Speak Truth to Power

Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under Clinton, gave the commencement speech at the Goldman School of Public Policy at Cal today. Margaret's been raving about this guy, who is now on the faculty at Berkeley, for two years, so I was pleased to be able to see for myself what all the fuss was about. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was due to give the address, but he cancelled so as not to cross the picket lines of the administration's on-going labor dispute with its janitorial staff (it was almost uncanny, really, to have the G.S.P.P.'s graduation picketed by union members, and most of the graduating class wore stickers showing their solidarity). It was a bummer not to see Gavin's hair, but Reich is, indeed, a great speaker. From what Margaret said, his speech was a boiled-down version of his classroom challenge to public policy students in their honorable quest to change the world.

Reich enumerated four barriers to strong leadership: denial ("Global warming is a myth invented by Sierra Club loonies."), escapism ("Hey, as long as I don't have to smell ozone here in my subdivision, things are peachy."), scapegoating ("Listen, Schwartzenegger has four Hummers and Bush fires up a chain saw to slice his lunch meat -- So you wanna tell me this is my fault?") and cynicism ("I'm just a cog in this machine; there's nothing I can do or say that would make it go away. Aside from hoarding duct tape and Tang, that is."). These are obstacles that, as Reich framed them, even those of us who don't hold public office or a Masters in Public Policy can aspire to combat in our daily lives. Certainly it's encouraging to hear someone who knows of what he speaks remind us that complacency is not a core value. Now if only that idea could find its way out of academia and back out on the streets and Oval Offices of America, we'd be cookin' with gas.