactly what President Jefferson couldn’t stand.

Merry was accompanied to the executive residence by Secretary of State James Madison. Madison took little note when they were given entrance by the house staff, but Merry was baffled and offended that they had to make their ways through the rooms and down the hallways calling out for “Mr. President.”

They finally found Jefferson in the small, low-ceilinged anteroom of his study where there wasn’t space for three men, a sword, and a round of handshakes — much less the rhythmic gymnastics of diplomatic greetings common to Europe at the time. Moreover, Jefferson looked a sight.

In his letters to the English Foreign Secretary, Merry described Jefferson’s “indifference to appearances” and his “utter slovenliness.” As it turns out, Jefferson was wearing the early 19^th century equivalent of pajamas and a pair of slippers.

Three days later, still smarting from his introduction to the Americas, Merry and his wife were invited to dinner at the White House. Thinking this would be the opportune time for the President to make amends for his disservice to the King’s Ambassador, the couple accepted. What followed was express and intentional.

Ambassador Merry was greeted as a guest, but not a particularly honored one. When the party moved to the dining room, seats were taken “first come, first served.” Merry tried to grab the chair next to the Spanish Ambassador’s wife, but was knocked out of the way by a lowly creature called “a congressman.” In the end, he had to settle for a place of no great position.

This was a practical application of the concept of pell-mell, upon which Jefferson conducted his public affairs. It bespoke his general feelings of equality (black folks and women excluded, of course; that’s an important, but different, story). But, if accounts of other Jeffersonian dinner parties can be used as reference, the conversation was sparkling.

Ali Akbar, Some Time Ago

Most folks here in Antigua know Bill McGowan as the mild-mannered co-manager of Dyslexia Bookstore. But his secret alter-ego is that of a crisp, clear, smart and damn-funny writer. Well, at least it was a secret until now. Sorry, Bill. You’re too good to keep just to ourselves. 

The pieces presented here were originally written for a project being put together by his hometown community of Knoxville, Tennessee to honor a friend and artist who passed a short time back. His name was Ali Akbar, and as far as we’re concerned, Bill does him damn proud.

The Editors

 Story I: The Jockey

One day Ali and I were sitting around shootin’ the shit, telling stories and drinking beer. The topic drifted to the natural beauty of the hills and mountains around Knoxville. Ali said he loved getting out into the mountains — like he had done one day with me and Herbie when we’d gone hiking in the Smokies.

But he added in his drawl, “Beel, I don’t like going out to redneck areas around the South. It makes me too nervous.”

“Well sure, Ali. But it’s not as though you’re going to drift into a cement-block bar in Cocke County or anything by mistake.”

“No, Bill. But I don’t even like going out Chapman Highway! In fact, that reminds me of a story.”

Ali had many stories.

“There was this friend of mine,” says Ali. “He was a white guy I was buying my weed from. One day he asked me if I wanted to go with him on the buy. I said, ‘Sure, where to?’ When he told me it was out Chapman Highway, I changed my mind quick. I said, ‘No way, man!’

“But he convinced me it would be okay. We’d just stop into this one house a block off the highway, pick up the weed, and be on our way in a few minutes. I said, ‘Well, okay. I guess so.’ But I was still pretty uncomfortable with the whole idea.

“Anyway, he was driving this late model Lincoln with fancy hubcaps. It was a pimp-mobile if I ever saw one.  I kept my profile down all the way out Chapman Highway. I don’t even like the idea of the people who live out there seeing a black guy cruising around their neck of the woods.

“We got to the house and he said I should come on in. That wasn’t part of the deal, but I figured it would be even worse if I was sitting in that honky car all by myself in a white neighborhood. So, damn it, we went in. Turns out they were real nice people. We sat around smokin’ some weed, and drinkin’ some beers for awhile.

“When it got time to go, we said our goodbyes and got in the car. It was dusk. I was happy we were heading back in the dark. My friend pulled out of the driveway and started down the street. Then he suddenly stopped the car, jumped out, and I thought, ‘What the hell is he doing?’

“I watched him run over to someone’s front yard. They had one of those black lawn-jockeys you used to see all over the South. He grabbed it out of the lawn and ran back to the car with it.”

“I yelled at him, ‘Man, you tryin’ to get me killed? You know it’s me who they’re going to kill don’t you?’

“He just laughed, hit the gas and away we went down the highway. Man, Bill, I thought it was all over. Weed in the car, and now a theft. I was pissed. But you know, the farther we got away from there and the closer we got to Knoxville, the better I felt. I looked in the backseat. He was standing back there with that jet-black face and that stupid smile, holding out those reins. And I felt like we had rescued him.

“Well, we got back to Knoxville. I asked my friend to drop me off at the Long Branch. By this time I was feeling good — like I was a Liberator. I got out of the car and took the jockey with me. I composed myself, and walked into the Long Branch with him under my arm. When I hit the door everyone looked up to see me, expecting my usual loud entry. I didn’t say a word and didn’t crack a smile. Everyone was looking at me. There wasn’t a sound. I walked over to the bar, stood the jockey on the bar and said, ‘I’ll have a PBR — and get one for my friend, too.’

That’s how it was the whole night too, Bill. No one asked me a thing. I just drank the whole night there with that full beer sittin’ in front of that damn jockey.’”

Story II: Twenty Dollars

One day Ali showed up unexpectedly at my house — which was the way he normally would. That was fine. I was always glad to see him. For me anyway; my dog Lilly always seemed to want to bite him. “Damn, Lilly,” he’d say with feigned complaint, “why don’t you ever remember me?”

After that we went into the kitchen for some coffee. And, just like usual, Ali said, “Bill, I’ve got a story for you this time. It just happened, too.”

“Hit me, Ali.”

“Well, I was coming over here on the bus. Shortly after I got on, this beautiful, young black woman got on. Man, Chicago, she was stunning. She sat a little up from me by herself. We were both sitting sideways so I could look at her. I was thinking to myself, “Now, how can I start up a conversation?”

“After awhile she pulled out her phone and made a call. After she hung up, I said to her, ‘That’s the same kind of phone I have. Do you like it?’

“Well, that got us talking and I told her I’d never seen her on the bus before. You know, I ride the bus a lot.

“She said, ‘No, I’m not from here. I’m from Louisville, Kentucky. I’m only here because my brother was in a terrible auto accident near here and he’s in the hospital. I came down with my mother. We don’t know anyone here.’

“‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ I said. I could tell she was near tears just talking about it.

“She told me that her brother had near-died twice while in the hospital, and they had no idea whether he was going to make it.

“I moved over to sit beside her. I told her that her brother was in Allah’s hands now, and that we can only pray for him to make it through.

“My stop was coming up and I got up to get off. I said goodbye and gave her my blessing. But just before I got off, I dug in my pocket, pulled out a twenty and walked back and gave it to her. She thanked me. It was just down the street, just moments ago.”

“Man, Ali, that was nice of you.”

“Thanks Bill, I felt so bad for her.”

After awhile I told Ali that I had an errand to run for an hour or two. I asked if he wanted to stay and wait for me at the house. He said, “Take me down to Barley’s Tap on your way out and then I’ll make my way back to your house later.”

I dropped him off there.

About three hours later, he showed up back at my house. “You’re not going to believe what happened to me now! Right after you dropped me off, I walked into Barley’s, sat at the bar, and ordered a Guinness. Just as the bartender was delivering the pint, I heard a guy walking in say to me, ‘I know you.’

“I looked at him. I’d never seen him before. He was white, and I thought, ‘Here we go, what’s going to happen to me now?’”

Ali was always on his guard to what next challenge or complaint was going to end him up in jail.

“Chicago, man, he walked right up to me and said, ‘I saw what you did on the bus.’

“‘Uh-oh, here it comes . . .’ I thought. But before I could respond, he pulled out a $20 dollar bill and handed it to the bartender.

“‘That will pay for his drinks today,’ he said. Then he walked out.”

Ali stood up, excitedly, for emphasis, and said, “See Bill, it only took an hour for that $20 to come back to me!”

Story III: Donald Trump

I picked up Ali one night at his crib. We were going out to hear some music. He was in a great mood when he got in the car. And he was dressed to the nines. He relayed this story to me about what had just happened to him about two hours ago.

“Hey Chicago! Wassup?”

That was one of his nicknames for me: “Chicago.”

“You’re looking good, Ali.” I said.

“Bill, you won’t believe what happened to me this afternoon. You won’t believe what I had to go through to get this outfit together for tonight.”

“Tell me about it, Ali.”

Just over two months ago, we all heard the same soul-gouging news from Newtown, Connecticut.

The unique grotesquery of this mass-murder pierced, at least momentarily, the veil of denial that allows Americans to exist in their violent culture with sanguine nonchalance. There’s even talk of trying to change some laws in the United States in an effort to prevent such horrors in the future — something that didn’t happen after the mass murders in Oak Ridge, Virginia Tech, Aurora, or my hometown of Binghamton, NY.

I’m not terribly optimistic. This same battle has been going on for most of my life and little has changed, except at the margins, to make it more difficult for individuals to access increasingly powerful firearms with higher and higher ammunition capacities. In my mind, there are primarily three reasons for this.

First, rather obviously, the pro-gun lobby is far better organized than is the gun-regulation lobby. The National Rifle Association, a group with over 4 million members and a powerful war chest, is smart, sharp and effective at targeting legislators who stray from their agenda. Moreover, they have been through this drama before. They understand that — whether we want to admit it or not — Newtown will lose its talismanic power in a few months. Soon, we’ll be distracted by some other shining or horrible lights, and then, from the NRA’s perspective, business will progress as usual. Until then, they will put their energies into stalling legislation and distracting the conversation. Call NRA President Wayne LaPierre crazy for blaming the horrors of gun violence on movies and video games if you want, but every news cycle that casts him as a fool, or diverts investigative energy into the video game industry or Tarantino’s latest shoot-em-up, is one more day closer to the end of the storm for gun-rights activists.

The effectiveness of the gun lobby in recent decades has driven most progressive politicians away from the issue completely. For his first four years in office, President Obama did everything he could to avoid getting sucked into the rabbit hole. It’s pretty clear that he saw taking on the NRA was going to hurt him with a demographic slice of the American populace — white guys from small cities and towns across the country — who were already suspicious of him. And he likely would have been satisfied to leave bad enough alone, were it not for the particularly disheartening events in Connecticut. He may still.

The second reason is the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

For roughly 220 years, the Supreme Court avoided addressing the ambiguity embedded in the wording of that document: Do we presume that all people have a natural right to keep and bear arms, or must they be part of a “well-regulated militia”?

The Court was reluctant to address gun rights until Chief Justice Roberts thought it time to settle the issue once and for all — which his conservative majority did in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010).

In both decisions, the court read the Second Amendment very broadly. In essence, the cases decided that the “well-regulated militia” clause was superfluous — people have a right to own guns. Full stop. Many disagree with the Court’s perspective and believe the decisions were poorly rendered — but that matters little. Drafting new gun-control legislation will be tremendously challenging given Heller and McDonald. Progressives need to accept that — but they don’t need to give up the fight. Rather, they need to change their strategy and take a page from the Art of War. They must understand the epistemology of their philosophical opponents and use that worldview to their advantage.

In short, understanding the mindset of a gun owner is crucial to the task of  crafting new laws in the future.

Progressives often have a hard time understanding how law-abiding gun owners think. And if they want to succeed in reducing access to the killing power out there, they could stand to reframe their understanding and their line of attack. This will take forbearance and patience, but if they want to make impactful change, they are going to need to use subtlety as much as frontal assault.

And maybe here, my personal history can help.

I grew up with guns. I spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours both shooting and talking about guns with friends. My folks didn’t keep them in the house when I was a kid, but my best friend’s family did, and I spent as much time there as I did at home. John’s family actually had a “gun closet.” It was right off the kitchen, before you got to the basement stairwell. It was entirely normal to swing by John’s house and see several handguns on the table between the coffee cups.

I once asked John’s dad, my friend Doc, how many guns he had in the house. He thought for a minute and said, “Including Civil War repros?”

I said, “Yeah. So long as they shoot.”

He thought again for a few minutes and said, “Probably about seventy.”

If that statement makes you recoil, or even just shake your head in wonder, then you don’t understand gun guys. John and Doc’s family were a couple deviations off the mean when it came to gun ownership, but they weren’t crazy survivalists, either.

Every weekend, for years, John and Doc and I (often with my brother Ed and John’s brother Jim) would drive up to Doc’s farm and shoot. We’d shoot black-powder rifles. We’d shoot handguns. We’d bring shotguns if we wanted to shoot trap. Once, one of us signed out a fully-automatic machinegun from a unit with which he was serving and we spent the afternoon unloading on pumpkins, beer cans, fence posts and anything else we could think of. And it was a blast. It still would be. I love shooting. And, progressive-hippie-socialist that I am, I’m not above muttering “Get some! Get some!” as I throw a couple pounds of lead downrange.

Then, after the day’s shooting, we’d retire to the cabin to drink coffee and talk. More often than not, Doc or one of the other old-timers would tell me that I’d better get my carry-permit soon — before the government took away my rights, which was flatly accepted as the peremptory step in any plan to enslave the nation.

It is crucial to understand that we weren’t militia guys. We were normal gun guys. These beliefs, as out of touch with reality as they are, are central to understanding gun culture.

I once heard an artfully persuasive definition of culture: It is the air that we breathe, be it clean or polluted. And if you spend time inside of gun culture, the fragrance of the air can be inviting, welcoming, tempting. On a chilly evening, after you’ve just spent a few hours blasting away with powerful weapons, it is comforting to look around and imagine that you and your friends are part of the grand sweep of history.

No matter how silly it may seem, it is powerful magic to imagine yourself as being of a generations-long line of freedom fighters. And if you’ve ever wondered about the bizarre obstinacy of gun owners to even give an inch, this sense of (delusional) self-importance is the heart of it. Yes, people own guns to defend their homes. Yes, people own guns to protect their families. Yes, people own guns because shooting is a blast. But if you really drill down into the psyche of a typical NRA member, a typical hunter or sportsman, there is this core belief that guns are central to the righteousness of America, and without them, tyranny will follow.

Of course, this argument is complete and utter balderdash. But so long as it sits at the epicenter of the gun owner’s worldview, we won’t be able to make headway towards reasonable legislation that could mitigate tragedies like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Put yourself in NRA chief Wayne LaPierre’s head for a minute. He LIVES this stuff. He truly believes (as do millions upon millions of his countrymen) that it is a sacred duty to resist any effort to change gun laws, no matter how marginal, because there is a cliff of despotism at the end of a short-and-slippery legislative slope.

If you really believe this stuff, then  utter obstinacy becomes not only a virtue, but a necessity.

This is what the National Rifle Association is referencing when they cite the “high price of liberty.” And if this argument were even loosely tethered to reality, then maybe we could understand the grim determination, the steely-eyed forbearance against any legislation — short of arming the entire populace — that might prevent more madness like we saw in Connecticut. But before we proceed, let’s consider the extent of the American killing fields.

The barred doors and shuttered windows, the knotted groups of soldiers twitching their fingers against the triggers of their Kalishnakovs,

The town of Trincomalee sprawls across a wide, sandy bay on the east coast of Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged center. It claims a population of around 100,000, but for a few days in the fall of 2005 it felt much smaller. A dusty, windswept, one-street village, home to more feral dogs than people, it was the epicenter of the island’s decades-old civil war. It was a city that had struggled beneath the yoke of violence and insurgency long before being struck down by the tsunami of December 26th, 2004. Uncle Money and I had arrived by bus. We had both lived in-country for months, having come to Sri Lanka to lend what help we could to the survivors of the tsunami, or at least to unearth and properly bury the bodies, and so we barely noticed the filth and detritus scattered haphazardly across most south Asian cities: the garbage, the stagnant pools of something, the piles of human and animal waste. The bus had dropped us off just outside the city limits for reasons we didn’t bother to consider at the time as we were primarily concerned with having run out of rolling papers.

We wandered down the streets leading deeper into the city until coming upon the main road, all along the way knocking on shop windows to pantomime (unsuccessfully) our need for papers and waving at the soldiers. When we paused at an intersection I couldn’t help but notice the number of guns pointed at us. Not in a menacing way, it just so happened that all the soldiers — 10 or 12 at least — were facing us with guns that hung over their shoulders, barrels forward.

I looked at Uncle Money.

“Dude. What the hell is going on here?” I asked.

“I dunno man,” he replied. “Maybe it’s some kind of holiday?”

Being unaware of any Sri Lankan holiday celebrating the ubiquity of Soviet-era armaments, I remained skeptical. I was also nervously, if somewhat subconsciously, aware that the timing of our visit coincided with an extremely divisive presidential election. Somewhere in there was also the knowledge that “Trinco” was an active civil war zone.

“Or maybe it has something to do with the election,” Uncle Money said. Apparently we were thinking along the same blurred lines.

It wasn’t as though we were unaware of the stupidity inherent in our situation. We were, after all, halfway through a poorly planned hitch-hiking trip through a civil war zone. Our confusion, in the end, was less a product of misunderstood facts and more a result of willful ignorance. We simply hadn’t been capable of accepting the magnitude of our idiocy.  It was easier to feign incomprehension than to admit foolishness.

We left the street in favor of the beach, which was breezier, fresher, and somewhat less riddled with soldiers. We approached hotel after hotel, only to find them locked and un-lit. Most of the buildings on the beach were at least partially destroyed. Some were swept away completely, their bare foundations the footprints of the tsunami which devastated the region nearly a year before. Even nine months later, very little reconstruction had taken place. In Trincomalee, caught between conflict and poverty, there was little time to indulge optimism, and the scene didn’t shock us. We’d been working in Galle, in Sri Lanka’s southeast, since a week after the Christmas devastation. The destruction here was perhaps greater, and the recovery certainly slower, but between the war and the ravages of the tsunami, there was little left untouched in the country. Utter destruction is not easily measurable in degrees. And certainly not when you spend most of your time very, very high.

Yet, as we approached a newer looking, two-story affair painted bright yellow, we detected movement through a window and immediately ran up to the glass doors and knocked. A round, well dressed Sri Lankan man answered and ushered us inside. “What are you doing here?” he asked in excellent, if heavily accented English. “Don’t you know there is a curfew?”

“Really?” I asked. “The soldiers didn’t say anything.”

He shook his head and shot me a grim smile. “Not the soldiers,” he explained. “It’s the rebels. They don’t want anyone to vote so they announced a curfew. No one is allowed on the streets today or tomorrow. They have placed snipers here and there around the city, and they say anyone seen on the streets will be shot.”

I shivered involuntarily and looked at Uncle Money. He seemed, as usual, completely unconcerned. I flashed back to a few days previous, following his crazy, bald, English ass along dirt roads in the dead of night, the smell of wild elephants seeping out of the jungle all around us. He hadn’t been worried then, either. Crazy bastard. It was one of the things I loved about him.

The big yellow building turned out to be a hotel, albeit an empty one, and after settling on a price for the night we had dinner with our host and listened to stories from the war. I don’t recall his name, but I remember him telling us about his education in the U.S. and about family members lost to violence and disaster. His building had withstood the waves, and he had managed to replace the blown-out doors and windows fairly quickly, although much of the furniture was lost. The place felt empty, with just a few plastic chairs scattered around a wobbly table.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come back,” he told us. “But someone must. This country is too beautiful. This place is too wonderful to just give up. I had to try to make something here.”

He cast his eyes towards the floor, his despair evident. Decades of war. A devastating tsunami. Then half-a-breath of national mourning followed by more war and persistent, direct threats against civilians.  It had worn him thin. Yet, like Job, he continued to believe. In his homeland, his people, his culture. He continued to believe in hope.

I love my friend Gigi.

In any case, I love my friend Gigi. She first showed up in town about six years ago, passing through on a photo shoot. At the time she was a motorcycle riding, cherry-red lipstick wearing, New York City hellion with spiked blonde hair. Back then, she was living in a brownstone up north in Manhattan, and making her bread as a independent photographer.

When she arrived here for the first time, she traveled around Guatemala taking pictures and thought that a book on Maya spirituality would be pretty cool. Back in NYC, she found an agent interested in the project, wrote proposals to National Geographic and decided to head back here to get the project rolling.

Then something unexpected happened. While making a journey around the country dedicated to photographing Mayan priests, elders and spiritual leaders to learn about their lives and document their ceremonies, Gigi found something that she’d been missing in the go-go world of New York City with all it’s gallery openings, lunches, and late nights.

When she returned to New York, she felt wholly out of place, and over the course of a few months, while being in contact and taking counsel from the spiritual guides she’d met on her second trip to Guatemala, she decided to pack it all in and move here to follow a sacred path. Kinda cool, huh?

Gigi did move down to Guatemala full time, leaving la Gran Manzana in the rearview. And, if Gigi were looking for a sign from the universe that she’d made the right choices, her home in New York City was soon torn down to make room for a Target store. Just what the universe needed, no doubt.

The book deal petered out, and the early commitments from National Geographic went bust, but Gigi has been studying Mayan beliefs, and becoming family with a Mayan spiritual community. In 2011 she completed a final ceremony after four years of formal practices and study, and is now a spiritual guide in her own right.

Her connections to many members of this community have opened an artistic view into the sacred rituals of a living faith. The images presented below were all taken with the permission of the tata’s and nana’s  — the male and female spiritual guides — performing the rites.

In the months leading up to the B’ak’tun 13 celebrations (December 21, 2012 on the Gregorian calendar) Gigi’s work was noticed by some fairly important muckety-mucks in the Guatemalan worlds of government, culture and finance — and she was offered the opportunity to put together a show, currently on display in the National Palace in Guatemala City.

The show is entitled El Tiempo de no Tiempo, or The Time of No Time. The images in the gallery below have all been drawn from this collection. In a recent interview (also known as hanging out at her place), I asked her why she had chosen those words to describe her work.

She said that her tata taught her that the era of the conquest, when the Spaniards arrived in Maya land, is remembered as a “time of no time,” because of the intentional destruction of a culture, the murder of its spiritual leaders, the burning of its books.

As Gigi described it, “that time of no time” persists today. I intuited that the spiritual practices adhered to by the Maya are preparation for the time when “time will begin again.” The dawning of a new era.

I asked Gigi what the roots of the Maya belief system are, and she said that she wouldn’t presume to speak for anyone else, but for her, it is a belief that “the former and creator is in all things. The air, the earth, the water, the fire. Those four elements are represented in the four cardinal directions, and the four corners of the universe. We petition the sky to bring light to all things. We petition the earth for awareness of our interdependence with all living things. But it is all worshiping the same former and creator of the universe. And that former and creator is in all things. That former and creator is all things.”

The modern world up north (at least in New York City) has moved deeper than ever before into the airy-fairy land of agnostic spiritualism, so to many of us, this pantheistic explanation of the universe fits pretty comfortably in our worldview. But during the time of the conquistadores, it could get you killed. And, believe it or not, in modern Guatemala it still can.

The Maya who practice the old religions are still targeted, at times, by Evangelicals and others who want to destroy their unchristian ways. Believe it or not, you can still get lynched in this country for worshiping the soul of the former and creator as it exists in a tree or a fire. Crazy, right?

So, maybe we are still in the “Time of No Time,” and the true b’ak’tun will turn once we’re all on the same page about the beauty and light that exists in this world.

Until then, dig these photos by my friend Gigi. And if possible, get to know her while you’re around.

She’s one cool nana.

In Oventic, located about 40 miles from San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, where the Zapatista Council of Good Governance is located, thousands celebrated the nearly two decades of struggle and resistance during a political / cultural festival that lasted until dawn.

These celebrations came just ten days after the massive mobilizations on December 21 — the day on the Maya calendar that signified the beginning of a new era, a new b’ak’tun.

On the day of the b’ak’tun, at least 50,000 Mayan Zapatistas came out of their autonomous zones to march in five Chiapas cities: Ocosingo, Palenque, Altamirano, Las Margaritas and San Cristóbal de las Casas.

This action was the largest nonviolent mobilization in the history of the Zapatista movement, even larger than a march last May when 45,000 members came out in support of the “Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity,” led by poet Javier Sicilia, which demands an end to the drug war and it’s associated violence.

The December 21 march demonstrated a level of discipline and coordination not seen since the initial Zapatista uprising on January 1, 1994, in which tens of thousands of armed Zapatistas seized cities across Chiapas, declaring independence from the government of then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and rejecting the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This past December’s march came less than a month after the inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose controversial election heralded massive demonstrations by various social movements, many of whom see the new president as part of a corrupt media-governmental oligarchy.

In this context, the action on December 21 carried a clear message to the Peña Nieto government: It may be 20 years later, but we are still building another world. One where there is actual justice, freedom and democracy for all.

Waiting For A Word

Never before had a Zapatista action generated so much anticipation for a communiqué, the standard way the movement communicates with the outside world. On the night of November 17 — the day that marked 29 years since the founding of the EZLN in 1983 — an advisory appeared in Spanish on the Zapatista webpage: “Coming soon, words from the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee.” Within a week, it disappeared.

The message was reposted on December 17, only to disappear that evening. Two days before the action, it reappeared once again. Given the back and forth, observers curiously awaited word from the Zapatistas.

As the media waited, the marchers arrived and gathered in the five Chiapan cities in absolute silence. The entire march was conducted without the sound of a human voice.

Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesperson of the EZLN, was not present. Those who marched covered their faces with ski masks and carried the Zapatista flag: a black rectangle with a red star in the center and the letters EZLN.

Finally, at the close of the day, Marcos released a written message, which took the form of a question, a protest and an expectation:

Did you hear it?

It is the sound of your

world crumbling.

It is the sound of

our world resurging.

The day that was day, was night.

And night

shall be the day that will be day.

Democracy!

Liberty!

Justice!

From the Mountains of

Southeastern Mexico

For the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee — General Command of the EZLN

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, Mexico, December 2012

Online, the communiqué appeared with an audio clip of the song “Like the Cicada,” composed by María Elena Walsh in 1978, during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship. The lyrics symbolize the struggle for democracy in Argentina and served as a parallel message to Marcos’s concise, poetic words.
So many times they killed me, so many times I died. Regardless here I am, resurrected. I give thanks to disgrace, and to the fisted hand because it killed me so cruelly, and yet I kept singing.

Singing to the sun like a cicada, after a year underground, just like a survivor who returns home from war.

So many times they erased me, so many times I disappeared, to my own burial I went, alone and crying. I made a knot in the handkerchief but I forgot afterwards that it wasn’t the only time, and I kept singing.

So many times they killed you, so many times you’ll be resurrected, so many nights you’ll spend in desperation. At the moment of failure and darkness, someone will rescue you to go on singing.

]]> http://www.lacuadraonline.com/featured-stories/around-latin-america-a-zapatista-anniversary/feed/ 0 http://www.lacuadraonline.com/special-commentary/special-commentary-health-care-reform-in-the-united-states-part-xii/ http://www.lacuadraonline.com/special-commentary/special-commentary-health-care-reform-in-the-united-states-part-xii/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 23:34:06 +0000 James R. Tallon, Jr. http://www.lacuadraonline.com/?p=3229 In recent installments of this series, we have employed the metaphor of horse racing’s Triple Crown to describe the challenges faced by the Affordable Care Act. The ACA, known perhaps more widely as ObamaCare, became law in 2010, but in many ways it has faced even greater challenges over the past twelve months. The first test in 2012 (its Kentucky Derby, as it were) was claimed on June 28, when a conservative-leaning Supreme Court upheld the central tenets of ObamaCare. The ACA then went on to win the Preakness in November with an Obama victory at the polls, ensuring there would be no outright repeal of the legislation under a Romney Administration.

All year, we had viewed the post-election convergence of three political hurdles (the expiration of Bush-era tax rates, the self-imposed trillion-dollar “sequester” of  Federal spending, and the January 1, 2013 debt-limit ceiling) as setting the stage for the third jewel in the crown — in many ways, the longest and most grueling race — likened to New York’s Belmont Stakes. Many a thoroughbred has faltered in its attempt to extend two victories into a third, and there was no assurance that in the grueling battles over revenues and outlays, the Affordable Care Act would wear the garland unchallenged.

But then the unexpected happened — the race was canceled, at least temporarily postponed.

]]> In recent installments of this series, we have employed the metaphor of horse racing’s Triple Crown to describe the challenges faced by the Affordable Care Act. The ACA, known perhaps more widely as ObamaCare, became law in 2010, but in many ways it has faced even greater challenges over the past twelve months. The first test in 2012 (its Kentucky Derby, as it were) was claimed on June 28, when a conservative-leaning Supreme Court upheld the central tenets of ObamaCare. The ACA then went on to win the Preakness in November with an Obama victory at the polls, ensuring there would be no outright repeal of the legislation under a Romney Administration.

All year, we had viewed the post-election convergence of three political hurdles (the expiration of Bush-era tax rates, the self-imposed trillion-dollar “sequester” of  Federal spending, and the January 1, 2013 debt-limit ceiling) as setting the stage for the third jewel in the crown — in many ways, the longest and most grueling race — likened to New York’s Belmont Stakes. Many a thoroughbred has faltered in its attempt to extend two victories into a third, and there was no assurance that in the grueling battles over revenues and outlays, the Affordable Care Act would wear the garland unchallenged.

But then the unexpected happened — the race was canceled, at least temporarily postponed.

The much-vaunted fiscal cliff never quite manifested. We did not foresee the ability of the Treasury Secretary to temporarily extend the date of default, nor did we predict a pared-down, last-minute deal between the Senate Minority Leader and the Vice President that separated the issues of tax policy from overall governmental spending. As such, our horse racing metaphor, which held up well for nearly a year, may finally have lost its relevance. And so we search for another.

To wit: On the evening of December 30, many of the federal government’s highest ranking power brokers — along with a good portion of the nation — were transfixed by a titanic, historic struggle. It was a clash that symbolized a conflict more than a century old. Yes, the Washington Redskins were locked in violent combat with the Dallas Cowboys for primacy in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference. It was the last game of the regular season. Some might even have called it a “football cliff,” of sorts.

There is no telling how many of the nation’s elite were in the stands, but when Congress announced that no votes would be taken Sunday evening, official Washington was surely well represented in the audience. In the end, Washington won the game. Dallas went home.

Winners move forward.

In the midst of the New Year’s weekend football extravaganza, we celebrated the fundamental American need to win. The number of losing coaches and general managers whose heads rolled on Monday morning was a reminder of the singularity of victory as the metric for success. In the Capitol, despite bipartisan commission reports, pundit analysis, and the bobble-headed chatter of cable television, government had moved from discussion of a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction — with tax increases on the wealthy and deep spending cuts in government programs — to the more familiar process of helmet-to-helmet political combat wherein both brute force and creative feints are the rule.

Much has been written as events unfolded. Speaker John Boehner bargained with the president, perhaps with each party suspecting the other’s willingness or ability to implement an agreement. Perhaps sensing the Democrats’ momentum, he called in a special package and advanced his “Plan B” at the last moment. The Boehner proposal for revenue generation was to raise tax rates on those with million-dollar annual incomes or above, as opposed to the President’s starting position of raising marginal rates on individuals making more than $200,000 a year. Yet, the Speaker found that the Tea Party radicals in his own caucus were unwilling to support his position, hewing close to their pledge to never raise taxes, ever. His plan collapsed utterly.

Boehner sidelined, the president then moved the discussion to the Senate and in a now well-reported story, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and ultimately Vice President Joe Biden separated the tax rate and spending reduction issues, focused on the former, and produced an 89-8 bipartisan affirmation of continued tax cuts for a more-expansively defined middle class, with rates on incomes over $400,000 returning to pre-Bush levels. A fragment of House Republicans, joined by a strong majority of House Democrats voted approval of the Senate plan.

In 2013, Boehner, although reelected as Speaker, is a weakened figure leading a divided majority. His contract has been renewed for a year, but he’s no longer the starting quarterback on the right, and he cannot rest easy. His half of the Congress is likely to take a backseat to the glimmer of bipartisan potential coming from the Senate, where Leader McConnell works to balance a new-found relevance with the threat of a likely Tea Party primary in Kentucky in 2014. Harry Reid will accept, if not enjoy, Joe Biden’s presence back in the chamber. Second-term Barack Obama and his signature health-care law await a real deficit debate, perhaps two months ahead — but by early January, it was clear that he and his team of Democrats had won this wildcard game. It wasn’t a blowout by any means. But a win is a win, and there is a possibility of maintaining that momentum into the playoffs just around the corner.

The beginning of a new presidential term and the seating of a new Congress mark a transition for the Affordable Care Act. Health-care costs will remain central to the intense fiscal debates which lie ahead. The life-or-death political perils which have marked the law’s first three years, however, now give way to a longer-term challenge: Can the law find stability as part of a still imperfect American health-care system?

One component of the ACA was a required expansion of Medicaid eligibility to a uniform level set at 133% of the poverty index across all states, with immediate federal financial support for 100% of the expansion costs, and 90% over a decade. In its single major change to the law’s design, the Supreme Court ruled that state participation in the Medicaid expansion must be voluntary. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius (acknowledging the Court decision) has maintained a firm line for participation. Several states inquired if they could participate, but cover fewer people by drawing down the cutoff from 133% of the poverty level to, say, 100%. Those requests were denied. If a state chooses to participate, they must conform to the federal standards for coverage.

As the new year begins, around twenty states have agreed to 2014 implementation of the expanded Medicaid provision. Eleven states have said no to the expansion. A large number of states remain in varying degrees of uncertainty. Supporters of the ACA remain convinced that as policy deliberations move on from the political and ideological intensity of the initial debate, the value of the federal government’s offering to pick up the vast majority of the bill for the first decade will bend governors towards compliance. Medicaid coverage is an important part of the ACA vision. If full implementation by the states is achieved, an expanded Medicaid program will help to insure 20 million Americans — raising the current numbers covered from 60 to 80 million.

In the coming financial debate, the lingering uncertainty of the states’ participation in Medicaid expansion may serve to insulate those dollars from major budget slashing. After promising that the federal government would take up such a burden for a decade in the financing of an expansion, any cuts would allow recalcitrant, conservative governors an I-told-you-the-Feds-weren’t-trustworthy moment — and the whole game could turn on such a fumble. More likely is that Democrats will bend on Medicaid’s overall budgeting and target cuts at states that have been perceived to have unreasonably maximized federal support under current law.

Medicare, the program that provides health-care coverage to citizens over 65 years of age and disabled younger Americans, is also central to the upcoming fiscal debate. Moreover, it is the federal program most used by the ACA to promote innovation and achieve greater system-wide efficiency. The decades-long growth of per-beneficiary Medicare spending is central to the oft-heard claim that health-care costs are at the center of the nation’s financial problems. Addressing the growth of these health-care costs becomes critical in the coming decades as the number of beneficiaries grows from 47 million in 2010, to 64 million in 2020, and 80 million a decade later — all with fewer current workers paying taxes to support the program.

While the problem remains huge, recent actuarial estimates from the government have for the first time lowered per-beneficiary Medicare cost projections below overall economic growth for the next decade. This welcome news may have been induced by anticipation of the ACA and its many cost-control measures. The degree of the change — and whether it represents a trend — remains uncertain, but it is undeniably a glimmer of good news.

Having set aside, at least for now, a wholesale restructuring of Medicare (see our earlier essays about Congressman Ryan’s premium-support plan), Congress will choose from a playbook of three broad options over the coming year. These choices illustrate the complexity of real policy choices. All of the options recognize that the American health-care delivery system is inefficient. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine (a branch of the National Academy of Sciences) asserts that up to thirty percent of health care expenditures are in one way or another “wasted.”  Thus, the ACA contains myriad initiatives to reorganize how care is provided — to achieve value instead of volume as health care’s driving force.

As a first option, the government will pursue all of those potential cost-cutting measures written into the ACA. All of those efforts will require investment and governmental spending to get off the ground. Reducing projected expenditures supporting ACA implementation could well undermine these longer-term improvements. On this front, Republicans will no doubt try to put pressure on the passer to hurry his throws, if not to get an outright sack in the name of “cutting government spending,” even if such short-term costs could lead to more profound savings down the road.

A second option involves reducing the number of people eligible for Medicare, most often proposed by raising eligibility requirements from 65 years to 67 years of age, and even beyond. “Cover fewer people and spend less” goes the argument. It seems simple, but below the surface, the details of a non-cooperative reality cloud the choice. People in this age group are Medicare’s least-costly beneficiaries. Because of early retirement or weakness in the job market, without Medicare they would be uninsured or would effectively shift their health-care costs back to their employers. A simple choice on the surface creates adverse effects on other dimensions of the system.

The third Medicare cost-reduction strategy is direct action on premium levels, reimbursement rates, and the fees and taxes charged to the different entities in the business of providing care, such as doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical product manufacturers, etc. As noted during the presidential campaign, the ACA built more than $700 billion of savings over ten years into the program. Romney said he would restore the money to Medicare in what was perhaps the Republican campaign’s most profound departure from reality. The coming fiscal debate will again turn to these proven methods to achieve additional spending reductions. Cutting too deeply, however, may undermine the ability and willingness of the health-care community to embrace structural change.

To push the metaphor one more down — you want the doctors, the hospitals and the insurance companies to keep suiting up for the game.

The final challenge for the ACA in 2013 is the real-time implementation of expanded insurance coverage through Health Insurance Exchanges, set to begin on January 1, 2014. This marks the official implementation date for ObamaCare. The exchanges create a structure that allows individuals and small businesses to compare insurance products and receive federal tax subsidies, if financially eligible. States were chosen, after considerable controversy, as the ACA’s principal organizing units for the exchanges, with a default role for the federal government if states did not comply. As with the debate over Medicaid expansion, both caution and political ideology have resulted in only eighteen states formalizing their commitment. The remainder of states have either opposed setting up their own exchanges, or are considering a combined partnership between state and federal responsibility. Again, ACA supporters assume that time will trend toward more state leadership for a number of reasons, not the least because conservative political leaders in resistant states will not want to give the federal government more authority by default.

However the federal–state balance ultimately evolves, 19-million Americans are projected to purchase coverage through the exchanges. As the reality of implementation unfolds, potential beneficiaries will engage (many for the first time) with the reality of premium costs, co-payments, deductibles, limits on benefits, and varying access to doctors that, even after a financial subsidy, will be challenging to afford. They will no longer be uninsured, but they will be part of the broader fraternity of those who struggle every day with the complexities of insuring one’s health and the health of one’s family.

No matter what the color commentators are saying, ObamaCare is a benefit, not a gift.

Americans are still divided in their opinion toward the ACA. Polls have shown a remarkable consistency in the numbers. Despite the intensity of the public debate, around 42-43% favor the law, while 44-45% are opposed. Democrats dominate the former category, Republicans the latter.

A unifying reality, however, is that most people simply don’t understand the complexity of the game with the sophistication of the players and coaches. The creation and analysis of health-care policy exists on a level far deeper than a fan’s experience on a weekend afternoon or a Monday night. While ObamaCare will expand coverage and hopefully lower overall costs, it will not magically make the system easier to comprehend. And that is a liability for any team trying to make real change.

Thus far, the Democrats have won the regular season and ObamaCare is poised for a playoff run, but the challenges only get harder from here. As we look at the post-season match-ups, the ACA looks pretty good on paper. It has the potential to help both individuals and the overall economy by expanding access to insurance and moderating the explosive costs associated with health care in the coming decades. But the opponents of ObamaCare are not without their own strengths. First, there is the natural resistance to change amongst the populace. Combine that with the reaction of families finally faced with a governmental mandate to purchase an insurance plan that, while helpful, will also stretch budgets, and it would be foolhardy to predict a final score in a game just set to begin.

Still, as we stand at the cusp of the post-season, President Obama and the ACA are now rolling and have some momentum, while the Republicans seem in disarray. But, as the old football adage goes, all of that can change on any given Sunday. No matter what happens, one thing seems likely: this game is going to be won or lost in the trenches, by hard-hitting players unafraid of getting dirty.

Jim Tallon is the president of the United Hospital Fund, a think tank in New York City. He served previously as Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly. political cartoon by DonkeyHotey.

 

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