A New Era

We're entering a new era with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. I've tried to help as best I could with my donations to the Obama campaign, and with interaction on major political blogs trying to combat the avalanche of smears and lies that proliferated these past months. Now, the hard part is waiting until he actually takes office, and searching for the best ways I might be able to help. I'm not sure if that will include more posts to this blog, but anything is possible right now. I absolutely don't believe we can all just go back to our normal lives now. Since we first saw the darkening storm clouds on the horizon, much more time has passed with very little action, and few would disagree that it's now a full-scale emergency.

The economic downturn is only the tip of the iceberg. I think we're seeing a widespread global disillusionment in old ways of thinking as reports of failure continue to roll in. I believe it's a terrible mistake to think we can sit back and just kibitz as a new president and congress prepare for their upcoming terms. President-Elect Obama has often reminded us that change happens from the bottom up, and we here at the bottom need to embody that change, and begin building consensus for the things we need to see. I feel gratified that so many of the things I've written about most passionately in these pages have revealed themselves to be such important parts of today's dialogue. It makes me feel greater confidence that I'm on my way to understanding, and that I've not gotten too lost or sidetracked by personal prejudice or confusion. But the learning curve is still very steep, and this new vista of possibility has me, for the moment, almost overwhelmed.

There's a new web site associated with Obama at http://www.change.org/, and I've joined it while selecting my personal cause as Fair Trade. I don't always react well to specializing in one particular area, so I selected Fair Trade since it seems to be such a broad umbrella, including the economy, the environment, and worker/human rights as part of its purview. I'm currently studying the topic as it's viewed on the change.org web site, and watching to see if this url or some other becomes a hub from which change can take place. I'm not sure yet either what I can do, or how, but I want to be a part of this somehow. I think we're in a time where so many of the prevalent methods have failed that it provides us an opportunity to take some profound new directions, and I believe it's likely we're not going to do enough unless we're prodded by revolutionary ideas.

I'm mature enough to see that too much change can frighten many to such an extent that change itself, however well-intentioned, can be counter-productive. It's going to be difficult to find the right mix between patient, long-term perspectives and the very fierce urgency of now. For the moment, it's just good to bask in the warm glow of a nation of voters who have in many ways rejected the misguided direction of Bush, Cheney and the NeoConservatives who found a perhaps half-hearted ally in John McCain. Very soon, our prayers for a chance to turn things around will have come to be, and given a government who will listen, we need to know for sure what it is we wanted to say. Be careful what you wish for, they tell us. The problems we inherit are surely more than we bargained for, and our task ahead is daunting in the extreme.

I know that the only right choices will be the ones that embody compassion, and that must extend to those who were wrong as well as those who were wronged. Whatever we do, I know it's going to take a lot of prayer, or meditation in my case. It's going to take a whole lot of love to see the right path to take from here.

Here's to tomorrow!

Update: Actually, the Obama-affiliated site is http://www.change.gov. Guess I'm not used to seeing a .gov site I can believe in. There's a painful period of adjustment here.

John McCain

I'm doing a terrible job of updating my blog lately, but I wanted to make at least one updated entry for now, with a video that expresses some of my many concerns about John McCain's bid for the presidency. Passersby might want to take a look at it before deciding how to vote this November.

I just don't agree that everyone in American politics is truly well-intentioned. In this video, there's a clip where McCain actually admits to having acted from an excess of ambition when he failed to condemn the display of a Confederate flag. Everyone's human, of course, but the temptations accompanying the most powerful office on earth can be too great for some, and in these critical times, it's imperative that we take a close look at those who would attain that office.

If someone questions why there is no equivalent here for Obama, I can only answer that I agree that Obama has his own personal failings, but I very much believe that we need for him to win this election, so if you want ammunition to use against Obama, please look elsewhere. If there arise any questions about him as troubling to me as those in this video, I won't hesitate to bring them to everyone's attention, through this blog or whatever means I can. At this time, I believe there's plenty of reason to trust Obama, at worst as much as you can trust any Democratic presidential candidate we've seen in the last thirty years or so, and I don't believe for a moment that Obama has any "secret" schemes that he hasn't divulged. My beef is with McCain.

The emphasis in this video is McCain's potential for drawing us into further unnecessary and avoidable conflicts. That's just a tiny subset of the things that worry me, but it's important to consider what a reputation he has developed for showing a preference for the use of force. Coupled with his military background, his traumatic experiences as a prisoner of war, and a record more notable for its lack of support for legislation that would benefit soldiers and veterans, it's very difficult to feel much confidence in the way that McCain might address global issues.

Bottom line, I believe John McCain when he tells us there's going to be "more wars", at least if we elect him into office. I believe he is much too closely tied to that familiar NeoCon school of thought in American politics that heavily champions the use of American military force as a preferred method of supporting American (in this case, corporate) interests. Far from being one who might temper the ambitions of the NeoCon hawks, McCain's temperament would be more likely to exacerbate the problem. All these ingredients and more combine into perhaps an even more toxic brew than the one concocted for our distinct lack of enjoyment these last eight years.

I can't tell you that everything in the video is true, especially with regard to questions about McCain's behavior while a prisoner of war, but that's not the point. The point is to make you think about the sort of world you think this really ought to be, and whether McCain would bring us closer to that world. Since around 80% of America believes we're headed in the wrong direction now, how much sense does it make to simply speed up the pace?

Candles in the Wind

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V

Snuffed out just like a candle, Mr. Tim Russert is gone. The suddenness is almost overwhelming. We can adjust to death more easily when it comes in its natural course, but to have someone this visible taken so suddenly shocks us all. My thoughts and prayers of course go to his family.

This is a time to speak well of the dead, and I'm not going to attempt to tarnish any legacy he has left. He saw his task as one of reflecting events, and not as a moral arbiter. He asked some pretty tough questions when he got the chance, and he so obviously loved his work and his life that it's very affecting, especially in this moment. We've suffered a serious loss to the political dialogue as well as a touchstone for all that is happening in this world. I would have much preferred if he were still around to share it with.

I have two themes on my mind as I write this. One is how deeply this touches my sense of the fragility of life, and with my recent history, that shouldn't be too surprising. The other is the media in general, and its place in our lives. They're practically family sometimes, but I'm sorry to say it's still a largely dysfunctional arrangement. The kinds of conversations we need to be having, the new dialogue that I promised will start to take place as these months roll on, are only beginning to surface, and I heard some of it only days ago from Russert himself. After Obama won the nomination, I recall Russert suggesting that the media task itself in the weeks ahead to push aside trivialities and focus hard on the main issues. It sounded almost like a mandate coming from Russert, although I have my skepticism as to how well the media is going to behave between now and November. I think we may have lost some of that push toward discipline from the media this afternoon, and I do believe we'll feel that loss. I hope we all try to take up the slack from Mr. Russert just a little when we have the chance, and do our part to hold the candidates fully accountable. I have my own opinions about what will happen if we can do that, and perhaps your opinions differ. I think yesterday's 5-4 Supreme Court decision is as vividly graphic a reminder as you can have that we are teetering on a precipice between reason and madness. What responsibilities might the media have for helping us to cope with such a crisis? I think it's obvious that we're not getting the whole story much of the time. Important stories aren't being sufficiently reported, the range of allowable opinions is severely restricted, more cogent and coherent perspectives are rarely offered, and the trivial perspective with disturbing subtext is by far preferred in many venues. To rely on the mainstream media sources for information is merely to float above the surface of the truth, and all too often to be so tragically misled as to go to war on a faraway nation and witness the corruption of all the nobler ideals of the American soul. Media! The MSM! What have you done?

We have dramatically new sources of information now. The internet is a new world, and the old guard doesn't begin to have a handle on it yet. They'd love to control it, eliminate net neutrality, and turn this free internet into another tool for feeding us only what they want us to get. We have to protect it. It's through the internet, through YouTube, through the ability to research and Google and blog and viral video that we begin to establish a more intelligent and comprehensive point of view, one that highlights the cognitive dissonance of the mainstream talking points. We have a long way to go. The media is a monster of conglomerate corporate power. I have no idea whether it's good or evil, and perhaps that doesn't even matter. Those familiar faces we see every day are extremely well paid, and they're going to have to pay a lot of extra taxes if Obama is elected, many of them paying a million or more than they're paying now. How does that affect their opinions? That isn't chump change, even if you're Wolf Blitzer. Don't expect objectivity when there are stakes involved like that. This is all just going to get weirder.

Until it stops. And it could stop at any moment. What must we do to take each vanishing, precious moment and say we have lived it as fully as ever we knew how? We go along with a smugness that says we must be immortal, and in an instant, a puff of wind, and we're no more. Full of sound and fury. I'm going to give Russert credit one more time. When I hear people talk about him today, what I hear being emphasized most about him was his love. It has the ring of truth to it. I believe this was a truly loving guy, and I think in the final balance that's all you can do. Right now, I think this big dysfunctional family just needs a hug.

I Love Life

I'm back. Sort of. I've kind of had a tough time health-wise the last few weeks, and my good intentions with this blog got waylaid just a bit. I'm going to do more to support my health -- I promise -- and we've got warmer weather coming up, and that's going to help me a lot. I'd like to see if I can get back to taking a few minutes every day to put my thoughts down. I'm not sure if I've had many worth recording the last few days, but here goes nothing.

I don't want to dwell on poor health, but it does, as they say, have a wonderfully concentrating effect on the mind. I've smoked my way into a pretty severe case of emphysema, and I'm getting serious now about wanting to kick the habit. Here's a fascinating new product: e-cigarettes! I'm seriously considering placing an order. Electronic cigarettes, good grief! But the simulation is impressive. There's actual nicotine, and smoke is simulated with water vapor. It's so close to the ritual of the real thing, complete with nicotine, that it sounds crazy enough to work. Of course, you wouldn't be saving much money. Twenty nicotine refills are equivalent to two cartons of cigarettes, and it looks like they run for about $39.00, so in essence you're still paying about two bucks a "pack". I'm gonna try it. Hey, what have I got to lose?

I'm propped up by some pretty massive drugs right now. So, now you know, you want to make something of it? I'm using the high-strength Advair (500/250), plus Spiriva, and a whopping 40 mg/day of prednisone. I won't be able to stay on the prednisone much longer, but it sure is helping for now. It's always better when your need for air doesn't outpace your capacity to take it in, but I've been on the losing end of that equation for several months now, and it's been hard even to meditate. I've tried to keep up with the outside world through all the usual sources, but I haven't had much energy to spare. Here's hoping I'll have a little reserve for a while here. My thoughts aren't worth all that much, but it helps me to sort things out. If I can start turning my focus away from the personal here, and do a little reflecting about our common experience, maybe I'll have a post here or there that says something useful. You'll never know unless you try.

I know that it's really good to be alive. It's an exquisite luxury to be a human being in this time, and attempt to process all the complexities of our experience in some meaningful way. I've been pretty vividly reminded how brief and fleeting all of this really is, and that really does make you appreciate the simple things for what they are. It's good to be here. We've got lots to do, but I don't care. I'm really excited about being around to witness this exciting time.

When I've been able to meditate, I've felt it's somehow easier than it was. I think it's something about understanding how foolish it is to try and "accomplish" something by meditating, so I'm pretty happy just to sit there. I don't know what it's good for, so I just do it, and that's that. Then I do other things. Enough on that for now.

We've got a face-off going on right now between our two candidates for the 44th Presidency of the United States, and I think it's sufficiently important to give it a lot of attention, even to the detriment of other concerns, till this is resolved. I really believe these next five months are going to be as important as any I've known in my life. I made a similar comment yesterday on Huffington Post, and got a response that I must lead a pretty sheltered life. I was a little hurt, I think. What's happened to me personally is arguably more important, I suppose, but it seems to me we're at a crisis point in the determination of our future, both as a nation and even, perhaps, as a species. We have the most historic presidential candidate ever in Barack Obama, historic on so many levels due both to his race and to the nature of the way in which his campaign was financed, by people like myself instead of by the usual suspects. On the other side it appears we have a man who has jettisoned any personal opinions he's ever had in return for power, with the support of the cancerous outgrowths of corruption that have spun the world nearly into madness and self-destruction. The contrasts would seem to be so clearly drawn that old boundaries really may have been transcended, and we may be redefining ourselves and our loyalties for some time to come.

Is the choice really black and white? And how confusing is it to even use those terms now, given the candidates? Everything's topsy-turvy. I've never in my life seen things start to fall apart all at once like this. The economy is outrageous, the current administration is twisting slowly in the wind of its own exposed corruption, and the disparate mentalities of America attempt to grapple with all this and find a way forward. John McCain is transparently championing our current directions, and I can barely take my eyes off those Americans who listen and nod in agreement. It's like watching a crash in slow motion. These are truly lemmings headed for the sea, even if they should win. There will be a new kind of dialogue this year, and I don't think most of us are prepared for it.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

-- The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll

911

No, not 9/11, just 911. Mine. I was given a new drug to add to my Advair/Spiriva dynamic duo, something called Singulaire, or something like that. The problem is that after taking Singulaire for just two nights, Wednesday and Thursday, I became extremely ill, really barely able to breathe at all. I've been trying to tough it out through Memorial Day Weekend, but a trip to the grocery store today resulted in a couple's insistence that I contact 911 to receive emergency help. In fact, they contacted them for me, and I was punched and prodded for some time from the driver's seat of my car, and then from within the back of the ambulance as we headed off to the emergency room. I'm still pulling tape off me from that place, but I have to admit they were very good, and it wasn't a situation in which I was kept waiting at all, or even put through admitting. They didn't want me to leave, either, and I had to sign a waiver saying I was leaving against doctor's orders. But I'm hanging in there, and maybe feeling slightly better, although I've got a ways to go before I'm even back to what I've been calling normal. I don't plan on exiting just yet. This year is too interesting and important to leave now.

Hillary's Meltdown

It had to happen eventually. She's been pushing almost 24/7 for six months, or more. She's got to be exhausted. But I'm not going to give her an exhaustion pass for her remarks today. To my mind, even if you're a little tired you should have at least a minimal self-awareness about how the remarks you're making will be received, and whether or not some might consider them awkward.

Awkward? You might say that. You might, if you were possessed of at least a tiny modicum of self-reflection, consider refraining from discussing what happened to Bobby Kennedy's presidential bid in the context of Barack Obama. But not Hillary.

Some may be inclined to find a way to forgive her for these remarks. Personally, I'm more than tired of allowing Hillary to continue past all reason and dignity, especially when she speaks in a way that could potentially threaten the safety of Obama.

I don't like broaching this topic for any reason. I would like to see us quickly fall into silence about such hideous things, and return to discussing what we need to accomplish, and how we'll get there. But before we do, I hope we can finally bid farewell to the most destructive presidential candidate I've ever seen. W has certainly been the most destructive president, but in terms of a destructive candidate, it's Hillary, hands down. Obama is only 50-some delegates away from clinching, so I sincerely hope the superdelegates make a quick end of this, and send Hillary off for a long rest. I really, really think she actually needs one.

Here's Keith Olbermann's special comment on Hillary this evening. He's as upset as I am.

My concentration isn't very good tonight. If you've read many of these posts, you know I have emphysema. It's more than a little troublesome this evening. Hopefully, things will improve soon.

Pastor Problems

Yes, I know, I missed posting yesterday. And today's will be pretty short. I'm just doing the best I can. Yesterday was kind of busy.

Today was the day of the pastors, at least for Republican candidate John McCain. McCain's complete break with Texas televangelist John Hagee was followed a few hours later by another break with Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley. And for one day, at least, Obama's troubles with his former pastor Jeremiah Wright took a back seat. I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear of religion in this presidential race, but at least we scored a couple of points for a little more rational world today.

You might know I would say this, but the GOP's pastors scare me a whole lot more than Obama's guy. Hagee already made a name for himself by calling the Catholic church "the great whore", but the latest stuff that came out was just too much. Not even McCain could tolerate someone saying that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews into Israel, and he disassociated himself, leaving Hagee and his followers to decide on their own who might be best to lead them onward to Armageddon. Rod Parsley's church is in Columbus, Ohio, not far from where my father and stepmother live, and when the media began following up on Hagee with the well-known stories of Parsley's inflamed hatred for all things Islamic, McCain made it a two-for-one day. Someday we're really going to figure this separation of church and state thing out.

I've had my say about Reverend Wright elsewhere. It would be nice if I never feel a need to discuss him at length in this blog, but I'm sure the time will come. There's not much worth saying about Parsley, at least in terms of what I know about him right now. He's just a bigot, as near as I can tell. Hagee is worth mentioning in connection with the long-neglected themes of this blog, because Hagee apparently believes he can discern the will of God. You can read up on this guy if you want to; I'm hoping he and his little following fade along with their plans to catch up the plight of the Jews in their dreams of rapture, but the whole of the story of fundamentalist visions of the Last Days most likely has yet to be told.

A Mixed Bag Kind of Day

I still have nine minutes until midnight here on the Left Coast, so if I hurry, I can keep my promise to myself of a post per day. I'd better make it short.

The primaries were the news of the day, aside from the awful news about Senator Kennedy's brain tumor. Hillary won Kentucky by about 65%-30%, and Obama is winning Oregon by about 58%-42%. The good news is Obama now has a majority of the elected delegates, which means he's the undisputed (well, to impartial observers) winner of the primary process. When delegates are totalled up for this evening, he should be only about 60 delegates away from the nomination.

What I really wanted to mention was the problem with the way Hillary has won Kentucky and West Virginia, and a portion of her votes in other states. I think it's going to be very difficult for the media to spin this any other way than the simple fact that Bill and Hillary catered to the bigot vote. There was no significant issue with "hard-working white voters" in Oregon, obviously, nor has there been in many other states, including here in Washington. The problem is that Hillary was perfectly happy to receive votes from those who weren't ready to vote for a black man, and worse yet, she implicitly encouraged it.

I seem to remember a presidential candidate who felt a need to express these sentiments: "If you wouldn't vote for Barack because he is black, or Hillary because she is a woman, then I don't want your vote." (Hint: John Edwards) Those would have been great sentiments to proclaim all through these primaries, especially in West Virginia and Kentucky. It's a great shame that not every candidate felt that way.

I understand David Gergen, the former Clinton aide, expressed similar sentiments on CNN this evening, although I missed it. But my point is, I don't think even media mindlessness or Clinton spin can gloss over the truth of what has happened to the primary process in Appalachia this year. It stands on its own as a mute reminder of one wing of a political party gone horribly, disastrously wrong, preferring to trade its core principles of equality for personal power. I was born and raised in Appalachia, so I have a pretty good understanding of the forces that have been in play for the last few weeks. Parts of America have been very cynically misused, so much so that I think the raw truth will have to come out and be discussed if we're to begin the healing process.

There's so much healing we need to do. I'm not sure how it's going to happen if we continue to intentionally wound ourselves.

Peace Offerings

I went back to Huffington Post this morning and made a posting. Just one. But it got a "HuffPost's Pick" award, so I guess I'll share it. The comment was made to the lead article, written by Arianna Huffington herself, as a peace offering to the much-abused Hillary Clinton, titled Hillary Clinton's Defeat: A Historic Triumph. By far the bulk of the posted comments were still highly critical of Mrs. Clinton, and that's just the honest truth of the feelings about her and the way that she's run her campaign. I've been concerned, as I mentioned yesterday, that in trying too hard to accommodate both sides, we would shy away from the intellectual honesty we need to retain or run the risk of alliances that turn out to be all too fragile. Since the comments were not being censored, I saw that the truth was still coming out, so I took the opportunity to list what I think are her strongest qualities. Please keep in mind there's a great deal that I've left unsaid, but you can scan through the other comments to see what I mean. Here then is my own little homage to Hillary's good side:

I'm glad the posters have been allowed to express themselves. I appreciate Ms. Huffington's post, but I was concerned that we still need to be honest. With much of the dirty laundry already aired, I feel like I have the luxury of focusing on what I too find to be positive about Hillary Clinton.

Although her name recognition accrues from the former president, Hillary Clinton proved beyond a doubt that she belongs in the rarefied atmosphere of presidential politics. Her knowledge of policies and issues is sweeping and detailed, and her command of the material is second to none. She is forceful and direct in debates, clear and convincing, and her responses have the authority and confidence of a leader. She is, as Senator Obama himself proclaims her, "formidable". Far more than an impressive woman, she is an imposing person. She successfully transcended gender in terms of her suitability as the nation's leader in the overwhelming majority of voters' minds. For all the criticisms aimed her way, no one I've heard has ever implied she does not possess absolutely superior skills to bring to the job. For these things, Hillary Clinton has sharpened the imprint in our minds that gender prejudice has no place in politics or society.

You have to look at everything if you're going to be honest, the good and the bad. But I think that Hillary and her supporters can clearly take pride in the things that I've mentioned here, and much more, I'm certain.

Another item of note is the endorsement of Senator Obama by none other than Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). The 90-year-old Senator from the state of my birth has had quite a history, including a brief membership in the Ku Klux Klan in his youth. It's a shame he didn't endorse before Obama's embarrassing defeat in West Virginia, but it may have some effect in tomorrow's primary in the neighboring state of Kentucky. When Senator Byrd tells Appalachia that Obama is "a noble-hearted patriot and humble Christian", that has a chance of getting even the most narrow-minded voters to sit up and listen.

Resistance Is Futile

Barack Obama speaking to an estimated 75,000 people in Portland, OR May 18

What a reception for Barack Obama in Portland, Oregon! If ever there was an appropriate time to use the hackneyed phrase "a sea of humanity", this is it. I know the Ohio State-Michigan game would draw more fans, but this is to hear someone give a speech. That makes this special.

Hello again. It's been quite some time since I last posted. I've been meaning to get back to this blog again, and I'm not sure we can take this as much indication that I've been successful, but it's a start. We'll have to see how it goes from here. For the past two or three months, most of my internet time has been monopolized by the web site called Huffington Post. Since I still can't get around much, I've taken to the liberal blog sites to battle the storm of misinformation that has been raging around the first serious African-American candidate for the President of the United States. It saddens me terribly to see how many people are willing to recklessly propagate so many lies and misrepresentations about one individual, and unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, I'm sure I'm not telling you a thing. Obama has gone from Muslim to Liberation Theologist to elitist snob, and back again, and all of this is nothing but vicious smears. For example, the other day one of the posters -- undoubtedly of the species we commonly refer to as a troll -- presented the following phrase as a "quote" from Obama's recent book The Audacity Of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Whoa Nellie! That's a strange thing for a presidential candidate to say, I have to admit. Sounds like Obama's taking sides against the Christians, doesn't it? Worse yet, I did a Google search on the phrase "I will stand with the Muslims" and got around 20,000 hits, many of them pointing to conservative web sites or blogs. Looks like Obama's secret is out!

Except, of course, that I read the book. The quote is, as you might expect, a misquote, and the context is horribly skewed. The phrase in question occurs on page 261, and the context is actually a discussion about immigration and immigrants. He wrote about speaking to immigrant audiences during campaigns and other occasions, and he noted the special problems some immigrants face in the current climate:

In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detention and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that Americans have learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.

Quite a difference from the explosive quote offered initially, don't you think? A little twist of a phrase, a little lifting out of context, and it's possible to destroy a man with barely an effort at all. This is the environment in which we now live and struggle to bring new meaning and hope to democracy. It isn't pretty.

This morning, I was browsing again through Huffington Post, and the topmost story was about the potential "merging" of the Obama and Clinton camps. That struck me as seeming rather arbitrary and pretentious, and I imagined how I'd feel if my candidate was holding the short end, and I was told I was being merged. I decided to write a brief comment, two or three short paragraphs that complained that such things seemed a bit artificial and catered more to the herd mentality. I recommended that Clinton supporters search their own consciences for guidance on how to proceed, and make their own judgments accordingly. The post was not anti-Clinton, nor was it demeaning or profane. I checked back once, and noticed I'd gotten several very positive responses. Then I clicked to refresh the post again, and it was gone. My independent-minded little comment had been scrubbed, lost forever in the Huffington Post bit bucket trashcan. I was ticked.

I know that Huffington Post closely moderates threads on the week-ends, and clears posts with far more regularity than during the week. But I'm still fuming about that one. I don't feel as if I've written any miniature masterpieces in my time there, but sometimes, as with this one, I actually take a little time, exert a little effort, and I have this peculiar notion that my time and effort has some value all its own that ought to be honored. I don't much like the feeling I've just wasted my time, and unfortunately, that's how I felt this morning. I also felt it was a post that needed to be written. I feel pretty strongly that some overly enthusiastic supporters have lost touch with their sense of intellectual honesty, and I think it's important to make sure we get back there, because we're going to need cool heads and strong convictions if we're going to get through these next few months and secure the win. Apparently, the Huffington moderators decided my post wasn't offered in the new "team spirit", so I've gone off for a while to retch in my private disgust.

How should I feel about what I've seen so far in this primary race? Am I looking at a glass that's half-full or half-empty? I guess I need to punt for now, and say that it's just too early. When I see a crowd like the one in Portland, I think we're looking at a new age for America, bright with hope for a safe and peaceful future. But when I reflect on what just occurred in my old stomping grounds, West Virginia, I'm very sad. When I hear the President use the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary celebration to take a broadside shot at his political opponents back home, I'm sadder still. Even Obama's skilled and powerful response wasn't enough to completely lift my spirits. It's so strange to see how much the shade of a person's skin still helps to shape the opinions of so many in our world. Barring the success of continuing attempts to discredit the talented Senator, however, he soon will be the Democratic nominee, the first ever in America to be anything other than a white male. And no, I don't support Obama because he's a black man, but I'm pleased by the extra bonus that presents. It's his ideas, his approach, his humor and positive outlook that won me over, and if he'd looked like a clone of John Edwards or Chris Dodd I would feel the same.

For what this was worth, I think this is enough of an attempt to get back in the blogging vein. My intention -- and we know what the road to Hell is paved with -- is to make at least some little blog post every day, at least something to record what caught my eye that day, and hopefully the force of habit will take over and get this little journalized perspective back on track. I don't know if I'll go back to posting at Huffington or not; I feel like what happened today was symptomatic of larger issues. I could get my opinions off my chest just as well at DailyKos, but there's something a little more dynamic about Huffington Post when I'm not being censored; some of the comments aren't terribly smart, but some of them are, and for all the phoniness of posters pretending they're something they're not, something of a real sense of the mood of the nation sometimes comes through.

Maybe if I reserve this little blog as the place to say stuff without being censored, I can shrug off the silliness of what goes on at these web sites with more aplomb. I guess I'll just take it a day at a time.

Hillary, Please Go Away

I'm getting really sick of this.

I didn't hate Hillary Clinton when all this started. Plus, I've always been kind of a champion for women's rights. I've been a fairly typical male in a lot of respects, but I've been out there for women quite a lot in my life, and I don't mean Eliot Spitzer-style. I don't think there is any male who wants to see women achieve equal rights and respect in every area more than I do, and I can say that with conviction. I know that if the United States is around long enough, there will be a lot of capable and talented women holding the office of the Chief Executive. I have felt strongly about this sort of thing long enough that I don't have to consider voting for someone out of sexist or racist guilt. I feel free to consider candidates based on their merits, and I'm confident that neither racism nor sexism will be involved in my decision, including reverse racism or sexism. I'm going to try and pick the best person. Just so you know.

Hillary, please go away. I can't believe your capacity for screwing things up. You've lost, dear. It's over. Better luck next time, and thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts. Please get out of here before you take all the hope and promise of the 2008 Presidential Campaign and turn it into yet another chapter in the total nightmare that has been the 21st Century up to now. To a very great extent, your base has become Rush Limbaugh Republicans who flood the voting booths of open primaries at the behest of their chubby spokesman to prop up support for the candidate they would prefer to face this fall. You have never embraced the really progressive principles of the Democratic side of the fence, preferring instead the big business of backroom deals and cynical posturing. You voted for war, and you voted for tough talk, you lied about NAFTA in a couple of dozen different ways, you have reveled in the politics of fear and of racial division, and you've taken the excitement of a nation and twisted it up in a manner reminiscent of Bush's squandering of global good will after 9/11. This isn't how it's supposed to be, and I venture there's as little real support for you right now as there is for W. I had some hopes for you, despite your reputation as a Centrist, but you're simply proof of how corrupt our system has become.

Drop out of the race. Now! America is sick of you! We're sick of Mark Penn and Ed Rendell and Eliot Spitzer and Geraldine Ferraro and the whole ulcerous corrupt lot of you. We're sick of the way you're playing with Florida and Michigan, the way you skirt around the edges of race, good grief, don't get me started again, just go!

Fortunately, there seems to be precious little chance you're going to win. You've started the worst of these games too late, and the lead is just a little too big. You're not going to get there. At this point, you'd need to win about 62-63% of the votes remaining even to get anyone to listen to you, and only your blindest followers believe you can do that. If you simply planned to compete, fairly and honestly, then I'd say go for it. I love a good competition, and I'd be more than happy to go toe to toe on the issues with you the rest of the way. But that's not what's going on, is it? We're all going to have to start wearing athletic cups the rest of the way over here, even the women, because the frequency of hits below the belt is beyond belief.

Politics just isn't the way it used to be, is it? Time was, when most of these tricks could be pulled off pretty much unchallenged. We'd get maybe a sniff of what was going on in the paper and on the evening news, but that's all we knew. Now, it's a new ball game. Now, the whole filthy game plan is laid out on the internet for inspection, and we can decide what we like for ourselves. Even so, you came awfully close to pulling it off, and you can still do so much damage that even a sorry old loser like John McCain might come out of this thing with the prize when it's all said and done.

I've already done a fair amount of ranting on this topic before I started to write this post. I've been over at Huffington Post, among other places, getting all this off my chest. Here's one I wrote in response to a nice post by Jane Smiley, called I'm Already Against The Next War:

Hillary's right, you know.

You've got to be a little bit crazy to take on the entrenched interests in D.C. Hillary's been there, and she knows how corrupt it really is. When you think of the tremendous power and influence, permeating every aspect of government, military, corporations and the media, it's absolutely hopeless. Unquestionably, the only sensible thing to do is not try to beat them, and to make the best of things by slapping them on the back and trading shots with them on long flights. We're all doomed, anyway. If global warming doesn't get us, a loose nuke will, because we're driving everyone on the planet crazy, and it's going to take a whole lot more than a president to stop us. I mean, get real, people!

The trouble is, I guess I'm a little bit crazy, deep down. I still believe that as long as there are just a few of us who cling to the real principles of democracy, and the highest aspirations of humanity, we are charged to defend those principles and aspirations to our final breath. For the most part, the odds are stacked against us, and try as we might to shake off the Clintons of the world, she is, as Jon Stewart claims, like The Terminator. You think you've destroyed her, but then all the little globs start rolling back together, and she rises up again.

Yes, she's corrupt. She's the perfect candidate for the nation that has taken corruption to its grandest scale, and I can see her extensive experience informing all that she says and does. I am beyond impressed by how well she has learned her lessons. By all accounts, she is indeed the perfect choice to carry this nation forward in the coming years. Except that every sign and signal of nature and the soul tells us that now, and not a moment later, we have to bring our current momentum to a halt, and for once as a nation stop and reflect on what it all means, and for that task Hillary is completely unprepared.

It has long seemed foolish and naive to me to think that we would ever have a chance to turn things around, and then I watched a young man from Illinois last year announce his candidacy before the same courthouse where another young man named Abraham Lincoln once did the same thing. I knew then that he was different, and if the impossible ever had a chance to occur in my lifetime, it would be because of him. In the year since, I've watched him closely. I haven't always been overjoyed, but most of the time my admiration of his abilities has only deepened. I am no blind Moonie-style follower. There are no rose-colored glasses perched on the bridge of my aging nose. I've seen a whole lot of politicians come and go, and I've seen a whole lot of talented careers in a great many fields. The first time I saw Robin Williams on the stage, I knew -- and told my friends -- that he'd be huge. My friends just laughed. The first time Jerry Rice stepped on the football field for the 49ers, I told my co-worker that he would be to receivers what Jim Brown had been to running backs. My co-worker scoffed.

Barack Obama will be to American Presidents what no other politician has been in my lifetime, if he can get through these final hurdles. And in the end, it may still be only a fool's errand, because the deck really is stacked against any serious attempt to turn back the tsunami waves of American money and power, but you've got to at least try. You put your best man (or woman) out there and give it a shot. He may not be the best candidate for the America we've come to know, but he's the best one we have for the America I want to see.

I can tell you all this, Ms. Smiley, because from what I've read in this and other excellent posts you've made, I think you will understand. I can't say this to Hillary and her supporters. They don't know what I'm talking about at all.

"Bill Clinton was the best Republican president I ever worked for." -- Alan Greenspan

Catching Up

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

It's been a while since I made an entry. All the focus is on the primaries, and I'd like to move ahead to the general election and take on the Republicans. It looks like my candidate Obama is in a strong position, so much of the recent happenings seem like noise that must be endured, lots of sound and fury signifying nothing. We'll know more after Tuesday.

I'm thinking about how to take on the arguments of McCain. My own stance is probably more pointedly opposite him than even Obama's arguments may be when this debate starts heating up. I'm happy that with Obama as the candidate, there's much less chance for the Iraq discussion to deteriorate into how the "war" was simply mismanaged. Senator Obama will forcefully argue that there should never have been a war in the first place. There are a great many reasons why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, and Obama correctly stated many of those back in 2002. Beyond the obvious misdirection of the battle against Al Qaeda to a country that had no role in 9/11, Obama knew that such a war would further damage relations, both within and outside the Muslim world, that it would require occupation resources and heavy cost, and that such endeavors are really doomed from the start. Obama's judgment on this issue is so inarguably correct, or at least it should be by now, that it's just a question of whether Americans are really ready to hear it.

Throughout history, occupying forces have never been able to fully conquer any nation. The pitiful excuse for a government now in Baghdad will never be truly accepted by the Iraqis. Democracy probably has a lot less chance of taking root in Iraq than it would have if we hadn't been meddling in that country since the 1950's, but until we get out of there, it has no chance at all. Will Obama talk much about the truth of why we're there? Will he discuss the heavy pressure being brought to bear by multinational energy firms such as ExxonMobil for control of Iraq's oil wealth under the guise of Iraq's oil "revenue sharing" plans? Will he mention the international leverage we want to possess by having our hands on the spigot of such an important resource right in the middle of the world's biggest region for it? There are many reasons why he might not. The forces that want to exercise that sort of control in the region will still be around after the election, and they'll continue to make an impact on how we behave. It's going to be up to us to make sure the whole argument gets laid out, because I don't think any President is going to be able to stand up to all this alone. It's still going to be up to us to drive the argument forward, and force America to face the truth about its own imperialistic pursuits. These problems extend beyond whatever administration is in power, and they don't go away simply by electing a relatively progressive Democrat. It's not that simple, folks. We have work to do.

If we simply accept that the world is a nasty place, and we have to be nasty if we want to be a part of it, I think we're failing to examine that position in sufficient depth. For myself, I can't lay claim to being an international expert, but I've known and worked with people from an enormous range of countries, and I think I've developed a pretty good sense of people overall. There are certainly some very violent pockets in the world, and there are some attitudes in the world that defy belief. Even in some countries we think of as being developed, there are nakedly racist attitudes toward other peoples that are beyond shocking to our American sensibilities. I wouldn't try to tell you for a moment that there isn't a whole lot to worry about with respect to our security. A lot of this planet is just plain crazy, make no mistake. Still, so much of the worst part of the craziness stems from patterns we can follow by studying history and related areas. When you look at what's happened, and after the shock has worn off a little, there's nothing very surprising that we haven't known all along about human nature. We know that too much power corrupts, that greed is too prevalent, and that we've become sort of a power-hungry, greedy nation. So what did you expect? I expect that we can improve things, perhaps beyond anything we could currently imagine, if we stay involved enough to examine the motives for our actions, and actually exercise the best judgment instead of opting for the most material gain. There's a lot we wouldn't solve by such a change, but we might start cutting some of our problems down to size.

Noam Chomsky resurfaced to give a talk about Iraq in Massachusetts the other day, and an article for The Nation called The Most-Wanted List that examines the terror of recently assassinated Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyeh in the light of other violent activities in that part of the world. These are invaluable perspectives if we really want to understand the events of today's world as a caring human being, and not as an ideologue or unquestioning supporter of U.S. administration policies. I need to remind you now that I'm looking at all this in somewhat of an attitude of retrospective, as someone who's grown older and is no longer in the prime of health. I need you to understand how clearly the things that really matter stand out within that context, and the clarity doesn't represent a shift, such that some things should have mattered before, but other things matter now; what's clear is that these are always the things that really mattered, the things that provide a broad and deep sense of meaning and value throughout all phases of our lives without regard to age or life situation.

If you've read some of these entries, you know I've been studying the world situation very closely, and I've seen that our policies have done at least as much harm as good, and that's putting it mildly. I know that many of you just haven't had the time to pull back the curtain and see the sham for what it is, and I feel that many of you would be prepared to take very strong action if you really knew the truth. There are still too many, though, who would still try to ignore what's going on, who would hope that someone else could fix things, or afraid to try to fix things for fear of upsetting the status quo. What I have to tell you is that you absolutely must stop these things from happening because we're at multiple tipping points, for democracy, the climate, and the world. As long as we let George do it, he or Cheney most certainly will, and the world will suffer.

I've never said this won't be a long struggle. We can't just elect a progressive candidate and take a snooze. We not only have to wake up, we're going to have some long nights ahead, and we're going to have to upset some applecarts along the way. I'm the last person that will ever advocate any sort of violence. Don't look for that sort of thing here, because any attempt to solve problems with violence immediately destroys the solutions. What we do have to be is strong, and steadfast, and confident that we'll know what has to be done when the time comes as long as we listen equally to our heart and our head when we're asked to decide.

An election is a good time to shake things up, but we need to shake things up every day from now on. I don't want anarchy. I don't want everyone to give away all their belongings and renounce materialism. I don't want to open the door for every crazy who shows up. I just want you to start making your decisions with a thought to the things that are really important. I want you to imagine how you'll feel about things when it's nearly over, and how you'll feel then about some of the choices you made. Will you rationalize about that compromise that helped to exploit a few hundred workers in some obscure part of the world, or will you look for some way to ask for some kind of forgiveness for having come up short when you didn't really need to? I don't think we always need to think in big, revolutionary terms, even to achieve something big and revolutionary. Sometimes we just need to start taking care of the little things, and the big things will start to fall into place.

Rambling

I don't feel like writing about the "horse race" right now. It's important, but don't you need a break now and then? I thought so.

I just feel like rambling. Perhaps unintelligibly. I've got a lot on my mind, and I'm sure you do as well, and I feel like I'm learning more about how to roll with the shocks that are constantly provided by our modern world by taking time out for meditation. Even a good night's sleep can't do as much good sometimes as meditation, if you're having trouble trying to give your brain a rest. It's important to remember that if we're fortunate enough to be able to take a few minutes and set it all aside, we're blessed to be present right here, right now in this still breathtakingly beautiful place. It's important just to remember how much there is to appreciate and be grateful for. Some of you get on your knees and pray. I sit cross-legged, and try to forget about me and just listen. Maybe it isn't quite the same thing, but it's pretty close.

Of course, I've also done a whole lot of reading and study, so much that the ego pops up again, and makes me think I should be pretty impressed by myself. Well, a big part of that chip on my shoulder got knocked off in Manhattan bumping up against some of the finest minds and talents in New York theater, and a lot of the rest of that chip was shredded by the jaw-dropping intellects I've encountered in nearly a decade at Microsoft. I know full well that no matter how much I do, or how much I study, it's barely a blip on the radar of achievements. I don't think I need to worry too much about my ego getting out of control. I'm just glad all this material is out there to help me learn, and I hope many of you are reaching out beyond the largely mindless debates in the media to learn for yourselves. There are levels of understanding, you do realize that, I trust, and if I've advanced past a few plateaus in the last year or so, don't worry, I still can't look up and see the top.

You may know something about me, or maybe not. Most of it isn't important, except that I have no offspring to worry about (at least that I know of, haw, haw). I have my regrets about that, but at least it allows me to speculate a little more freely about the way our society is constructed. If you have children, I suspect there's an understandable tendency to short-circuit that kind of speculation a little bit, for fear that drastic change might endanger the future prospects for those young people. I would counter that I have no less concern than you do for their future, but maybe I can and do entertain some riskier notions than others might. Then, too, I would offer that serious risks are being taken on your behalf whether you want that to happen or not, and we're all feeling the fallout from them, so let's free up our minds a little and entertain some new possibilities. Your children are liable to thank you if you do.

Reports are coming out now -- one of them was the main headline on my Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning -- about how many ways the ecology of the oceans has been damaged. Here's a link to the article in my paper this morning: Scientists fear "tipping point" in Pacific Ocean. It's about the massive deaths of sea creatures at the ocean bottom for lack of oxygen. There are so many similar reports, not to mention all the humanitarian crises in Africa and elsewhere, other threats of violence and war, and so on. My point is, this isn't working. More importantly, the United States has had its big hammy hands in a lot of places where they didn't belong to prevent things from working. We've been actively supporting the wrong things in the name of one overstated devil or another -- Communism, Socialism, Islamofascism, Illegals, whoever They might happen to be. We've propped up dictators, overthrown democracies who threatened the status quo, and generally promoted the wealthy elite throughout the world and exploited the poor, all in the name of spreading "democracy" and free trade. Now, about 1% of the population controls about 80% of the world's resources, and that little 1% is scrambling frantically to make it 90%, while the Pinochets, the Suhartos, and the Musharrafs of the world reign supreme. Once there was a Hitler, and he's left such a scar on the heart of humanity it may never beat properly again, but we have to try and recover. Another Hitler may come again someday, and we'll need to be prepared for him or her, but I think we need to start remembering how to have a little courage, how to live in the world with a sense of caution, not of fear.

We need to consider some serious changes. We really need to lift up the hood of this vehicle I'm using to represent our modern system, and see if the engine couldn't use a complete overhaul. It's certainly polluting the earth, its fuel drives both itself and world unrest, and many of its parts are ripped from the earth in a manner that leaves it with permanent scars. Much of the construction of these parts is performed in sweatshop conditions for less than a living wage, and the result is wrapped in an overpriced package to be sold for credit we don't always have for a price that we can't afford. It's insupportable, it's unsustainable, and it is on the whole inhuman and morally bereft. That we can still remain in touch with some grain of humanity in this unnatural bête noire is part of the joyous miracle of life.

Back when Eisenhower was President (and yes, I was alive then, just not very old), we had a lot of problems, but in the United States we had a fairly positive attitude, and we were really trying to work together, for the most part. There was still terrible racism, of course, and we had all the sophistication of the Grand Ole Opry, but we had the strongest middle class in the history of America, supported heavily by a very progressive taxation system that rose up to 91% for income earned in a year beyond what would be at least 1 million, I believe, in today's dollars. I'm sorry if that's imprecise or inaccurate, but I'm rambling, and I didn't look it up just now. I'm certain the 91% figure is correct; I just don't remember what the earnings level was for sure, or how that would figure in today's terms. I think it would take some serious doing to get us back to that point. We'd have to take most of Brady Quinn's bonus money away from him, and that would be hard. Besides, I'm not sure what the right approach is, I'm just sure that even when you add up all the money, there isn't enough for every Goldman Sachs employee to get a million bucks for Christmas and to feed all the starving people in the United States alone. We either start learning how to level it out a little, or folks will starve in increasing numbers. You might even start to notice it's happening without my having to tell you. Then it would be real bad.

Now, I like the ideas of achievement and success. I suspect that in even the most perfect world there will still be winners and losers, and perhaps that's as it should be. I think in a more perfect world we can provide a little cushion for the losers, maybe not a house in the Hamptons with servants, but enough to get by. There should be incentive for success, and rewards, percs and privileges, but not so much of all those things that it gets obscene. I think we can experience all the thrill of victory and agony of defeat even if the victor collects a little smaller handful of spoils. We could consider playing this game of life a little more for fun, a little less for keeps, and we'd still enjoy it.

What would become of excellence if we try to establish some sensible limits? I think that's a bogus concern if there ever was one. I believe that those who want to achieve excellence will do so whenever they can, and that part of us has never been all about money. I hardly think that the best in us will suffer if we try to lift up the least. The truth is, I think the best in us has suffered long enough.

Oh, the economy is so fragile, if we try to change things the whole world market will fall apart! All I can say to that is: Read, my friends, Read! The economy is not quite some mystical unexplained force; it can be unruly, but it is being and has been controlled, by and large, by those in whose private interests it's been to do so. This is the tricky part, though, those private interests. They don't seem inclined to play well with others. That's a lot of what makes this another chapter in a long, hard struggle, with no end yet in sight. But make no mistake, there is the potential for control, and there are ways that control can be exercised. This is just one more area where caution should be our watchword, and not fear.

If we can get past being afraid of the economy, and believe me, we should, we can begin to think a bit about quality. Quality was the theme of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I read over thirty years ago, and don't remember well enough now, but this blog probably has some echoes of the themes of Mr. Pirsig nonetheless. When I meditate, sometimes I'm actually able to let it go enough to get a sense of the subtle quality of this experience, the heady flavor of the never-to-be-repeated here and now, and sometimes I can even slow down enough to really appreciate it, just a little. I've lived long enough, and studied widely enough, to have rededicated myself to Zen meditation over this past year with high confidence that I was doing something worthwhile, something which has stood the test of time and won the respect of thoughtful people all over the world. There is a serious point to meditation, and it's not just playing around, and it's certainly not so I can gain some special power. I imagine there are many of you out there who could sit down for zazen for the first time and manage more relaxed and productive sitting than I've even approached yet, because maybe you're naturally more relaxed and spontaneous than I am. I don't have any illusions that with Zen I'm going to get anything very special that you don't have. I'm just trying to battle it out with some of my own devils, and recognize a little of my own silliness and stupidity, that's all. I just want to remind you that, when you take a moment and just try to appreciate the special quality it has, the world gets a little less complicated for a while. The things that really matter seem to be the ones we most quickly forget, and so much of that gets lost in the battle for superdelegates and votes in Texas.

Love thy neighbor as thyself. That's my definition of enlightenment, and I have no doubt that it's correct. When we look over the world for its greatest wisdom, there really is no serious disagreement. We may express it a little differently, but it's all the same. A Zen master might tell you that you should love everything as yourself, whether it's your neighbor, a blade of grass, or rancid butter. If we can brush aside the webs of all our distractions and just take it in as if we were one of the very first humans sitting silently by the first campfire and letting the magic and mystery of life show its full face to us in each moment, we might take quite a different perspective on the often insane predications on which we base our lives today. The magic's gone. Since I don't have children, I look at every child I see with a wistful glance, and feel some sense of a father's need to protect it from harm. I am sad for those children who will grow up in a world that has been so diminished, where some of the creatures that lived in my childhood have disappeared, and the fittest are left to survive be they man or beast in a world that's defined by a practical harshness of tone. I am sometimes also glad that I don't have children to leave in this world.

When I sit, I don't really try to direct things anywhere. If I'm thinking, ok, then, maybe it's time to think. If I can, of course, I allow myself to fall silent, and I've practiced enough that I can fall silent for a time. What happens at that point, I couldn't say, but I think that some of it connects to my old creative juices, the openness to that part of me that responds in a personal way, and it makes me want to meet all the moments of life with that same sense of shared adventure. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure when I look around, though, and see all the work that remains to be done. The best use I can make of meditation, at least for now, is as a constant reality check, making sure I stay in touch, or get in touch if need be, with my human self, and not allow it to be buried forever by a society that, as a whole, has left almost no humanity at all.

We need to change a lot. We shouldn't fear it. We've already lost so much, we should pause to remember and mourn all that. We are learning, growing, reaching out in hope, and we've been disappointed so often we fear that our hand might be lopped off as we reach out. I can't tell you that this year there'll be no more disappointments. If we go by history, then we're more likely to be duped again than not. But there is something this year that's special. Whether this is the year it can grow and flourish, or will be forced to recede again, I couldn't say, but if I've seen it before, and I think I have, I'd say that it has grown since I saw it last, and that's very good.

Changing The Mindset

I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.
-- Barack Obama (any of a thousand stump speeches)

Feeling sorry for Hillary yet? I am, a little. We don't actually need to get out the handkerchiefs, as she seems to be having a pretty good life, all in all. But I know she's been working hard, and it's got to be pretty devastating at this point. Of course, she still has a shot, but she has to know it's going to be an uphill battle from here. Obama's momentum is incredible, and folks are starting to climb aboard the bandwagon all over the country, and from all the ubiquitous demographics. The mood of the electorate has seen a significant shift.

But I have to say that Hillary, for all her differences with Bush & Co., is nonetheless part of that mindset we need to outgrow. And yes, I know Obama may, when it's all over, prove to have been yet another politician who was nothing but talk. I've chosen to believe that his heart is in the right place, for all his failings, and it looks like there are a lot of Americans besides just me who yearn to believe. That could translate into big numbers for other Democratic candidates this fall as well, riding the coattails of Yes We Can, and give the Democrats increased majorities in both the House and Senate for the 111th Congress in 2009. The stage could be set for dramatic progress soon in all the areas that trouble those of us who think about the world from a humanist perspective: war, human rights, global warming, economic injustice, corporate greed, and so on. So why am I still so uneasy?

Even a man -- or woman -- whose heart is in the right place has an uphill battle in the halls of American government right now, even with solid majorities in Congress. There will still be enormous pressure from powerful influences, there will still be all kinds of elected officials and many of them will still be corrupt, and there will still be a host of Bush appointees, including those new guys on the Supreme Court, to throw monkey wrenches into the machinery at every turn. Nobody said it would be easy.

So why do I think Hillary is part of the outmoded mindset of war? Well, there's her voting record, after all. It's hard to take her spin on the Iraq vote, since I'm one of those odd people capable of remembering back further than two weeks. I was paying attention, at least out of the corner of my eye while writing software, to that vote that authorized W to lead us into battle, and you would have had to be an idiot not to know what was going on. The same was true of last year's Iran vote, although so far we've lucked out thanks to "disloyal" officials who've let us in on the truth about Iran's WMD capabilities. There's more, though. In general, Hillary favors a more hard-line stance with those nations who've dared to disagree with us, and the more you know about U. S. history, the more offensive it really is that we continue to think we can cop these attitudes with countries where we've meddled and disrupted things so horribly, we've got a nerve saying anything at all. But that's America, the last great power, and what we say goes. Iran's been a mess since Operation Ajax in 1953 when we installed our own friendly puppet, the Shah, and all that crumbled into fundamentalism in 1979, another great victory for American can-do government.

All that's to say, the more you know about what the U. S. has really been up to basically since World War II, the more hypocritical the status quo holier-than-thou attitude really seems. Obama is very up front about wanting to change all that, although some of the details of his plans for the future make you wonder. I'm not sure how a huge increase in the size of the military squares with getting us out of the mindset of war, but hey, we've got to take this a step at a time. I'm hoping that Obama isn't a liar, because changing this mindset is really what I'm all about.

It's always been one of the most frustrating aspects of this blog that I can't transmit all the insight I've gained by my own reading to the reader that happens across this page. There are many entries here that point to a lot of good sources, and all I can say is it's important to be well read, because you certainly can't rely on today's media, owned as it is by either right-wing crackpots or huge corporate entities who profit greatly in times of war. You have to access information not generated by those who don't always find it in their best interests to tell the truth. The truth is, the United States has made excessive use of power during the sixty years I've been alive, and it has made life far more miserable, and far less hopeful, for hundreds of millions -- no, let's use the billions designator -- around the world. If the United States were actually to change its mindset, and it's why the whole world is watching this election with bated breath, and began to truly support bottom-up democracies throughout the world instead of dictatorships, elitism and corporate exploitation, the world could be utterly, profoundly, dramatically and beautifully transformed.

Obama has said the right things, and whether most Americans really understand why they're so right I rather doubt, but they really are the right things. They speak to the deepest hopes and most noble aspirations of humanity the world over, not just Americans, but they are a special challenge to those of us who are American, if we and the speaker are truly ready to turn words into action. He talks about hope, and he could soon be in position to turn some of those hopes to reality. I'm sure he knows, as I've discovered, how truly powerful a force the United States of America really is for good or ill, and I'm sure he knows that too often, and for far too long, we have not lived up to that promise.

America is far more than its president, or the thousands of government officials good and bad that may soon be under his charge. America is the home of the world's most powerful multi-national corporations, the world's most overwhelming military force, the most influential media, and so on. In many ways, the new president will find himself (yeah, himself) still a small cog in the larger machine. Of course, he could use all the snazzy new powers George Bush will leave him, such as unaccountable intelligence, mercenary, and justice divisions, an escalated priority for signing statements that makes the president a virtual dictator, and a vast array of judicial and administrative appointees deeply committed to unitary executive power. Or not. I'd certainly prefer that he didn't, because then we'd still have the dictatorship Bush created, just with a new dictator. That would do little to change the mindset.

The truth is, I think he's going to need a lot of help. He strikes me as someone who welcomes a helping hand or two, and I believe there'll be a lot of us anxious to put in a little time for a good cause. There hasn't been much out of Washington lately I'd want to sign onto, but times change. At least we can Hope.

The Stakes

There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

-- Arthur Jensen explaining the world to Howard Beale, from the film Network (1976)

For a little while, many of you are turning briefly from your everyday concerns, and thinking about some of the things I've been thinking about. You can see that things have turned sour in many respects -- Americans are losing their jobs and homes, the economy is in freefall, Iraq is still an atrocity, global warming is heating up, and nuclear nations are imploding and headed for crisis. The promises of the politicians were just so much hot air, as usual, and now, for your quatrennial moment of participation in this process that determines so much of your lives, you're going to begin choosing between the remaining list of candidates, and cast your vote on the direction you want this nation and the world to go.

If you've not been paying much attention, I can't blame you. For years, I was only able to glance from the corner of my eye as I worked 80-100 hours a week on various projects, the last my five-year contribution to Windows Vista. For nearly a year now, I've stepped back from all that, and really have paid attention to things, and have been sobered by how actually reliable my instincts have been, and yet how dulled they were by the distractions of everyday living. I need to make a choice as well, not on "Super Tuesday", but in the caucuses that will take place in the state of Washington on the 19th. I'm fortunate, I suppose, that the candidate I've been supporting is still in the mix, as I've been a Barack Obama supporter all along. Obviously, I will be supporting Obama in the caucus, unless something changes dramatically.

There were other candidates, like Dennis Kucinich, who really stated the problems more plainly, but I've been around for a while, and I know when some things just aren't going to happen. It's sort of amazing that I would assess, correctly, that the candidacy of a fellow white male from my home state of Ohio would be less viable than that of a black man born of a Kenyan father, but this is a pretty amazing time. Now it's time I tried to state some of the problems plainly, since my candidate still has to play the game and garner votes.

There are real issues at stake. This election won't necessarily be the defining moment that marks the turning point for America and the world, but then again, it might be. At the very least, it will make a critical statement about how we perceive ourselves and our current dilemma, and whether the odds for the future will have improved, or sunk to new lows. We're going to be voting for individuals, Republicans and Democrats, and you've heard a lot about the various candidates. I don't feel like speaking in specific terms today. I feel like making some generalities, working out of that instinct that has been validated and sensitized by my year of examining our current milieu.

I've mentioned elsewhere, though I don't think I've mentioned it yet in this blog, having watched a re-broadcast of a talk given by the Dalai Lama on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I don't recall now where the talk was given, although it was out of doors, sometimes in the rain, with the Dalai Lama holding an umbrella over his head while he spoke. He talked a little about violence and discord, and he spoke about anger, even admitting that he himself gets angry sometimes. Then he made an assertion that stuck with me, claiming that when you're angry, 90% of what you feel is exaggeration. I don't know about the percentage, but I know there's more than a grain of truth in that. That's part of why I want to continue today's post more in generalities than specifically directed toward individuals, because people are more complex in many ways than even some of the most complex forces at work in our society, and people's motives on an individual basis are rarely entirely good or bad. It's probably a little more accurate to point to a direction and call it pernicious than to point to a person and do the same. I'll leave you to extrapolate conclusions on your own.

There are things going on now that reveal the most cancerous, destructive, tormented aspects of human nature imaginable. There are people who, for whatever reasons, are sowing seeds of misery throughout the world to such an extent that it beggars imagination. The word Evil is such a loaded and absolute term, but I don't think it can be avoided here. If we try to view the world as a struggle between good and evil, we become lazy, and quickly oversimplify everything in black and white. It's hard not to characterize individual actions as Evil, like the bombings in Baghdad this week, and as such, it's hard not to characterize the active promotion of conditions that engender such actions as embodying that same Evil, in all respects.

There is a possibility that you could make a choice soon to support someone who really doesn't care about you at all. Not the least little bit. The simple truth is, there is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, or whatever names those corporations operate under now, and they don't care the first thing about you. They aren't people, they're corporations. They care about, are created, charted, and under legislative dictum to care about, only the bottom line. Left to themselves, they will chew up the earth and spit it out in little pieces, strewing pieces of bone and hair through a barren landscape. They are mechanisms, soulless to their core, and they don't want democracy, they don't want you to have equality and dignity, they want profit. We are, indeed, trying to meddle with the primal forces of nature in this election, and whatever happens, we may not be able to meddle enough. But I want you to know that we really do have a lot to lose. It's more than Kucinich talked about, more than John Edwards told us, it's more along the lines of what we heard from Arthur Jensen over thirty years ago. We've allowed it to happen, and now it's reached us in every part of our lives, and we have to choose now if that's still the way that it's going to be.

It's incredible they would actually give us the chance to choose, isn't it? If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. What we can really do is mostly push back just a little, hold it off while we marshal our forces and add reinforcements, and keep hanging on. Maybe there is no America and no democracy, but there's still just enough an appearance of it that we can find a reason for hope, and a way to move forward. As we applaud ourselves for all this, millions more will die without hope, ExxonMobil will gouge out more wounds in the earth, and more profits will go to the few while the many are starving. All this will happen almost unaffected by even the most optimistic outcome of this year's selection process. If you think we will find a hero, please think again. This is just about a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a difference, but even then, in the whole scheme of things, it's a drop in a storm.

Many of you are afraid to take any sort of a chance. Let someone make you a soothing promise, and you're all ears. Daddy would never hurt you, would he? I hate to break it to you. There are an awful lot of bad daddies in the world, and there's been an awful lot of hurt. I wish I could take what's inside me right now and transmit it directly. Once it's put into words, it's all relative and subject to doubts. I'll tell you what I know with the only tools I have. Over the years, we've made a lot of bad choices. We've allowed ourselves to be fooled so many times by all the ways that have been devised to manage the outcome, by propaganda -- don't kid yourself -- that's reached a level of efficiency with the modern media so overwhelming that it's amazing we can have any sense of the truth at all.

We've had no shortage of courageous examples who tell us about how things really are. We've had our Orwells, our Chayevskys, our Zinns and Chomskys. Now we can take just a moment and think if they might not be right, if we might not be sliding in our meek passivity right down the cosmic drain and into oblivion. We have to consider if we, in the long run, are being controlled. I'm asking you now, can you really imagine we aren't? Do you really think that wealth and power are benign? Do you really imagine that their continually redefined definition of our security is any security at all, instead of a dreamy opiate of lies? You think you can keep your nose clean and retire, and the truth is you'll end up working until you die. In one future, the elderly have no recourse and are left to wither, the sick and infirm are discarded, the weak are crushed. The profits are all that will matter, and they will grow, and among the few there will be the opulent trappings of kings. Keep on voting as you have been, my friends. We'll be there soon.

I recorded the film Network and watched it the other night. I'd forgotten that one of my old friends was in it. Her name is Conchata Ferrell (Chatti to us). She and I were part of a circle of friends that saw the protests, and the Manhattan theater scene, in the sixties and seventies. We were part of a very close-knit group that grew apart. Chatti was a close friend of my first, perhaps only, Great Love, and was witness to all my passionate suffering for that girl's affection, and much more over the years. I was always shy, and much of what Chatti knew of me was of someone so twisted up in his emotions he was barely sane, but I know those years meant just as much to her as me, and I bet I still cross her mind in some way when she thinks of that time. If I think of you now as I watched your wonderful movie, Chatti, it's not for the fame you've enjoyed; I've had my successes as well. It's for that time when we all lived with complete intensity, truly candles that burned completely in each instant of time. I hope you're well. You were great in Network. You're better now than you were even then, because you were perfect.

What Is Morality?

I simply point out that this is an issue on which people of equal intelligence and equal good faith and equal vehemence have differed and have differed within this chamber.

-- Michael Mukasey, responding to Senator Richard Durbin during the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on 1/30/08

No signs from Heaven come today
To add to what the heart doth say.

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Yesterday, your friend and mine, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, again refused to voice an opinion on waterboarding. You can watch excerpts from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as provided by Democracy Now!. There are a lot of things lately to which my response is mostly sadness, since my anger is reduced to impotence, and this is another one of those things. As quoted above, Mr. Mukasey contends there is an open debate on the issue of waterboarding between people of "equal good faith." I have great concern for those of you who believe that Mr. Mukasey's position has merit. I am at complete loss to discern the good faith inherent in the resurrection of a practice that has been unequivocally perceived as torture for 500 years.

What is morality? What is there to tell us that an action is right or wrong? There are studies exploring what innate sense we might have as a species to guide us in moments of uncertainty, but we don't seem to have settled much. For the most part, we're left to settle this ourselves in our own way, by following the dictates of our faith or our own conscience. I suspect that when things are most uncertain, it is our conscience alone that must determine the course we pursue.

So what is conscience? I'm sure I don't know. I believe conscience is something inherent, but also that it can grow and mature. I believe it's something with which we must take great care, as it's very fragile. I'm not going to be precise here, but I do recall that even the Bush Administration draws the line at interrogation methods that "shock the conscience." In that context, it is assumed that people of "equal good faith" may experience that shock at different points on the spectrum of these activities, which leaves us in considerable difficulty to address the issue on a global scale.

So, I don't have any answers, at least for you. For myself, there is no debate. If you knew everything about me, you might believe that I am moral, or you might not. I certainly do things that some would call immoral, and for that should I be dismissed? If there's anything beyond all our capabilities, it's the attempt to impose what you should or should not believe. If we peer into the central core of American values, you will find this sanctity of the innermost individual beneath all else. I hope it's not lost on you how much that's paradoxical to this can also be found, as we often so gratefully cede the burden of absolute freedom to "higher authorities."

The story of The Grand Inquisitor appears about one-third of the way into Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. It's located in Spain during the time of the Inquisition, and describes a brief reappearance in its midst of the Christ, who walks amid the crowds healing the sick and raising the dead. The old Inquisitor immediately calls for His arrest, then visits Him in His prison cell for questioning, but Christ is silent. Unable to contain himself, the Inquisitor offers his defense of the path that his religion has followed, and why Christ Himself had become an impediment to the people's best interests.

We have taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh, ages are yet to come of the confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For having begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course with cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written: "Mystery." But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou art proud of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all. And besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become elect, have grown weary waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will transfer the powers of their spirit and the warmth of their heart to the other camp, and end by raising their free banner against Thee? Thou didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will no more rebel nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or shall we be lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them. Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves. Others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another. The rest, weak and unhappy, will come fawning to our feet and whine to us: "Yes, you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you. Save us from ourselves."

-- The Grand Inquisitor (Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

I will not argue that freedom is not a terrible burden. I have struggled with all sorts of freedom all of my life, and though I've been modestly successful in retaining a measure of freedom, it's come at a great price. It's for that freedom that I have not remarried, that I have broken, for now, my ties to lucrative employment, and devote myself to the exercise of my freedom with as little restriction or consequence to others as I can assemble. I am as free from the daily indignities as my imagination and ill health can ever permit, and it is a burden, and a pressure, that weighs on me more than you know.

I can make almost all my own choices within this framework, or take no stand in any debate and withdraw from view, but in this paradise of uncoerced freedom I find myself explaining myself to Christ just like the Inquisitor, and cannot say if I have any argument more compelling. I only know -- but I know it deeply -- what I feel.

I'm told that Michael Mukasey has a portrait of George Orwell on the wall of his office, and his explanation for this is his admiration for the "clarity" of Orwell's writing. You can find elsewhere on this blog that I recently re-read Mr. Orwell, both 1984 and Animal Farm. There are a couple of spots in 1984 when Orwell's writing achieves a high degree of clarity: one place that contains excerpts from an underground book that exposes the behavior and motives of the Party, and the other when O'Brien, in a scene very reminiscent of The Grand Inquisitor, offers his view of events that have led to the imprisonment/torture of Winston:

You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.

-- O'Brien (George Orwell, 1984)

There are an unsettling number of points with which I am in complete agreement with O'Brien, including doubt whether reality exists in its own right. There is Being, and there is Becoming, and there lies freedom. What you do to inform that Becoming is up to you.

The Smoking Gun

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign."
-- Bill Clinton today, when asked by a reporter what it said about Obama that it "took two people to beat him."

There isn't a lot one needs to say about this. It's not difficult to imagine any number of possible legitimate responses to the baiting question asked of Bill Clinton by the reporter, responses that might have sidestepped the racially divisive tone that has overshadowed the Democratic debate recently, particularly with respect to the South Carolina primary. That he chose instead to widen the divide I find enormously disappointing.

Early returns indicate that Barack Obama has won a strong victory in South Carolina, and that South Carolina's white male voters have not voted in a particularly race-conscious manner, results which, if they hold, provide their own evidence of repudiation in this modern election of the sort of regressive rhetoric that has resurfaced in recent weeks. I will confess to any South Carolinian who might chance across this blog entry that I was prepared to be more concerned about the maturity of the voters in your state than perhaps I need to be. I am very pleased when any voter selects the candidate of her choice without regard to racial or sexual differences, but by the job qualifications of that candidate. I can only hope that criteria dominates in the remaining primaries as we go forward.

News reports that are responded to in haste, as I've done in this case, can of course come back to bite the responder. There's always the possibility that some context was not provided that would have completely altered the tenor of an exchange. I will be surprised if much new information surfaces to shed more light on Mr. Clinton's response above, and I very much expect that those words are about to haunt the Clintons for the rest of their lives.

I still support Barack Obama, and of course, it has nothing to do with his color. I don't believe he's the perfect candidate, but I do believe he has exceptional intelligence, skills and sensibilities to bring to the office of the presidency in 2009. I have nonetheless continued to hope that Senator Clinton would display more sensitivity to the concerns of progressives such as I believe myself to be, especially since she's still, for the moment, the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Now that her husband has scraped the bottom of the ethical barrel in South Carolina, some things are going to shift, and we're going to learn some important things about ourselves in the next few weeks.

The vast majority of Americans polled as to whether America is ready for a President who is not a white male have responded in the affirmative, whether that candidate is a black or a woman. That's a great step forward in America, and it's not something we can afford to take for granted. We have seen too often already in this 21st century that the wheels of progress can be reversed. We have a duty to be vigilant if we want to advance the cause of fairness in our society. We have seen that fairness does not require us to lower our sights (something I've been thinking about in depth for future comments), and we've found that our sights get lowered for us if we're inattentive. Now, the stakes in this area have been raised, and I think we're going to have to confront it to go forward.

Bill Clinton cannot be given a free pass for his comment. He has removed all ambiguity from all the somewhat more artfully disguised allusions made previously. There has been a blatant attempt to return our consciousness to the destructive infections that have blinded us until so recently. It's been a deeply damaging effort by the Clintons, and deeply unfair. I hope that we all grow out of the neuroses we've fallen back into as quickly as possible, and learn from this experience across the board. I want to move on just as soon as everyone shows me they're ready.