Crazyworld

When Edward Nixon, youngest brother of the late President Richard Nixon, walked into the ballroom yesterday, everyone knew exactly who he was. His facial features bore a strong resemblance to his brother -- and, yes, he has the Nixon nose. He was calm and willing to speak to everyone. He took questions, stayed late to sign books, and generally seemed to have a good time -- giving a hearty thumbs up when posing for pictures, rather than use his brother's more familiar hand gesture. Nixon, 79, sat down with the Herald-Journal for a brief interview before heading to Charleston. He's hitting several South Carolina cities this week promoting his latest book, "The Nixons: A Family Portrait."

HERALD-JOURNAL: What would people find in your book that they maybe wouldn’t find in a history book?

ED NIXON: Eye witness of history. And confirmed by a lot of careful research. It straightens out a few misnomers and misguided statements by a lot of people.

HJ: Like what?

NIXON: No ‘likes.’ No ‘likes.’ If you read history, and are aware of Nixon, then… As media has made people aware, sometimes they need a straight story to straighten it out. Media is a Latin word that means ‘between.’ Agents that work for one medium or another, you can read tea leaves, you can read palms, you can read crystal balls, but sometimes you look at the real scene, and get the word straight.

HJ: You’re going to China next week.

NIXON: Yes, that’s a business trip.

HJ: What’s the purpose of that trip?

NIXON: I’m a free-enterprise promoter in a country that needs a lot more. It’s already got a lot. It’s overtaking us, in fact. We’ve got to wake up. But 35 trips or so I’ve made over there, I’ve seen from the Mao era… and a very, very primitive type of country. It’s expanded now, under the influence of Deng Xiaoping and the offer to allow farmers to sell their surplus produce on the sidewalks. Unheard of. All of the sudden they took off. And from that point forward, the real world is seeing a China that is coming into its own as a first-rate partner in the world. Therefore, it’s time to wake up. Learn some Mandarin, maybe. One of my nephews is over there now, studying in China. And he’s learning a lot about how they do business. And he’s learning a lot, also, about how to show them how we do business, which is really important.

HJ: How do you think the current president is handling the world stage, or foreign policy or diplomacy?

NIXON: Without enough experience. He’s a very smart fellow, He knows the Constitution very well. But he’s — I think, self-admittedly — in need of advice. Who he calls on for advice is extremely important. If he goes only in one direction, I really have concern that we will end up like some countries in Europe that suffered through it… and returned, but they’re still suffering. And I think the Obama Administration… It’s not the Obama Administration. It’s the Congress. They print the money, or authorize the printing of money. So all through the centuries we’ve seen humans try to make gold out of lead. And now we have political alchemists trying to make gold out of paper. And that’s a very dangerous thing. It can’t be done. It can’t be done for long. Or, if we try to follow what happened in France in 1797, they had to end it… with a war. We don’t need that. Let’s avoid it.

HJ: You mentioned your mother today. She’s often portrayed as a very devout woman. How did she shape your life and your family?

NIXON: My mom was a Quaker lady. The Quakers don’t impose or demand or force anything on anybody. Each individual is responsible for his own being. And what he becomes depends on how his growth pattern, from coming out of a home with strong parents, into schools that teach basic concern for other fellow citizens, or fellow students, and then to grow. And then how we grow depends on what grandparents will tell us about what’s the world made of. Parents don’t have time to tell you all that, but grandparents and teachers do. And once you’ve learned the geography, and the history, and the philosophy, that we’ve grown up with, especially in our own Western culture, that develops into adults who become great leaders.

HJ: You mentioned that strong families are the heart of a great nation. How healthy would you say the American family is today?

NIXON: It’s hard pressed to provide parenting at home when children return home. Child care and things like that, they suffice, but we’ve come in to a point where it seems both parents think they need to work — many probably do — to support the family. And I have questions in my mind, how is it that we have lost that, that thing I enjoyed in the ’30s, through the Depression, when one parent was home all the time? Both parents worked, but that one parent that was home was working, doing laundry, or something else. We don’t want to go back to that, perhaps, but how do we get more parenting at home, through the age of 5 at least, when the kids get into school, and pick up teachers, who get paid to do it? Parents don’t get paid much. Neither do teachers. Not enough, in fact. Because they really are the most important professionals we have. Far more than doctors, lawyers, dentists and so forth.

HJ: Did you see “Frost/Nixon”?

NIXON: I saw the original. And then I took a look at the entertainment. The entertainment is aimed at an audience that wants to be entertained. It’s not so entertaining to family members who know the difference between the real story and what Ron Howard’s put together.

HJ: Do you think history has treated your brother fairly — or will it?

NIXON: It already has. More so, it’s coming around to where we realize now that his knowledge of not only international relations and world affairs, but also domestic policies that he invoked and got started. The only trouble was, he was cut short. Things like the (Environmental Protection Agency), for example. His concern was that, eventually, when you start an organization like that run at the government level, you’re going to have to stay with it and control it from going out of bounds, and shut down industry, which it really has in many cases. Far too extensively. EPA is important. And we need it. But it needs to have more good sense, common sense, applied to how they act.

HJ: You mentioned he was cut short. What was that like for you and your family, watching Watergate unfold and his resignation from office?

NIXON: It was not a comfortable time. All of the family grieved over the turn of events. But when you take a very highly developed, self-disciplined man, I don’t care how much self discipline, and how much self-control he has, if you pick on him long enough, the liberals discovered that they could do it, and they broke him finally. So that’s a tragedy — for the country, not for him. That’s why he’s rising above all that tragedy now.

HJ: When you were talking about creating jobs, you said the government should be fostering entrepreneurs, not expanding government…

NIXON: The government should not be a business. It should be run like a business, but it shouldn’t be a business.

HJ: But how do you translate that to a part of the culture that has, through the past several generations, become accustomed to…

NIXON: In other words, why have we become dependents? A nation of dependents. So, on July 4th we’re going to declare Dependence Day, instead of Independence Day. What happened to our self-reliance? Are the kids learning how to take care of themselves, and to develop things, or be inspired to create something new and build it and sell it? Not enough. Some are. Those will be leaders. Those who will be dependents will just take what the government will give them and be happy, I guess. But it won’t be nice.

HJ: Any parting thoughts?

NIXON: I really have high hopes. I really think the president we have now has given us one freedom. And that is, when you fill out a form that asks for race, all you have to write now is ‘human.’ So, racism goes by the wayside now that we have this president in there. There’s no call for racism anymore. There will be those who try to retain it because they’ve come to depend on it. And make a living at it. But we’re humans. And we’re Americans first. Otherwise, we might as well move to Tasmania. I really feel that we have a great future for us in the country as our president becomes educated with real experience. But right now, he needs people who have experience to advise him on pitfalls that lie ahead if he goes the same direction he seems to be going.

HJ: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

NIXON: Good show. Keep them smiling.

“We all can learn from history. We all can learn. We all can grow.”

I have to admit, it was a treat to be able to listen to the stories of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the legendary civil rights leader, at Carver Junior High School.

People referred to him as a “hero,” a “living legend” and an “iconic figure.” But hearing some of his anecdotes — and yes, he repeated many of them later at the Spartanburg County Democratic Party fundraiser — was an intense experience. They were worth hearing twice. It’s not often you hear people talk about the first time they met Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy. There was a very poignant moment Lewis recounted when Kennedy met with King and several other protesters. By Lewis’ account, the president went down the line and said, “You did a good job,” and “You did a good job” and “You did a good job.” And then, when he got to King, he said, “And you had a dream.”

Lewis spoke highly of President Barack Obama, and several moments they had shared. He said — I believe it was the night of the inauguration — that Obama handed him a letter that said simply, “Because of you, John.”

Most of the praise for Obama was about the immeasurable effect of having a black man hold the office of president — whether it was for children to see or for the world to see. The only partisan issue he really dwelt on was health care, saying it was a right, not a privilege, and advocating the president’s plan.

As today’s story mentioned, Lewis was asked a broad range of questions, from very simple to very complex.

I asked him about that when we had a chance to sit down for a few minutes.

“These young people, they get some of their news from the newspaper, from television,” he said. “But they get a lot of it from… sort-of comedian types. And they think it’s true. They think it’s fact, when it’s not. So you have to try to give young people… You have to make it real for them, and give it some perspective. And when you talk about what happened during the ’60s or ’50s or ’40s, it’s hard for young people to believe some of this stuff. Even sometimes, when I see the changes that have occurred, and I see photographs or read stories about what happened, even for me, it’s hard to believe some times. ‘Was it really like this?’ Because we’ve come so far. So far.”

It does seem surreal. I’m 31, and I grew up in the South at a school that had white children and black children and, when I was little, as far as I knew, that’s the way it always had been. I remember being confused as I got older and first heard or saw people speak or act on their prejudices. I didn’t understand. (I still don’t, to some degree.) Hearing stories about the civil rights struggle are sometimes hard to believe. I mean, it’s extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that King died just 10 years before I was born.

And it makes me wonder what went through the minds of the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders at Carver as they listened to Lewis speak. Everyone grows up hearing different stories, and it’s probably a safe bet that stories about the civil rights struggle are more often handed down in black families than in white. The point is, everyone has a different idea of what happened when confronted with a person like Lewis and the stories that he tells.

Afterward, 14-year-old Rashawn Phillips told me, “He was very interesting. He informed us of black history. I feel like he went through a lot for us. It was more informative than a history book.”

(You can see Rashawn watching Lewis in this photo. He’s totally captivated.)

Local activist Jonathan Metcalf, who helped organize the Carver event, has a great story. A couple of weeks ago, while in Washington, he was talking to Lewis’ scheduler and, then, to Lewis himself. The congressman said he’d be happy to speak to students, they talked for a bit, and then Lewis said he had to go. Metcalf went to lunch. Lewis went to the Sudanese Embassy.

I asked Lewis about his most recent arrest.

“It’s an ongoing struggle,” he said. “And you have to tell people that the struggle is not a struggle that lasts a few days, a few weeks. It’s a struggle of a lifetime… to be what Dr. King called ‘a beloved community’ — a community at peace with itself.”

Closer to home, I asked Lewis at one point for his thoughts on Gov. Mark Sanford not accepting some of the stimulus dollars and he quickly suggested I talk to Reps. Jim Clyburn or John Spratt about that. One of his handlers nervously asked me later if I was going to ask any more questions like that.

But we did talk a bit about Confederate Memorial Day, which was observed by state agencies, 10 counties and a school district in South Carolina, according to the Associated Press. We talked about him speaking to students on that day.

“It says something, to be here on a day that you’re celebrating the Confederacy,” Lewis said. “And you see this diverse group of students. They were black, white, Latino, Asian-American. It says something about the distance we’ve come. If someone told me I would live to see what’s happened in South Carolina, or Alabama, or Georgia… I wouldn’t have believed it.”

He used that last bit often. Still, he said he talked with someone last week who said their grandparents were active in the KKK — and that person’s grandmother, on Election Day, called to say she was voting for Barack Obama.

We didn’t have much time, but I did get to ask Lewis briefly about gun violence, particularly among inner-city youth.

“We’ve got to start teaching people the way of nonviolence. The way of peace. The way of love,” he said. “In elementary school, in kindergarten, we should start teaching the way of nonviolence, the way of peace, and say to young people, ‘There are other ways to solve conflicts.’ There’s too much violence among our youth.”

Later, after the fundraiser, we continued the conversation.

He added, “It’s one step. It’s one way, but I think it’s significant. Because when you get teaching and creating a cadre of people that will be able to influence their peers… You go to certain schools, certain communities, certain neighborhoods, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of living. That’s the way the movement developed. In those communities where you had a strong nonviolent campaign, the violence went down. You didn’t have so many people going to the emergency room on a Friday night or Saturday night. There was less people having run-ins with the law. Less conflict. But to not only teach young people nonviolence, but teaching even public safety people the way of nonviolence, or how to deal with people, how to deal with young people. And some of that is going on. Nonviolent training. Before we went on a city, or before we went on a Freedom Ride, we had nonviolent workshops. Nonviolence shouldn’t be used just to do a campaign against war or discrimination… but our inter-personal relations, how we deal with our fellow human beings, how we deal with our classmates and schoolmates, how we deal with members of our own families. And we don’t do that. We need to teach people. We need to get people to live it.”

I was out of town on vacation much of last week, but did get a few work-related calls regarding last week's meeting of the (mostly) unified Spartanburg County Legislative Delegation.

There seems to be a lot of attention on longtime state Sen. Glenn Reese, D-Spartanburg, right now -- despite Reese once again working with the majority of his fellow lawmakers from this county.

Reese likely isn't vulnerable to a Republican challenger in 2012. Part of that is the way the district lines are drawn (a very partisan exercise that takes place following each census). Part of it is the fact that probably everyone in Senate District 11 who has graduated high school or college since 1991 has received a congratulatory letter from the senator. And part of it is the push-pull between conservatives and moderates in the northern part of that district is nearly at a standstill, and Reese very well could siphon enough moderate Republican votes to keep him safely in office.

But, the line of thinking among some local Democrats is that the key to beating Reese in a primary is to win enough votes in the overlapping section of House District 31 -- a minority-majority district, and an influential one at that.

There are a lot of activists, preachers, civic leaders and even a few elected officials who call House 31 home. And they're watching Reese.

They're not only watching him because he was the lone Democrat to side with three Republicans in the legislative delegation tug of war that lasted six months, but also because of his role in the appointment of Magistrate Judge Rob Chumley to the bench and the larger overhaul of magistrate court that's expected to play out. How many black magistrate judge candidates has Reese pushed for? Don't be surprised to see that number appear on a campaign piece at some point.

And keep in mind 2012 would be a re-election year for President Barack Obama, should he choose to go that route and successfully navigate his party's primary.

So who could win enough House 31 votes to possibly unseat Reese? Well, state Rep. Harold Mitchell has carried that district handily since entering public office. Some are even looking at Spartanburg County Councilman Michael Brown as a potential successor to that seat should Mitchell ascend to the state Senate. (Brown ran against Mitchell unsuccessfully for that House seat when it was vacated by former Rep. Brenda Lee. The two have since found themselves working together more often than not.)

Now, 2012 is a long time away, and many voters think about only recent events when casting a ballot. Senators, because their terms last four years, have more time for people to forget.

But from what I'm hearing, the powers-that-be in House 31 aren't going to forget anything any time soon.