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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Beginner's Mind

In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

-- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Suzuki Roshi's words are more relevant now than ever. In a time when legendary economists innocently reveal the most damning truth of the Bush Administration so far, yet fail to envision a world where such obscenities might have been avoided, we see the limitations of the box we've been so reluctant to "think outside of", as they say. The extension of such thinking has led the Senate to make a virtual declaration of war against yet another nation being drawn into the morass that is Iraq.

I just made a post on the MSNBC site on the message board discussing the Democratic debate. I was really disheartened, and more than usual, by the ignorance and tightly closed minds of too many posters. I tried to add a little historical context to the topic:

The United States of America was created, and defined in its historic Constitution, to be a nation governed by the people themselves. Out of the long human history of rule by kings whose powers were decreed by God, America flowered as a testament that we are all children of God, and no less capable of governing than kings.

More than two centuries later, there is still insufficient appreciation for the revolutionary nature of this country. For many, the temptation to imbue special qualities to the wielders of power is still too great. In America, at least for the moment, each one of us is powerful in ways the Medieval spirit could scarcely have imagined, but we've been painfully slow to assume the accompanying responsibilities.

We have all been declared as noble by the law of our land, yet too often we still cling to our savage nature. We are each of us tasked to meet the hopes and expectations of Washington and Jefferson in our daily lives, to live the dream of America and protect its birthright of liberty. As citizens of this extraordinary republic, we all have much to learn, and obviously much studying yet to do. Each of us must ask the hard questions once only the province of kings, and assume our portion of the nation's burden. That's a serious commitment, and we must not abdicate, because this world does have evil in it, and we should strive to be alert to threats from every
direction.

Far from a gloomy responsibility, the task assigned to each American is a joyous one, with a vision of freedom not defined by docile ignorance, but of empowerment, opportunity, maturity and understanding. It is the spark of the Divine in every living being, unfettered by tyranny and oppression. It is not just George Bush's responsibility, or Hillary Clinton's.

It's yours.

OK, that's a little heavy for the MSNBC message board. But I almost know how Jesus felt when he cried "Oh, Jerusalem!" Do you know what I mean? I see such potential, such unrealized potential.

It's hard for me to realize my own potential, needless to say. I didn't really need more physical difficulties, but I'm on extra meds again, and I'm not happy about it. I'm still having more troubles than I'm supposed to be having, so more 'roids, and a different antibiotic this time, called Ceftin, or something. I don't know much about it yet, but so far, none of the bad reactions I had to the sulfa-based SMZ/TMP, to which I'm obviously allergic. So, I'm not feeling that great, but I have so many thoughts I'd like to write down over the next few days. We'll see what happens.

There is so much going on in the world, and so much I'd like to see headed for the right path while I'm still around to enjoy it, but I always find strength in the words of men like Shunryu Suzuki. There are two primary books associated with the teachings of this Zen master who came to California and established the first Soto Zen monastery in the West before he died in 1971. I have been reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind periodically for more than thirty years, and more recently, a compilation called Not Always So. It's been fascinating to chart my progress in understanding the simple words of Suzuki. Great books such as these are not necessarily the literary achievements of Shakespeare and Goethe, but share their ability to measure our growth in understanding as we pass through life. Just as a passage of Shakespeare reveals new layers of meaning as I grow older, so I seem to fall slowly through my own layers of misunderstanding each time I read Suzuki, and sense just a little more of the kernel of meaning he tried to convey. Without question, that task will be incomplete when my time is up.

I still can feel intensely bored by meditation, but I am confident in my will to persevere. If something about that practice has undergone any subtle changes, I am only reminded what a beginner I truly am. I know that the deeper I reach within myself, the closer I feel to all of you, my living teachers. I am touched by the deep inability of words to express that sort of paradox, yet I know it's in the riddles that we find a touchstone of our journey to understanding, and that they resonate with the jangled tune of our crisis-ridden planet as it speeds through vast, vast emptiness.

Bill Clinton has made some remarks of great importance. If you haven't heard them, please play this short video.

I might update a given blog to correct a spelling error or add a tag, but I don't like adding content after the fact. I'm making a late addition here, but I'll try not to make this a habit.

Toward the end of the MSNBC debate, Tim Russert asked one of those hypothetical questions. The scenario here, if I recall, was a prisoner formerly 3rd in command of a terrorist group with information about a pending terrorist attack. The question posed to the candidates was whether an interrogator of this prisoner might be pardoned for using torture to thwart the attack.

The Democratic candidates all condemned the use of torture under any circumstances, and of course, that's the answer we must give in response to such questions, if we are to make any claim to legitimacy as a leader in the free world. But I want to look a bit deeper into the implications of this stance, and imagine myself, not as the President, but as the interrogator in the critical moment of decision. If I were this person, I think I should feel the full weight of all crimes against humanity that hung in the balance, through terrorism and torture alike. At such a moment, it should be clear to me that, should I choose my own criminal path, there will be no pardon, no subsequent redemption no matter the outcome. Let this be the sobering context of this drama.

As a trained, experienced interrogator, of course, I would know how to apply far more effective techniques than torture, and be much more prepared to respond to the crisis than any of the stars of 24. This was another fake question, based on one of the many steps backwards in understanding we've taken this century. Until they burn the books, we can recover forgotten knowledge, and move forward.