Following are some of my recent interactions with passengers in my Yellow Cab:
A medical malpractice lawyer tells me that she alternates between representing patients and representing insurance companies because representing patients becomes too disturbing. I tell her about another passenger who works as a consultant to hospitals who told me that medical treatment is the third most common cause of death in the United States. She said she agrees. I asked her if she was familiar with Ivan Illich and his argument in Medical Nemesis that doctors cause more illness than they cure. She said she did not know the book but she believes the thesis is correct.
A Swiss man rants about the sorry state of affairs with American politics. I sum up his argument: “It’s almost as if anyone who wants to be an elected official is automatically disqualified by wanting that position.” He replies, “Precisely. That’s what I’m saying.” I comment on how in ancient Greece political officials were selected randomly and suggest maybe we should do the same. He likes that idea. I then told him about James Fiskin’s successful experiments with deliberative democracy, which involve presenting balanced briefing materials that include the pros and cons of different choices to a representative sample of people, followed by small-group discussions and extensive confidential questionnaires. The results have produced wise policy decisions. I suggest modern elected officials could support a similar process on pressing issues, with a promise to generally follow the recommendations that emerge. My passenger likes that idea and tells me that the Swiss government operates with a collaborative structure. The seven-member Federal Council, which consists of the heads the seven federal executive departments, is the collective executive head of the Swiss government and is responsible for leading the federal administration. The position of President rotates among the seven Councillors on a yearly basis. My passenger tells me that the Council’s collective decision-making is conducted openly. I recall that when I was locked up while freaking out on a long, bad LSD-trip, I was inspired to write that the President and his cabinet should make decisions collectively on live television. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all!
A Portuguese couple tells me about their country’s remarkable social insurance programs and workers’ extensive paid vacations, not bad for one of the poorest European countries. They share that amazement at the Trump phenomenon and tell me there’s no chance Portugal will ever leave the European Union as did Great Britain.
A young female artist about to move to Florence to study painting in a special program there tells me she paints because she’s compelled to do so. She sees her work as an ongoing process, with each piece merely a report on one investigation. She finds it hard to generalize about what kind of impact she wants to help, but one example was a mural she did in the Clarion Alley Mural Project affirming trans women activists while they are alive rather than waiting to celebrate them after they are dead.
I share my proposal for transforming the Democratic Party by forming precinct-based clubs that work year-round to implement the Party’s platform with Kate Maeder, who’s campaign manager for Supervisor Jane Kim in her neck-and-neck campaign for State Assembly. She replies, “This is great.”
Shortly after Obama’s speech in Dallas about the tension between Blacks and the police, a female passenger tells me about how her husband, when he was a Yale professor, was unjustly arrested, beat up, and charged with felony assault on a police officer by the Washington Police Department. Held incommunicado for two days, he got charges dropped only because the Metro subway system had video surveillance tape. But it still cost thousands of dollars in legal fees. Though she has relatives who are police officers, she agrees that somehow we need to dissolve the “Code of Silence.”