ANIMOSITY

In the daily metta practice with which I start my meditation, I reiterate the wish to be free from animosity. It's easy enough when it comes to those I like, and with whom I generally agree; the hard part is with the people I dislike, and those with whom I disagree. They include, most recently, the politicians who have in my own view seemed bent on destroying this country. The dharma teaches me, wisely and I think correctly, that the animosity that arises serves only to introduce toxin into my own veins. It certainly does nothing to change those against whom it is directed.

These thoughts were stirred in part by the comment to my entry in The Buddha Diaries yesterday. I was writing about gratitude, concluding with a note about the surprise and plucky appearance of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to cast her vote on the debt ceiling bill in the House of Representatives, and my gratitude to her for reminding me of the importance of the vote. Not a word about Obama. But my entry somehow triggered the response you'll find if you check in the comments section, filled with anger directed at "Obama the Eunuch."

I was aware of my own distress as I read and re-read the comment. Some of it came from that part of me that is uncomfortably close to agreement with the content of the writer's argument. It's clear that Obama has been weakened by the unmitigated hostility and adamant rejection with which every part of the agenda on which he was elected has been opposed. It has been relentless and unappeasable, from his first day in office. In my view--perhaps incorrectly--there are many of his supporters who have allowed themselves to be swept up in that hostility, too readily co-opted by the powerful tide of rejectionist action and propaganda. With the erosion of support on his own side, he becomes still more exposed and vulnerable. As I've written before, we on the left, who have learned to distrust authority whatever its source, are prone to the heady delights of king-killing.

That's my view. I find that I hold on to it even more tightly when I myself feel the beginnings of mistrust in it; or, particularly, when I feel it under attack. I pull back in, defensive. Intended or not as such, my correspondent's initial sarcasm and subsequent anger felt like personal animosity, and I withdrew into my shell to mull over its implications. This morning, as I suggested, I paid more than usual attention to my own animosities. I did my best to observe them and then let them go, along with the anger that accompanies them.

I was wondering aloud, at the Buddhist Geeks conference just a few days ago, whether anger ever serves a useful purpose. I believe it can, when it is directed with clear intention and used skillfully; to do so, I must understand what part of the anger is about me, and what part is genuinely about the injustice or malpractice that aroused it. Warrior energy is a necessary part of political action--see Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"--but used indiscriminately and tainted by personal animosity, it can be counter-productive.

The image of a solitary Obama signing a bill which clearly fell far short of his objectives--and equally short of my own sense of what is needed in our current economic crisis--filled me with sadness for both the man and the country that he seeks to serve. He is the target of so many millions of deeply divisive projections that he can scarcely hope to live up to more than a handful of them. There are those, of course, many, who wish him nothing but ill. And there are those, many, who feel that he has let them down; that he is not the man they took him for. I'm only surprised that he manages to tolerate with a semblance of grace the generous heapings of scorn that are dumped on him from both left and right.

I personally think that this would be a good time for us all to take a thoughtful look at our projections: if we think of Obama as the mirror, what is it that we see about ourselves when we look at him? The projection of blame is too easy an answer for our troubles. We have our own share of responsibility for the dreadful mess in which the country finds itself. As another correspondent wrote to me in an email today, "I'm highly disgusted with what's going on in Congress right now, [but] I have to keep reminding myself that we DO live in a democracy, don't we?"

We do. Well, I sometimes think rather that we live in an oligarchy that survives by successfully disguising itself as a democracy (I first typed "demoncracy"!) But, yes, we do. So we do not further our cause by trying to wish away or ignore the existence of the deep and powerful strain of conservatism that has been changing the balance of the American political system, not just in Obama's time but, with increasing power, these past several decades. Like it or not (I don't!), it's impossible to move in any direction without taking it into account. All very well to stand by and jeer at Obama's perceived lack of leadership from the sidelines. He's trying to quarterback a team that plays by the rules of human decency and fairness against bunch of steroid-powered thugs who don't care what tactics they use--or how many injuries are incurred--so long as they dominate the game. (Is this animosity? Or simple realism?)

I know that I'm in a growing minority in a cacophony of voices noisier and I'm sure far more effective than my own. I suspect, though, in a less demonstrable way, that I may be a part of a new "silent majority" that continues to support the President despite the ferocity of the attack. I will not yet surrender the "I Back Barack" bumper sticker on my car. Nor will I cease sending daily wishes of good will to both him and his opponents. And the same to my "anonymous" correspondent, whom I thank for challenging me to think again, again. I send out metta in full consciousness of the adverse circumstance, if only to preserve my own health, and sanity, and self-respect! May all beings be free from animosity...

KING-KILLERS

THE ART OF PERSONAL AND POLITICAL

ASSASSINATION: Some Thoughts on the Tour de

France and the Shirley Sherrod Fiasco

In the men’s work in which I engaged for many years, we called them “king-killers.” These are men—or women, why not?—so consumed by greed or envy, ambition, insecurity or fear of weakness, that they are driven to bring down the one whom they have chosen, or the one who stands up for leadership. They tend to show up, like their cousins, the wolves, or like sharks in the ocean, when they smell blood; or when they sense weakness or hesitation. Then they attack in swarms…

From many, I choose but two notable current examples: the one-time leader of the Tour de France and the current “leader of the free world.”

I hold no particular brief for Lance Armstrong, though I confess that I would like to believe him to be real. He may, or may not have been aided in his multiple Tour victories by performance-enhancing drugs. I hope not, but I do know that these drugs are prevalent not only in cycling but in all professional sports. I deplore their use. It’s a sad fact that, today, we are unable to trust a winner—whether track star, tennis ace, home-run slugger, or cyclist. Winning by cheating is not winning. But this is not about doping, nor even particularly about Lance Armstrong. It’s about king-killing, about the desire to bring the man down.

In Armstrong’s case, the blood was smelled early in this year’s race. The first cut came even before the 2010 Tour de France with accusations from a former team-mate, Floyd Landis, timed to coincide with Armstrong’s participation in the Tour of California. When the—let’s face it—aging champion fell and abandoned that race with injuries, the Schadenfreude was already evident in the press. More recently, the New York Times reporter on the Tour de France chose to drag out the accusation again on the first day of this year’s race, and has reported almost daily since then on the federal investigation.

It was soon clear that Armstrong would be unable to win to 2010 Tour. When the disasters came—he crashed on several occasions in the early stages—we began to hear delightedly malicious comments from some quarters: he was too old, he could no longer stay upright on his bike, he had given up too early, or had not given up when he should have done and stayed too late… After the sixteenth stage, when he chose to ride with familiar aggression in order to take some small victory away from his last Tour, and after his still impressive display of strength in the climbs clearly provided leadership for others in the stage leaders’ breakaway, the New York Times banner headline read: “In What May Have Been a Final Push For Old Times’ Sake, Armstrong Fails.” Not inaccurate, but pointedly phrased. The French press, too, long inimical to the man who stole their Tour, has reportedly been happy to pile on.

Let me say again, it’s not my business to defend Armstrong, nor does he need any defense from me. What’s of interest to me is to take note of the attack. The attack on Barack Obama is something else. I have a stake in this young President. I voted for him, I want to see him bring his campaign promises to fruition. I believe in what he stands for. In fact, I myself stand for the most part to the left of where he does—understanding his need to hold the center, out of political necessity—but I’ll take what I can get.

Once again, however, the sharp knives are out; the king-killers abound, and to judge by his falling poll numbers, their attacks are taking a toll. They come from left as well as right on virtually every issue: the economy, the conduct of the wars, health care and financial reform, his choice of officers and judicial appointments—even, ironically, for our first African American in the Oval Office, race. The unprecedented speed and spread of the Internet and associated technologies facilitates the attacks: a blog entry, a YouTube video, even a casual email can set off a nation-wide storm and promulgate its progress. The memory banks are immeasurable and accessed with incredible ease. No President has ever faced the challenges that confront those of the 21^st century. No king-killer has ever had such a vast array of effective weapons within such easy reach.

It’s a fine line, certainly, between legitimate and necessary criticism and what I’m talking about. Let it be noted that I personally am far less than delighted with progress toward those goals Obama laid out in his campaign. But we must know how to make a usable distinction between the two, and I fear that we too often fail to exercise the judiciousness that is required of us to do that. Meanwhile, the welter of attacks and dissatisfactions increases daily, along with the all-too real disasters and the teacup tempests, despite the fact that many of them soon prove to be utterly without foundation in reality or truth—as in the latest Fox News-generated kerfuffle around Shirley Sherrod at the Department of Agriculture. The calculation is that if enough mud is thrown, some of it will stick.

Obama, certainly, like Armstrong, does not need my pity or defense. I am amazed, in fact, by his ability to rise above the pettiness that swirls around him, maintaining a voice of solid reason—when we get to hear it—in the cacophony of irrational anger, and sometimes the hatred hurled in his direction. The man is not perfect. He is a politician. Surprise! And no matter the damage they intend, if we listen carefully, these king-killers succeed mostly in betraying themselves and their own agendas. Examine what they say and how they say it and you’ll find that most often they are projecting their own worst qualities—their timidity, their incompetence, their racism and hypocrisy, their political partisanship—on to the object of their scorn.

When I hear the negative judgment of a king-killer, I try to remind myself to turn that judgment around and apply it to its source, to see whether the indictment not more about the accuser that the accused. I find this to be a useful and reliable test of the difference between sheer malice, for personal gain, and sound critical judgment.

I'm Reading...

... Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father." I read "The Audacity of Hope" earlier last year, when I was still debating the relative strength of his candidacy with Hillary Clinton's. If I remember well, I wrote at the time that the book introduced me to a whole new Barack Obama than the one I had encountered on a daily basis on the television screen. Reading the book, I soon learned that the attempt to portray him as an inexperienced lightweight was absurd. I was amazed by the ease with which he drew on an extensive breadth of historical knowledge, his political acumen, his grasp of the problems facing us and the depth of his understanding of human nature--not to mention his extraordinary ability to listen with patience to opposing views and embrace well-considered compromise.

Now, reading the first of his two books, I am coming to understand something about the origin of these qualities. Since early childhood, he has clearly been a close and critical observer of the people and the world around him, a questioner who has wanted to find out what lies beneath the surface of external events. The exceptional diversity of backgrounds that converge in this one man is well-known--a diversity matched by that of his lived experiences. In this, he seems like a man ahead of his time, a truly 21st century human being, the product of a "flat world" in which individuals are citizens not of a particular city or a particular nation, but rather of the globe; and in which racial identities merge into a more broadly human one.

"Dreams from My Father"--I'm a little more than halfway through--is giving me a more personal and immediate understanding of these well-known aspects of our new President. What has remained a kind of abstract knowledge becomes concrete, intimate, and real. In part, this is because Obama is a terrific writer: his stories are vividly told, compelling, utterly believable. He is curious about everything that happens to him, and translates this curiosity into understanding, and understanding into change. He describes a constant process of growth based in experience, the epitome of an "examined life" that allows him to continually move forward. His teenage years, recalled with a compassion that does not gloss over the awkwardness, the fears and pain of adolescence, reveal a not-yet-formed individual whose rebellious missteps will be familiar to all of us who have experienced that difficult age. It is remarkable to read these pages and recall that this typically stumbling teenager is now President of the United States.

Of huge and poignant importance in his development are the difficulties he has in coming to terms with his racial identity, and with his inner drive to find some way to be of service to the world. Black, and yet not-quite-black, he struggles with the sense of aggrievement he sees in those around him--and his own--as well as with the compensatory promotion of black power and black pride at the other end of the scale. Recalling his now-famous Philadelphia speech on the subject of race, following the public revelation of the scandalous remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that nearly scuttled his campaign, I understand now that his empathy with black anger was hard-earned, through years of authentic struggle and internal debate. If he is able in his leadership to transcend the racial divide in a way no other has before him, it is not because he arrived on the political scene at a time when these issues were already resolved, but rather because he had to go through his own personal hell to reach that point in his intellectual life.

I am just now reading the long section in which he describes his arrival in Chicago as a "community organizer"--work that was dismissed with such easy sarcasm at the Republican convention--and that full first year in which he labored with only minimal success to find a place for himself, a beginner's political identity that would foster his leadership qualities. Again, as he is forced time and again to recognize his failings and re-evaluate his approach, we watch a process of continual growth and change, a deepening of experience that forges at once the steelier and more compassionate character he'll need in order to achieve his goals: his bid for the presidency is already in our minds, as readers, if not in his, and we marvel at the depth of his preparation for the path that is to follow. It is remarkable that the young man he describes, with all his uncertainties and doubts, his innocence and idealism, his naivete and his errors of presumption and assumption--that this often insecure and yet determined young man should end up in our White House.

More to come. I'm looking forward to the second half...

Day One

I normally manage to remain in control of my emotions when I read the newspaper--short, in recent years, of those bouts of anger reading about what our former non-president had done, and fear about the consequences of his actions. I suppose those count as emotions. But I found myself choking up all over again as I read the New York Times report of how Obama spent his first day in the Oval Office. This is getting ridiculous. But isn't it nice, for a change, instead of turning the pages and reading about one disastrous mis-step after the next, to find oneself nodding sagely at each turn of the page: Hmmm, yes, good move. That was the right thing to have done...

There was a column that linguistically explained the likely source of the Chief Justice's flubbing of the words of the oath of office: a pedant's revulsion for the grammatical "error" of a "split verb" in the wording of the Constitution: from the strictly technical point of view, it is incorrect to split an infinitive or a future construction by placing an adverb in between. Thus, "to faithfully execute" should strictly read "faithfully to execute" or "to execute faithfully." Those founders! A strict constructionist, the Chief Justice must have been torn between the words of the Constitution and his reputed pedantry, and his confusion was reflected in his very public foundering on the rocks of mis-spoken lines--an embarrassment viewed by millions throughout the world.

No matter, Obama did the right thing (again!) by insisting that Roberts participate in the return engagement, leaving not the slightest grounds for nigglers--yes, please look again: I spelled that right--of all shades to contest his legitimacy. And isn't it good to hear a President talk about openness and transparency being the hallmark of his office? And signing an order, Day One, to begin the process of closing Guantanamo? And capping the salaries of his staff? And barring lobbyists from his--I mean our--White House?

It's enough to make a grown man cry.

Oh, and speaking of intelligence, a friend sent me this link to a video which I have not seen elsewhere, and which I found quite charming. It does put things into perspective.

Well, Okay...

... all the chliches are exhausted, all the histories recorded, all the superlatives super'led. What's Left to say? (Hmmm, I notice that I "accidentally" capitalized that "L"!)

We had a party last night, we made a cake...



... well, actually, we had it made. Ellie's idea. And invited the neighbors in. Everyone was euphoric. We watched Barack and Michelle dance--she gorgeous in her ivory gown, he, well, handsome. Our spirits lifted with the champagne... Would have done, even without!

I thought Obama gave a terrific Inaugural Address, though it sounded a bit more like a State of the Union than an Inaugural. Appropriately. Our new young President struck the right note, as he seems so often effortlessly to do. There's repair work to be done, in addition to the building. He managed, skillfully, and in the nicest possible way, to repudiate everything Bush had stood for. And not only Bush, of course: his repudiation went all the way back to Ronald Reagan, the disastrous practice of a "trickle-down" economy that predictably failed to trickle down, and the politics of the slow, deliberate strangulation of government. Mercilessly, Obama exposed the futility of these policies, and the damage they have wreaked upon the country. He did not hold back.

And now it's not just his job, as he has so often pointed out. It's our job. To judge from the crowds gathered in freezing weather on the Washington Mall and from their response to his accession to the presidency, he has us in his hands. If we allow the nay-sayers to prevail--on the left as well as the right--he is done for, and so are we as a nation. As the somewhat hackneyed but still truthful message on the cake repeats, "We Are One." Have to be. No option. And our new President makes it clear that he understands that this is true for the world as well as for the country he has been elected to lead. I wish him well.